reflect on the important subject of study only 125 years young the world in the storm! It’s a way to describe it well, and psychology. Psychology is a subject of study which can not be taken lightly. Psychology is a science that deals with human behavior and not the people – the animals. His study is rooted in biology and affects many areas of sociology and the attempts of a relationship between brain function and behavior or the relationship between environment and behavior are looking for generators. There are several areas in which we specialize, because the subject is so great, and now need more and more areas of life, the application of psychology.

The importance of psychology and why you save by building a career in line object can be made that since 1960 there has been a significant increase in students who pursued psychology and became a part of the competition for jobs that psychology can be seen in context. To be exact, the number of students opting for a master’s degree in psychology from 6-ply, a trend that has not been seen before. There was also more than two-thirds of graduates with master’s degree in psychology employment in areas that are outside of psychology and only about one third of the jobs that are directly related to the psychology of work. A large number of people who, after studying with a master’s degree in psychology of work on data collection and analysis used in various companies and institutions, both in government and the private sector.

Looking at the trend projections of employment growth and the psychology of region there is a percentage increase in demand for people with a degree in psychology were. Were performed according to a 2001 survey by the APA Center for Psychology Workforce Analysis and Research (CPWAR), 73% of those who graduated in psychology in a position in their chosen fields first be used in the work, and get up to 75% in a position of employment within 3 months of graduation. The trend is over, and there are many other areas where the level of psychology are more than necessary. According to the Office of the U. S. of Labor Statistics, the application of psychology based on the use on the rise with a high rate over the next ten years will be maintained.

You can get a career in the sub-discipline of psychology to build. For example, you can on evolutionary psychology, where to study how human thought, feeling and behavior through evolutionary aspects such as transfer, selective adaptation and fitness are affected may take. They can also be considered Clinical Psychology, where they acquire knowledge in a position to deal with emotional and behavioral problems. You can also search cognitive and perceptual psychology, go

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Why you should study psychology? Well developed such programs to give students the skills and knowledge to enter the profession. The diversity of psychology programs, which lead to the measurement of different levels rather confused. Students who do not understand exactly what they need to be mixed with the multitude of choices. So let’s be clear image and everything in its place. Here is the information on the psychology courses offered by these programs and ran. Bachelor of Arts

Bachelor of Arts in Psychology is the study of liberal arts focus. This means that the program includes course explores issues of cultural influence have to psychology, communication aspects, psychological and behavioral programs, students, etc. who have a bachelor’s degree in psychology, a current lead in the majors. These classes to students basic knowledge in psychology before entering the program. Some other classes in social psychology at the, development, cognitive psychology centered.

High school certificate is very important to know what your future career in psychology. Only ever higher levels, you can become a psychologist practicing! Sun plans, master’s and doctorate very seriously. programs to introduce courses in Depending on the region, they choose to major in. master, for example, may require, taking lessons in consulting, clinical, experimental psychology, social, developmental, cognitive, educational and organizational. Some graduates of psychology programs should be embarrassed by his subject. These programs can be targeted for sport, psychology and law, medicine or behavioral disorders, for example. Advanced courses in psychology to prepare students for practical work and offers a variety of internships and other educational activities.

Our brains are capable of experiencing physical empathy in a variety of ways.  We rely on the intuitive, sensory-motor parts of the brain to relate to someone who is experiencing something that we have also experienced.  However, through the rational part of the brain, we are also able to feel empathy for someone feeling something we have not or are incapable of experiencing.

According to a new study from University of Southern California, even missing a limb will not stop your brain from understanding what it is like for someone else to experience pain in that limb.

Lisa Aziz-Zadeh, assistant professor at USC’s Division of Occupational Science and Occupational Therapy, explains how the brain produces empathy, even for those who differ physically from themselves in a paper published online by Cerebral Cortex.

Though they are engaged to differing degrees depending on the circumstance, it appears that both the intuitive and rationalizing parts of the brain work in tandem to create the sensation of empathy, said Aziz-Zadeh.

“People do it automatically,” she said.

For the study, the USC research team showed videos of tasks being carried out with hands, feet, and a mouth to a woman who had been born without arms or legs and also to 13 typically developed women. Videos showed activities that included mouth eating and a hand grasping an object.

Researchers also showed videos of pain, in the form of an injection, being inflicted on parts of the body.

As the volunteers watched the videos, their brains were scanned using functional magnetic imaging (fMRI); the scans were then compared, which showed the differing sources of empathy.

