Reprinted from The Lab Rat Chronicles: A Neuroscientist Reveals Life Lessons from the Planet’s Most Successful Mammals , by Kelly Lambert, Ph.D., by arrangement with Perigee, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., Copyright © 2011 by Kelly Lambert.

In the reality television shows The Bachelor and The Bachelorette , 25 potential mates vie for a desirable male or female during a series of artificial encounters and interactions. The most attractive candidates are given a rose each week, a gesture indicating their special standing among the others. These shows are saturated with cultural icons representing romance and desire: physically beautiful people, bikinis, hot tubs, gourmet meals, adventure dates, champagne.

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According to an article from the U.S...

World Economic Forum report projects staggering costs of non-communicable diseases including mental health.

The prescribed use of stimulant medications to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) rose slowly but steadily from 1996 to 2008, according to a study conducted by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ).

Treating social phobia without personal contact between patient and therapist--or without any therapist involvement at all--could be viewed as ironic, but two recent studies suggest that it works. Self-guided online therapy may offer relief for a wide range of disorders.

The first study, published in the October 2010 issue of the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry , found that self-guided, Internet-based cognitive-behavior therapy (CBT) reduced social phobia symptoms in most of the participants. The Internet CBT program consisted of eight online lessons with components similar to those used in face-to-face CBT: education about symptoms and treatment, instruc­tion on how to challenge the negative thoughts and core beliefs that maintain social phobia, preparation for dealing with physical symptoms of panic, graded exposure to social situations, and techniques for relapse prevention.

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The largest and most rigorous twin study of its kind to date has found that shared environment influences susceptibility to autism more than previously thought.

New studies published this Spring provide new insights into the molecular basis of autism, involving the interplay of genetic risk and environmental exposure.

The prevalence of self-reported mental health disabilities increased in the U.S. among non-elderly adults during the last decade, according to a study by Ramin Mojtabai, MD, PhD, of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health...

NIMH researchers honored with White House Champions of Change award.

Experts want practical research to help improve mental health of people experiencing humanitarian crises Experts in regions experiencing humanitarian crises want more research focused on generating and developing practical knowledge that could have tangible benefits in humanitarian settings rather than yet more research on topics, such as the prevalence of post-traumatic str...