Sunday 26th to Thursday 30th, July 2009
SARMAC Kyoto.
Hotel Heian Kaikan, Kyoto, Japan.

Monday 3rd to Tuesday 4th, August 2009
The 6th Satellite Symposium on Neuropsychological Rehabilitation.
Sokos Hotel Viru,Tallinn, Estonia.

This is a multidisciplinary conference that focus on neuropsychology,
clinical psychology,
occupational therapy, physiotherapy, speech and language therapy, social work, medicine and nursing. The programme comprises of various discussions and talks and each participant is to render his ideas on the issue of Brain Impairment.

Thursday 6th to Saturday 8th, August 2009
ISRE 2009.
University of Leuven, Belgium.

The International Society For Research On Emotion(ISRE) is to conduct ISRE 2009, high quality, interdisciplinary and international program which focuses on the five themes

• The neuroscience of emotion
• The social constitution of emotion
• The role of emotion in psychopathology
• Language and emotion
• Time Dynamics

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Labels: 6th Satellite Symposium, clinical psychology, emotion, ISRE, neuropsychology, neuroscience, occupational therapy, physiotherapy, Psychology, psychopathology, SARMAC Kyoto, speech and language therapy

"Happiness is connected to general health and according to Ayurvedic medicine, happiness is our birthright." said Liebler a clinical psychologist, teacher, and lecturer of Michigan School of Professional Psychology in Farmington Hills.

According to current statistical details it is found that by 2020 depression will very soon become universal's second health problem. The pathetic situation is that 80% of people under depression take no treatment.
Liebler was passionate to help people suffering from depression and render them a complete remedy which no none other Western treatment could provide. She actively took up this task and published a book "Healing Depression the Mind-Body Way "in which techniques like meditation, yoga, breathing exercises, counseling on nutrition, lifestyle, and spiritual matters are present in abundance that would certainly give assistance in combating depression.

Liebler says"I hope that by reading this book, people will realize that depression is created and, therefore, that depression can be undone. Depression can be genetic, situational or chronic, it doesn't matter. This book can be helpful for anyone on the continuum of depression or anyone who wishes to prevent depression and beat the blues."

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Labels: book, depression, Liebler, Psychology

It is found that not only adults but also children come to a conclusion about people based on the products they own. Lan Nguyen Chaplin (University of Arizona) and Tina M. Lowrey (University of Texas, San Antonio) took up a research work to see whether the young ones are able to coincide products to a particular social role.The outcome of the study was that

• five year old kid has the capability of coinciding products to individual and this develops between their first and third grade but these changes are not crystal clear.
• Third to fifth grade children use the products to show off them but their views on the roles are pliable in comparison to the seventh grade young ones whose look on the roles are unpliable.

The researchers conclude saying" Early adolescents appear to have a more myopic view of social roles, they will say things like, All cool kids wear Adidas and Abercrombie & Fitch. They are also loud, have a lot of friends, and play sports. Our work aids our understanding of how diverse marketing cues are received by children, and helps parents, educators, and other concerned constituents understand how marketers' increasingly popular cross-promotional tactics affect children's knowledge of social roles, which can lead to stereotypes and feelings of prejudice that may carry into adulthood."

The Above is the study published in the Journal of Consumer Research.

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Labels: Applied Psychology, Child Development, Child Psychology, children, Consumer Behavior, Developmental psychology, facts, kids, Social Psychology

One of the ten most attenuate diseases affecting human-beings as pinpointed by World Health Organization is the neuropsychiatric disorder, Schizophrenia. One out of hundred Americans are being affected due to this and the reason for disability among the people of Canada and U.S aging between 15 to 44 is due to mental disorder that costs the country to spend atleast $193 billion annually as per the study conducted in 2008 funded by National Institute of Mental Health. The above organization along with National Institutes of Health has offered an amount of $1.4 million over four years to Charles Nichols, Assistant Professor of Pharmacology at LSU Health Sciences Center, New Orleans for discovering and describing the novel genes involved in schizophrenia and psychosis since his approaches are always originative.To understand how psychosis and schizophrenia develop Dr. Nichols joins discovery studies with functional and behavioral studies in two alternate models and developed a new rodent model of psychosis.

