Category: grief studies
April 14, 2020

How Stress Remodels The Brain

Research led by Si-Qiong June Liu, MD, Ph.D., Professor of Cell Biology and Anatomy at LSU Health New Orleans School of Medicine, has shown how stress changes the structure of the brain and reveals a potential therapeutic target to the prevent or reverse it. The findings are published in the Journal of Neuroscience. Working in a mouse model, Liu and her research team found that a single stressful event produced quick and long-lasting changes in astrocytes, the brain cells that clean up chemical messengers called neurotransmitters after they've communicated information between nerve cells.
April 22, 2020

Regulating Mood During Covid19

Mood varies from hour-to-hour, day-to-day, and healthy mood regulation involves choosing activities that help settle one's mood. However, in situations where personal choices of activities are constrained, such as during periods of social isolation and lockdown, this natural mood regulation is impaired which might result in depression. New research, published today in JAMA Psychiatry, from the Department of Psychiatry, University of Oxford suggests a new target for treating and reducing depression is supporting natural mood regulation.
April 24, 2020

COVID-19 and the Collective: A Mother’s Journey

When my six-year-old son was in the hospital for a brain hemorrhage, a nurse sequestered my husband and I into a tomb-like conference room with a box of tissue paper, a pitcher of water, and crackers. I thought, This is where they put parents of dying children. Earlier, pacing the hall outside of the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit, my husband, Lee, had yelled, "Fuck!," hoisting his arms in the air and looking up at some invisible God. I imagine we looked like two inmates wandering a prison's corridor, trapped, afraid, and desperate to escape.
May 13, 2020

Multiple Losses In Succession “Now cut off from the world… Complicated Grief”

As a director of a bereavement center myself, I am very concerned about a friend. Her mother died about 4 years ago. Her father died about 8 months ago. Then, her son, as far as we know, died of an accidental overdose about one month after her father. The truth is it seems she never quite was able to adjust after the death of her mother. She was a devoted daughter to her parents. The following information comes to me by a mutual friend. Since her son's death she has become completely cut off from the world. She does not drive or leave the house. She is completely terrified of doing anything.
May 23, 2020

Social Distancing Doesn’t Mean Emotional Distancing

I have been asking myself for days, What can I say to everyone that might be helpful or meaningful that they haven't already heard a thousand times by now? Do I just go ahead with the regular newsletter so you get a break from hearing about the coronavirus, or do I share something with you that might be different than what you have been hearing? Then I realized how many times over the last few days I have heard those words we are already so very familiar with -- New Normal We keep hearing the words "new normal" everywhere we turn.
May 24, 2020

PTSD – How Fear Memories Are Formed

Using a mouse model, researchers demonstrated the formation of fear memory involves the strengthening of neural pathways between two brain areas: the hippocampus, which responds to a particular context and encodes it, and the amygdala, which triggers defensive behavior, including fear responses. How does the brain form "fear memory" that links a traumatic event to a particular situation? A pair of researchers at the University of California, Riverside, may have found an answer.
May 24, 2020

Does Telling the Story Of What Happened Instead of Pushing It Away Help? –finding meaning

I have read and heard you speak about the need to revisit and retell the story of the tragic death of a loved one in order to find meaning in the event. What stands out in your comments is obvious, but should be underlined, in my view: the profound Truth about the need to address the traumatic event of a loved one’s dying, that is, the “ugly and difficult” narrative itself, before the full back story of the lost one, in context, can be freed. I just had to comment on this. It seems so apparent.
May 24, 2020

Kids Who Blame Themselves for Mom’s Depression

"Even if she doesn't say it, I know it's my fault that my mother gets sad." Kids who believe comments like this -- assuming blame for their mom's sadness or depression -- are more likely to face depression and anxiety themselves, a new study led by SMU has found. "Although mothers with higher levels of depressive symptoms face increased risk that their children will also experience symptoms of depression and anxiety, our study showed that this was not the case for all children," said SMU family psychologist and lead author Chrystyna Kouros. "Rather, it was those children who felt they were to blame for their mother's sadness or depression...that had higher levels of internalizing symptoms."
May 24, 2020

Gratitude – 2020 Study – Does It Help With Depression

Go ahead and be grateful for the good things in your life. Just don't think that a gratitude intervention will help you feel less depressed or anxious. In a new study, researchers at The Ohio State University analyzed results from 27 separate studies that examined the effectiveness of gratitude interventions on reducing symptoms of anxiety and depression. The results showed that such interventions had limited benefits at best. "For years now, we have heard in the media and elsewhere about how finding ways to increase gratitude can help make us happier and healthier in so many ways," said David Cregg, lead author of the study and a doctoral student in psychology at Ohio State.
May 24, 2020

PTSD – Not Recognized In Civilians

Federal laws explicitly addressing post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) have overwhelmingly focused on the needs of military personnel and veterans, according to a new analysis. The study is the first to examine how public policy has been used to address psychological trauma and PTSD in the US, providing a glimpse of how lawmakers think about these issues. Federal laws explicitly addressing post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) have overwhelmingly focused on the needs of military personnel and veterans, according to a new analysis published in the Journal of Traumatic Stress.
May 24, 2020

Bird And Green Helps Grief

The researchers found that the neighborhoods most attractive to birds were those in which many yards had fruit or berry-bearing trees and shrubs; a mix of evergreen and other types of trees; and, to a lesser extent, other environmental features. They found that the presence of outdoor animals, especially cats, kept birds away. The research, Minor said, grew from wondering how many birds from the forest preserves flew into nearby neighborhoods. Many do so, they found. "Birds are really living out in the neighborhood," Minor said.
May 24, 2020

Mom Voice Impacts Child

Children's brains are far more engaged by their mother's voice than by voices of women they do not know, a new study from the Stanford University School of Medicine has found. Brain regions that respond more strongly to the mother's voice extend beyond auditory areas to include those involved in emotion and reward processing, social functions, detection of what is personally relevant and face recognition. The study, which is the first to evaluate brain scans of children listening to their mothers' voices, will be published May 16 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.