Active Clubs are white supremacy’s new, dangerous frontier

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Art Jipson, Associate Professor of Sociology, University of Dayton

What looks like a fitness group could actually be a white supremacist training cell. starush/iStock via Getty Images

Small local organizations called Active Clubs have spread widely across the U.S. and internationally, using fitness as a cover for a much more alarming mission. These groups are a new and harder-to-detect form of white supremacist organizing that merges extremist ideology with fitness and combat sports culture.

Active Clubs frame themselves as innocuous workout groups on digital platforms and decentralized networks to recruit, radicalize and prepare members for racist violence. The clubs commonly use encrypted messaging apps such as Telegram, Wire and Matrix to coordinate internally.

For broader propaganda and outreach they rely on alternative social media platforms such as Gab, Odysee, VK and sometimes BitChute. They also selectively use mainstream sites such as Instagram, Facebook, X and TikTok, until those sites ban the clubs.

Active Club members have been implicated in orchestrating and distributing neo-Nazi recruitment videos and manifestos. In late 2023, for instance, two Ontario men, Kristoffer Nippak and Matthew Althorpe, were arrested and charged with distributing materials for the neo-Nazi group Atomwaffen Division and the transnational terrorist group Terrorgram.

Following their arrests, Active Club Canada’s public network went dark, Telegram pages were deleted or rebranded, and the club went virtually silent. Nippak was granted bail under strict conditions, while Althorpe remains in custody.

As a sociologist studying extremism and white supremacy since 1993, I have watched the movement shift from formal organizations to small, decentralized cells – a change embodied most clearly by Active Clubs.

An investigation by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation tracks down two Ontario-based Active Clubs that recruit and train young men to fight.

White nationalism 3.0

According to private analysts who track far-right extremist activities, the Active Club network has a core membership of 400 to 1,200 white men globally, plus sympathizers, online supporters and passive members. The clubs mainly target young white men in their late teens and twenties.

Since 2020, Active Clubs have expanded rapidly across the United States, Canada and Europe, including the U.K., France, Sweden and Finland. Precise numbers are hard to verify, but the clubs appear to be spreading, according to The Counter Extremism Project, the Anti-Defamation League, the Southern Poverty Law Center and my own research.

The clubs reportedly operate in at least 25 U.S. states, and potentially as many as 34. Active U.S. chapters reportedly increased from 49 in 2023 to 78 in 2025.

The clubs’ rise reflects a broader shift in white supremacist strategy, away from formal organizations and social movements. In 2020, American neo-Nazi Robert Rundo introduced the concept of “White Nationalism 3.0” – a decentralized, branded and fitness-based approach to extremist organizing.

Rundo previously founded the Rise Above Movement, which was a violent, far-right extremist group in the U.S. known for promoting white nationalist ideology, organizing street fights and coordinating through social media. The organization carried out attacks at protests and rallies from 2016 through 2018.

Active Clubs embed their ideology within apolitical activities such as martial arts and weightlifting. This model allows them to blend in with mainstream fitness communities. However, their deeper purpose is to prepare members for racial conflict.

An actor reconstructs how British broadcaster ITV News infiltrated and secretly filmed inside Active Club England, documenting its recruiting process, activities and goals.

‘You need to learn how to fight’

Active Club messaging glorifies discipline, masculinity and strength – a “warrior identity” designed to attract young men.

“The active club is not so much a structural organization as it is a lifestyle for those willing to work, risk and sweat to embody our ideals for themselves and to promote them to others,” Rundo explained via his Telegram channel.

“They never were like, ‘You need to learn how to fight so you can beat up people of color.’ It was like, ‘You need to learn how to fight because people want to kill you in the future,’” a former Active Club member told Vice News in 2023.

These cells are deliberately small – often under a dozen members – and self-contained, which gives them greater operational security and flexibility. Each club operates semi-autonomously while remaining connected to the broader ideology and digital network.

Expanding globally and deepening ties

Active Clubs maintain strategic and ideological connections with formal white supremacist groups, including Patriot Front, a white nationalist and neofascist group founded in 2017 by Thomas Rousseau after the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Active Clubs share extremist beliefs with these organizations, including racial hierarchy and the “Great Replacement” theory, which claims white populations are being deliberately replaced by nonwhite immigrants. While publicly presenting as fitness groups, they may collaborate with white supremacist groups on recruitment, training, propaganda or public events.

Figures connected to accelerationist groups – organizations that seek to create social chaos and societal collapse that they believe will lead to a race war and the destruction of liberal democracy – played a role in founding the Active Club network. Along with the Rise Above Movement, they include Atomwaffen Division and another neo-Nazi group, The Base – organizations that repackage violent fascism to appeal to disaffected young white men in the U.S.

Brotherhood as a cover

By downplaying explicit hate symbols and emphasizing strength and preparedness, Active Clubs appeal to a new generation of recruits who may not initially identify with overt racism but are drawn to a culture of hypermasculinity and self-improvement.

Anyone can start a local Active Club chapter with minimal oversight. This autonomy makes it hard for law enforcement agencies to monitor the groups and helps the network grow rapidly.

Shared branding and digital propaganda maintain ideological consistency. Through this approach, Active Clubs have built a transnational network of echo chambers, recruitment pipelines and paramilitary-style training in parks and gyms.

Club members engage in activities such as combat sports training, propaganda dissemination and ideological conditioning. Fight sessions are often recorded and shared online as recruitment tools.

Members distribute flyers, stickers and online content to spread white supremacist messages. Active Clubs embed themselves in local communities by hosting events, promoting physical fitness, staging public actions and sharing propaganda.

Potential members first see propaganda on encrypted apps such as Telegram or on social media. The clubs recruit in person at gyms, protests and local events, vetting new members to ensure they share the group’s beliefs and can be trusted to maintain secrecy.

From fringe to functioning network

Based on current information from the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism, there are 187 active chapters within the Active Club Network across 27 countries – a 25% increase from late 2023. The Crowd Counting Consortium documented 27 protest events involving Active Clubs in 2022-2023.

However, precise membership numbers remain difficult to ascertain. Some groups call themselves “youth clubs” but share similar ideas and aesthetics and engage in similar activities.

Active Club members view themselves as defenders of Western civilization and masculine virtue. From their perspective, their activities represent noble resistance rather than hate. Members are encouraged to stay secretive, prepare for societal collapse and build a network of committed, fit men ready to act through infiltration, activism or violence.

Hiding in plain sight

Law enforcement agencies, researchers and civil society now face a new kind of domestic threat that wears workout clothes instead of uniforms.

Active Clubs work across international borders, bound by shared ideas and tactics and a common purpose. This is the new white nationalism: decentralized, modernized, more agile and disguised as self-improvement. What appears to be a harmless workout group may be a gateway to violent extremism, one pushup at a time.

The Conversation

Art Jipson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

ref. Active Clubs are white supremacy’s new, dangerous frontier – https://theconversation.com/active-clubs-are-white-supremacys-new-dangerous-frontier-262786

Like Reagan, Trump is slashing US environment regulations, but his strategy may have a far deeper impact

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Barbara Kates-Garnick, Professor of Practice in Energy Policy, The Fletcher School, Tufts University

When the Trump administration announced it was moving to eliminate dozens of U.S. climate policies, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin said he was sending “a dagger straight into the heart of the climate change religion.”

