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Today — 28 October 2025English

From rare earths to Russian oil, here’s what Trump hopes to get out of meeting Xi Jinping

✇The Independent
By:Alisha Rahaman Sarkar
28 October 2025 at 15:19

Experts do not expect US and China to resolve all their issues before the two presidents meet, but they are hoping for enough progress to stop the rivalry from doing more global economic damage. Alisha Rahaman Sarkar reports

© POOL/AFP/AFP via Getty Images

What scientists found when they analyzed 187 of Donald Trump’s shrugs

✇PsyPost – Psychology News
By:Eric W. Dolan
28 October 2025 at 14:00

A new study indicates that Donald Trump’s frequent shrugging is a deliberate communication tool used to establish common ground with his audience and express negative evaluations of his opponents and their policies. The research, published in the journal Visual Communication, suggests these gestures are a key component of his populist performance style, helping him appear both ordinary and larger-than-life.

Researchers have become increasingly interested in the communication style of right-wing populism, which extends beyond spoken words to include physical performance. While a significant amount of analysis has focused on Donald Trump’s language, particularly on social media platforms, his live performances at rallies have received less systematic attention. The body is widely recognized as being important to political performance, but the specific gestures used are not always well understood.

This new research on shrugging builds on a previous study by one of the authors that examined Trump’s use of pointing gestures. That analysis found that Trump uses different kinds of points to serve distinct functions, such as pointing outwards to single out opponents, pointing inwards to emphasize his personal commitment, and pointing downwards to connect his message to the immediate location of his audience. The current study continues this investigation into his non-verbal communication by focusing on another of his signature moves, the shrug.

“The study was motivated by several factors,” explained Christopher Hart, a professor of linguistics at Lancaster University and the author of Language, Image, Gesture: The Cognitive Semiotics of Politics.

(1) Political scientists frequently refer to the more animated bodily performance of right wing populist politicians like Trump compared to non-populist leaders. We wanted to study one gesture – the shrug – that seemed to be implicated here. (2) Trump’s shrug gestures have been noted by the media previously and described as his “signature move”. We wanted to study this gesture in more detail to examine its precise forms and the way he uses it to fulfil rhetorical goals.”

“(3) To meet a gap: while a great deal has been written about Donald Trump’s speech and his use of language online, much less has been written about the gestures that accompany his speech in live settings. This is despite the known importance of gesture in political communication.”

To conduct their analysis, the researchers examined video footage of two of Trump’s campaign rallies from the 2016 primary season. The events, one in Dayton, Ohio, and the other in Buffalo, New York, amounted to approximately 110 minutes of data. The researchers adopted a conservative approach, identifying 187 clear instances of shrugging gestures across the two events.

Each shrug was coded based on its physical form and its communicative function. For the form, they classified shrugs based on the orientation of the forearms and the position of the hands relative to the body. They also noted whether the shrug was performed with one or two hands and whether it was a simple gesture or a more complex, animated movement. To understand the function, they analyzed the spoken words accompanying each shrug to determine the meaning being conveyed.

Hart was surprised “just how often Trump shrugs – 1.7 times per minute in the campaign rallies analyzed. Trump is a prolific shrugger and this is one way his communication style breaks with traditional forms of political communication.”

The analysis of the physical forms of the shrugs provided evidence for what has been described as a strong “corporeal presence.” Trump tended to favor expansive shrugs, with his hands positioned outside his shoulder width, a form that physically occupies more space.

The second most frequent type was the “lateral” shrug, where his arms extend out to his sides, sometimes in a highly theatrical, showman-like manner. This use of large, exaggerated gestures appears to contribute to a performance style more commonly associated with live entertainment than with traditional politics.

The researchers also noted that nearly a third of his shrugs were complex, meaning they involved animated, oscillating movements. These gestures create a dynamic and sometimes caricatured performance. While these expansive and animated shrugs help create an extraordinary, entertaining persona, the very act of shrugging is an informal, everyday gesture. This combination seems to allow Trump to simultaneously signal both his ordinariness and his exceptionalism.

When examining the functions of the shrugs, the researchers found that the most common meaning was not what many people might expect. While shrugs are often associated with expressing ignorance (“I don’t know”) or indifference (“I don’t care”), these were not their primary uses in Trump’s speeches. Instead, the most frequent function, accounting for over 44 percent of instances, was to signal common ground or obviousness. Trump often uses a shrug to present a statement as a self-evident truth that he and his audience already share.

For example, he would shrug when asking rhetorical questions like “We love our police. Do we love our police?” The gesture suggests the answer is obvious and that everyone in the room is in agreement. He also used these shrugs to present his own political skills as a given fact or to frame the shortcomings of his opponents as plainly evident to all. This use of shrugging appears to be a powerful tool for building a sense of shared knowledge and values with his supporters.

“Most people think of shrugs as conveying ‘I don’t know’ or ‘I don’t care,” Hart told PsyPost. “While Trump uses shrugs to convey these meanings, more often he uses shrugs to indicate that something is known to everyone or obviously the case. This is one of the ways he establishes common ground and aligns himself with his audience, indicating that he and they hold a shared worldview.”

