For Thursday, Oct. 12, WGN’s Dina Bair has new medical information, including:
Shyness can impact language test performance
Shyness could affect children’s performance on language tests and doctors say that could have far-reaching impacts on school performance and mental health.
Southern Methodist University psychologists say children who are more reserved communicating with others perform poorly on verbal tests. Those same children thrive now written tests, yet are often given lower assessments due to their fear of speaking in public on oral exams.
Researchers measured significant differences in children’s performance grades depending on shyness.
They say educators and clinicians need to take that into consideration when evaluating children’s performance.
Human brain cell Atlas provides new insight
An atlas of the brain reveals a map of neuropsychiatric disorders.
University of California San Diego researchers analyzed more than a million human brain cells to produce detailed maps of gene switches and brain cell types.
The work revealed links between certain cells and various disorders like schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, Alzheimer’s disease, and major depression.
Identifying the cells is the first step toward analyzing how they contribute to disease and more importantly how to stop that process.
The researchers say even sooner it opens the door to finding better ways to treat neuropsychiatric illnesses.
Warnings about screen content don’t help, may hurt
Warnings sometimes have the opposite effect on the mind.
Trigger warnings, like we sometimes use here at WGN to alert viewers to potentially graphic or sensitive content are intended to reduce stress.
However, the Association for Psychological Science compared the results of 12 separate studies on content warnings.
Researchers found the warnings actually heightened anticipatory anxiety in the moments prior to viewing the content.
At the same time, the warnings do not lead people who may be negatively impacted to look away.
They still view the sensitive material and are triggered in troubling ways.
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