That drive – to both repeal environmental regulations and cast doubt on science – reflects the Trump administration’s approach to environment policy.

Deregulation has long been a key theme in Republican environmental policy. The conflict between the obligation to protect public health and the desire to boost markets traces back to Ronald Reagan’s presidential administration. Reagan’s perspective that government is not a solution to problems, but is the problem instead, set the stage for Republican administrations that followed.

Reagan, standing in a reception line, shakes Trump's hand. Trump is wearing a tuxedo. Reagan a suit.
President Ronald Reagan shakes Donald Trump’s hand during a reception that Trump, then a real estate developer, attended at the White House in 1987.
White House Photographic Collection via Wikimedia Commons

Reagan argued that the growth of government spending and business regulation had stymied economic prosperity. Environmental regulations were a prime target.

Forty years later, America is seeing many of the same concepts in the Trump administration. However, its strategy could have a greater effect than Reagan ever envisioned.

Slashing budgets and staffing

There are many ways to kneecap government agencies: Instituting massive budget cuts, cutting staff with critical functions and appointing leadership whose goal is limiting the reach and effectiveness of the very agencies they direct are just a few.

In these efforts, Reagan and Trump had similar approaches to the EPA, although with different levels of intensity.

Trump’s EPA budget plan for 2026 includes a draconian 50% cut from the previous year and the lowest budget proposal, when adjusted for inflation, since Reagan. Staff cuts in just the first six months of the second Trump administration put the agency’s total employment at 12,448, down from 16,155 in January.

Reagan dissolved the EPA Office of Enforcement to limit “unnecessary regulation,” which resulted in a 80% decline in actions to enforce environmental regulations. Trump is also stopping enforcement actions, dismantling the EPA’s Science and Research Office and politicizing the agency’s science by putting political appointees in charge, moves that undermine EPA’s independence and expertise.

Both cut EPA’s budget, but that alone does not reduce an agency’s effectiveness.

Politicizing EPA leadership

When the EPA was founded in 1970 during the Nixon administration, it represented a bipartisan consensus: After decades of auto exhaust, polluted waterways and smog-filled air, environmental protection had become a national policy priority.

But industries that EPA regulated argued that the costs of implementing the agency’s mandates were too high. That created tension between economics and science and enforcement.

As part of his “government is not the solution” approach, Reagan issued an executive order shortly after taking office in 1981 requiring federal agencies to submit all proposed rules to the White House Office of Management and Budget before making them public. In Reagan’s eyes, this approach centralized power in the White House and was a way to eliminate burdensome regulations before the agencies announced them to the public.

He also appointed an EPA administrator who shared his anti-government perspective. Anne Gorsuch Burford was a lawyer and state legislator from Colorado, where she routinely voted against toxic waste cleanup and auto pollution controls.

A woman sits in a chair next to the president's desk. Reagan is smiling as he talks with her.
President Ronald Reagan meets with EPA Administrator Anne Gorsuch in the Oval Office in May 1982.
HUM Images/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

Once in Washington, she appointed several people to the EPA’s leadership team with direct ties to industries the EPA regulated. An example was Rita Lavelle, head of the EPA’s toxic waste programs, who was later convicted of perjury for lying to Congress about when she knew her former employer, a defense contractor, was disposing of toxic waste at a now notorious dump site.

These appointments were an example of regulatory capture by the industries EPA was in charge of overseeing. Anne Gorsuch Burford was held in contempt of Congress for not turning over records related to the Superfund cleanup of the same hazardous waste site, which led to her resignation. The Superfund program to clean up toxic waste dumps was new and one of EPA’s largest programs at the time.

The scandals, broken staff morale, stripped budgets and fights over policy discredited the agency.

Going after government scientists

Anne Gorsuch Burford’s deregulation efforts weren’t fully successful, in part because EPA staff experts rallied to preserve science and regulatory functions. They leaked materials about delays in the Superfund site cleanup to sympathetic congressional staff, who in turn found support from Republican and Democratic senators.

That history may have influenced the Trump administration’s strategy toward the federal bureaucracy’s staff experts, who Trump calls “the Deep State.”

The Department of Government Efficiency, an unofficial group Trump set up in early 2025 headed by Elon Musk, directed the firing of tens of thousands of government scientists and other staff with expertise that government agencies rely on. Thousands more have resigned amid intimidation tactics such as surveillance.

A group of people hold science reading 'EPA protects you, protect EPA' and 'Science saves'
EPA employees and supporters held a rally in Philadelphia on March 25, 2025, to call attention to the impact of the Trump administration’s job cuts.
AP Photo/Matt Rourke

Trump’s head of the Office of Management and Budget, Russell Vought, has been clear about targeting bureaucrats. He said in 2023: “We want their funding to be shut down so that the EPA can’t do all of the rules against our energy industry because they have no bandwidth financially to do so. We want to put them in trauma.”

There is a clear focus today on EPA programs that don’t align with the administration’s views. Programs related to environmental justice for low-income communities are in the line of fire. The appointment of people from the chemical, fossil fuel and corporate industries to high-level regulatory and legal positions raises questions about regulatory capture – whether their focus will be more on the health of the industries they oversee than on the health of the public.

The first Trump administration had a focus on reforming permitting and bureaucracy. While appearing radical at the time, the revamping of scientific boards to include more industry representatives, the undoing of power plant rules and the lessening of enforcement hobbled but did not completely undo the agency.

The second Trump administration, in actively supporting fossil fuel “energy dominance,” is taking steps to not just eliminate regulations but to ensure future administrations can’t bring the regulations back, by using a complex set of legal arguments related to the regulation of greenhouse gases.

At the same time, the administration is trying to discredit scientific research to downplay the risks of a warming planet.

EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin announces plans in March 2025 to reconsider dozens of regulations that affect the fossil fuel industry and human health.

The Reagan administration, while it also pushed for deregulation and expanded permitting of oil, gas and coal leases, embraced some elements of environmental protection. Reagan designated more than 10 million acres as protected wilderness and signed the Coastal Barriers Resources Act, which helped protect 3.5 million acres of shoreline from development. When Reagan signed the Montreal Protocol in 1988 to help protect the ozone layer, he cited scientific data showing the growing risks of ozone-depleting substances.

When Congress doesn’t push back

There is another critical difference between the first and second Trump administrations: The current Republican-controlled Congress is consenting to almost every request the president makes.

Congress has a constitutional responsibility to be a check on the executive branch, and a bipartisan Congress has long taken an active role in oversight and investigation involving environmental issues.

In 2025, however, Congress has approved most of Trump’s demands, including voting to repeal much of the Inflation Reduction Act, a package of pro-environment spending it had just passed two years earlier and that included many projects in Republican districts.

The administration’s effort to eliminate U.S. climate policies will take time and face lawsuits.