The second most common function was to express what the researchers term “affective distance.” This involves conveying negative emotions like disapproval, dissatisfaction, or dismay towards a particular state of affairs. When discussing trade deals he considered terrible or military situations he found lacking, a shrug would often accompany his words. In these cases, the gesture itself, rather than the explicit language, carried the negative emotional evaluation of the topic.

Shrugs that conveyed “epistemic distance,” meaning ignorance, doubt, or disbelief, accounted for about 17 percent of the total. A notable use of this function occurred during what is known as “constructed dialogue,” where Trump would re-enact conversations. In one instance, he used a mocking shrug while impersonating a political opponent to portray them as clueless and incompetent, a performance that drew laughter from the crowd.

The least common function was indifference, or the classic “I don’t care” meaning. Though infrequent, these shrugs served a strategic purpose. When shrugging alongside a phrase like “I understand that it might not be presidential. Who cares?,” Trump used the gesture to dismiss the conventions of traditional politics. This helps him position himself as an outsider who is not bound by the same rules as the political establishment.

The findings highlight that “what politicians do with their hands and other body parts is an important part of their message and their brand,” Hart told PsyPost. However, he emphasizes that “gestures are not ‘body language.’ They do not accidentally give away one’s emotional state. Gestures are built in to the language system and are part of the way we communicate. They carry part of the information speakers intend to convey and that information forms part of the message audiences take away.”

The study does have some limitations. Its analysis is focused exclusively on Donald Trump, so it remains unclear whether this pattern of shrugging is unique to his style or a broader feature of right-wing populist communication. Future research could compare his gestural profile to that of other populist and non-populist leaders.

Additionally, the study centered on one specific gesture, and a more complete picture would require analyzing the full range of a politician’s non-verbal repertoire. The authors also suggest that future work could examine other elements, like facial expressions and the timing of gestures, in greater detail.

Despite these limitations, the research provides a detailed look at how a seemingly simple gesture can be a sophisticated and versatile rhetorical tool. Trump’s shrugs appear to be a central part of a performance style that transgresses political norms, creates entertainment value, and forges a strong connection with his base. The findings indicate the importance of looking beyond a politician’s words to understand the full, embodied performance through which they communicate their message.

“We hope to look at other gestures of Trump to build a bigger picture of how he uses his body to distinguish himself from other politicians and to imbue his performances with entertainment value,” Hart said. This might include, for example, his use of chopping or slicing gestures. I also hope to explore the gestural performances of other right wing populist politicians in Europe to see how their gestures compare. ”

The study, “A shrug of the shoulders is a stance-taking act: The form-function interface of shrugs in the multimodal performance of Donald Trump,” was authored by Christopher Hart and Steve Strudwick.

South Korea's president faces high-stakes diplomacy at APEC summit

✇The Independent
By:Hyung-Jin Kim and Kim Tong-Hyung
28 October 2025 at 08:02
South Korea’s new president is hosting the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, bringing together leaders from 20 countries, including the United States and China, whose leaders are set to hold a high-stakes meeting on the sidelines

© Copyright 2019 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

More than 100 former Justice Department officials call for ‘vindictive’ case against former FBI Director James Comey to be dismissed

✇The Independent
By:Io Dodds
28 October 2025 at 07:43

Scholars of authoritarianism including Francis Fukuyama also asked the judge to throw out the charges, saying they were a clear example of an autocratic leader abusing the justice system to consolidate power

© J. Scott Applewhite

Horror films may help us manage uncertainty, a new theory suggests

✇PsyPost – Psychology News
By:Karina Petrova
28 October 2025 at 02:00

A new study proposes that horror films are appealing because they offer a controlled environment for our brains to practice predicting and managing uncertainty. This process of learning to master fear-inducing situations can be an inherently rewarding experience, according to the paper published in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B.

The authors behind the paper, published in 2013, sought to address why people are drawn to entertainment that is designed to be frightening or disgusting. While some studies have shown psychological benefits from engaging with horror, many existing theories about its appeal seem to contradict one another. The authors aimed to provide a single, unifying framework that could explain how intentionally seeking out negative feelings like fear can result in positive psychological outcomes.

To do this, they applied a theory of brain function known as predictive processing. This framework suggests the brain operates as a prediction engine, constantly making forecasts about incoming sensory information from the world. When reality does not match the brain’s prediction, a “prediction error” occurs, which the brain then works to minimize by updating its internal models or by acting on the world to make it more predictable.

This does not mean humans always seek out calm and predictable situations. The theory suggests people are motivated to find optimal opportunities for learning, which often lie at the edge of their understanding. The brain is not just sensitive to the amount of prediction error, but to the rate at which that error is reduced over time. When we reduce uncertainty faster than we expected, it generates a positive feeling.

This search for the ideal rate of error reduction is what drives curiosity and play. We are naturally drawn to a “Goldilocks zone” of manageable uncertainty that is neither too boringly simple nor too chaotically complex. The researchers argue that horror entertainment is specifically engineered to place its audience within this zone.