"We believe that changes in gene function, influenced by abnormal activity in specific regions of the brain regulated by the neurotransmitter serotonin, contribute to neuropsychiatric disorders. The effects of LSD can be very similar to aspects of psychosis in people, but no one really understands how LSD works other than it changes how serotonin functions in the brain, and our results may lead to new avenues for therapeutics to treat such devastating diseases as schizophrenia and psychosis " notes Dr. Nichols.

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Labels: lth Organization, mental disorder, neuropsychiatric disorders, Psychology, psychosis, schizophrenia, World Health Organization

"Emotion is one of the first things babies pick up on in their social world," said BYU psychology professor Ross Flom Brigham Young University who conducted a study to reveal quick learning abilities of infants.The research revealed the fact that infants respond actively in recognizing the different sounds made by dogs. The experiment involved the alternate display of the aggressive and cohort picture and barking of the same dog for just one time. The exciting part of it was that the kids recognized them correctly by taking the gander on the right picture when displayed the second time. Research on this type help them have a clear idea of how infants grasp things quickly. A report on "Amazing Baby" was published in the Developmental Psychology Journal by Flom and two BYU students. Dan Hyde and Heather Whipple Stephenson as undergraduates and co-authors of the study say that the kids enjoyed them and provided excellent cooperation that gave Stephenson an inspiration to do cogent research projects.

The Neuropsychological Society of Finland conducts a International Neuropsychological Society (INS) Mid-Year Meeting from 29th July – 1st August,2009 in Helsinki at Finland.
"Bridging Research And Practice In Clinical Neuropsychology"is the keynote of this meeting.The topics discussed involve

• Cerebral Palsy And Traumatic Brain Injury: A Family-Based Approach To The Rehabilitation Of The Child by Lucia Braga at Press Room.
• Clinical & Psychometric Strategies For Improving Accuracy For Identifying Cognitive Impairment Grant Iverson at Fennia II.
• Neuropsychotherapy by Guidelines For A New Integrated Field Of Neuropsychological Treatment by Ritva Laaksonen at Fennia II.
• The Functional Neuroanatomy Of Semantic Memory by Alex Martin at Fennia II.
• Neurodevelopmental Consequences Of Very Low Birth Weight: Current Knowledge And Implications by H. Gerry Taylor at Press Room.
• Time, Language, and the Human Brain by Michael Corballis at Europaea.
• Memory in Clinical Conditions by Hely Kalska at Nordia. Neuropsychology of the Spectrum of Affective Disorders by Thomas Beblo at Europaea.
• Theoretical and Clinical Contributions to the Social Neuroscience: a Developmental Perspective by Vicki Anderson at Fennia I.
• Aspects on Biological and Psychological Determinants of Cognitive Plasticity by Goran Horneman at Fennia II.
• Intervention, Psychopathology, Traumatic Brain Injury, ADHD at Nautica. Postnatal Development of Hippocampus: Neuropsychological Implications by Lynn Nadel at Europaea.
• Highlights of Recent Results Associated with Developmental Neuropsychology by Margaret Semrud-Clikeman at Europaea.
• Cognitive Deficits in Mild Cognitive Impairment and Dementia by Taina Nybo at Fennia I. The Neuropsychology of Dual-Tasking by Jonathan Evans at Fennia II.
• Silent Cysts, Are There? The Case of Anja Kohonen: The Ingenious Zero with Large Arachnoid Cyst by Ritva Laaksonen at Nordia.
• Aging, Dementia, Cognitive Neuroscience, Electrophysiology, Imaging, Genetics at Nautica. Confabulation and the Creation of Reality by Armin Schnider at Europaea.
• The Application of Cognitive Neuroscience to Problems in Everyday Life by Barbara Wilson at Europaea.
• Vascular Impairment From The Neonatal Stage Till The Late Years by Liina Vahter at Nordia.
• Adult Traumatic Brain Injury by Jaana Sarajuuri at Europaea.
• The Impact of Very Early Brain Insult on Development by Sarah Knight at Fennia I.
• Searching for the Etiology of ADHD Using EEG, Genetics and Measures of Executive Function by Solveig Jonsdottir at Nordia.
• Epilepsy, Toxic Disorders, Stroke/Aneurysms, Other Medical Conditions, Visuospatial at Nautica.
• The Nature of Music from a Neurobiological Perspective by sabelle Peretz at Europaea.
• Lateralisation and Neural Correlates of Cognition by Randi Starrfelt at Nordia. Driving and Cognition by Taina Nybo at Europaea.
• Neurocognitive Consequences of Pediatric Risk Conditions by Marit Korkman and H. Gerry Taylor at Fennia I.
• Social Cognition: Investigation of Clinical Profiles by Paul Eslinger at Fennia II. Pediatric, Developmental, Language, Memory, Assessment at Nautica.
• Cognitive Profile in Multiple Sclerosis by Päivi Hämäläinen at Nordia.
• Holistic Neuropsycho- logical Rehabilitation Symposium by Sanna Koskinen at Europaea.
• Training Reading Fluency: What does Research Have to Say? by Mikko Aro at Fennia I.
• Neuropsychology in Psychiatric Disorders by Annamari Tuulio at FiennaII. Brain Basis of Social Interaction by Riitta Hari at Europaea.
• Episodic Memory-2009 by Endel Tulving at Grande.
• Psychological Adjustment to Acquired Brain Injury by Michael Schönbergerand Ritva Laaksonen at Grande.
• Developmental Consequencies of Prematurity or Brain Damage by Erik Hessen at Bolero.
• Cognitive Assessment by Marianne Lovstad at Duetto.

