Body appreciation differs between Middle-Eastern and Western societies, a new international study can reveal, highlighting how cultural and family influences shape body image and eating behaviours in young women.

Led by Flinders University and published in the journal Body Image, the study surveyed over 850 women aged 18–25 in Australia and Lebanon, examining the roles that mothers and sisters play in shaping body dissatisfaction, body appreciation, and eating patterns.

Expecting feedback from an avatar compared to a real human facilitates risk-taking behavior in a gambling task, and a brain region called the amygdala is central to this facilitation, according to a study published April 22^nd in the open-access journal PLOS Biology by Toshiko Tanaka and Masahiko Haruno from the National Institute of Information and Communications Technology, Japan.