According to the theory, horror films can be understood as a form of “affective technology,” designed to manipulate our predictive minds. Even though we know the monsters are not real, the brain processes the film as an improbable version of reality from which it can still learn. Many horror monsters tap into deep-seated, evolutionary fears of predators by featuring sharp teeth, claws, and stealthy, ambush-style behaviors.

The narrative structures of horror films are also built to play with our expectations. The slow build-up of suspense creates a state of high anticipation, and a “jump scare” works by suddenly violating our moment-to-moment predictions. The effectiveness of these techniques is heightened because they are not always predictable. Sometimes the suspense builds and nothing happens, which makes the audience’s response system even more alert.

At the same time, horror films often rely on familiar patterns and clichés, such as the “final girl” who survives to confront the villain. This combination of surprising events within a somewhat predictable structure provides the mix of uncertainty and resolvability that the predictive brain finds so engaging.

The authors propose that engaging with this controlled uncertainty has several benefits. One is that horror provides a low-stakes training ground for learning about high-stakes situations. This idea, known as morbid curiosity, suggests that we watch frightening content to gain information that could be useful for recognizing and avoiding real-world dangers. For example, the film Contagion saw a surge in popularity during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, as people sought to understand the potential realities of a global health crisis.

Another benefit is related to emotion regulation. By exposing ourselves to fear in a safe context, we can learn about our own psychological and physiological responses. The experience allows us to observe our own anxiety, increased heart rate, and other reactions as objects of attention, rather than just being swept away by them. This process can grant us a greater sense of awareness and control over our own emotional states, similar to the effects of mindfulness practices.

The theory also offers an explanation for why some people prone to anxiety might be drawn to horror. Anxiety can be associated with a feeling of uncertainty about one’s own internal bodily signals, a state known as noisy interoception. Watching a horror movie provides a clear, external source for feelings of fear and anxiety. For a short time, the rapid heartbeat and sweaty palms have an obvious and controllable cause: the monster on the screen, not some unknown internal turmoil.

The researchers note that this engagement is not always beneficial. For some individuals, particularly those with a history of trauma, horror media may serve to confirm negative beliefs about the world being a dangerous and threatening place. This can create a feedback loop where a person repeatedly seeks out horrifying content, reinforcing a sense of hopelessness or learned helplessness. Future work could examine when the engagement with scary media crosses from a healthy learning experience into a potentially pathological pattern.

The study, “Surfing uncertainty with screams: predictive processing, error dynamics and horror films,” was authored by Mark Miller, Ben White and Coltan Scrivner.

Federal food benefits and preschool aid to run dry starting Saturday if shutdown continues

✇The Independent
By:Jonathan Mattise
28 October 2025 at 01:43
Federal funds could begin running dry on Saturday that help tens of millions of Americans buy food for their families and send their toddlers to preschool if the government shutdown persists

© Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved

Long-term study shows romantic partners mutually shape political party support

✇PsyPost – Psychology News
By:Karina Petrova
28 October 2025 at 00:00

A new longitudinal study suggests that intimate partners mutually influence each other’s support for political parties over time. The research found that a shift in one person’s support for a party was predictive of a similar shift in their partner’s support the following year, a process that may contribute to political alignment within couples and broader societal polarization. The findings were published in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin/em>.

Political preferences are often similar within families, particularly between parents and children. However, less is known about how political views might be shaped during adulthood, especially within the context of a long-term romantic relationship. Prior studies have shown that partners often hold similar political beliefs, but it has been difficult to determine if this is because people choose partners who already agree with them or if they gradually influence each other over the years.

The authors of the new study sought to examine if this similarity is a result of ongoing influence. They wanted to test whether a change in one partner’s political stance could predict a future change in the other’s. To do this, they used a large dataset from New Zealand, a country with a multi-party system. This setting allowed them to see if any influence was specific to one or two major parties or if it occurred across a wider ideological spectrum, including smaller parties focused on issues like environmentalism, indigenous rights, and libertarianism.

To conduct their investigation, the researchers analyzed data from the New Zealand Attitudes and Values Study, a large-scale project that has tracked thousands of individuals over many years. Their analysis focused on 1,613 woman-man couples who participated in the study for up to 10 consecutive years. Participants annually rated their level of support for six different political parties on a scale from one (strongly oppose) to seven (strongly support).

The study employed a sophisticated statistical model designed for longitudinal data from couples. This technique allowed the researchers to separate two different aspects of a person’s political support. First, it identified each individual’s stable, long-term average level of support for a given party. Second, it isolated the small, year-to-year fluctuations or deviations from that personal average. This separation is important because it allows for a more precise test of influence over time.

The analysis then examined whether a fluctuation in one partner’s party support in a given year could predict a similar fluctuation in the other partner’s support in the subsequent year. This was done while accounting for the fact that couples already tend to have similar average levels of support.

The results showed a consistent pattern of mutual influence. For all six political parties examined, a temporary increase in one partner’s support for that party was associated with a subsequent increase in the other partner’s support one year later. This finding suggests that partners are not just politically similar from the start of their relationship but continue to shape one another’s specific party preferences over time.