In an irony of history, Anne Gorsuch Burford’s son Neil Gorsuch now sits on the Supreme Court. His vote when those cases come before the court may be the ultimate Reagan legacy on the Trump EPA.

The Conversation

Barbara Kates-Garnick does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

ref. Like Reagan, Trump is slashing US environment regulations, but his strategy may have a far deeper impact – https://theconversation.com/like-reagan-trump-is-slashing-us-environment-regulations-but-his-strategy-may-have-a-far-deeper-impact-262929

Des microbes intestinaux qui enivrent et abîment le foie : comment le microbiote peut se transformer en microbrasserie

Source: The Conversation – France in French (3) – By Bill Sullivan, Professor of Microbiology and Immunology, Indiana University

Il peut exceptionnellement arriver qu’un taux d’alcoolémie élevé ne soit pas dû à une consommation d’alcool… Nikamo/Shutterstock.com

Le « syndrome d’auto-brasserie » est une affection très rare et très peu documentée, impliquant la production d’alcool par des bactéries intestinales, qui entraîne l’intoxication des individus concernés. Au-delà des quelques cas cliniques décrits, des scientifiques se demandent si un phénomène similaire ne pourrait pas être impliqué dans certains cas de stéatose hépatique non alcoolique, une maladie aux causes multiples, beaucoup plus courante.


Imaginez : vous êtes agent de police, et vous remarquez une voiture qui zigzague dangereusement sur la chaussée. Vous arrêtez le conducteur : il est manifestement ivre. D’une voix pâteuse, il jure pourtant n’avoir pas touché une goutte d’alcool de la journée. Le croiriez-vous ? Probablement pas.

Pourtant, en 2024, un citoyen belge a été acquitté après avoir été verbalisé pour conduite en état d’ivresse à trois reprises en quatre ans. Son emploi dans une brasserie pouvait nourrir les soupçons, mais il affirmait n’avoir rien bu. Selon les trois médecins qui l’ont ausculté, il aurait souffert d’un syndrome d’auto-brasserie dont il ignorait l’existence.

Les personnes atteintes de ce syndrome très rare (une revue de la littérature scientifique de langue anglaise publiée en 2020 a révélé que seuls 20 cas avaient été identifiés depuis 1974, ndlr) hébergeraient dans leurs intestins des microbes produisant des quantités anormalement élevées d’alcool lorsqu’ils décomposent les sucres. En 2016, à New York, une femme avait, elle aussi, été acquittée après un diagnostic identique. Son taux d’alcoolémie atteignait quatre fois la limite légale.

Bien que le syndrome d’auto-brasserie soit exceptionnel, certaines des espèces bactériennes qui y sont associées pourraient être impliquées dans une autre maladie beaucoup moins rare, la stéatose hépatique.

En tant que microbiologiste, je suis passionné par l’étude des divers effets du microbiote intestinal sur la santé humaine, ainsi que sur l’humeur et le comportement, que j’ai aussi vulgarisés dans l’ouvrage Pleased to Meet Me: Genes, Germs, and the Curious Forces That Make Us Who We Are. Voici ce qu’il faut savoir sur ces bactéries productrices d’alcool et les soupçons qui pèsent sur elles.

Un foie malade sans abus alcool

L’accumulation de graisses dans le foie peut entraîner de graves problèmes de santé. L’inflammation chronique qui en résulte peut notamment favoriser la survenue d’une fibrose hépatique qui peut mener à une cirrhose, laquelle peut sur le long terme, évoluer en cancer du foie.




À lire aussi :
Maladie du foie gras : décoder nos gènes pour mieux la prévenir


On associe souvent la stéatose hépatique à l’alcoolisme. Pourtant, la stéatose hépatique métabolique associée à une dysfonction, ou MASLD, survient sans consommation excessive d’alcool. Anciennement appelée « stéatose hépatique non alcoolique » (SHNA, ou NASH en anglais pour Non-Alcoholic Steatohepatitis), et aussi désignée en français par l’expression « maladie du foie gras », cette affection est un continuum d’anomalies hépatiques qui touche de 80 millions à 100 millions d’Américains (en France, les données de la cohorte CONSTANCE de 2020 indiquent que la stéatose hépatique non alcoolique toucherait 18,2 % de la population, ndlr).

Les causes de la MASLD semblent multiples : obésité, résistance à l’insuline, excès de cholestérol ou encore infection par l’hépatite C. Des travaux semblent aussi suggérer que certains microbes pourraient aussi jouer un rôle.

Diagramme représentant la dégradation du foie, du foie sain à la stéatose, puis à la fibrose et enfin à la cirrhose
Les quatre stades de la stéatose hépatique non alcoolique.
wowow/Shutterstock

En 2019, notamment, des médecins ont identifié un patient souffrant à la fois du syndrome d’auto-brasserie et d’une MASLD sévère. L’analyse de ses selles a révélé la présence de la bactérie Klebsiella pneumoniae. Il s’est avéré que la souche isolée produisait quatre à six fois plus d’alcool que celles habituellement rencontrées chez des individus sains.

Sur 43 autres patients atteints de MASLD, 61 % hébergeaient une souche de K. pneumoniae produisant des quantités inhabituellement élevées d’alcool. En revanche, parmi les 48 personnes en bonne santé servant de témoins, seuls 6 % étaient concernées.

Les chercheurs ont également constaté que K. pneumoniae n’était que légèrement plus abondante dans l’intestin des malades que chez les témoins. C’était la quantité d’alcool produite qui différait. Ils se sont alors demandé si cet excès pouvait réellement engendrer la stéatose.

Une microbrasserie dans l’intestin ?

Pour vérifier si ces bactéries étaient bel et bien responsables de la situation des malades, les scientifiques ont mené des tests sur des animaux de laboratoire. Ils ont nourri des souris saines avec la souche hyper-alcoologène de K. pneumoniae. En un mois, les rongeurs ont développé une stéatose mesurable, qui a évolué en cirrhose au bout de deux mois. La progression de la maladie reproduisait fidèlement celle observée lorsque les souris étaient gavées d’alcool pur.

En outre, le transfert de microbiote provenant de souris ou d’humains atteints de MASLD dans des souris saines a également déclenché des lésions hépatiques.

Enfin, les chercheurs ont traité le microbiote de souris atteintes de MASLD avec un virus ciblant uniquement Klebsiella, pour détruire ces bactéries. Le transfert du microbiote ainsi débarrassé de Klebsiella dans des souris saines n’a provoqué chez ces dernières aucune maladie.

Illustration à la craie montrant des flèches doubles entre cerveau et intestin, peuplés de microbes
Les microbes présents dans l’intestin produisent des substances pouvant influencer l’humeur et la santé – pour le meilleur comme pour le pire.
T. L. Furrer/Shutterstock

Ces résultats suggèrent que certaines souches de K. pneumoniae fabriquent des quantités excessives d’alcool, capables d’induire une stéatose hépatique. Ils laissent aussi espérer que certaines formes de stéatose liées à Klebsiella puissent être traitées par antibiotiques. En effet, l’administration à des souris atteintes d’imipénem, un antibiotique de la famille des bêtalactamines, de la classe des carbapénèmes, a inversé l’évolution de la maladie.