In another finding, Aziz-Zadeh discovered that when the women without limbs watched videos of tasks being performed that she could also perform but using body parts that she did not have, the sensory-motor parts of her brain were still strongly activated. For example, the woman can hold objects, but uses a stump in conjunction with her chin to do so instead of a hand.

However, if the goal of the action was impossible for her, then an additional group of brain regions involved in deductive reasoning were also engaged.

Source:   University of Southern California

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The benefit of taking an approach that views a glass as being half full is now supported by neuroimaging of the brain.

Many experts have linked aging successfully to the “positivity effect” – a biased tendency towards and preference for positive, emotionally gratifying experiences.

A new study, published in the journal Biological Psychiatry, explains how and when this effect works in the brain.

German neuroscientists used neuroimaging to evaluate brain activity in young and old adults when they performed a specialized cognitive task that included supposedly irrelevant pictures of either neutral, happy, sad or fearful faces.

During parts of the task when they didn’t have to pay as much attention, the elderly subjects were significantly more distracted by the happy faces.

When this occurred, they had increased engagement in the part of the brain that helps control emotions and this stronger signal in the brain was correlated with those who showed the greatest emotional stability.

“Integrating our findings with the assumptions of life span theories we suggest that motivational goal-shifting in healthy aging leads to a self-regulated engagement in positive emotions even when this is not required by the setting,” explained author Dr. Stefanie Brassen.

In other words, looking for silver linings can strengthen positive feelings, enhance emotional well-being and increase emotional control in aging.

“The lessons of healthy aging seem to be similar to those of resilience, throughout life.” That is, when coping with extremely stressful life challenges, it is critical to realistically appraise the situation but also to approach it with a positive attitude,” noted Dr. John H. Krystal, the Editor of Biological Psychiatry.

Focusing on sort-term rather than long-term priorities is a positive strategy often deployed as people age and priorities shift, say the researchers.

In short, aging successfully occurs when an individual uses their brain to focus on the positive.

Source: Elsevier

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A new study expands our knowledge of what is happening in the body during an out-of-body experience.

Although out-of-body experiences (OBEs) are typically associated with migraine, epilepsy and psychopathology, they are quite common in healthy and psychologically normal individuals as well. And while much is still unknown, the new study links these experiences to neural instabilities in the brain’s temporal lobes and to errors in the body’s sense of itself — even in non-clinical populations.

Neuropsychologist Dr. Jason Braithwaite of the University of Birmingham in the U.K. has been investigating the underlying factors associated with the propensity for normal healthy individuals to have an OBE.

Braithwaite and colleagues tested a group of individuals, including some “OBEers,” for their predisposition to unusual perceptual experiences, and found that the OBEers reported significantly more of a particular type of experience.

The experience is known to be associated with neuroelectrical anomalies in the temporal lobes of the brain, as well as those associated with distortions in the processing of body-based information.

The OBEers were also less skilled at a task which required them to adopt the perspective of a figure shown on the computer screen.

These findings suggest that, even in healthy people, striking hallucinations can and do occur and that these may reflect anomalies in neuroelectrical activity of the temporal lobes, as well as biases in “body representation” in the brain.

The findings are published in the July 2011 issue of the journal Cortex.

Source: Elsevier

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Neuroscientists have unlocked the secret behind alcohol-induced amnesia, otherwise known as a “blackout,” which can last anywhere from a few minutes to several hours.

According to researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, consuming large amounts of alcohol does not necessarily destroy brain cells as once believed.

Instead, alcohol interferes with certain receptors in the brain, which then produce steroids that hinder long-term potentiation (LTP), a process that strengthens neuron connections and is critical for learning and memory.

“The mechanism involves NMDA receptors that transmit glutamate, which carries signals between neurons,” says Yukitoshi Izumi, MD, PhD, research professor of psychiatry at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.

“An NMDA receptor is like a double-edged sword because too much activity and too little can be toxic. We’ve found that exposure to alcohol inhibits some receptors and later activates others, causing neurons to manufacture steroids that inhibit LTP and memory formation.”

Izumi notes that the different receptors involved in this process interfere with synaptic plasticity in the hippocampus — a region of the brain important in cognitive function.

Izumi and first author Kazuhiro Tokuda, MD, research instructor of psychiatry, treated rat hippocampal cells with moderate amounts of alcohol and found that LTP was not affected; however, exposing the cells to large amounts of alcohol inhibited the memory formation mechanism.