This influence also appeared to be a two-way street. The researchers tested whether men had a stronger effect on women’s views or if the reverse was true. They found that the strength of influence was generally equal between partners. With only one exception, the effect of men on women’s party support was just as strong as the effect of women on men’s support.

The single exception involved the libertarian Association of Consumers and Taxpayers Party, where men’s changing support had a slightly stronger influence on women’s subsequent support than the other way around. For the other five parties, including the two largest and three other smaller parties, the influence was symmetrical. This challenges the idea that one partner, typically the man, is the primary driver of a couple’s political identity.

An additional analysis explored whether this dynamic of influence applied to a person’s general political orientation, which was measured on a scale from extremely liberal to extremely conservative. In this case, the pattern was different. While partners tended to be similar in their overall political orientation, changes in one partner’s self-rated orientation did not predict changes in the other’s over time. This suggests that the influence partners have on each other may be more about support for specific parties and their platforms than about shifting a person’s fundamental ideological identity.

The researchers acknowledge some limitations of their work. The study focused on established, long-term, cohabiting couples in New Zealand, so the findings may not apply to all types of relationships or to couples in other countries with different political systems. Because the couples were already in established relationships, the study also cannot entirely separate the effects of ongoing influence from the possibility that people initially select partners who are politically similar to them.

Future research could explore these dynamics in newer relationships to better understand the interplay between partner selection and later influence. Additional studies could also investigate the specific mechanisms of this influence, such as how political discussions, media consumption, or conflict avoidance might play a role in this process. Examining whether these shifts in expressed support translate to actual behaviors like voting is another important avenue for exploration.

The study, “The Interpersonal Transmission of Political Party Support in Intimate Relationships,” was authored by Sam Fluit, Nickola C. Overall, Danny Osborne, Matthew D. Hammond, and Chris G. Sibley.

Yesterday — 27 October 2025English

British political commentator Sami Hamdi detained by federal authorities at California airport

✇The Independent
By:Christopher Weber · Matthew Lee and Rebecca Santana
27 October 2025 at 21:28
Officials say British political commentator Sami Hamdi has been detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers at San Francisco International Airport

© Copyright 2018 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

How Lily Allen broke the last break-up taboo for women – we don’t always have to play nice

✇The Independent
By:Helen Coffey
27 October 2025 at 20:52

We’ve been implicitly instructed for a lifetime that the only way to ‘win’ when grieving a broken heart is to handle it gracefully. But ‘West End Girl’ is showing women everywhere that unleashing our anger can actually be a superpower, writes Helen Coffey

© Getty

The government shutdown staring contest will finally get real this week: Who blinks first?

✇The Independent
By:Eric Garcia
27 October 2025 at 20:34

Up until now, most of the American public has been insulated from the shutdown’s effects, Eric Garcia writes. But with SNAP recipients going hungry, labor groups demanding the government reopen and ongoing health insurance enrollment, Trump and Democrats might be forced to find a solution.

© AFP via Getty Images

Study finds a shift toward liberal politics after leaving religion

✇PsyPost – Psychology News
By:Karina Petrova
27 October 2025 at 22:00

A new study suggests that individuals who leave their religion tend to become more politically liberal, often adopting views similar to those who have never been religious. This research, published in the Journal of Personality, provides evidence that the lingering effects of a religious upbringing may not extend to a person’s overall political orientation. The findings indicate a potential boundary for a psychological phenomenon known as “religious residue.”

Researchers conducted this study to investigate a concept called religious residue. This is the idea that certain aspects of a person’s former religion, such as specific beliefs, behaviors, or moral attitudes, can persist even after they no longer identify with that faith. Previous work has shown that these lingering effects can be seen in areas like moral values and consumer habits, where formerly religious people, often called “religious dones,” continue to resemble currently religious individuals more than those who have never been religious.

The research team wanted to determine if this pattern of residue also applied to political orientation. Given the strong link between religiosity and political conservatism in many cultures, it was an open question what would happen to a person’s politics after leaving their faith. They considered three main possibilities. One was that religious residue would hold, meaning religious dones would remain relatively conservative.

Another possibility was that they would undergo a “religious departure,” shifting to a liberal orientation similar to the never-religious. A third option was “religious reactance,” where they might react against their past by becoming even more liberal than those who were never religious.

To explore these possibilities, the researchers analyzed data from eight different samples across three multi-part studies. The first part involved a series of six cross-sectional analyses, which provide a snapshot in time. These studies included a total of 7,089 adults from the United States, the Netherlands, and Hong Kong. Participants were asked to identify as currently religious, formerly religious, or never religious, and to rate their political orientation on a scale from conservative to liberal.

In five of these six samples, the results pointed toward a similar pattern. Individuals who had left their religion reported significantly more liberal political views than those who were currently religious. Their political orientation tended to align closely with that of individuals who had never been religious. When the researchers combined all six samples for a more powerful analysis, they found that religious dones were, on average, more politically liberal than both currently religious and never-religious individuals. This combined result offered some initial evidence for the religious reactance hypothesis.