Puisque K. pneumoniae transforme le sucre en alcool, un simple test sanguin mesurant l’alcoolémie après ingestion de sucre pourrait permettre de diagnostiquer cette forme particulière de stéatose. Les chercheurs ont montré que des souris hébergeant ces bactéries devenaient ivres et voyaient leur taux d’alcool sanguin grimper après avoir consommé du sucre.

Il faut souligner que l’on ignore encore l’ampleur de ce phénomène. Si Klebsiella est fréquemment présente dans l’intestin humain, on ne sait pas pourquoi certaines personnes hébergent des souches productrices de grandes quantités d’alcool.

Plus largement, ces travaux illustrent une fois encore le rôle du microbiote dans la régulation de l’humeur et du comportement. Comme pour la conductrice new-yorkaise acquittée, le simple fait de consommer un dessert très sucré pourrait, dans de rares cas, entraîner chez certaines personnes une ébriété sans qu’elles n’aient consommé d’alcool. Le salarié belge, quant à lui, tente de réduire sa production intestinale d’alcool en suivant à la fois un régime alimentaire spécifique et un traitement médicamenteux, selon les déclarations de son avocate. Reste à savoir si ces individus développent une tolérance accrue à l’alcool, de par leur exposition continue.


Cet article, initialement publié le 30 septembre 2019, a été actualisé en 2024 pour inclure les éléments sur la décision de justice belge.

The Conversation

Bill Sullivan ne travaille pas, ne conseille pas, ne possède pas de parts, ne reçoit pas de fonds d’une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n’a déclaré aucune autre affiliation que son organisme de recherche.

ref. Des microbes intestinaux qui enivrent et abîment le foie : comment le microbiote peut se transformer en microbrasserie – https://theconversation.com/des-microbes-intestinaux-qui-enivrent-et-abiment-le-foie-comment-le-microbiote-peut-se-transformer-en-microbrasserie-263737

Quête de minceur et d’ivresse express : comment la « drunkorexie » menace la santé des jeunes

Source: The Conversation – France in French (3) – By Ludivine Ritz, Maitre de Conférences en Psychologie spécialité Neuropsychologie des addictions, Université de Caen Normandie

Sauter des repas pour pouvoir consommer davantage d’alcool sans craindre d’augmenter ses apports caloriques… Cette très mauvaise idée est en train de prendre de l’ampleur, au point d’inquiéter le corps médical, et d’avoir donné naissance à un néologisme : la « drunkorexie », ou « alcoolorexie ».


La « drunkorexie » (ou « alcoolorexie ») est un néologisme formé à partir des mots drunk (de l’anglais, être ivre) et anorexie. Il est apparu pour la première fois, il y a une quinzaine d’années, dans un article du New York Times, « Se priver de nourriture, un cocktail à la main ». Tout en précisant que ce terme n’avait rien de médical, la journaliste Sarah Kershaw l’employait pour décrire comment certaines personnes adoptaient des comportements de jeûne volontaire afin de limiter la prise de poids liée à leur consommation d’alcool.

Depuis, le phénomène a fait l’objet de recherches plus approfondies. Il soulève des enjeux majeurs de santé mentale et interroge sur le rôle des normes esthétiques et de la pression sociale. Explications.

Quels sont les risques associés à la drunkorexie ?

La drunkorexie est définie comme un ensemble de comportements alimentaires à risque, incluant des formes de restriction (jeûner, sauter des repas), des conduites de purge (comme des vomissements provoqués) ou une activité physique excessive.

Ces comportements poursuivent deux objectifs principaux : éviter la prise de poids liée à la consommation d’alcool ou atteindre un état d’ivresse plus rapide. Ils peuvent être adoptés à différents moments, que ce soit en amont de la consommation (par anticipation), pendant celle-ci (notamment lors de soirées festives) ou après, dans une logique de compensation a posteriori.

Si la drunkorexie peut être perçue comme un comportement ponctuel ou stratégique, ses conséquences sont loin d’être anodines. Elle est tout d’abord associée à une consommation d’alcool plus fréquente et plus intense, ainsi qu’à des épisodes d’ivresse plus sévères, exposant les jeunes à des prises de risques accrues, tant sur le plan physique que social.

Par ailleurs, les effets de la drunkorexie ne se limitent pas à l’alcool. Plusieurs études montrent qu’elle s’inscrit souvent dans un tableau plus large de troubles alimentaires, présents y compris en dehors des contextes festifs. À terme, ces comportements pourraient favoriser l’installation durable de troubles du comportement alimentaire chez certains jeunes adultes.

Sur le plan psychologique, ce type de comportement semble également refléter une fragilité émotionnelle plus profonde. Dépression, anxiété, détresse psychologique, difficultés de régulation des émotions, antécédents de maltraitance ou insécurité dans les relations proches, sont fréquemment rapportés chez les jeunes concernés.

Enfin, les conséquences cognitives de la drunkorexie restent encore peu documentées, mais certaines hypothèses méritent d’être explorées : quel impact ce comportement peut-il avoir sur la mémoire, sur les capacités de raisonnement ou sur la réussite académique, lorsque l’alcool est consommé de manière répétée dans un contexte de restriction alimentaire ?

Une tendance inquiétante chez les jeunes

Si récent soit-il, ce phénomène n’en est pas moins fréquent. Plusieurs études indiquent qu’entre 6 % à 39 % des adolescents et jeunes adultes déclarent réduire leur alimentation avant de consommer de l’alcool. Plus de la moitié déclarent également adopter des comportements caractéristiques de la drunkorexie.

À ce jour, il n’existe pas de données épidémiologiques nationales permettant d’estimer précisément combien de personnes sont concernées par la drunkorexie. Les études disponibles portent généralement sur des populations ciblées (lycéens, étudiants, jeunes adultes) et indiquent des prévalences comparables, avoisinant la moitié des personnes consommatrices d’alcool.

Il n’existe pas encore de données permettant de décrire précisément l’évolution de la drunkorexie sur le long terme. Les études longitudinales sont difficiles à mettre en œuvre : elles demandent du temps, sont coûteuses et exposées à une perte importante de participants au fil du temps. En France, une étude de cohorte sur cinq ans, suivant des étudiants recrutés en première année à l’Université puis réévalués après deux et quatre ans, est actuellement en cours et devrait apporter des éléments nouveaux sur la dynamique de la drunkorexie chez les jeunes adultes.

Les réseaux sociaux jouent probablement un rôle clé dans la diffusion et la banalisation de la drunkorexie. Les plateformes comme Instagram, TikTok ou Snapchat exposent les jeunes à un flux constant d’images valorisant la minceur, la musculation ou certaines pratiques festives, créant ainsi un double impératif : afficher un corps conforme aux normes esthétiques tout en participant aux codes sociaux de la fête et de l’alcoolisation.

Dans cet environnement, la drunkorexie peut apparaître comme un compromis pour concilier ces deux injonctions, renforcée par le partage d’expériences, de conseils ou de défis en ligne.

