PRESS-NEWS.org - Press Release Distribution
PRESS RELEASES DISTRIBUTION

- How we sleep and experience psychological symptoms during pandemic

2021-02-11
(Press-News.org) During the first confinement (18 March to 10 May 2020), people who reported worse sleep quality during a night also reported an increase in negative mood, psychotic-type like experiences and somatic complaints on the next day. Furthermore, daily reports of deaths caused by Covid-19 predicted psychological symptoms on the same day and sleep quality the following night. This is the result of research carried out in three countries (Belgium, Hungary, Spain) under direction of Peter Simor with researchers at the Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB), Rebeca Sifuentes-Ortega, Ariadna Albajara Saenz, Oumaïma Benkirane, Anke Van Roy and Philippe Peigneux from the CRCN (Center for Research in Cognition and Neurosciences) and the UNI (ULB Neurosciences Institute) in collaboration with researchers from the Eötvös Loránd University of Budapest and the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid.

The quality of sleep, according to the researchers, could be related to the COVID-19 pandemic and even influence mental health complaints. To test this hypothesis researchers interviewed 166 participants twice a day (in the morning and in the afternoon) for two consecutive weeks via an online interface about their sleep quality and negative psychological experiences. This method made it possible to measure variables (subjective sleep quality and daytime experiences such as rumination, psychotic-like experiences and somatic complaints) in a "prospective" manner and to establish general trends in individuals.

They were able to study the temporal associations of these variables within individuals, examining whether:

a) a relatively poor night's sleep would be followed by more mental health complaints the next day.

b) whether a relative increase in mental health complaints on a given day would lead to an altered sleep pattern the following night.

The research team also linked the measures (sleep and mental health complaints) to specific factors related to the Covid-19 pandemic: Daily COVID19 deaths reported by the national media were used as indicators of the threatening context of the pandemic. Thereby, they were able to show that daily media reports of the number of deaths related to COVID19 per country predicted mental health complaints that day and impaired sleep quality the following night.

The results show that changes in sleep quality from one night to the next predict how individuals cope with the daily challenges of confinement the next day.

INFORMATION:



ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

Smartphone app to change your personality

2021-02-11
Personality traits such as conscientiousness or sociability are patterns of experience and behavior that can change throughout our lives. Individual changes usually take place slowly as people gradually adapt to the demands of society and their environment. However, it is unclear whether certain personality traits can also be psychologically influenced in a short-term and targeted manner. Researchers from the universities of Zurich, St. Gallen, Brandeis, Illinois, and ETH Zurich have now investigated this question using a digital intervention. In their study, around 1,500 participants were provided with a specially developed smartphone app for three months and the researchers then assessed whether and ...

RUDN University mathematician suggested a scheme for solving telegraph equations

RUDN University mathematician suggested a scheme for solving telegraph equations
2021-02-11
A mathematician from RUDN University suggested a stable difference scheme for solving inverse problems for elliptic-telegraph and differential equations that are used to describe biological, physical, and sociological processes. The results of the study were published in the Numerical Methods for Partial Differential Equations journal. Elliptic equations are a class of differential equations in partial derivatives that are used, among other things, to model time-independent processes. Telegraph equations are presented in a nonstationary form. They were initially obtained for a telegraph communication line, but today they are also used to model the movement of insects, the flow of blood ...

Ionic liquid uniformly delivers chemotherapy to tumors while destroying cancerous tissue

2021-02-11
PHOENIX -- A Mayo Clinic team, led by Rahmi Oklu, M.D., Ph.D., a vascular and interventional radiologist at Mayo Clinic, in collaboration with Samir Mitragotri, Ph.D., of Harvard University, report the development of a new ionic liquid formulation that killed cancer cells and allowed uniform distribution of a chemotherapy drug into liver tumors and other solid tumors in the lab. This discovery could solve a problem that has long plagued drug delivery to tumors and provide new hope to patients with liver cancer awaiting a liver transplant. The preclinical study results are published in Science Translational Medicine. Dr. Oklu, study author and director of Mayo Clinic's ...

Emissions of banned ozone-depleting substance back on decline

Emissions of banned ozone-depleting substance back on decline
2021-02-11
Two international studies of a consortium including more than a dozen institutions the world over, including Empa, published today in the journal Nature show levels of CFC-11 emissions, one of many chlorofluorocarbon (CFC) chemicals once widely used in refrigerators and insulating foams, are back on the decline - less than two years after their shock resurgence in the wake of suspected rogue production in eastern China was widely publicized. "The findings are very welcome news and hopefully mark an end to a disturbing period of apparent regulatory breaches", says Luke Western from the University of Bristol, a ...

Small is big: the need for a holistic approach to manage cerebral small vessel disease

Small is big: the need for a holistic approach to manage cerebral small vessel disease
2021-02-11
Cerebral small vessel disease (SVD) is characterized by damage to the blood vessels and parenchyma in the brain. It presents as a multitude of symptoms, which makes the diagnosis difficult. Matters are complicated further when SVD sets in along with other comorbidities with similar symptoms. Therefore, accurate diagnosis at an early stage of disease progression helps in defining better prognosis and management strategies for patients with cerebral SVD. A team of researchers from the United Kingdom set out to review more than 10,000 studies on clinical diagnosis, risk factors, progression, and intervention ...

