GradPSYCH - March 2012 - (Page 12)

rESEarCH rOuNDuP Innovative research from today’s psychology graduate students. bY amY noVoTneY Hormone in birth control shot is linked to memory loss Birth control shots are a popular choice for women who don’t want to remember to take a pill every day, but a study by Arizona State University graduate psychology student Blair Braden shows that the shots may impair women’s memory. In the study, in press in Psychopharmacology, three groups of 4-month-old rats received weekly doses of medroxyprogesterone acetate (MPA), the active hormone in Depo Provera and other hormone therapies, over the course of seven months. One group of rats got the shots for four months during young adulthood, another group for three months during middle age and the last group all seven months. A control group of rats did not receive the hormone. To test the rats’ memories, researchers placed them in water mazes to swim and seek out hidden platforms in the water. At the end of the trial, researchers found that the animals that had received MPA at any point in their lives had learning and memory impairments — even after the hormone was undetectable in blood — compared with those that never had the drug. These findings suggest that MPA may not be the best birth control option for women, Braden says. “This study is a call to women to be as informed as possible in their choices for contraceptives and hormone replacement,” she says. a study in rats found that those who had received a certain hormone had impaired memories for several months. depressed hearts recover more slowly after exercise Past research has found that people with depression are twice as likely to have heart attacks, compared with those who are not depressed. Research by McGill University clinical psychology student Jennifer Gordon provides more information as to why. In her study, 886 people — of whom 5 percent were diagnosed with major depressive disorder — took an exercise stress test. After the test, researchers recorded their heart rates and blood pressures. They found that the cardiovascular systems of people who were depressed took longer to recover from exercise than those of participants who were not depressed. “This suggests that in depressed individuals, there’s an imbalance in the autonomic nervous system, which is the biological system that’s involved in the stress response,” Gordon says. “This may partially explain why depressed individuals are at double the risk of cardiovascular disease.” The hope, Gordon adds, is that this study will increase awareness among health-care professionals of the need to reduce the risk of heart disease among people with mood disorders. The study was published in the November issue of Psychophysiology. 12 • gradPSYCH • March 2012 Thinkstock 

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of GradPSYCH - March 2012

GradPSYCH - March 2012
Contents
Psychology practicums reflect the field’s growth
How evidencebased is your trauma treatment?
Media Picks
Chair’s Corner
Odd Jobs
Research Roundup
Chart your own adventure
Matters to a Degree
Killer apps
The oil spill’s reverberations
A student of synchrony
Literature reviews made easy
Absentee advisers
What’s behind the internship match crisis?
Potential solutions
Steps to the match
Bulletin Board
Jobs, internships, postdocs and other opportunities
The Back Page

GradPSYCH - March 2012

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