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Uncensored Media Trauma and Modern Psychological Effects

Photoreal illustration of a person scrolling through phone with overlay of trauma imagery, conveying mental health impact of uncensored media.

The internet era has dramatically changed how people are exposed to traumatic events — uncensored video of violence, war, and disaster reaches civilian audiences within minutes of occurrence. A 2026 study by Allouche-Kam and colleagues examines the mental health consequences of this indirect-trauma exposure in modern populations.1 Research Highlights Indirect trauma exposure through media has …

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Striatal Dopamine Drops From Psychosis to Schizophrenia Remission

Photoreal illustration of a brain with the striatum highlighted and dopamine synthesis pathways visualized, representing longitudinal PET imaging in schizophrenia.

The dopamine hypothesis of schizophrenia is the field’s longest-running mechanistic story, and most of its supporting evidence has been cross-sectional. A 2026 longitudinal PET study by Schulz and colleagues followed the same 28 patients across psychosis and early remission.1 Research Highlights The dopamine hypothesis of schizophrenia is the field’s longest-running mechanistic story. Cross-sectional 18F-DOPA PET …

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PTSD With Depression Hits AMPA Receptors Harder in Rat Models

Photoreal illustration of synaptic AMPA receptors and stressed neuron, conveying glutamate-system dysregulation in PTSD-MDD comorbidity.

PTSD and major depressive disorder co-occur in roughly half of patients with either diagnosis, and the comorbid presentation is more severe than either alone. The mechanistic question has been whether comorbidity reflects synergistic biology or simple symptom additivity. A 2026 rat-model study by Jiang and colleagues tests this directly, finding that PTSD-MDD comorbid rats show …

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Black Americans Diagnosed with Schizophrenia 2.42x the Rate of White Americans: More Negative Symptoms

Photoreal illustration representing racial stress and mental health, with conceptual imagery of contemplation, identity, and cognitive pathways.

Black Americans are diagnosed with schizophrenia-spectrum disorders at 2.42 times the rate of White Americans, and they also score higher on negative-symptom measures than White patients carrying the same diagnosis.2 A 2026 paper by Spann and colleagues asks why. Research Highlights Black Americans are diagnosed with schizophrenia-spectrum disorders at 2.42x the rate of White Americans, …

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Risperidone Stroke Risk in Dementia: HR 1.28 Across CVD Subgroups

Conceptual illustration of cerebral blood vessels and a pill, representing risperidone-associated stroke risk in dementia patients.

The risperidone-stroke link in dementia is one of the longest-running safety signals in geriatric psychiatry, anchoring the FDA’s 2005 black-box warning on atypical antipsychotic mortality. Popular framing reduces it to “antipsychotics cause stroke in dementia” — a true sentence that flattens a multi-axis decision. Choma’s 2025 analysis of UK primary care records is the largest …

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SSRIs + DOACs: No Excess Bleeding vs. Other Antidepressants

Stylized illustration of an SSRI capsule alongside a DOAC tablet against a vascular network background, representing the bleeding-interaction question in primary care.

SSRIs raise bleeding risk on their own. DOACs (direct oral anticoagulants — apixaban, rivaroxaban, dabigatran, edoxaban) raise it more. The intuitive worry is that combining them stacks the two effects. A new BJGP Open analysis from Chau and colleagues argues the stacking is smaller than most popular framings claim, and that the real safety question …

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