Des comportements associés à la fête

Si ce phénomène est surtout observé chez les lycéens et les étudiants, il n’est pas exclusif à cette population. On le retrouve également chez les adultes, bien que sa prévalence tende à diminuer avec l’âge.

Ces comportements apparaissent le plus souvent dans des contextes festifs, où la consommation d’alcool est normalisée, voire encouragée. Chez les jeunes, ils sont rarement perçus comme problématiques. Au contraire, ils sont souvent intégrés à une routine associée aux soirées, renforcés par le sentiment de « faire comme tout le monde », ce qui participe à leur banalisation.

La drunkorexie est ainsi décrite comme une pratique courante, parfois automatique, dans les situations de forte consommation d’alcool. Elle peut aussi répondre à une volonté de se conformer aux normes du groupe, d’obtenir une forme d’approbation sociale ou de renforcer le sentiment d’appartenance.

Plusieurs études suggèrent par ailleurs que les jeunes femmes seraient plus exposées à la drunkorexie, en lien avec une perturbation de l’image de soi et une plus grande insatisfaction corporelle. D’autres travaux montrent, cependant, que les jeunes hommes peuvent également adopter ces pratiques, notamment dans le but d’intensifier les effets recherchés de l’alcool.

Pourquoi les jeunes sont-ils plus vulnérables ?

Les adolescents et les jeunes adultes évoluent dans des contextes où les normes sociales autour du corps et de la consommation d’alcool sont particulièrement marquées. L’idée qu’il faut être mince ou musclé pour être valorisé socialement coexiste souvent avec une pression à participer aux soirées et à consommer de l’alcool de manière excessive.

Dans ce cadre, la drunkorexie peut apparaître comme une stratégie d’ajustement à ces deux pressions contradictoires : rester conforme aux attentes liées à l’apparence tout en participant aux normes sociales de consommation.

Des travaux ont également mis en évidence l’importance des motivations de conformité : certains jeunes pratiquent la drunkorexie non seulement pour s’intégrer à un groupe ou se sentir acceptés, mais aussi pour éviter d’être stigmatisés ou se sentir exclus s’ils ne se conforment pas aux attentes en matière de consommation d’alcool et de contrôle du poids.

Que faire face à la drunkorexie ?

Si un proche semble adopter des troubles alimentaires avant ou après avoir bu de l’alcool et des signes de drunkorexie, il existe différents dispositifs d’aide.

En France, Alcool Info Service (0 980 980 930, 7 jours sur 7, de 8 heures à 2 heures du matin, appel anonyme et non surtaxé), Fil Santé Jeunes pour les 12-25 ans, ou les services de santé étudiants proposent écoute, conseils et orientation vers des professionnels de santé ou des structures spécialisées.

Il est également possible d’autoévaluer sa consommation d’alcool et de dépister un risque de trouble alimentaire. En cas de suspicion, le médecin traitant et les consultations Jeunes Consommateurs, peuvent assurer un suivi et orienter vers une prise en charge adaptée.




À lire aussi :
Alcool : c’est quoi le binge drinking ? comment savoir si on est concerné ?


Au-delà de la prise en charge individuelle, limiter la progression de la drunkorexie suppose des actions collectives et de santé publique, visant notamment à renforcer la prévention chez les plus jeunes, dès le collège et le lycée, en intégrant à la fois l’éducation sur les risques liés à l’alcool et la sensibilisation aux troubles alimentaires. Le repérage précoce de la drunkorexie passe par la formation des professionnels de santé et des acteurs du milieu éducatif à mieux identifier ces comportements.

Des campagnes de prévention ciblées, conçues pour répondre aux réalités des publics concernés, en tenant compte de l’âge, du sexe et des contextes psychosociaux, pourraient contribuer à réduire l’adoption de ces pratiques. Enfin, une réponse politique plus stricte, visant à une meilleure régulation des messages véhiculés sur les réseaux sociaux, en particulier ceux associant minceur et ivresse, pourrait réduire l’attractivité de la drunkorexie auprès des jeunes.

The Conversation

RITZ Ludivine a reçu des financements de l’IRESP et la Société Française d’Alcoologie et d’Addictologie.

ref. Quête de minceur et d’ivresse express : comment la « drunkorexie » menace la santé des jeunes – https://theconversation.com/quete-de-minceur-et-divresse-express-comment-la-drunkorexie-menace-la-sante-des-jeunes-261241

Are ultramarathon runners really at increased risk of bowel cancer?

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Justin Stebbing, Professor of Biomedical Sciences, Anglia Ruskin University

Izf/Shutterstock.com

Exercise is a cornerstone of good health and evidence shows it can even help prevent cancers returning following treatment. But new findings are raising an unexpected question: could very high-volume endurance training carry its own risks?

At the 2025 American Society of Clinical Oncology meeting, researchers from Inova Schar Cancer Institute reported that a surprising number of dedicated marathon and ultramarathon runners had precancerous growths in their colons. Among 100 athletes aged 35 to 50, 15% had advanced adenomaslesions that can develop into bowel cancer – while 41% had at least one adenoma.

The study is small and not yet peer-reviewed, but the signal is strong enough to have captured global attention. Here’s what the findings really mean, why experts urge caution in interpreting the results, and what runners should watch for.

At first glance, it seems counterintuitive. Decades of evidence show regular exercise lowers cancer risks, including bowel cancer, and improves outcomes after a cancer diagnosis. This study doesn’t overturn that science. Instead, it suggests a narrow group of young, very high–volume endurance athletes might face unique bowel stress that could increase their odds of developing precancerous changes over time.

Young people with colon cancer has been called a new epidemic, and we don’t really understand why it’s increasing so much.

The Inova study deliberately excluded people with known genetic conditions or bowel disease to focus on runners who otherwise seemed low risk. Yet their screening found more advanced lesions than expected for that age group – a pattern outside experts, commenting in the New York Times, described as worth investigating, not a final answer.

How might heavy endurance training contribute to bowel changes? One theory focuses on temporary blood flow reductions to the gut during prolonged, intense exercise. Distance runners are familiar with runner’s colitis – cramping and occasional bleeding after long runs. Repeated cycles of low–oxygen stress, inflammation and tissue repair in the bowel could, theoretically, encourage adenoma development in susceptible people.

The Inova team highlighted this mechanism based on observations and runners’ reports of gut symptoms, though the study didn’t directly measure blood flow, oxygen or inflammation markers. It also didn’t isolate other lifestyle factors that might matter, such as dehydration strategies, anti–inflammatory drug use, specific nutrition practices, or very low body fat levels.

Just as important is what this study doesn’t establish. It doesn’t prove marathons or ultramarathons cause bowel cancer. It doesn’t show most young–onset bowel cancers occur in runners – doctors not involved in the study emphasised that most younger patients with these cancers aren’t endurance athletes. And it doesn’t address whether more moderate exercise carries similar risks.

The comparison point – the expected rate of advanced adenomas in the late 40s – comes from broader population studies, not from a matched control group. That makes the observed difference notable but still preliminary.

The research is clinically grounded, but its size and design mean it should be seen as a starting point for larger studies rather than a basis for changing general exercise guidance.