To gain a clearer picture of how these changes unfold over time, the researchers next turned to longitudinal data, which tracks the same individuals over many years. The second study utilized data from the National Study of Youth and Religion, a project that followed a representative sample of 2,071 American adolescents into young adulthood. This allowed the researchers to compare the political attitudes of those who remained affiliated with a religion, those who left their religion at different points, and those who were never religious.

The findings from this longitudinal sample provided strong support for the religious departure hypothesis. Individuals who left their religion during their youth or young adulthood reported more liberal political attitudes than those who remained religious. However, their political views were not significantly different from the views of those who had never been religious. This study also failed to find evidence for “residual decay,” the idea that religious residue might fade slowly over time. Instead, the shift toward a more liberal orientation appeared to be a distinct change associated with leaving religion, regardless of how long ago the person had de-identified.

The third study aimed to build on these findings with another longitudinal dataset, the Family Foundations of Youth Development project. This study followed 1,857 adolescents and young adults and had the advantage of measuring both religious identification and political orientation at multiple time points. This design allowed the researchers to use advanced statistical models to examine the sequence of these changes. Specifically, they could test whether becoming more liberal preceded leaving religion, or if leaving religion preceded becoming more liberal.

The results of this final study confirmed the findings of the previous ones. Religious dones again reported more liberal political attitudes, similar to their never-religious peers. The more advanced analysis revealed that changes in religious identity tended to precede changes in political orientation. In other words, the data suggests that an individual’s departure from religion came first, and this was followed by a shift toward a more liberal political stance. The reverse relationship, where political orientation predicted a later change in religious identity, was not statistically significant in this sample.

The researchers acknowledge some limitations in their work. The studies relied on a single, broad question to measure political orientation, which may not capture the complexity of political beliefs on specific social or economic issues. While the longitudinal designs provide a strong basis for inference, the data is observational, and experimental methods would be needed to make definitive causal claims. The modest evidence for religious reactance was only present in the combined cross-sectional data and may have been influenced by the age of the participants or other sample-specific factors.

Future research could explore these dynamics using more detailed assessments of political ideology to see if religious residue appears in certain policy areas but not others. Examining the role of personality traits like dogmatism could also offer insight into why some individuals shift their political views so distinctly.

Despite these limitations, the collection of studies provides converging evidence that for many people, leaving religion is associated with a clear and significant move toward a more liberal political identity. This suggests that as secularization continues in many parts of the world, it may be accompanied by corresponding shifts in the political landscape.

The study, “Religious Dones Become More Politically Liberal After Leaving Religion,” was authored by Daryl R. Van Tongeren, Sam A. Hardy, Emily M. Taylor, and Phillip Schwadel.

Popular ‘cognitive reserve’ theory challenged by massive new study on education and aging

✇PsyPost – Psychology News
By:Vladimir Hedrih
27 October 2025 at 20:00

An analysis of massive cognitive and neuroimaging databases indicated that more education was associated with better memory, larger intracranial volume, and slightly larger volumes of memory-sensitive brain regions. However, contrary to popular theories, education did not appear to protect against the rate of age-related memory decline, nor did it weaken the effects of brain decline on cognition. The paper was published in Nature Medicine.

As people reach advanced age, they tend to start gradually losing their mental abilities. This is called age-related cognitive decline. It typically affects functions such as memory, attention, processing speed, and problem-solving. This decline is a normal part of aging and differs from more serious conditions like dementia or Alzheimer’s disease.

Many older adults notice mild forgetfulness, slower thinking, or difficulty learning new information. Biological changes in the brain, such as reduced neural activity and decreased blood flow, contribute to this process. Lifestyle factors like lack of physical activity, poor diet, and chronic stress can accelerate cognitive aging.

On the other hand, regular mental stimulation, social engagement, and physical exercise can help maintain cognitive health. Adequate sleep and managing conditions like hypertension or diabetes also play a role in slowing decline. The rate and severity of decline vary greatly among individuals. Some people maintain sharp cognitive abilities well into old age, while others experience noticeable difficulties.

Study author Anders M. Fjell and his colleagues note that leading theories propose that education reduces brain decline related to aging and enhances tolerance to brain pathology. Other theories propose that education does not affect cognitive decline but instead reflects higher early-life cognitive function. With this in mind, they conducted a study aiming to resolve this long-standing debate.

They conducted a large-scale mega-analysis of data from multiple longitudinal cohorts, including the Survey of Health, Ageing, and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) and the Lifebrain consortium. In total, they analyzed over 407,000 episodic memory scores from more than 170,000 participants across 33 countries. For the neuroimaging component, they analyzed 15,157 magnetic resonance imaging scans with concurrent memory tests from 6,472 participants across seven countries. In their analyses, they defined brain decline as reductions over time in memory-sensitive brain regions within the same participant.

Results showed that while older age was associated with lower memory scores, the association between education level and the rate of memory decline was negligible. Individuals with a higher education level tended to have better memory throughout their lives but did not differ from their less-educated peers in the speed with which their memory declined as they aged.

Individuals with more education also tended to have a larger intracranial volume (a proxy for maximum brain size developed early in life) and slightly larger volumes of memory-sensitive brain regions.