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The 16th International and 74th Annual Meeting of Psychometric Society is to be held at St John's College, Cambridge, United Kingdom from 20 to 24 July 2009. This international non-profitable organization is to publish its Journal Psychometrika on the same occasion. The content of this journal is centered towards amelioration of theories and methodology for behavioral data in psychology, education and behavioral and social sciences. The content of the book is divided into

• Theory and Methods (T& M), which offers the actual research and reviews on the advancement of quantitative models, mathematical methods for calculating data from psychology, statistical techniques, and the social and behavioral sciences including other related fields.
• Application Reviews and Case Studies (ARCS), that combine, compare, evaluate and discuss the boon and curse of various methodologies along with the case studies that emphasize on deeper knowledge of the methodologies informative data analysis and description.

Ask yourself the question "Who Am I? "for at least 30 times. Obviously everyone would stammer the 10th time itself is in it true???.Yes!!! would be the answer to such type of questions by nearly 75% of the fellow beings. One can give an appropriate answer confidently to such a query only when one analyses himself/herself to the core. Psychologist Timothy D. Wilson, University of Virginia published his study about self-knowledge in Perspectives on Psychological Science, a psychological journal in which he pictures the interrogation faced by them during their research work and guides the path to overcome them. The studies that were interesting in understanding oneself like dual process model, fMRI etc prove to be non optimistic.

He says "self-knowledge is less a matter of careful introspection than of becoming an excellent observer of oneself".

Ready to know about yourself by taking up online psychological tests

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Somatoform pain disorder (i.e, the reason for pain that cannot be explained in clinical terms) is found to be more prevalent in women rather than men. The recent research conducted by Frieser and Korber under the guidance of Professor Wolfgang Hiller, Mainz University shows that depression possessed individuals to experience high degree of somatoform pain than the others. These patients show

• variation in appetite and body weight
• feels dejected
• experience despair, insomnia, loss of energy along with psychological disorders that lead them to commit suicide.

Now-a-days next to outing the only entertainment that children, mostly the young generation have is playing video-games in computer. The Entertainment Software Association, report that in United States alone the income through the sales of video-games is nearly $7.3 billion for the year2004.
Even though playing video-games is considered as a toy for children by parents yet the fact to be kept in our mind is its adverse effect in character development of the younger generation.