“It takes a lot of alcohol to block LTP and memory,” says senior investigator Charles F. Zorumski, MD, the Samuel B. Guze Professor and head of the Department of Psychiatry.

“But the mechanism isn’t straightforward. The alcohol triggers these receptors to behave in seemingly contradictory ways, and that’s what actually blocks the neural signals that create memories. It also may explain why individuals who get highly intoxicated don’t remember what they did the night before.”

Not all NMDA receptors are blocked by alcohol — instead, their activity is cut approximately in half.

“The exposure to alcohol blocks some NMDA receptors and activates others, which then trigger the neuron to manufacture these steroids,” Zorumski says.

The researchers emphasize that alcohol doesn’t trigger blackouts by killing neurons. Instead, the steroids interfere with synaptic plasticity to hinder LTP and memory formation.

“Alcohol isn’t damaging the cells in any way that we can detect,” Zorumski says. “As a matter of fact, even at the high levels we used here, we don’t see any changes in how the brain cells communicate. You still process information. You’re not anesthetized. You haven’t passed out. But you’re not forming new memories.”

Memory formation is also blocked through the consumption of other drugs. When combined, alcohol and certain other drugs are far more likely to trigger blackouts than either substance alone.

The scientists discovered that certain drugs, called 5-alpha-reductase inhibitors, block the manufacturing of steroids and in turn preserve LTP in the rat hippocampus. These include the drugs finasteride and dutasteride, which are often prescribed to reduce an enlarged prostate gland. In the brain, however, those substances seem to sustain memory.

The team plans to study 5-alpha-reductase inhibitors to determine whether these drugs, and similar substances, may be able to play a role in preserving memory.

The study is published in The Journal of Neuroscience.

Source:   Washington University School of Medicine

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Laboratory research suggests long-term exposure to air pollution can lead to learning and memory problems and even depression.

Ohio State researchers discovered that the long-term effects of breathing polluted air can cause changes in the brain as well as damage to the heart and lungs.

“The results suggest prolonged exposure to polluted air can have visible, negative effects on the brain, which can lead to a variety of health problems,” said Laura Fonken, lead author of the study and a doctoral student in neuroscience.

“This could have important and troubling implications for people who live and work in polluted urban areas around the world.”

The study appears online this week in the journal Molecular Psychiatry.

In previous studies in mice, researchers found that fine air particulate matter causes widespread inflammation in the body, and can be linked to high blood pressure, diabetes and obesity.

This new study aimed to extend their research on air pollution to the brain.

“The more we learn about the health effects of prolonged exposure to air pollution, the more reasons there are to be concerned,” said Randy Nelson, co-author of the study. “This study adds more evidence of pollution’s negative effects on health.”

In the new study, mice were exposed to either filtered air or polluted air for six hours a day, five days a week for 10 months – nearly half the lifespan of the mice.

The polluted air contained fine particulate matter, the kind of pollution created by cars, factories and natural dust. The fine particulates are tiny – about 2.5 micrometers in diameter, or about 1/30th of the average width of a human hair. These particles can reach deep areas of the lungs and other organs of the body.

The concentration of particulate matter that the mice were exposed to was equivalent to what people may be exposed to in some polluted urban areas, according to the researchers.

After 10 months of exposure to the polluted or filtered air, the researchers performed a variety of behavioral tests on the animals.

In a learning and memory test, mice who breathed the polluted air took longer to learn essential behaviors related to survival and were less likely to remember key behaviors.

In another experiment, mice exposed to the polluted air showed more depressive-like behaviors (such as anxiety) than did the mice that breathed the filtered air.

In an effort to determine how air pollution can lead to these changes in learning, memory and mood researchers tested the hippocampal area of the mice brains.

“We wanted to look carefully at the hippocampus because it is associated with learning, memory and depression,” said Fonken.

Results showed clear physical differences in the hippocampi of the mice who were exposed to polluted air compared to those who weren’t.

The researchers looked specifically at branches that grow off of nerve cells (or neurons) called dendrites. The dendrites have small projections growing off them called spines, which transmit signals from one neuron to another.

Mice exposed to polluted air had fewer spines in parts of the hippocampus, shorter dendrites and overall reduced cell complexity.

“Previous research has shown that these types of changes are linked to decreased learning and memory abilities,” said Nelson.

In other studies, several of the co-authors of this study found that chronic exposure to polluted air leads to widespread inflammation in the body, which is linked to a variety of health problems in humans, including depression.

