Amy DiNoble, Ph.D., Clinical Psychologist

11/25/2025

Valuable new research on interoception-the unconscious and sometimes conscious perception of our internal experience. New research examines the role of the peptide, Piezo, on interoception. Nerve endings throughout the body use the peptie to detect changes in pressure to various organs as well as the intricately connected vagus nerve. Changes are then relayed to higher level brain regions including those that process and communicate emotion. Studies indicate that many people suffering with psychiatric illnesses have unusual activity in a primary area, the mid-insula, for interoceptive signaling indicating that there may be a misinterpretation or prediction error of the bottom-up signals and regulating activity of this region could provide relief...

"As vital as interoception is to our survival, Dr. Nord and other researchers suspect that it is also responsible for many disorders. If the brain misinterprets signals from the body, or if those signals are themselves faulty, the brain may send out commands that cause harm...
In addition to mimicking the body’s signals, treatment for an interoception disorder could also entail retuning regions of the brain to interpret signals differently. Dr. Nord and her colleagues have found that people with a range of psychiatric disorders, including bipolar disorder, anxiety, major depression, anorexia and schizophrenia, share unusual activity in a brain region known as the mid-insula, which is essential to interpreting signals from the body. Dr. Nord and her colleagues are currently running a trial in which they are delivering low-frequency ultrasonic waves to the mid-insula of patients with psychiatric disorders, to see if the region can be coaxed into responding to interoception in a healthier way.

But Dr. Patapoutian cautioned that interoception would be hard to harness until it was better understood. He and colleagues at Scripps Research hope to provide a foundation for such advances by creating an atlas of interoception throughout the entire body. In one recent discovery, they found that fat is infiltrated with nerve endings that sense pressure with Piezo proteins.

“Apparently it is important there, but we still don’t what it’s sensing,” Dr. Patapoutian said. “Is it that when your fat grows, it becomes denser and adds more pressure on the nerves? Is it, when fat grows, you have much more blood flow and this is what’s being sensed? We just don’t the answer.”

Dr. Patapoutian hopes his interoception atlas will help scientists get a firmer understanding of what our nerves are sensing not just in our fat, but throughout our bodies.

“In many, many of these organs, we have no idea what they do, or how they do it,” he said.

Scientists are learning how the brain knows what’s happening throughout the body, and how that process might go awry in some psychiatric disorders.

11/01/2025

Diving into this new masterpiece by !

10/15/2025

Parents who are regulated have the flexibility necessary to balance the child’s need for autonomy and limits.

10/14/2025

Parental self-regulation predicts child success across many domains

10/11/2025

Allowing our children to experience the full range of emotions is a gift that will help them manage challenges and relationships successfully throughout their lives.

09/14/2025

Grateful to receive my endorsement as an Infant-Family Mental Health Specialist in California

09/05/2025

Seems timely to repeat today. No legitimate, valid studies have shown a link between vaccines and autism. The studies showing a link were fraudulent, faked in part to promote costly "cures" for vaccine injuries that financially benefited those publishing these fake studies...
"In the scientific community, Mr. Geier is infamous for the deeply flawed studies he conducted with his father, Mark Geier, claiming that vaccines cause autism. Researchers have long called attention to the serious methodological and ethical defects in their work.
The Geiers once created an illegitimate review board for their research, composed of themselves, family members and business associates. They also promoted the drug Lupron, used for chemical castration and prostate cancer, as a supposed treatment for autism, charging $5,000 to $6,000 monthly for unproven therapies. As a result, Mark Geier’s medical license was ultimately revoked or suspended by all 12 states in which he was licensed, and David Geier was fined for practicing medicine without a license.
Because of David Geier’s track record and the fact that Mr. Kennedy has said he believes that autism is caused by vaccines, many public health experts think that the upcoming study may echo the same flawed science. We’ve broken down the anti-vaccine research playbook to help you spot the telltale signs of shoddy studies and show why Mr. Geier is such a divisive choice. (Mr. Geier did not respond to The Times's request for comment.)...
This controversy started when Andrew Wakefield, a British doctor, published a study in 1998 that linked the measles, mumps and rubella (M.M.R.) vaccine to autism. He was later found to have falsified data and received funding from lawyers in lawsuits against vaccine manufacturers. The paper was retracted, and he was barred from practicing medicine in Britain, but not before vaccination rates began dropping and measles outbreaks began rising again...
A whopping two-thirds of studies that claimed to have found a link were written by David and Mark Geier. These studies have been heavily criticized for using deceptive research techniques and flawed data.
Among the eight other studies that found a link, four were retracted for data manipulation, flawed methods or undisclosed conflicts of interest. Most of the authors have been involved in anti-vaccination campaigns and have had other papers retracted.
One such study that Mr. Kennedy referred to in his Senate confirmation hearing was published in a WordPress blog disguised as a journal and was funded by an anti-vaccine organization, among other problems.
Fortunately, independent scientists have conducted more than 40 high-quality studies since 1998 involving over 5.6 million people across seven countries. All found no connection between vaccines and autism. These studies were rigorously designed, were reviewed by independent peers and do not contain telltale signs of data manipulation, as the Geier studies do...."