Research has be done to find whether there exists some drastic changes in children who are exposed to play of video-games. The result of the research is that violence is intruding in their minds but can be reduced if parental supervision is maximum, which is always not possible in today's accord.
The survey through telephone conducted by Entertainment Software Ratings Board, in May concluded that parental intervention is more in choice of video and computer games for their children in U.S. But the research conducted in the month of June in U.K by Swiss consultancy firm Modulum concluded that children are far away from their parents knowledge on what type of video games they play.

Thus to prevent a child's mental health from going good to worse by playing violent video-games is in the hands of the parents.The satisfying news is that the software association said 92% of time parents are along with their children when they purchase video-games and 87% of time parents acquiescence is obtained by children on the purchase of video-games. The most exciting part is that 32% of parents play video-games with their kids on weekly basis.

International Game Developers Association's Executive Director, Jason Della Rocca expresses that controlling the developers in designing of violent video-games is not possible but parents guidance in choice of video-games like "Digital Praise" that have message for inculcating virtues in the minds of their young ones can be made possible.

Joshua Greene,[assistant professor of psychology in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences ]along with a graduate student in psychology ,Joe Paxton at Harvard University issued a study on cognitive processes tangled with honesty published in Proceeding Of The National Academy funded by John D, Catherine T, MacArthur Foundation, the National Science Foundation, and the Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging.Here neuroimaging was used to view the individuals brain's activity, when acting honestly and dishonestly. The result showed that dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and the anterior cingulate cortex which are the control related regions of brain functioned efficaciously in dishonest person whereas honest person's brain activity was evaluated to null. The above study was conducted to evaluate the "Will Theory", that states honesty is the outcome of effective combat against temptation and "Grace Theory", where honesty is said to be present in people who lack temptation.After various experiments being conducted and results being obtained the above research favors Grace theory .

Greene says "Being honest is not so much a matter of exercising willpower as it is being disposed to behave honestly in a more effortless kind of way and this may not be true for all situations, but it seems to be true for at least this situation." He also says that if more amount of exercise is done in the above field then one can easily predict whether a person speaks truth or lies by observing his/her brain activity.

The European College of Neuropsychopharmacology (ECNP) established by clinicians and scientists of neuropsychopharmacology and its related areas in 1987 is a non-profitable scientific organisation whose goal is to take up experiments that would promote ways for improving patient care regarding mental disorders.

Next to the establishment of first ECNP School of Neuropsychopharmacology on 5th July 2009, a scientific conference is to be held from 12th September 2009 at Istanbul in which nearly 600 experts from 25 countries is to discuss over 100 topics like neuroscience and psychopharmacology, schizophrenia, ADHD , Alzheimer's disease vaccination, NewMood project news etc. Ample amount of focusing is done to give crystal clear ideas for medical professionals that would ease their clinical practice.

The ECNP congress comprises of educational update sessions dealing with insomnia treatment, ICD-11 and DSM-V classification systems, neuropsychopharmacology biomarkers,GABA etc and 3 poster sections where nearly 900 posters are being presented by scientists from worldwide.In addition to these ECNP proudly presents Consultation Meeting 2009's report on "Biomarkers and experimental medicine in developing new treatments in neuropsychopharmacology". Scientists, pharmaceutical industry and the regulatory authorities discuss and exchange their views and advices through the consultation meetings held annually by the ECNP on specific topics.

The Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry published a study according to which the child born after stillbirth has no mental or physical health problem in specific.But the problem is that the bereaved mothers find great difficulty in bringing up the child born to them after a stillbirth.

The research conducted over 52 bereaved and 51 non-bereaved mothers respectively have proved the above statement. The difficulty reported include a high degree of maternal criticism of the next-born ones actions.

Dr. Penelope Turton, [St George's University – London] said that it is uncertain to identify the actual cause for the above behavior of bereaved mothers which may be due to the inability to bear up with the previous child-loss or there really exists some variation in the new-born child's behavior that which is intolerable.

Further studies is being conducted to understand about the mother-child relationship till the child reach adolescence so that the real reason could be understood to provide psychological assistance to bereaved mothers regarding their problem.

