News by Subject Social & Behavior

Adult depression has long been associated with shrinkage of the hippocampus, a brain region that plays an important role in memory and response to stress. Now, new research from Washington University in St. Louis has linked participation in team sports to larger hippocampal volumes in children and less depression in boys ages 9 to 11.

'In describing the miscarriage itself, the men are speaking to a societal expectation that pregnancy is easy and smooth,' Horstman said. 'When describing their role in the experience, the men speak to the traditional expectation that they should be heterosexual and tough. But without intention, we see that men's emotions are being pushed aside to help their partner, when in reality these men are also suffering.'

Male and female serial killers tend to choose their victims and commit their crimes in different ways, which may be due to thousands of years of psychological evolution, according to researchers.

Findings may contribute to improved education and preventive efforts to help control the spread of sexually transmitted infections.

Studies have shown women are more risk-averse than men, a trait experts say could help to explain the persistent wage gap between men and women. New research suggests those gender differences are shaped by culture and the social environment and that those differences can shift, at least in children.

In the largest such study so far undertaken, US researchers have shown that testosterone replacement slows the recurrence of prostate cancer in low-risk patients. This may call into question the general applicability of Nobel-Prize winning hormonal prostate treatment. The work is presented at the European Association of Urology congress in Barcelona.

An international team of researchers presents a comprehensive and renewed focus on the common, yet poorly understood condition of bacterial vaginosis (BV) and how the microbial make-up of the vagina can affect a woman's risk of acquiring HIV and AIDS.

Women who get pregnant while using birth control may carry a gene that breaks down the hormones common in contraceptives, according to researchers at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus.