More on Mental Health
By Melissa Healy, Los Angeles Times
Beta blockers, a venerable class of blood pressure drugs that has fallen from favor in recent years, may help protect the aging brain...
By Heather John
Few topics get as much airtime with new parents as the subject of sleep, or lack thereof, and few topics are as polemic as sleep training....
By Steve Lopez
Lynn Goodloe saw her son's grades begin to fall as he developed a knack for getting into mischief at a private Westside high school. Was...
By Alan Zarembo, Los Angeles Times
It was the Connecticut school massacre that never happened.
By Elise Oberliesen
The quest for happiness sends millions of people into bookstores, doctors' offices and pharmacies — especially at this time of year,...
By Anna Gorman, Los Angeles Times
Elizabeth Guzman will never forget the day last year when she came home from work to find her 25-year-old stepson, Bobby, holding a knife....
By Jessica P. Ogilvie
Few things could be less cool than conducting a scientific study on what it means to be cool, but that didn't stop a group of researchers...
By Juliann Garey
One in five Americans over age 18 suffers from a diagnosable mental illness in any given year. That's upward of 40 million potential voters....
By Lily Dayton
When you think of psychotherapy, the first image that comes to mind might be one of a distressed patient lying on a couch, talking, while...
By Mary MacVean, Los Angeles Times
Every Thursday at lunchtime at the Hammer Museum in Westwood, several dozen people turn off their cellphones and take seats in the bright...
By Melissa Healy, Los Angeles Times
In a move that could significantly expand insurance coverage of weight-loss treatments, a federal health advisory panel on Monday...
By Tammy Worth, Special to the Los Angeles Times
Karen Smuland has always been an anxious person. But after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on New York's World Trade Center, she had her first...
By Elena Conis, Special to the Los Angeles Times
Struggling with the black dog of depression? The supplement aisle abounds with options for people seeking a non-medicinal remedy —...
By Melissa Healy/Los Angeles Times/For the Booster Shots Blog
The brains of experienced meditators appear to be fitter, more disciplined and more "on task" than do the brains of those trying out...
By Karen Ravn, Special to the Los Angeles Times
They cuddle and purr. And they shed. They wag their tails and fetch your slippers. And they shed. They never talk back and they never hold a...
By Karen Ravn, Special to the Los Angeles Times
"Pets are embedded in the soul of our humanity," says Dr. Edward Creagan, an oncologist at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., as he...
They're more than man's best friends: They're friends with benefits. Here are a few ways dogs are helping to make our lives healthier, safer...
By Melissa Healy, Los Angeles Times/For the Booster Shots blog
A growing number of men are now suffering from the seductive promise that they can have it all: the comforts and rewards of a...
By Shara Yurkiewicz, Special to the Los Angeles Times
Ms. R., a retired nurse, lives with her husband in Dorchester.
By Karen Ravn, Special to the Los Angeles Times
Got stress?
By Karen Ravn, Special to the Los Angeles Times
You may be lazing by the pool after a visit or two to the swim-up bar, but parts of your brain are always on duty — ready to leap into...
Many people who have suffered brain damage turn to creating art. Researchers are studying them to help unravel how the brain works.
By Emily Sohn, Special to the Los Angeles Times
Artist Katherine Sherwood was just 44 when a hemorrhage in her brain's left hemisphere paralyzed the right side of her body —...
By Emily Sohn, Special to the Los Angeles Times
It can be hard to explain how your world looks to someone whose reality is very different. That's especially true for people with epilepsy...
By Melissa Healy, Los Angeles Times/ For the Booster Shots Blog
Men, it's your health and happiness or hers. Women, it's your health and happiness or his. At the end of the day, if there's housework to be...
By Jeannine Stein, Los Angeles Times
In the eight years Krista Lang Blackwood has been artistic director of a nonprofit choral group, she's heard it all: prospective donors...
By Valerie Ulene, Special to the Los Angeles Times
My parents had it pretty easy with me when I was a teenager. I was a bit of a nerd. I earned straight A's in school, ran for student...
By Melissa Healy, Los Angeles Times
Like a jab in the arm with a red-hot poker, social rejection hurts. Literally. A new study finds that our brains make little distinction...
By Amina Khan, Los Angeles Times
Does being bilingual give young children a mental edge, or does it delay their learning?
By Marc Siegel
The premise