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Psychiatry

Big Five Personality Traits and Sexual Fantasies in 5,225 Adults

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Sexual fantasies are not distributed randomly, but the pattern is subtler than popular personality stereotypes imply. In 5,225 adults, conscientiousness and agreeableness tracked lower fantasy frequency, while negative emotionality—especially the depression facet—tracked higher fantasy frequency across multiple fantasy domains.1 Research Highlights 5,225-person sample: Cannoot et al. analyzed adults with mean age 58.30 years; 56.5% were …

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Cholinergic Modulators Improved Schizophrenia Negative Symptoms

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A 30-trial meta-analysis found that cholinergic modulators improved schizophrenia negative symptoms, SMD −0.42, while the overall total PANSS/BPRS effect was not statistically significant.1 The clearest signal came from muscarinic agonists, which makes acetylcholine biology promising but not uniformly positive across every cholinergic drug class. Research Highlights Negative symptoms improved: Cholinergic modulators reduced PANSS-N/SANS negative symptom …

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Chlorpyrifos Exposure Linked to Up to 174% Higher Parkinson’s Risk

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MHD featured image for chlorpyrifos exposure, Parkinson's risk, dopaminergic neurons, and autophagy dysfunction.

A human, mouse, and zebrafish study linked long-term chlorpyrifos exposure to Parkinson’s disease risk, with the strongest exposure-duration estimate reaching OR 2.74 for workplace proximity across the 1974-to-index-year window.1 The paper is stronger than a single epidemiology result because animal experiments pointed to dopaminergic neuron loss, microglial activation, pathological α-synuclein, and autophagy dysfunction. Research Highlights …

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Electroacupuncture for Depression Has Mechanisms, Not Firm Trial Proof

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A 2026 review of electroacupuncture for depression found a familiar split: mechanistic evidence is rich, but clinical proof remains uneven because representative trials ranged from 65 to 270 participants, used different sham or drug comparators, and often failed to connect stimulation parameters with biological endpoints.1 Electroacupuncture is plausible as a subtype-matched neuromodulation strategy, but it …

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COPE-A Reduced Youth PTSD in Substance-Use Trial

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MHD featured image for youth PTSD, substance use, COPE-A, and symptom sequencing during therapy.

A 2026 randomized youth trial found that integrated exposure-based treatment reduced posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms more than supportive counseling, while substance-use changes were smaller and showed no clear treatment-specific advantage. Research Highlights COPE-A reduced PTSD more: youth receiving Concurrent Treatment of PTSD and Substance Use Disorders Using Prolonged Exposure – Adolescent version had a 17.00-point …

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Early Antidepressants Linked to Bipolar Impulsivity During Euthymia

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A 124-person study of euthymic bipolar disorder found that patients with early systematic antidepressant treatment history had higher negative affect, attentional impulsivity, non-planning impulsivity, and total BIS-11A impulsivity scores than matched patients without that history.1 The association is clinically cautionary, but the cross-sectional design cannot separate antidepressant effects from delayed bipolar diagnosis or more severe …

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