A study analyses breakfast-related advertising in Mediterranean countries

2021-02-11
Experts have spent decades warning us about the rising rates of childhood obesity, which has become an epidemic among recent generations in many places around the world, including Spain. The transition from the traditional Mediterranean diet to the consumption of processed foods with low nutritional value is a key contributor, with child-targeted advertising also partly to blame. According to the Breakfast Food Advertisements in Mediterranean Countries: Products' Sugar Content in Adverts from 2015 to 2019 report produced by UOC Faculty of Information and Communication Sciences professor and researcher, Mireia Montaña, the majority of breakfast products ...

Swirlonic super particles baffle physicists

2021-02-11
In recent years, active, self-propelled particles have received growing interest amongst the scientific community. Examples of active particles and their systems are numerous and very diverse, ranging from bacterium films to flocks of birds or human crowds. These systems can demonstrate unusual behavior, which is challenging to understand or model. To this end, large-scale models of active particles were being scrutinised by experts at Leicester, in order to understand basic principles underlying active particle dynamics and apply them in a scenario of an evacuation strategy for customers in crowded place. Unexpectedly, the 'super-particles' milling in a circular motion were stumbled upon ...

The power of groupthink: Study shows why ideas spread in social networks

2021-02-11
There's a reason that ideas--even erroneous ones--catch fire on social media or in popular culture: groupthink. New research co-authored by Berkeley Haas Asst. Prof. Douglas Guilbeault shows that large groups of people all tend to think alike, and also illustrates how easily people's opinions can be swayed by social media--even by artificial users known as bots. In a series of experiments, published in the journal Nature Communications, Guilbeault and co-authors Damon Centola of the University of Pennsylvania and Andrea Baronchelli of City University London created an online game that asked numerous people to identify ...

Infectious disease causes long-term changes to frog's microbiome

Infectious disease causes long-term changes to frogs microbiome
2021-02-11
Just as beneficial microbes in the human gut can be affected by antibiotics, diet interventions and other disturbances, the microbiomes of other animals can also be upset. In a rare study published this week, Andrea Jani, a researcher with the University of Hawai'i at Mānoa School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology (SOEST), determined the skin microbiome of an endangered frog was altered when the frogs were infected by a specific fungus, and it didn't recover to its initial state even when the frog was cured of the infection. All animals host symbiotic microbes--many ...

Chinese people may be more susceptible to obesity-related health risks than other racial, ethnic groups

2021-02-11
WASHINGTON--Chinese people are more likely to face high blood pressure and other health risks as a result of higher body mass index (BMI) and waist circumference than people from other racial and ethnic groups, according to a new study published in the Endocrine Society's END ...

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:

Salk scientist Joseph Ecker awarded McClintock Prize for Plant Genetics and Genome Studies

ADHD: Women are diagnosed five years later than men, despite symptoms appearing at the same age.

Power plants may emit more pollution during government shutdowns

Increasing pressures for conformity de-skilling and demotivating teachers, study warns

Researchers develop smarter menstrual product with potential for wearable health monitoring

Microwaves for energy-efficient chemical reactions

MXene current collectors could reduce size, improve recyclability of Li-ion batteries

Living near toxic sites linked to aggressive breast cancer

New discovery could open door to male birth control

Wirth elected Fellow of American Physical Society

The Journal of Nuclear Medicine Ahead-of-Print Tip Sheet: October 10, 2025

Destined to melt

Attitudes, not income, drive energy savings at home

The playbook for perfect polaritons

‘Disease in a dish’ study of progressive MS finds critical role for unusual type of brain cell

Solar-powered method lights the way to a ‘de-fossilized’ chemical industry

Screen time linked to lower academic achievement among Ontario elementary students

One-year outcomes after traumatic brain injury and early extracranial surgery in the TRACK-TBI Study

Enduring outcomes of COVID-19 work absences on the US labor market

Affirmative action repeal and racial and ethnic diversity in us medical school admissions

Cancer progression illuminated by new multi-omics tool

Screen time and standardized academic achievement tests in elementary school

GLP-1RA order fills and out-of-pocket costs by race, ethnicity, and indication

Study finds HEPA purifiers alone may not be enough to reduce viral exposure in schools

UVA Health developing way to ID people at risk of dangerous lung scarring even before symptoms appear

How can we know when curing cancer causes myocarditis?

Male infertility in Indian men linked to lifestyle choices and hormonal imbalances

An acoustofluidic device for sample preparation and detection of small extracellular vesicles

The advent of nanotechnology has ushered in a transformative era for oncology, offering unprecedented capabilities for targeted drug delivery and controlled release. This paradigm shift enhances thera

A prototype LED as thin as wallpaper — that glows like the sun

[Press-News.org] - How we sleep and experience psychological symptoms during pandemic