In October 2012, researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) set out to find if they could exercise complete control over habitual behaviors in mice.

By inhibiting a small region of the prefrontal cortex — region of the brain responsible for planning and thought — the scientists were able to break the mice’s habits, but, to their surprise, the mice immediately began forming new behavior patterns.

Until now, psychologists and behavioral therapists believed that habits were hidden in the illusive “subconscious.”

But the MIT study shows that the brain is not just aware of habits: it controls them completely, moment by moment. And no matter how long the habits have existed, we can now shut them off, as by the flip of a switch.

The cultivation of mindfulness requires periods of focused attention. Many proponents of mindfulness maintain that this is best developed through seated, silent meditation. So before considering how to focus attention, we must first consider our relationship with silence.

Whether in the center of a city or deep in a forest, the cacophony of sounds around us makes it apparent that true silence is impossible. Composer John Cage wrote music that included long periods of silence. When the musicians stopped playing, concertgoers were quickly confronted with the shuffling, shifting, and coughing sounds in the concert hall.

So what is silence?

Do you turn to the Internet to look up symptoms of a disease or condition? How about to diagnose yourself or someone you know?

You’re not alone, according to the Health Online 2013 report out from Pew Internet & American Life Project today. According to their most recent survey of Americans, 35 percent of us have gone online to figure out a medical or health condition.

And, perhaps surprising to no one, 72 percent of Internet users have looking for health information online and most people — 77 percent — start their inquiry at a search engine, like Google or Bing.

With advances in technology, distance learning on college campuses has exploded over the last decade.  And as time passes, the mental health community is taking note.

Students want to study when they want and how they want.  Distance learning makes education available to those who wouldn’t otherwise be able to get off of work, travel to class or spend hours in lectures.  

That same increase in convenience and availability could have a real impact for people seeking psychological treatment. Is distance treatment ready to take off?

It’s like déjà vu all over again. ~Yogi Berra

Yep. That’s me in my fabulous Nehru tux getting ready for my prom date. I was about as spiffy then as spiffy could be. The tux was rented, but I had my regular Nehrus in the closet. They were next to my bell-bottoms, tie-dyes and 8-tracks.

What happened?

The Nehru went out of style around 11:55 p.m. the night of the prom and I had to hang on to my bell-bottoms and tie-dyes for about 30 years for them to come back around into fashion. The 8-tracks? They gave way to those newfangled cassettes.

How could I have been so wrong about the future of Nehrus and 8-tracks? Actually, when I think about it, I was wrong about a lot of things: The Afro perm I thought would look spectacular on me forever, the Beatles never breaking up, my best friend Kevin and I being pals for life, the Osborn 55-pound “portable” computer, and the 8-track tape player (which cost me a week’s salary) I had installed in my car. Naturally I thought my prom date would never change.

But in spite of my convictions at the time I was about as wrong as wrong could be. The good news is I am not alone.

In the last decade, Kaiser Permanente launched a web-based service known as eCare for Moods, meant to help support patients within their health care system with bipolar disorder. Over the years, there’s been some research to support the use of this online tool to help improve patient outcomes.

In the November 2012 issue of Psychiatric Services, another study was published demonstrating the effectiveness of this free online tool for Kaiser Permanente customers. The study, by Hunkeler et al. (2012), found that depressed patients who had access to and used the eCare system had better outcomes — reduced depression and better overall health.

But although the research team clearly believes this is a “win” for eCare for Moods, after examining their data, I’m not so sure. If it’s a win, it’s more of a statistical win than a win for reducing a patient’s depression symptoms.

In his book Dreamland: Adventures in the Strange Science of Sleep, author David K. Randall calls sleep “one of the dirty little secrets of science.” That’s because despite spending almost a third of our lives sleeping, we don’t really know much about the process of sleep.

In fact, Randall, a senior reporter at Reuters, notes that sleep is one of the youngest fields in science. Until the 1950s, researchers believed that our brains remained quiet during slumber.

But the discovery of the stages of sleep shattered this perspective. For instance, our brains are just as active in REM sleep — aptly named rapid eye movement because our eyes shift rapidly against our lids — as they are when we’re awake.

In Dreamland, Randall shares a slew of these fascinating, surprising and eye-opening facts, anecdotes and research studies. These are a few curious tidbits from his book.

This is a true story.

Imagine that you are at a Wal-Mart around midnight. Dark parking lot. Little security and yet a number of random people wandering around. A man with a little boy thrown over his shoulder passes you. The little boy is screaming and kicking and crying and yelling for his mama.

The man slaps and spanks the boy and is telling him to shut up. He never uses the boy’s name. There is no woman near them and the man is moving faster. Also, imagine the boy is blond and the man has dark hair. Onlookers shake their heads but do nothing.

What would you do? Would you watch and not do anything? Or would you intervene? Social psychologists tell us there is a very good likelihood we will do nothing.

But this is the story of a woman, Pam, who did.

More than five years ago, I penned a piece entitled Reliability and Validity in a Web 2.0 World. It spoke about the concerns of gathering data from biased samples — without first understanding in what ways, exactly, those samples may be biased.

Now, with the ubiquity of apps — downloadable programs for people’s smartphones — I’m seeing the same problem arise. Developers and entrepreneurs are pursuing data from these apps without understanding the basics of good, reliable, scientific data collection. And why it matters — especially when you start wanting to analyze all of this “big data” (a somewhat silly term… in epidemiology, for instance, scientists just call it “data”).

Can personal health data be collected by these apps without bias, and somehow be transformed into measuring something bigger?

On Friday, the National Rifle Association, a special interest group of 4 million members, released a statement about the Sandy Hook tragedy that occurred a week earlier. In that tragedy, 20 children were murdered by 20-year-old Adam Lanza. Few details have been officially released yet about Lanza’s life, because he had few friends, was shy, and apparently was socially awkward.

However, that hasn’t stopped the news media from focusing on some statements of relatives who believe Lanza either had a “personality disorder” (says his brother), “was autistic” (again, his brother), or had Asperger’s syndrome (told by an unidentified member of the family).

This second-hand information is then held up by both the news media and now by the National Rifle Association as evidence that Adam Lanza must’ve been “crazy” or “insane” to have killed 20 innocent children, and six adults who tried to protect them.

After all, who would do such a thing but someone who’s crazy?

Have you told your doctor about the other medications or drugs you regularly take? If you’re on an antidepressant, you probably should.

If you’re taking non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), you may be less likely to experience the beneficial effects of the most commonly prescribed classes of antidepressants, SSRIs (such as Paxil, Zoloft and Prozac).

NSAIDs include ibuprofin (such as Advil, Motrin, and Midol), naproxen sodium (such as Aleve) and good ole aspirin.

According to an article appearing in the recently published The Carlat Psychiatry Report, that was the surprising conclusion of a paper published last year (Warnerschmidt Jl et al, Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 2011;108:9262–9267), and a newly released report reaches a similar conclusion.

A report released by the Pentagon earlier this year revealed a disturbing statistic:  A soldier is more likely to die from suicide than war injuries.

Among active troops, suicide rates increased 18 percent from last year.  Rates among veterans were also at distressing levels, with a veteran dying by suicide every 80 minutes, according to an estimate from the Department of Veterans Affairs and reported in this month’s Monitor on Psychology.

When faced with a problem of these proportions, it is vital to understand what factors increase the likelihood of suicide and which interventions are the most effective.

In response, the Army has prepared training for soldiers and families — to help them recognize signs of suicidal behavior, and to inform them of interventions and ways to access support. And this past August, President Obama signed an executive order that strengthened suicide prevention efforts for service members and veterans.