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By Michael DePeau-Wilson, MedPageToday, February 1, 2023 Gray matter volume in key brain regions was lower in Black children compared with white children, likely due to disparities in childhood adversity, according to data from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development ( ABCD ) study. Among children ages 9 to 10 years, white kids showed greater gray matter volumes compared with Black kids in the amygdala, hippocampus, frontal pole, superior frontal gyrus, rostral anterior cingulate, pars...

By Charles M. Blow, Photo: Andrew Nelles, The New York Times, February 1, 2023 When RowVaughn Wells arrived at Mississippi Boulevard Christian Church on an icy, gray Wednesday in Memphis, she was there to say goodbye to her son Tyre Nichols. He was dead. Killed. Beaten to death by local police officers while he screamed for her less than 100 yards from her house. There was a phalanx of television crews across the street from the front of the church, and the Secret Service manned the doors.

By Jie Xi, Photo: Associated Press, Voice of America (VOA), January 31, 2023 Two mass shootings in California in one week have highlighted the complex mental health issues faced by older Asian Americans who may have been traumatized in their homelands and who — after building new lives in the United States — now find themselves facing additional challenges as they age. Some first-generation Asian immigrants, especially those who emigrated from conflict zones, arrive with trauma issues that...

By The HOPE Team, 2/2/2023. https://positiveexperience.org/category/blog/ Last week, Tufts Medicine joined members of various Asian ethnic communities (e.g. Chinese, Vietnamese, Korean, Japanese) in celebrating the Lunar New Year. Cultural celebrations, like the many Lunar New Year festivities hosted by our Chinatown community, provide opportunities for children to engage and interact with their culture and heritage, and create lasting memories through interacting with other children,...

In this episode of Transforming Trauma, NARM Creator Dr. Laurence Heller is joined by long-time friend and colleague, Dr. Diane Poole Heller, for an evocative conversation about trauma and spirituality. Both Diane and Larry have been students, practitioners and teachers of various psychological approaches for over 40 years, and they have also both studied various spiritual models over this time. Their spiritual work has positively impacted not only their personal lives, but also informed...

By Mariame Kaba and Andrea J. Ritchie, Photo: Erik McGregor/LightRocket/Getty Images, The Nation, September 2, 2022 F ollowing the November 2020 elections, Democratic leadership called former president Barack Obama out from retirement to quell growing public support for shrinking police department budgets and investing in community needs. In an interview on Snapchat’s “Good Luck America,” Obama admonished protesters and activists: “If you believe, as I do, that we should be able to reform...

By Sylvia A. Harvey, Illustration: Christine Ongjoco, The Imprint, January 30, 2023 On a typical day in 1990, Cordell Miller, then 16, would play basketball, dominoes, or hang out with his friends in his Brooklyn neighborhood . When night came and others went to their respective New York City homes, Miller made his rounds in search of a place to sleep: the hallway, steps and sometimes the roof of a building he could easily sneak into. An abandoned car. At times, he’d ride the subway all...

By Ximena Bustillo, Photo: Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters, National Public Radio, January 28, 2023 California Rep. Jimmy Gomez gained national attention as the House endured 15 votes to elect a speaker earlier this month, but not for how he was voting. It was for wearing his baby in the chamber as rounds went on for multiple days. Gomez brought his infant son Hodge to witness the historical events unfold. A few weeks later, without a baby in hand, Gomez launched the Congressional Dads Caucus.

By Alec MacGillis, Photo: Rahim Fortune/The New Yorker, The New Yorker, February 6, 2023 Corey Winfield was ten when he saw someone get shot for the first time. He and a friend were marching around with a drum in the Park Heights section of Northwest Baltimore, and a few older guys asked if they could use it; while they were doing so, someone came up and shot one of them in the back, paralyzing him. At eleven, Corey found his first gun, in an alley near his school. He sold it to a friend’s...

Do you know someone or an organization that is changing the lives of victims and survivors of domestic violence? The Purple Ribbon Awards hosted by @domesticshelters are now accepting nominations for their 3rd annual awards program. Winners will receive a Purple Ribbon Award medallion and other prizes and be eligible for up to $30,000 in grants. Now accepting nominations through February 28th Learn more about how you can nominate at PurpleRibbonAwards.org For more shareable content click...

Bayard Rustin, at right, sits next to acclaimed writer James Baldwin on the speakers’ platform in Montgomery, Ala., during the 1965 civil rights march from Selma. Stephen F. Somerstein/Getty Images As I began writing “Bayard Rustin: American Dreamer,” my biography of the 20th-century radical leader and activist, one of my colleagues cautioned me not to “fall in love.” This, of course, is good advice for any biographer, and I tried to follow it. But it wasn’t easy, because Bayard Rustin was...