Articles by: Geisel Communications

Eating Snow Cones or Snow Cream Can Be a Winter Delight, If Done Safely—Associated Press

Read article—Sarah Crockett, an assistant professor of emergency medicine, is featured in an article about eating snow as a winter’s treat. “To stop and just be present and want to catch a snowflake on your tongue, or scoop up some fresh, white, untouched snow that’s collected during something as exciting as a snowstorm, I think that there’s space in our world to enjoy that,” Crockett said. “And while we need to make good choices, I think these are simple things that can bring joy.” (Picked up by The Washington Post, SF Gate, and others).

Using AI for Advice or Other Personal Reasons Is Linked to Depression And Anxiety—NBC News

Read article—Nicholas Jacobson, an associate professor of biomedical data science and psychiatry, is quoted about a study finding an association between using AI chatbots and symptoms of depression and anxiety. “We don’t know enough about this,” Jacobson said. “I think we need more studies to really understand why it is those groups in particular are more likely to use this, certainly.” (Picked up by Yahoo! News.)

Bill Doesn’t Protect NH From AI Harm, It Assures It—New Hampshire Union Leader

Read article—An opinion piece by Geisel professors Nicholas Jacobson and Michael Heinz critiques New Hampshire Senate Bill 640, which would require therapists to review every exchange patients have with therapy chatbots but exempts commercial platforms. “This bill imposes a compliance burden so heavy on validated platforms designed specifically for mental health that deploying them in New Hampshire becomes impractical. But a teenager in Manchester could still pour out her struggles to ChatGPT with no safeguards whatsoever,” Jacobson and Heinz wrote.

First on CNN: Experimental Brain Therapy Brings New Hope for Treatment-Resistant Depression—CNN

Read article—Paul Holtzheimer, a professor of psychiatry and surgery, is quoted in an article about an experimental new brain therapy for treatment-resistant depression called SAINT, for Stanford Accelerated Intelligent Neuromodulation Therapy. The EEG findings “still should be viewed as highly preliminary,” Holtzheimer said. “It could be a mechanism of SAINT or it could be a generic finding when depression improves, regardless of what improves the depression.”

Former U.S. Surgeons General Sound the Alarm on Social Media and Youth Mental Health—Insight Into Academia

Read article—Features highlights from A Global Turning Point: Why Youth Well-Being Is in Crisis—and What We Must Do About It, the symposium hosted by Dartmouth and the United Nations Development Programme in October. “We still have significant work ahead,” President Sian Leah Beilock said, “but we also have hope and evidence that we can identify the interventions that truly make a difference.”