The National Institutes of Health awards a five-year, $1 million grant to Rebekah Smith, Assistant Professor of the National Institutes of Health Psychology, University of Texas at San Antonio to study about adult memory. The research is conducted over 18-30year old adults and 60 and above old adults. Smith directing the UTSA Cognitive Aging Lab study about the prospective memory which is nothing but the action taken to remember the task to be completed.

The research is focused on event-based prospective memory. The main goal is to find the difference about the working of prospective memory between both the groups. The test conducted involve giving response to some specific words while performing the ongoing computerized tasks.The test results show that the 60 and above old adults miss much of the specific words than the younger ones.

Smith is eager to find out some techniques to be applied in the real life to improve older adults prospective memory.A small compensation is provided for the participating aduts.
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One of the highlighting fact about British Social calendar is the Serpentine Gallery's Summer Party held at Kensington Garden's Gallery Pavillion certainly involve the world's major player from film, art, fashion and architecture raises fund donning their best.The directors Julia peyton-Jones and Hans Ulrich Obrist expects the night to be the most exciting one for their guests. It is also found that the party would raise funds for their exhibition, public programmes, education and architecture. The expected guest list for this mild summer night 2009 July includes

Good-Bye To Insomia By Staying Online

Cognitive Therapy involves providing alternate solutions to a person with wrong beliefs or thoughts to improve his emotional state so that it pulls him away from psychological disorders. The reduced number of cognitive behavioral therapists along with less knowledgeable professionals have led to less established state of the above theraphy.

But this state is put to an end by the nine week highly interactive program conducted by Lee.M.Ritterband(University Of Virginia Health System) accompanied by Charlottesville, and their colleagues who used animations, text, quiz, graphics, vignettes and games to implement Cognitive Behavioral Therapy through internet intervention for 22 adults and another 22 adults where subjected to the control group. The results showed that those who underwent treatment through internet intervention improved in their sleeping habits by following the six-month assessment of the well-experienced therapists like avoiding short nap during daytime, putting an end to the habit of reading/watching television in the bedroom and evacuating worries about insomnia from their mind.Thus this program focused the improvement of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy through online as nowadays people have much less time to attend various classes or have no time to reach the right professional for treatment.

Happiness Gene and Positive Thinking

The research in finding the happiness gene that may give 50% optimistic outlook is a joint work undertaken between Prof.Yoram Barak of Tel Aviv University and its affiliated Israel's largest research hospital , The Chaim Sheba Medical Centre at Tel Hashomer.Prof.Barak says"Something genetic should have greater concordance among twins and the related studies show 50% happiness is determined genetically".He works with Prof.Anat Achiron ,Sheba Medical Center to find the specific happiness generating gene.

Thinking positively is found to give more happiness. The happiness level of 120 participants in an one day workshop held by Prof.Barak has been found to increase to 30%.His research on physical affects of mental state on neurological disease affected people help to fill the gap found between clinical medicine and psychology. This positive thinking exercise helps the neurological disease affected people to stabilize the neurological disorders and strengthen the lives in healthy individuals.

The study headed by Dr.Claudia Catani ,( University of Bielefeld.) emphasize that, "The interplay of these stressors contributes to a higher vulnerability in the children frequently exposed to traumatic experiences."At least half of the children (one in four boys and one in six girls) who have experienced a traumatic life event in this environment were diagnosed with Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), a life incapacitating mental health disorder

Boys are exposed to more traumatic life events than girls, who are not only being affected psychologically but also somatically and neurophysiologically. These are not the results of only war experiences but also due to family disturbances, maltreatment as well as community factors such long-term poverty and child labor.

Efficient and sustainable solutions can be obtained if such factors are taken into account along with better education, immediate mental health interventions and treatment after a violent conflict, and humanitarian assistance for trauma-affected populations in resource-poor countries like Afghanisthan where dramatic numbers of PSTD-diagnosed children are found which indicate high risk factors for developing violence and therefore immediate prevention strategies to reduce PSTD among children.