“In this large-scale, geographically diverse longitudinal mega-analytic study, we found that education is related to better episodic memory and larger intracranial volume and modestly to memory-sensitive brain regions. These associations are established early in life and not driven by slower brain aging or increased resilience to structural brain changes. Therefore, effects of education on episodic memory function in aging likely originate earlier in life,” the study authors concluded.

The study contributes to the scientific understanding of factors affecting age-related cognitive decline by providing strong evidence that education provides a “head start” rather than acting as a shield against decline. The research focused on episodic memory because it is particularly sensitive to the effects of aging and is a key indicator in dementia research. Sensitivity analyses on other cognitive tests, such as numeric skills and orientation, showed the same pattern, strengthening the study’s main conclusion.

The paper, “Reevaluating the role of education on cognitive decline and brain aging in longitudinal cohorts across 33 Western countries,” was authored by Anders M. Fjell, Ole Rogeberg, Øystein Sørensen, Inge K. Amlien, David Bartrés-Faz, Andreas M. Brandmaier, Gabriele Cattaneo, Sandra Düzel, Håkon Grydeland, Richard N. Henson, Simone Kühn, Ulman Lindenberger, Torkild Hovde Lyngstad, Athanasia M. Mowinckel, Lars Nyberg, Alvaro Pascual-Leone, Cristina Solé-Padullés, Markus H. Sneve, Javier Solana, Marie Strømstad, Leiv Otto Watne, Kristine B. Walhovd, and Didac Vidal-Piñeiro.

Psilocybin therapy linked to lasting depression remission five years later

✇PsyPost – Psychology News
By:Karina Petrova
27 October 2025 at 18:45

A new long-term follow-up study has found that a significant majority of individuals treated for major depressive disorder with psilocybin-assisted therapy were still in remission from their depression five years later. The research, which tracked participants from an earlier clinical trial, suggests that the combination of the psychedelic substance with psychotherapy can lead to lasting improvements in mental health and overall well-being. The findings were published in the Journal of Psychedelic Studies.

Psilocybin is the primary psychoactive compound found in certain species of mushrooms, often referred to as “magic mushrooms.” When ingested, it can produce profound alterations in perception, mood, and thought. In recent years, researchers have been investigating its potential as a therapeutic tool when administered in a controlled clinical setting alongside psychological support.

The rationale for this line of research stems from the limitations of existing treatments for major depressive disorder. While many people benefit from conventional antidepressants and psychotherapy, a substantial portion do not achieve lasting remission, and medications often come with undesirable side effects and require daily, long-term use.

Psychedelic-assisted therapy represents a different treatment model, one where a small number of high-intensity experiences might catalyze durable psychological changes. This new study was conducted to understand the longevity of the effects observed in an earlier, promising trial.

The research team, led by Alan Davis, an associate professor and director of the Center for Psychedelic Drug Research and Education at The Ohio State University, sought to determine if the initial antidepressant effects would hold up over a much longer period. Davis co-led the original 2021 trial at Johns Hopkins University, and this follow-up represents a collaborative effort between researchers at both institutions.

“We conducted this study to answer a critical question about the enduring effects of psilocybin therapy – namely, what happens after clinical trials end, and do participants experience enduring benefits from this treatment,” Davis told PsyPost.

The investigation was designed as a long-term extension of a clinical trial first published in 2021. That initial study involved 24 adults with a diagnosis of major depressive disorder. The participants were divided into two groups: one that received the treatment immediately and another that was placed on a wait-list before receiving the same treatment.

The therapeutic protocol was intensive, involving approximately 13 hours of psychotherapy in addition to two separate sessions where participants received a dose of psilocybin. The original findings were significant, showing a large and rapid reduction in depression symptoms for the participants, with about half reporting a complete remission from their depression that lasted for up to one year.

For the new follow-up, conducted an average of five years after the original treatment, the researchers contacted all 24 of the initial participants. Of those, 18 enrolled and completed the follow-up assessments. This process involved a series of online questionnaires designed to measure symptoms of depression and anxiety, as well as any functional impairment in their daily lives.

Participants also underwent a depression rating assessment administered by a clinician and took part in in-depth interviews. These interviews were intended to capture a more nuanced understanding of their experiences and life changes since the trial concluded, going beyond what numerical scores alone could convey.

The researchers found that 67% of the original participants were in remission from their depression. This percentage was slightly higher than the 58% who were in remission at the one-year follow-up point.

“We found that most people reported enduring benefits in their life since participating in psilocybin therapy,” Davis said. “Overall, many reported that even if depression came back, that it was more manageable, less tied to their identity, and that they found it was less interfering in their life.”

To ensure their analysis was robust, the scientists took a conservative approach when handling the data for the six individuals who did not participate in the long-term follow-up. They made the assumption that these participants had experienced a complete relapse and that their depression symptoms had returned to their pre-treatment levels.

“Even controlling for those baseline estimates from the people who didn’t participate in the long-term follow-up, we still see a very large and significant reduction in depression symptoms,” said Davis, who also holds faculty positions in internal medicine and psychology at Ohio State. “That was really exciting for us because this showed that the number of participants still in complete remission from their depression had gone up slightly.”