Still, there are practical lessons for endurance athletes and doctors. First, persistent blood in stool, changes in bowel habits, unexplained stomach pain, or iron–deficiency anaemia shouldn’t be dismissed as “just running”.

In a community where gut complaints are common and often normalised, it’s easy to miss warning signs. The lead oncologist argued that young runners with bleeding after long runs should be offered screening – a stance grounded in the fact that colonoscopy can remove precancerous lesions and prevent cancers developing. This is more cautious than current guidelines for average–risk adults but aligns with individualised, symptom–driven care.

Second, the study reinforces the difference between exercise as medicine and exercise as extreme sport. For cancer prevention and overall health, the strongest evidence supports regular, moderate–to–vigorous activity, not necessarily repeated ultra–endurance feats.

A yellow arrow pointing to a polyp in the large intestine.
Polyps can be removed during colonoscopy.
WendyJo/Shutterstock.com

Careful attention needed – not panic

Recent conferences highlighted data showing structured exercise after bowel cancer treatment improves long–term outcomes, underlining that physical activity remains one of the most powerful, low–cost tools in cancer prevention and care. This runner study doesn’t contradict that larger story. It flags a potential exception at the extreme end of training that needs careful attention, not panic.

If future research confirms a link, what might change? Screening recommendations could evolve for a clearly defined group of high–volume endurance athletes, perhaps starting colonoscopy earlier than the current age–45 threshold for average–risk adults.

Athletes and coaches might adapt training, nutrition and recovery to protect gut health – paying attention to hydration, heat stress, gradual progression, and avoiding unnecessary anti–inflammatory medication around long efforts.

Sports medicine and gastroenterology clinics might work together on protocols for evaluating gut bleeding in runners, narrowing the gap between “common” and “concerning” symptoms. But these steps depend on replication in larger, diverse groups and understanding which components of endurance life – intensity, duration, heat, altitude, nutrition – matter most.

For now, a balanced message serves the public best. Endurance running is a profound source of meaning and health for many people, and quitting running isn’t the lesson from a single small study.

The key is keeping the proven benefits of exercise in view while being clear–eyed about potential risks at extremes. Listen to your body’s signals, especially bleeding. Treat red–flag symptoms as medical, not merely athletic. And discuss personal risk factors and family history with your doctor.

As science probes this signal further, the likely outcome isn’t a blanket warning but more nuanced guidance: who might need earlier screening, when to investigate symptoms, and how to train hard with the gut in mind.

The study’s real contribution may be cultural as much as clinical: it gives runners and doctors permission to ask a question they’ve too often waved away, and to catch dangerous lesions before they become cancers.

The Conversation

Justin Stebbing does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

ref. Are ultramarathon runners really at increased risk of bowel cancer? – https://theconversation.com/are-ultramarathon-runners-really-at-increased-risk-of-bowel-cancer-263564

Brain chemistry reveals psychiatry’s false divisions – new study

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Sameer Jauhar, Clinical Associate Professor, Imperial College London

Fahroni/Shutterstock.com

For decades, psychiatrists have treated psychosis as if it were separate conditions. People experiencing hallucinations and delusions might be diagnosed with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, severe depression and related diagnoses, and receive completely different treatments based on diagnosis. But new research suggests this approach may be fundamentally flawed.

Our latest study, published in Jama Psychiatry, reveals that the brain changes driving psychotic symptoms are remarkably similar across these supposedly distinct mental health conditions. The findings could change how doctors choose treatments for the millions of people worldwide who experience psychosis.

Psychosis itself is not a disease, but rather a collection of generally deeply distressing symptoms, where people may struggle to distinguish reality from normal perception. They might hear voices that are not there, hold false beliefs with unshakeable conviction, or find their thoughts becoming jumbled and incoherent. These symptoms are new in onset, and terrifying – regardless of whether they occur alongside depression, mania, or without these mood symptoms.

We studied 38 people experiencing their first episode of psychosis with mood symptoms, comparing them with healthy volunteers. Using sophisticated brain scanning technology, we measured the synthesis of dopamine – a brain chemical tied to motivation and reward – in different regions of the brain.

We found that while most people with manic episodes showed higher dopamine synthesis in emotion-processing areas of the brain compared to those with depression, there was a common pattern across all participants: higher dopamine synthesis in thinking and planning regions were consistently linked to more severe psychosis symptoms (hallucinations and delusions), regardless of their official diagnosis.

This discovery challenges some aspects of modern psychiatric practice. Currently, treatment decisions rely heavily on diagnostic categories that may not reflect what is actually happening in people’s brains. Two people with identical symptoms might receive entirely different drugs simply because one was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and another with depression.

Our study shows dopamine dysfunction is not uniform in psychosis. Moving beyond trial-and-error prescribing requires matching treatments to underlying biology rather than diagnostic categories alone.

A psychiatrist and his patient.
These findings could help us move away from one-size-fits-all prescribing.
Yurii Maslak/Shutterstock.com

Towards precision psychiatry

The implications could be profound. Rather than basing treatment solely on psychiatric categories, doctors might soon use biological markers to identify which drugs will work best for individual people. This approach, known as precision psychiatry, mirrors how oncologists already tailor cancer treatments to the genetic makeup of specific tumours.

For people with psychosis, this could mean faster recovery and fewer side-effects, by switching from drugs that do not work. Finding the right treatment often involves months of trying different drugs while people continue to suffer from debilitating symptoms.

Our research suggests people whose psychosis involves strong mood symptoms might benefit from drugs that target emotion-processing brain circuits, while those without mood disorders might need drugs that work differently on thinking and planning regions. Some people might even benefit from treatments that address cognitive problems alongside hallucinations and delusions.

This does not mean psychiatric diagnoses are worthless. They remain crucial for organising healthcare services, facilitating communication between professionals, and determining access to treatment. But they may no longer be the best guide for choosing medications.

The study involved a relatively small number of people, and the findings need to be replicated in larger groups before changing clinical practice. Still, this research represents a significant step towards a more scientific, biology-based approach to treating one of psychiatry’s most challenging symptoms.

As our understanding of the brain advances, the rigid categories that have dominated psychiatry for decades are beginning to blur. If the brain (and mother nature) does not respect diagnostic boundaries, neither should our treatments.

The Conversation

Dr Jauhar reported personal fees from Recordati, LB Pharmaceuticals, Boehringer Ingelheim, Wellcome Trust, Lundbeck, Janssen, and Sunovion and nonfinancial support from the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, British Association for Psychopharmacology, and Royal College of Psychiatrists outside the submitted work.

Robert McCutcheon receives personal fees from Boehringer Ingelheim, Janssen, Karuna, Lundbeck, Newron, Otsuka, and Viatris outside the submitted work.

ref. Brain chemistry reveals psychiatry’s false divisions – new study – https://theconversation.com/brain-chemistry-reveals-psychiatrys-false-divisions-new-study-263319

How a church row over a pre-Christian ritual reflects an ancient Italian village’s battle for survival

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Aurora Moxon, Postdoctoral Fellow, University College Cork

High in the Aspromonte mountains in the toe of Italy’s boot lies the ancient Calabrian village of Bova. Over the last two millennia, a series of invaders and settlers have left their mark on the Aspromonte, including the ancient Greeks – influencing a way of life from farming to language.

