Science News

Scientists are testing the idea that the stress of modern city life is a breeding ground for psychosis.

These are the “culture-bound syndromes”: mental illnesses that psychiatrists officially acknowledge occur only within a particular society.

Depending on whom you ask, the notion that some cultures have their own ways of going crazy is either the ultimate in cultural sensitivity or the ultimate in Western condescension. (...) To these critics, *the very notion of a “culture-bound illness” is an outdated relic from the days of European empires*.

According to one of the leading scholars in the field, there is an emerging consensus among scientists that animals share functional parallels with humans' conscious metacognition -- that is, our ability to reflect on our own mental processes and guide and optimize them.