Children who spend a significant amount of time on social media tend to experience a gradual decline in their ability to concentrate. This is according to a comprehensive study from Karolinska Institutet, published in Pediatrics Open Science, where researchers followed more than 8,000 children from around age 10 through age 14.

In a special 11 December event for science journalists, the Science Press Package team will revisit the topic recognized as Science’s Breakthrough of the year in 2023: the development of GLP-1 receptor agonists to treat obesity and their efficacy in blunting obesity-associated health problems. The Mani L. Bhaumik Breakthrough of the Year Award that the American Association for the Advancement of Science, publisher of Science, gave to researchers whose work best underpinned the GLP-1 breakthrough was steered by a committee that included Dr. Katherine Saunders, obesity physician at Weill Cornell Medicine and co-founder of FlyteHealth. Dr. Saunders routinely works with media, responding to questions about how GLP-1s are prescribed as part of comprehensive cardiometabolic care. She recognizes opportunities for news stories on such topics to more accurately reflect the realities of the biology of obesity as a disease, and the science taken into account when treating patients with GLP-1s.

In this briefing, Dr. Saunders will take your questions on these topics. She will be joined by Dr. Robyn Pashby, a clinical health psychologist specializing in obesity-related behavioral science, and Dr. Tracy Zvenyach, a health policy researcher and Director of Policy Strategy at the Obesity Action Coalition. Dr. Pashby will discuss topics including the neurobehavioral links between mental health and obesity, and how GLP-1 medications influence motivation, reward processing, and treatment engagement.  Dr. Tracy Zvenyach, who engages in policy advocacy and research to improve access to obesity treatments, will outline the coverage landscape, including how standard health insurance is working, and how it isn’t. She will also discuss policy implications of continued research into GLP-1s, which show a growing range of benefits.

The event was held on Thursday 11 December on Zoom. A recording of the briefing is available at https://aaas.zoom.us/rec/share/IclD5PYqvNWyBwWnFTDHU6MzwhOutQIGKcLvS39_wBlUmeJ2zddWPyRBqoUqEX-3.4Z_u1VPXnfBjp5Yp; the passcode is 3!feGKJZ

Psycholinguists from the Center for Language and Brain found that phonological processing skills continue to influence text reading fluency in 15-to-18-year-old adolescents. This finding argues the long-held belief that in this age group the phonological processing skills are not involved in reading. The study was published in PLOS One.