Let’s write about sex and gender

Why and how do you measure sex or gender in your research participants? Are you still using a single binary question (male/female), or do you still add the option “other”? Are you aware of the differences between sex and gender? This blog post provides some hands-on best practices tips for including sex and/or gender in your research and for writing about them in an inclusive way.

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Marvelous Mind

It’s almost here: the day that is supposed to be the most depressive one of the year. Blue Monday is of course commercial nonsense, but it’s true that January can be a rather dark and somewhat gloomy month. While for most people any dull day is quickly replaced by brighter days, for some people all […]

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Networks in psychology: more than a pretty picture?

Network analysis enables researchers to visualize the relations between people, objects, and concepts. Here, Dr. Bringmann shows how the technique can be generalized to psychopathology: the complex constellation of symptoms that co-occur with Major Depression can be mapped, and the map itself can be analyzed. This then illustrates an emerging approach to understanding psychopathology.

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Blue Monday: Perpetuating a media hype or promoting mental health awareness?

One Monday in mid-to-late January is said to be the most depressing day of the year. For the past 12 years, a Welsh psychologist has been associated with this day. He has become known as the brain behind Blue Monday, allegedly developing the formula used to calculate the date. But what is the real story, and how has it developed over time?

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HoeGekIs.NL – How Nuts Are The Dutch?

HoeGekIsNL is a national crowdsourcing study designed to create an empirically based representation of mental strengths and vulnerabilities and their role in mental disorders. It is an initiative of the Interdisciplinary Center Psychopathology and Emotion regulation (ICPE), UMCG. The team behind the project is led by professor Peter de Jonge and is comprised of scientists from different fields, including psychiatric epidemiology, psychology, computer science, and mathematics.

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Social behaviour and serotonin:

Some unexpected findings

While an acute decrease in brain serotonin may have few effects on social behaviour, a longer-term increase in serotonin in individuals at risk for depression improves mood and alters social behaviour. This Thursday, February 4, 2016, Koen Hogenelst defends his dissertation, in which he explains the relevance of his research findings for the effectiveness of serotonergic medications for depression.

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