Electro-acupuncture Treatment for Internet Addiction: Evidence of Normalization of Impulse Control Disorder in Adolescents

Objective： To observe the impacts of electro-acupuncture（EA） and psychological intervention（PI） on impulsive behavior among internet addiction（IA） adolescents. Methods： Thirty-two IA adolescents were allocated to either EA（16 cases） or PI（16 cases） group by a randomized digital table. Subjects in the EA group received EA treatment and subjects in the PI group received cognition and behavior therapy. All adolescents underwent 45-d intervention. Sixteen healthy volunteers were recruited into a control group. Barratt Impulsiveness Scale（BIS-11） scores, Young＇s Internet Addiction Test（IAT） as well as the ratio of brain N-acetyl aspartate（NAA） to creatine（NAA/Cr） and choline（Cho） to creatine（Cho/Cr） were recorded by magnetic resonance spectroscopy before and after intervention respectively. Results： The IAT scores and BIS-11 total scores in both EA and PI group were remarkably decreased after treatment（P〈0.05）, while EA group showed more significant decrease in certain BIS-11 sub-factors（P〈0.05）. Both NAA/Cr and Cho/Cr were significantly improved in EA group after treatment（P〈0.05）; however, there were no significant changes of NAA/Cr or Cho/Cr in PI group after treatment（P〉0.05）. Conclusions： Both EA and PI had significantly positive effect on IA adolescents, especially in the aspects of psychological experiences and behavioral expressions, EA might have an advantage over PI in terms of impulsivity control and brain neuron protection. The mechanism underlying this advantage might be related to the increased NAA and Cho levels in prefrontal and anterior cingulate cortices.

The Internet May Encourage Risky Sexual Behavior

“网恋”,作为一个新名词,始见于报端。“网恋”,似乎以悲剧或失败告终者居多。本文让我们大吃一惊: Over 80% of those questioned reported having Internet access, and almost35% of these men said they went online to seek a sexual partner, the majorityreporting they did so more than once. …seeking sex on the Internet was generally associated with high-risk sexualbehavior。 我的儿子,每日上网,近来成绩迅速下跌,此文引起我的思考:Interntrepresent a new risk environment?】

Web search volume as a surrogate of public interest in biodiversity: a case study of Japanese red list species

Introduction:Citizen science has contributed substantially to the quantity of biodiversity data collections and is used as an essential monitoring scheme for global conservation studies.However,there remain large gaps in the geographic and taxonomic coverage of data collections,and different levels of interest in participation and uneven distribution of participants can result in biased data collection in citizen science programs.These issues must be addressed for more efficient use of citizen science-based biodiversity data.We compared web search volumes with citizen-collected occurrence data of Japanese Red List species.Outcomes:Uneven distribution of web search volumes with different taxa was correlated with the amount of data collected by citizen-volunteered programs.Moreover,the relative web search volumes and amounts of citizen-collected data showed similar spatial patterns at the province level.Conclusion:Overall,our results indicate that web search volume can indirectly reflect potential citizen participation or interest in particular species.Web search behavior can help project coordinators estimate potential citizen engagement and refine efficient citizen participation programs for biodiversity conservation.