Evidence from research with a range of animal species, from rodents to non-human primates, has shown that MDMA (+/-3, 4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine) is neurotoxic. This article explores the evidence that MDMA may be neurotoxic in humans by briefly overviewing three types of research: (1) neurobiological, (2) psychological/somatic and (3) psychiatric. The first type of evidence derives from ne...

This study prospectively examined the main effect of optimism on subsequent somatic symptomatology as well as optimism as moderating factors in the link between negative life events and somatic symptoms in a sample of 198 (111 females, 87 males) students in a Norwegian senior high school. Results from the longitudinal multivariate analyses, indicated that the scores for optimism and negative li...

A large body of research has shown that health is influenced by disadvantaged living conditions, including both personal and neighborhood conditions. Little is however known to what degree the health impact of different forms of disadvantage differ along the life course. The present study aims to examine when, during the life course, neighborhood and individual disadvantages relate to functiona...

Patients with suicidal ideation (SI) have various mental or somatic symptoms. A questionnaire-based interview elicited details concerning mental and somatic symptoms in patients visiting a psychosomatic clinic in Japan. Univariate logistic regression analyses followed by multiple regression models using a stepwise method were selected for identifying the candidate symptoms. Overall, symptoms re...

OBJECTIVE The purpose of this study is to examine the role of emotional reactivity (ER) in symptom reporting and conceptualize somatizing processes as a signal detection task. Emotional reactivity has been theorized to influence symptom reporting through somatic sensitivity as well as via a negative reporting style. We assess the degree to which these two competing theories about the role of ER...

Recent studies have reported that in normal healthy individuals, the perception of illusory sensations in one modality can be induced by the presentation of a stimulus in another modality. These illusory sensations may arise from the activation of a tactile representation in memory induced by the non-target stimulus, in a process mirroring that thought to be responsible for many forms of medica...

It has been widely assumed that emotional avoidance during bereavement leads to either prolonged grief, delayed grief, or delayed somatic symptoms. To test this view, as well as a contrasting adaptive hypothesis, emotional avoidance was measured 6 months after a conjugal loss as negative verbal-autonomic response dissociation (low self-rated negative emotion coupled with heightened cardiovascul...

BACKGROUND Research indicate that social class mobility could be potentially important for health, but whether this is due to the movement itself or a result of people having been integrated in different class contexts is, to date, difficult to infer. In addition, although several theories suggest that transitions between classes in the social hierarchy can be stressful experiences, few studies...

Depression is commonly seen in survivors of conflict and disaster across the world. There is a dearth of research on the validity of commonly used measures of depression in these populations. Measurements of depression that are used in multiple contexts need to meet measurement equivalence, i.e., the instrument measures the same construct in the same manner across different groups. The Beck Dep...

OBJECTIVES To explore junior doctors' knowledge about and experiences of managing patients with medically unexplained symptoms (MUS) and to seek their recommendations for improved future training on this important topic about which they currently receive little education. DESIGN Qualitative study using in-depth interviews analysed using the framework method. SETTING Participants were recrui...