The study also revealed that these lasting improvements were not solely the product of the psilocybin therapy sessions from five years earlier. The reality of the participants’ lives was more complex. Through the interviews, the researchers learned that only three of the 18 follow-up participants had not received any other form of depression-related treatment in the intervening years. The others had engaged in various forms of support, including taking antidepressant medications, undergoing traditional psychotherapy, or trying other treatments like ketamine or psychedelics on their own.

However, the qualitative data provided important context for these decisions. Many participants described a fundamental shift in their relationship with depression after the trial. Before undergoing psilocybin-assisted therapy, they often felt their depression was a debilitating and all-encompassing condition that prevented them from engaging with life. After the treatment, even if symptoms sometimes returned, they perceived their depression as more situational and manageable.

Participants reported a greater capacity for positive emotions and enthusiasm. Davis explained that these shifts appeared to lead to important changes in how they related to their depressive experiences. This newfound perspective may have made other forms of therapy more effective or made navigating difficult periods less impairing.

“Five years later, most people continued to view this treatment as safe, meaningful, important, and something that catalyzed an ongoing betterment of their life,” said Davis, who co-led the 2021 trial at Johns Hopkins University. “It’s important for us to understand the details of what comes after treatment. I think this is a sign that regardless of what the outcomes are, their lives were improved because they participated in something like this.”

Some participants who had tried using psychedelics on their own reported that the experiences were not as helpful without the supportive framework provided by the clinical trial, reinforcing the idea that the therapeutic context is a vital component of the treatment’s success.

Regarding safety, 11 of the participants reported no negative effects since the trial. A few recalled feeling unprepared for the heightened emotional sensitivity they experienced after the treatment, while others noted that the process of weaning off their previous medications before the trial was difficult.

The researchers acknowledge several limitations of their work. The small sample size of the original trial means that the findings need to be interpreted with caution and require replication in larger studies. Because the study was a long-term follow-up without a continuing control group, it is not possible to definitively attribute all the observed benefits to the psilocybin-assisted therapy, especially since most participants sought other forms of treatment during the five-year period. It is also difficult to know how natural fluctuations in mood and life circumstances may have influenced the outcomes.

“I’d like for people to know that this treatment is not a magic bullet, and these findings support that notion,” Davis noted. “Not everyone was in remission, and some had depression that was ongoing and a major negative impact in their lives. Thankfully, this was not the case for the majority of folks in the study, but readers should know that this treatment does not work for everyone even under the most rigorous and clinically supported conditions.”

Future research should aim to include larger and more diverse groups of participants, including individuals with a high risk for suicide, who were excluded from this trial. Despite these limitations, this study provides a first look at the potential for psilocybin-assisted therapy to produce durable, long-term positive effects for people with major depressive disorder. The findings suggest the treatment may not be a simple cure but rather a catalyst that helps people re-engage with their lives and other therapeutic processes, ultimately leading to sustained improvements in functioning and well-being.

“Next steps are to continue evaluating the efficacy of psilocybin therapy among larger samples and in special populations,” Davis said. “Our work at OSU involves exploring this treatment for Veterans with PTSD, lung cancer patients with depression, gender and sexual minorities with PTSD, and adolescents with depression.”

The study, “Five-year outcomes of psilocybin-assisted therapy for Major Depressive Disorder,” was authored by Alan K. Davis, Nathan D. Sepeda, Adam W. Levin, Mary Cosimano, Hillary Shaub, Taylor Washington, Peter M. Gooch, Shoval Gilead, Skylar J. Gaughan, Stacey B. Armstrong, and Frederick S. Barrett.

Rising autism and ADHD diagnoses not matched by an increase in symptoms

✇PsyPost – Psychology News
By:Eric W. Dolan
27 October 2025 at 16:00

A new study examining nine consecutive birth years in Sweden indicates that the dramatic rise in clinical diagnoses of autism spectrum disorder is not accompanied by an increase in autism-related symptoms in the population. The research, published in the journal Psychiatry Research, also found that while parent-reported symptoms of ADHD remained stable in boys, there was a small but statistically significant increase in symptoms among girls.

Autism spectrum disorder, or ASD, is a neurodevelopmental condition characterized by differences in social communication and interaction, along with restricted or repetitive patterns of behavior and interests. Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder, or ADHD, is another neurodevelopmental condition marked by persistent patterns of inattention, hyperactivity, and impulsivity that can interfere with functioning or development. Over the past two decades, the number of clinical diagnoses for both conditions has increased substantially in many Western countries, particularly among teenagers and young adults.

This trend has raised questions about whether the underlying traits associated with these conditions are becoming more common in the general population. Researchers sought to investigate this possibility by looking beyond clinical diagnoses to the level of symptoms reported by parents.

“The frequency of clinical diagnoses of ASD and ADHD has increased substantially over the past decades across the world,” said study author Olof Arvidsson, a PhD student at the Gillberg Neuropsychiatry Centre at Gothenburg University and resident physician in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.