Protected by the absence of roads until the mid-20th century, remnants of this Greek culture survive in Bova. The Greco-Calabro language, spoken day-to-day only by local goatherders and the elderly, includes words and phrases from ancient Greek. And for centuries, locals have created “Persephoni” – woven symbols of Persephone, the Greek goddess of spring, to celebrate the season’s arrival and invoke an abundant agricultural year.

Made from olive leaves woven onto canes and decorated with local wildflowers, fruit and goat’s cheese, these figures represent an important ritual to mountain people whose lives have depended on the land for centuries. Gradually, as Christianity was adopted by the Romans, these figures were absorbed into Catholic rituals by these local people.

From the 1990s, the Persephoni figures attracted attention as interest in the Greek cultural influences of the area grew. Then, in 2013, the local bishop refused to allow Persephoni to enter Bova’s cathedral after being informed these structures were folkloric puppets (pupazze) – a move that threatened this longstanding tradition with pre-Christian roots.

The procession of the Persephoni into Bova’s cathedral.

Challenging ideas of what is ‘modern’

As well as researching food, farming and ecotourism in the Aspromonte mountains, I investigate the negative effects of stereotypes of this area – and how contemporary local practices challenge ideas of what is “modern”. As part of this study, I visited Bova and spoke to villagers about their way of life.

Some told me how, in 2014, they successfully put pressure on the church to restore their cherished Persephoni tradition. They explained to the bishop the importance of the Persephoni, and the church’s blessing for this ancient tradition – which prompted him to relent and allow the figures back into Bova’s cathedral.

A decorated woven symbol of Persephone made of leaves, flowers and red ribbon.
A decorated Persephone figure ready for the procession.
Aurora Moxon, Fourni par l’auteur

However, as I witnessed earlier this year, the current priest’s message reiterated the church’s distance from what it calls “folklore” – despite the thousands of visitors the Persephoni attract to Bova, a village that is losing its young people every year to other towns and cities. Journalists and anthropologists continue use the term “puppets” to describe the Persephoni, which puts emphasis on a more pagan intepretation.

In nearby Locri, archaeologists have unearthed terracotta reliefs called pinakes (depicting the goddess of spring and the agricultural seasons) at the site of a shrine to Persephone. Referred to as the “flower-faced maiden” in the Homeric Hymns – a collection of 34 Greek poems addressed to the ancient gods – it’s not hard to understand why locals believe their celebration of Persephone has Ancient Greek origins.

Carrying their Persephoni around Bova on Palm Sunday and receiving the priest’s blessing before taking them into mass is one of the most important moments of the religious year for locals here. It’s the culmination of a month of long evenings spent plaiting pairs of olive leaves from local trees and attaching them to cane skeletons. Two metres tall, the largest Persephone is carried by Bova’s mayor.

On the eve of Palm Sunday, people decorate their Persephoni with fruits and flowers picked from local hillsides, and the following morning, goat’s cheeses called musulupu are added on. Some of these cheeses take the form of men and women, others are circular with “teats”. Like Persephone, they symbolise fertility and new birth.

Every year, thousands of people visit Bova to watch the procession, after which the local people hand out chunks of musulupu and ’nguta (a biscuity cake with hard-boiled eggs baked into the mix) in the town’s main square.

Population decline, cultural loss

Like much of Italy’s south, especially its mountainous areas, Bova has long suffered the effects of emigration. Today, inhabitants are attracted to jobs and the lifestyle in towns along Calabria’s built-up coast. In the 1970s, Bova’s population numbered 1,401; today it hovers around just 400.

Young Bovese feel compelled to leave the region once they have finished school. Agropastoralism, a form of subsistence farming involving the cultivation of crops and raising livestock, does not appeal to many youngsters, and yet a number of villagers continue to work as goatherders and small-scale farmers. Once landless, they now find themselves in a position to buy up abandoned land.

Goatherders milk their capre Aspromontane, an indigenous breed of goat, to make the cheeses attached to the Persephoni, pressing them into intricately carved wooden moulds. These goatherders use words from Greco-Calabro to describe their goats: zzarì means “grey coat”, for example, and zzerògasto means “hard to milk”.

While the Greco-Calabro language is a source of pride, the historic association of this language with herders and landless peasants has contributed to its decline.

Today’s grandparents discouraged their children from speaking it, as the language had become a marker of shame and perceived backwardness. This is part of a wider problem that sees the denigration of southerners in Italy – particularly in rural areas – as backward terroni, meaning “people who are the dirt beneath our feet”.

But herders and small-scale farmers in the mountains are also often called backward by middle-class Calabrians in cities and coastal towns. The relentless association of Calabria – and the Aspromonte in particular – with organised crime exacerbates the marginalisation of this area.

Through their symbolic figures of Persephone, inhabitants of Bova assert the value of their deeply rooted rural identity and ancient agropastoral spirituality, insisting the Catholic church recognises this hybrid religious practice. The determination to preserve it speaks of resistance in the face of population decline and cultural loss.


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The Conversation

Aurora Moxon receives funding from the Irish Research Council. Aurora Moxon previously received funding from the South West and Wales Doctoral Training Partnership.

ref. How a church row over a pre-Christian ritual reflects an ancient Italian village’s battle for survival – https://theconversation.com/how-a-church-row-over-a-pre-christian-ritual-reflects-an-ancient-italian-villages-battle-for-survival-258852

La musique ne vous fait ni chaud ni froid ? Cela pourrait être dû au fonctionnement de votre cerveau

Source: The Conversation – in French – By Catherine Loveday, Professor, Neuropsychology, University of Westminster

Certaines personnes ne ressentent absolument rien quand elles écoutent de la musique. Les chercheurs ont en découvert la cause, logée dans le cerveau. Krakenimages/Shutterstock

Et si la musique vous laissait de marbre ? Alors qu’elle fait vibrer la plupart d’entre nous, 5 à 10 % de la population reste totalement indifférente aux mélodies. Ce trouble, appelé « anhédonie musicale », intrigue les chercheurs, qui en dévoilent aujourd’hui l’origine : un défaut de communication entre le cerveau auditif et le système de récompense.


Lorsque je demande à une salle remplie d’étudiants comment ils se sentiraient s’ils ne pouvaient plus jamais écouter de musique, la plupart sont horrifiés. Un bon nombre était encore en train d’écouter de la musique juste avant le début du cours. Mais il y en a toujours un ou deux qui avouent timidement que cela ne changerait rien à leur vie si la musique n’existait pas.

Les psychologues appellent cela « l’anhédonie musicale », c’est-à-dire l’absence de plaisir à écouter de la musique. Et un nouvel article publié par des neuroscientifiques espagnols et canadiens suggère qu’elle serait causée par un problème de communication entre différentes zones du cerveau.

Pour beaucoup d’entre nous, ne rien ressentirquand on écoute de la musique semble incompréhensible. Pourtant, pour 5 à 10 % de la population, c’est la norme.

