Each month our editorial team sifts through hundreds of papers and curates notable findings—for practitioners and informed readers who want to stay current with the evidence. Subscribe to the monthly Research Digest for expert analysis and concise summaries of key papers.
48 papers
This article reviews theory and research on how people and cultures shape each other. It defines the self as the “me” at the center of experience — a developing sense of awareness and agency that forms as a person (both brain and body) becomes tuned to different environments. The authors…
This 2001 review looked at studies on exercise, anxiety, depression, and stress. It found that short-term emotional effects of exercise are mixed, but many cross-sectional and longitudinal studies report that regular aerobic exercise training reduces anxiety and depression symptoms and may protect against the harmful effects of stress. The clearest…
Postpartum depression can affect fathers too. Research summarized in this article says about 10% of men experience clinical paternal postpartum depression, often during pregnancy or in the first year after birth (with the highest risk in the first 3–6 months). The article lists common symptoms, risk factors like a partner’s…
Psychedelic "bad trips" can be intense and sometimes last past the session. Surveys and studies report that a minority of users have serious short- or long-term problems, while other people later say the experience was meaningful or helpful. Risk and duration vary by dose, setting, and support, and studies give…
This paper says many people with ADHD have big problems with emotions. These problems include over-reacting, deep shame or guilt, and a strong sensitivity to rejection called rejection sensitive dysphoria (RSD). The author explains that emotions were often left out of ADHD research and diagnosis because they are not always…
Using long-term data from the Midlife in the United States (MIDUS) study, the authors show that physical health, thinking skills, and well-being in midlife can change in different directions for different people. They describe these changes as multidirectional (some things get better, some worse), variable between people, and plastic (open…
Researchers gave different psychedelic drugs to mice and found the drugs could reopen a window of brain plasticity used for learning social rewards. This reopened window went along with changes in a social hormone system in a key reward area of the brain and with changes in genes that control…
The article describes “high functioning anxiety” as a way some people with anxiety symptoms talk about their experience, not as an official medical diagnosis. It says people can look successful and cope outwardly while having common anxiety symptoms, and that diagnosis can be hard because the symptom effects may be…
This systematic review looked at how classic psychedelics (LSD, psilocybin, ayahuasca) change activity in the brain’s Default Mode Network (DMN). The studies commonly found an acute disruption of connectivity inside the DMN and more communication between other resting‑state brain networks during the drug experience. The authors note these DMN changes…
This is the Modern Slavery Statement for The Scott Trust, The Scott Trust Endowment Limited (STEL) and Guardian Media Group (GMG) for the year ending 31 March 2025. It explains the group structure, the main supply-chain areas, the policies and checks they use to reduce modern slavery risks, and actions…
Treatments for depression have gotten better and far more people can get them since the 1980s. Yet the share of people in the general population with depression has not gone down. The authors call this the “treatment-prevalence paradox” and review seven possible explanations. They find little evidence that more cases…
Researchers reviewed many studies on ketamine for depression and found that we still do not have firm answers about the best dose, how fast to give it, which way to give it, how long to treat, or how often to give treatments. Most studies used 0.5 mg/kg given over about…