“The largest prevalence increase has been among teenagers and young adults. Therefore, we wanted to investigate if symptoms of ASD and ADHD in the population had increased over time in 18-year-olds. In this study we used data from a twin study in Sweden in which parents reported on symptoms of ASD and ADHD when their children turned 18 and investigated whether symptoms had increased between year 2011 to 2019.”

To conduct their analysis, the researchers utilized data from a large, ongoing project called the Child and Adolescent Twin Study in Sweden. This study follows twins born in Sweden to learn more about mental and physical health. For this specific investigation, researchers focused on information collected from the parents of nearly 10,000 twins born between 1993 and 2001. When the twins reached their 18th birthday, their parents were asked to complete a web-based questionnaire about their children’s behaviors and traits.

Parents answered a set of 12 questions designed to measure symptoms related to autism. These items correspond to the diagnostic criteria for ASD. For ADHD, parents completed a 17-item checklist covering problems associated with inattention and executive function, which are core components of ADHD.

Using this data, the researchers employed statistical methods to analyze whether the average symptom scores changed across the nine different birth years, from 1993 to 2001. They also looked at the percentage of individuals who scored in the highest percentiles, representing those with the most significant number of traits.

The analysis showed no increase in the average level of parent-reported autism symptoms among 18-year-olds across the nine-year span. This stability was observed for both boys and girls. Similarly, when the researchers examined the proportion of individuals with the highest symptom scores, defined as those in the top five percent, they found no statistically significant change over time. This suggests that the prevalence of autism-related traits in the young adult population remained constant during this period.

The results for ADHD presented a more nuanced picture. Among boys, the data indicated that parent-reported ADHD symptoms were stable. There was no significant change in either the average symptom scores or in the percentage of boys scoring in the top 10 percent. For girls, however, the study identified a small but statistically detectable increase in ADHD symptoms over the nine birth years. This trend was apparent in both the average symptom scores and in the proportion of girls who scored in the top 10 percent for ADHD traits.

Despite being statistically significant, the researchers note that the magnitude of this increase in girls was small. The year of birth explained only a very small fraction of the variation in ADHD symptom scores. The results suggest that while there may be a slight upward trend in certain ADHD symptoms among adolescent girls, it is not nearly large enough to account for the substantial increase in clinical ADHD diagnoses reported in this group. The study provides evidence that the steep rise in both autism and ADHD diagnoses is likely influenced by factors other than a simple increase in the symptoms themselves.

“Across the nine birth years examined, there was no sign of increasing symptoms of ASD in the population, despite rising diagnoses,” Arvidsson told PsyPost. “For ADHD, there was no increase among boys. However, in 18-year-old girls we saw a very small but statistically significant increase in ADHD symptoms. The increase in absolute numbers was small in relation to the increase in clinical diagnoses.”

The researchers propose several alternative explanations for the growing number of diagnoses. Increased public and professional awareness may lead more people to seek assessments. Diagnostic criteria for both conditions have also widened over the years, potentially including individuals who would not have met the threshold in the past. Another factor may be a change in perception, where certain behaviors are now seen as more impairing than they were previously. This aligns with other research indicating that parents today tend to report higher levels of dysfunction associated with the same number of symptoms compared to a decade ago.

Changes in societal demands, particularly in educational settings that place a greater emphasis on executive functioning and complex social skills, could also contribute. In some cases, a formal diagnosis may be a prerequisite for accessing academic support and resources, creating an incentive for assessment. For the slight increase in ADHD symptoms among girls, the authors suggest it could reflect better recognition of how ADHD presents in females, or perhaps an overlap with symptoms of anxiety and depression, which have also been on the rise in this demographic.

“The takeaway is that the increases in clinical diagnoses of both ASD and ADHD need to be explained by other factors than increasing symptoms in the population, such as increased awareness and increased perceived impairment related to ASD and ADHD symptoms,” Arvidsson said. “Taken together we also hope to curb any worries about a true increase in ASD or ADHD.”

The study has some limitations. The response rate for the parental questionnaires was about 41 percent. While the researchers checked for potential biases and found that their main conclusions about the trends over time were likely unaffected, a higher participation rate would strengthen the findings. Additionally, the questionnaire for ADHD primarily measured symptoms of inattention and did not include items on hyperactivity. The results, therefore, mainly speak to the inattentive aspects of ADHD.

Future research could explore these trends with different measures and in different populations. The researchers also plan to investigate trends in clinical diagnoses more closely to better understand resource allocation for healthcare systems.

“We want to better understand trends of clinical diagnoses, such as trends of incidence of diagnoses in different groups,” Arvidsson said. “With increasing clinical diagnoses of ASD and ADHD and the resulting impact on the healthcare system as well as on the affected patients, it is important to characterize these trends in order to motivate an increased allocation of resources.”

The study, “ASD and ADHD symptoms in 18-year-olds – A population-based study of twins born 1993 to 2001,” was authored by Olof Arvidsson, Isabell Brikell, Henrik Larsson, Paul Lichtenstein, Ralf Kuja-Halkola, Mats Johnson, Christopher Gillberg, and Sebastian Lundström.

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