Data can easily be manipulated to show causation that doesn’t exist.

08/18/2025

A recent review of studies surrounding blue light from electronics reveals that it isn't as harmful-or harmful at all, as was once thought. Mounting evidence suggested that it does not decrease melatonin production as was once asserted. Amount of time, brightness of screen and types of use play a role in the negative impact-such as social media use. On the other hand, reading and watching neutral shows may help people get to sleep more readily....

Sleep scientists are changing how they think about screen use at night.

08/06/2025

Join us at the Center for Connection for a discussion led by my wonderful, insightful colleague, Tina Bryson, to explore ways to support our children after the devastating fires.

06/27/2025

Yes, "The Ick" is a real thing...
"The term even prompted psychology researchers from Azusa Pacific University to do a study, published in May, which found that over a quarter of surveyed singles who had experienced “the ick” found it worrisome enough that they reported ending the relationship immediately.

“The Ick” may have a catchy name, but it captures something significant about the uncertainty of dating: the sneaking realization that a person might not be right for you.

It can be tricky to figure out how much weight to give an “ick,” said Brian Collisson, a professor of psychology at Azusa Pacific University who coauthored the study. “You could reject a really great person over a superficial trait, or you could be tapping into something that could be a problem later on,” he said...

Noisy eating, clapping when a plane lands — experts explain how to handle sudden feelings of disgust.

06/23/2025

The DSM is highly flawed and I continue to encourage the field to move away from it adopting a system that is more based in neuroscience, less stigmatizing and one that acknowledges the significant role of various forms of trauma in mental health and suffering, however, this provides a necessary framework to understand the increase in Autism rates over the past decades. Spoiler-it's not due to vaccines!
"The rapid rise in autism cases is not because of vaccines or environmental toxins, but rather is the result of changes in the way that autism is defined and assessed — changes that I helped put into place...
Many large studies have come to the same conclusion: Vaccines don’t cause autism. The role, if any, of environmental toxins is still to be determined, but there is no known environmental factor that can explain the sudden jump in diagnoses. The changes we made to the diagnosis in the D.S.M.-IV can.
Why did autism-related diagnoses explode so far beyond what our task force had predicted? Two reasons. First, many school systems provide much more intensive services to children with the diagnosis of autism. While these services are extremely important for many children, whenever having a diagnosis carries a benefit, it will be overused. Second, overdiagnosis can happen whenever there’s a blurry line between normal behavior and disorder, or when symptoms overlap with other conditions. Classic severe autism had so tight a definition it was hard to confuse it with anything else; Asperger’s was easily confused with other mental disorders or with normal social avoidance and eccentricity. (We also, regrettably, named the condition after Hans Asperger, one of the first people to describe it, not realizing until later that he had collaborated with the N***s.)
In 2013, the next edition of the diagnostic and statistical manual, the D.S.M.-V, eliminated Asperger’s disorder as a stand-alone diagnosis and folded it into the newly introduced concept of autism spectrum disorder. This change further increased the rate of autism by obscuring the already fuzzy boundary between autism and social awkwardness.

It is difficult to accurately diagnose autism spectrum disorder. There is no biological test; symptoms vary greatly in nature and severity; clinicians don’t always agree; different diagnostic tests may come up with different conclusions; and the diagnosis is not always stable over time, meaning that many people diagnosed as children no longer meet criteria for diagnosis if evaluated later as adolescents or adults. Diagnostic inaccuracy contributes to falsely elevated rates, which can lead to misconceptions that an “epidemic” is occurring..."

The addition of Asperger’s disorder to the D.S.M. had enormous unintended consequences.