Month: May 2016

How child sexual abuse became a family business in the Philippines

When Philippine police smashed into the one-bedroom house, they found three girls aged 11, seven and three lying naked on a bed.

At the other end of the room stood the mother of two of the children – the third was her niece – and her eldest daughter, aged 13, who was typing on a keyboard. A live webcam feed on the computer screen showed the faces of three white men glaring out.

An undercover agent had infiltrated the impoverished village two weeks before the raid. Pretending to be a Japayuki, a slang term for a Filipina sex worker living in Japan, she had persuaded a resident to introduce her to the children, who played daily in the gravel streets.

Her guise was intended to put them at ease, to show them she worked in the same industry; she was one of them. She became close to the eldest, referred to as Nicole although that is not her real name. After a few days of chatting, Nicole causally told the agent about their “shows”.

“It was the first time we heard of parents using their children,” said the middle-aged woman.

Authorities considered that operation in 2011 to be a one-off case. But the next month, another family was caught in the same area. Then more cases of live-streaming child abuse appeared in different parts of the Philippines.

The Guardian

Breaking Down The Science Of Picky Eating

Our food preferences are intensely personal, but scientists have tried to figure out why some people are so picky about the things they eat. Jane Kauer is anthropologist who has studied this topic at the University of Pennsylvania and at the Monell Chemical Sciences Center. She’s also a board member of the youth nutrition company Rebel Ventures. She sits down with Here & Now co-host Jeremy Hobson to talk about the science and culture of picky eating. A transcript of their conversation follows, edited for brevity and clarity.

NPR

5 Steps To Choosing Torture: Psychologists Breaking Bad

Earlier this month, a 542-page reportwas released, concluding that top officials of the American Psychological Association, including its ethics director, contorted and altered the association’s ethics policies so the psychologists on the Pentagon’s payroll could use their expertise to refine and expand methods of torture. The new “ethics light” guidelines concluded that it was appropriate for psychologists to remain involved with “enhanced” interrogations, to make sure they remained “safe, legal, ethical and effective.” Kind of like having physicians preside over lynchings to ensure they are done humanely. Groucho Marx once sneered, “Those are my principles. If you don’t like them, well…I have others.” He described the APA’s position on its own “other” ethical principles.

Psychology Today

Response to PTSD Treatment Associated With Size of Hippocampus

The study, from researchers at Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC) and New York State Psychiatric Institute (NYSPI), was published online in Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging on May 4, 2016.

Previous research has shown that having a smaller hippocampus is associated with increased risk of PTSD. In this study, the researchers examined the relationship between hippocampus volume, measured with MRI, and response to treatment in 50 participants with PTSD and 36 trauma-exposed healthy controls. The participants were evaluated at baseline and after 10 weeks, during which time the PTSD group had prolonged exposure therapy, a type of cognitive behavioral therapy that has been shown to help patients with PTSD discriminate between real and imagined trauma.

The study found that patients with PTSD who responded to treatment had greater hippocampal volume at the beginning of the study than non-responders to treatment.

The findings add to growing evidence that the hippocampus is key to distinguishing between cues that signal safety and those that signal threat.

“If replicated, these findings have important implications for screening and treating patients who have been exposed to trauma,” noted Yuval Neria, PhD, professor of medical psychology at CUMC, director of the PTSD Program at NYSPI, and senior author of the paper. “For example, new recruits for military service may be scanned before an assignment to determine whether they are capable of dealing with the expected stress and trauma. Having a smaller hippocampus may be a contraindication for prolonged exposure to trauma.”

Neuroscience News

The Best Medicine for ADHD isn’t Necessarily Medicine

Steve and Michelle were desperate—their 6-year-old son, Sam, was diagnosed with ADHD soon after entering first grade.  Sam’s behavior seemed outright defiant—he “ignored” being called and he moved constantly, often from room to room even when being directly spoken to. Sam let out bloodcurdling screams when forced to stop playing a game on the iPad. Sam’s teacher had struggled with some similar behaviors in class and his guidance counselor said Sam needed to be on medication. Steve and Michelle were not so sure, but began to wonder if they were being negligent by not putting him on Ritalinor something similar.

Despite the relentless advertising in parenting magazines and websites, and the occasional coercion by some school personnel, there is a good chance your young ADHD child may not need medication. Or at least not yet. The Centers For Disease control just released results from their first national study to look at therapy, medication, and dietary supplements to treat kids with ADHD ages 4-17.

Psychology Today

Why More Teen Girls Are Getting Genital Plastic Surgery

By college, a third of women and 90% of men have viewed porn, which some experts say has become a main source of sex ed for millions of American teens. “A lot of girls watch porn to learn how to have sex,” Bernstein said. “What they see there influences the way things should go, and how they think things should look.”

Especially, it seems, how things should look. Between 2014 and 2015, there was an 80% increase in the number of girls 18 and younger receiving genital plastic surgery, according to the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery. The numbers shot up so quickly that the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) issued new guidelines this monthfor doctors who perform labial and breast surgery. Among the recommendations: physicians are now encouraged to screen girls for body dysmorphic disorder, an obsession with an imagined or slight defect in appearance.

Time