readings in psychology for february 8 2011

Charlotte Freberg and me on a recent Breakfast at her favorite spot "The Spirit of San Luis"

Here is what I am reading today:

• beating the winter blues

(this is a blog I write for another site)

“The sky is gray. The snow is gray. We’re stuck inside for days at a time. Even here in sunny California, I sometimes get the feeling winter will never end. Winter can be a tough time for anyone to feel cheerful, but nearly 10 million Americans experience an unusually severe reaction to winter known as seasonal affective disorder, or SAD.”

• are you shrinking your brain?

“Evidence that prescription drugs shrink patients’ brains would, one might think, suggest only one course of action: stop prescribing them. But the matter turns out to be much more complicated, according to research published today in Archives of General Psychiatry on the effects of antipsychotic drugs in people with schizophrenia¹.”

• psychotic illness and cannabis

“Cannabis use appears to be associated with an earlier onset of psychotic illness, according to a meta-analysis of previously published studies posted online that will appear in the June print issue of Archives of General Psychiatry, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.”