Cyclical relationships — is the term used for a couple who breaks up and then gets back together. Amber Vennum, assistant professor of family studies and human services at Kansas State University, looking at why couples reunite and how it affects the relationship.
“There has been very little research on this topic, but it turns out that cyclical relationships are quite prevalent,” Vennum said. “With college-age kids, about 40 percent are currently in a relationship where they have broken up and then have gotten back together. That’s shocking, especially when you factor in the outcomes of being in a cyclical relationship.”
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For her research, Vennum analyzed information that cyclical and noncyclical couples gave about their relationship and its characteristics. The information was evaluated using the relationship deciding scale, or RDS, which assesses relationship qualities and accurately predicts what the relationship will be like 14 weeks into the future.
While movies, books and TV shows may portray rekindling a relationship as romantic, Vennum found that the results of getting back together were less than desirable.
Findings showed that couples in a cyclical relationship tended to be more impulsive about major relationship transitions — like moving in together, buying a pet together or having a child together — than those not in a cyclical relationship. As a result, the couples in cyclical relationships tended to be less satisfied with their partner; had worse communication; made more decisions that negatively affected the relationship; had lower self-esteem; and had a higher uncertainty about their future together. [continue reading…]
The latest data reported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) shows that the rate of U.S. suicide has been increasing since 2000, with 2009 marking the highest number of suicides in 15 years.
The CDC report showed that between 2008 and 2009, the suicide rate increased 2.4 percent, with 36,909 suicide deaths reported nationally. In August 2011, a report from the CDC showed that in 2008, 13.4 percent of people who committed suicide had experienced job and financial problems. The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, an emergency crisis hotline reported a 14 percent increase in call volume between 2010 and 2011. The CDC’s thus recommended increasing counseling, job placement and financial services that can help reduce the mental distress that can increase suicide risk.
“The recent increase in suicide, whether heightened by economic strain or other social triggers, signifies the need for education and training on understanding and preventing suicide,” said Dr. Lisa Firestone, Director of Research and Education at The Glendon Association and Violence and Suicide Prevention Alliance. “The suicidal state is both preventable and treatable. Services and education have been proven to save lives. Armed with the right tools to identify the warning signs and implement helper tasks, we can fight this crisis.”
Michael Gazzaniga, one of the world’s leading researchers in cognitive neuroscience, describes the mystery of free will. Whether you are a parent, a philosopher, or the CEO of Facebook, it’s a concept that you’ll inevitably have to bang your head against — the individual right to choose what one does, what one doesn’t do, what one is exposed to.
The scientists used MRI data mapped onto an existing atlas of the mouse brain to compare the effects of drinking ethanol and water on brain volume overall and region-by-region in mice with and without dopamine D2 receptors. Alcohol-drinking mice that lacked dopamine receptors had lower overall brain volume and reduced volume in the cerebral cortex (blue) and thalamus (purple) compared with D2 receptor-deficient mice drinking water. Alcohol-drinking mice with dopamine receptors did not show these deficits in response to drinking alcohol, suggesting that dopamine receptors may be protective against the brain atrophy associated with chronic drinking.
Brain scans of two strains of mice imbibing significant quantities of alcohol reveal serious shrinkage in some brain regions — but only in mice lacking a particular type of receptor for dopamine, the brain’s “reward” chemical – but only in mice lacking a particular type of receptor for dopamine, the brain’s “reward” chemical. The study, conducted at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory and published in the May 2012 issue of Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research, now online, provides new evidence that these dopamine receptors, known as DRD2, may play a protective role against alcohol-induced brain damage. [continue reading…]