Again, researchers found evidence that the low-grade inflammation was evident in the hippocampus.

In mice that breathed the polluted air, chemical messengers that cause inflammation – called pro-inflammatory cytokines – were more active in the hippocampus than they were in mice who breathed the filtered air.

“The hippocampus is particularly sensitive to damage caused by inflammation,” Fonken said. “We suspect that the systemic inflammation caused by breathing polluted air is being communicated to the central nervous system.”

Source: Ohio State University

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Gamblers with the highest levels of impulsivity appear to be more prone to errors in reasoning associated with gambling, such as superstitious behaviors (carrying a lucky charm) and blaming losses on poor luck or “cold” machines, according to a new study led by the University of Cambridge.

Researchers from Cambridge and Imperial College London observed and compared 30 compulsive gamblers who were seeking treatment at the National Problem Gambling Clinic with 30 non-gamblers from the general population.

“The link between impulsivity and gambling beliefs suggests to us that high impulsivity can predispose a range of more complex distortions — such as superstitions — that gamblers often experience. Our research helps fuse these two likely underlying causes of problem gambling, shedding light on why some people are prone to becoming pathological gamblers,” said researcher Luke Clark, Ph.D.

To test impulsivity, researchers asked participants several questions about trade-offs between smaller amounts of money available immediately versus larger amounts of money in the future.  The gamblers were far more likely to choose the immediate money even though it was a smaller amount.  (Psychologists define impulsivity as a preference for the immediate smaller rewards on this task.)

It was also found that gamblers were especially impulsive during high or low moods,  considered factors that can trigger gambling sprees.

Similar to treatment-seeking gamblers elsewhere in the world, the group from the National Problem Gambling Clinic was mostly male, and experienced a moderate rate of other mental health issues including alcohol abuse and depression.

“There are promising developments in treatments for problem gambling such as psychological therapies and drug medications. We hope that our research will provide additional insight into the problem and inform future treatments,” said Clark.

The research was funded by the Medical Research Council and is published in the journal Psychological Medicine.

Source:  University of Cambridge

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Emerging research suggests nicotine receptors play an important role in social interaction and the ability to choose between competing motivations.

In the new research, scientists from France show that the nicotinic receptors in the prefrontal cortex are essential for social interaction in mice and that this area of the brain is necessary for adapted and balanced social interactions to occur.

Experts believe this this new knowledge could eventually lead to new treatments for ADHD, schizophrenia, and depression, among other illnesses.

To make this discovery, Sylvie Granon and colleagues introduced mice into an open space and tested their will to interact with other mice of the same sex or to explore a novel place.
The respective times spent for either social contact or novelty exploration were measured and quantitatively evaluated.

Researchers then removed the prefrontal cortex in otherwise normal mice, which resulted in mice with significant social deficits. Those genetically modified to lack the nicotinic receptor gene for a widespread subunit called beta2 subtype, seemed to favor social contact rather than the investigation of a novel environment.

When the beta2 nicotinic receptor in the brain was re-expressed, a normal balance between social contact and novelty seeking was restored.

Researchers say the findings show that there is a biological explanation for social interaction.

“This research can be summed up by saying that it’s the real-life equivalent of Chatty Cathy marrying the Marlboro Man,” said Gerald Weissmann, M.D., Editor-in-Chief of the FASEB Journal.

“Who could have guessed that there may be a biological explanation for ‘social butterflies.’ The explanation was found in an area of the brain that for decades has been considered a locus for nicotine addiction.”

Source: Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology

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A new study suggests cell phone communication between a parent and their teenager can affect the quality of their relationship.

Researchers believe the details of the conversation, the purpose and tone of the conversation and who initiated the call are important factors for improving the parent-child bond.

The study is reported online in the peer-reviewed journal Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking.

Study author Robert Weisskirch, M.S.W., Ph.D., notes that parents can use a cell phone to extend their parenting reach in a non-invasive manner. For example, parents can monitor an adolescent’s whereabouts and activities, track their schoolwork, offer support, voice disapproval or criticism, or discipline their teen.

Similarly, adolescents may use their cell phones to communicate positive or negative feelings or information with their parents.

In the current study, Weisskirch expands on how the frequency, nature, and content of parent-adolescent cell phone calls relate to the quality of the parent-child relationship.

In the review, concepts such as self-esteem, perceptions of family conflict, and family dynamics — including closeness and support –are reviewed in the context of a cellular connection.

Source: Mary Ann Liebert

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