Dans le cadre de mes recherches et de ma pratique auprès de personnes souffrant de pertes de mémoire, je leur demande souvent de choisir leurs chansons préférées dans le but de raviver chez elles des souvenirs marquants.

J’ai toujours été fascinée par le fait que certaines personnes me regardent d’un air perplexe et me disent : « La musique ne m’a jamais vraiment intéressé•e. » Cela contraste tellement avec la majorité des gens qui adorent parler de leur premier disque ou de la chanson qui a été jouée à leur mariage.

Des études récentes montrent des variations considérables dans l’intensité des émotions ressenties quand on écoute de la musique. Environ 25 % de la population est hyperhédonique, c’est-à-dire qu’elle éprouve un besoin presque obsessionnel de musique.

Les recherches dans ce domaine utilisent généralement le Barcelona Music Reward Questionnaire (BMRQ) (questionnaire de récompense musicale de Barcelone), qui interroge les personnes sur l’importance de la musique dans leur vie quotidienne : À quelle fréquence en écoutent-elles ? Leur arrive-t-il de fredonner des airs ? Y a-t-il des chansons qui leur donnent des frissons ?

Si le score obtenu est faible, alors on parle d’anhédonie musicale. Pour confirmer ce diagnostic, des chercheurs mesurent, en laboratoire, le rythme cardiaque, la température ou la sudation des personnes sondées, pendant qu’elles écoutent de la musique. Chez la plupart d’entre nous, ces marqueurs physiologiques varient en fonction de la musique écoutée, selon qu’elle nous touche beaucoup ou peu. Mais chez les personnes souffrant d’anhédonie musicale, l’effet physiologique est nul.

Une théorie a consisté à dire que le fait de moins apprécier la musique pourrait refléter une anhédonie plus générale, c’est-à-dire une absence de plaisir pour quoi que ce soit. Ces pathologies sont souvent liées à des perturbations au niveau des zones du système de récompense, telles que le noyau accumbens, le noyau caudé et le système limbique.

Il s’agit d’une caractéristique courante de la dépression qui, comme d’autres troubles de l’humeur, peut être corrélée à une absence de réponse à la musique. Cependant, cela n’explique pas l’anhédonie musicale « spécifique », qui touche des personnes qui prennent du plaisir avec d’autres récompenses, comme la nourriture, les relations sociales ou le cinéma par exemple, mais restent indifférentes à la musique.

Homme renfrogné devant un violon
Tous les enfants obligés de prendre des cours de musique ne remercient pas leurs parents une fois adultes.
foto-lite/Shuttersock

Une autre explication qui a été avancée consiste à dire que les personnes qui s’intéressent peu à la musique ne la comprennent tout simplement pas, peut-être en raison de difficultés à percevoir les mélodies et les harmonies.

Pour vérifier cette hypothèse, nous pouvons nous intéresser aux personnes atteintes d’amusie, un trouble de la perception musicale qui affecte la capacité à reconnaître des mélodies familières ou à détecter des notes fausses. Ce trouble survient lorsque l’activité est réduite dans des régions clés du cortex fronto-temporal du cerveau, qui gère le traitement complexe de la hauteur des notes et de la mélodie. Or, on connaît au moins un cas d’une personne atteinte d’amusie qui n’en aime pas moins la musique.

Quoi qu’il en soit, d’autres recherches montrent que les personnes souffrant d’anhédonie musicale ont souvent une perception musicale normale, ils reconnaissent les chansons ou distinguent sans problème les accords majeurs des accords mineurs.

Alors, que se passe-t-il ? Un article recense toutes les recherches menées à ce jour dans ce domaine. La récompense musicale semble être traitée par la connectivité existant entre les zones corticales auditives, situées au niveau du gyrus temporal supérieur, et les zones du système de récompense. Il arrive que ces zones soient intactes chez des sujets souffrant d’anhédonie musicale. C’est donc la communication entre les zones qui est gravement perturbée : les parties du cerveau chargées du traitement auditif et le centre de la récompense ne communiquent pas.

Les personnes qui réagissent normalement à la musique présentent une activité importante au niveau de cette connexion dans le cerveau, qui est plus élevée pour une musique agréable que pour des sons neutres. Une étude réalisée en 2018 a montré qu’il est possible d’augmenter le plaisir procuré par la musique en stimulant artificiellement ces voies de communication à l’aide d’impulsions magnétiques.

Cette nouvelle analyse pourrait permettre aux scientifiques de mieux comprendre les troubles cliniques dans lesquels les récompenses quotidiennes semblent réduites ou amplifiées, ce qui est le cas par exemple lors de troubles alimentaires, d’addictions au sexe ou aux jeux.

Ces résultats remettent également en question l’idée répandue selon laquelle tout le monde aime la musique. La plupart des gens l’aiment, mais pas toutes les personnes, et cette variation s’explique par des différences dans le câblage du cerveau. Parfois, cela résulte des suites d’une lésion cérébrale, mais le plus souvent, les individus naissent ainsi, et une étude réalisée en mars 2025 a mis en évidence l’existence d’un lien génétique.

The Conversation

Catherine Loveday ne travaille pas, ne conseille pas, ne possède pas de parts, ne reçoit pas de fonds d’une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n’a déclaré aucune autre affiliation que son organisme de recherche.

ref. La musique ne vous fait ni chaud ni froid ? Cela pourrait être dû au fonctionnement de votre cerveau – https://theconversation.com/la-musique-ne-vous-fait-ni-chaud-ni-froid-cela-pourrait-etre-du-au-fonctionnement-de-votre-cerveau-263588

Why I had to become a murder detective for my book about an 18th-century Jewish pedlar

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Tony Kushner, James Parkes Professor of Jewish/non-Jewish Relations, University of Southampton

An illustration of the crime from 1771. London Jewish Museum

This article contains details of antisemitism and violence that some readers may find upsetting.

It’s evening at a remote Sussex pub in 1734 and a vicious triple murder has just taken place. Jacob Harris – a Jewish pedlar, smuggler and possible highwayman – stands accused of slitting the throats of the publican, his ill wife and a female servant.

I’ve studied the case for my latest book, The Jewish Pedlar: An Untold Criminal History. The point of interest for me was not whether Harris was guilty (he probably was). Or even whether – despite the seriousness of the crime – he was a victim of English antisemitism in everything from the newspaper coverage to the way he was later remembered. I was more interested in a series of questions about Harris’s background and motivations.

Harris had many aliases including Hirshal Hirsh and James Daves, reflecting both his criminal tendencies and complex identity that was both continental Jewish and very local. How on earth did someone of German-Jewish origin manage to integrate himself into the close-knit smuggling fraternity of Sussex?

What was Harris even doing in Ditchling Common, many decades before there was anything approximating to a Jewish community in Sussex? And what motivated him to commit the murders?

Despite the potential for prejudice against Jewish people at the time, I concluded that in the criminal world, as long as someone was trusted and useful, their background did not matter. It was only when Harris fell out with a fellow smuggler leading to a fatal fight that his life fell apart. The quandary for me as a social and cultural historian was how to write anything like a biography of Harris when there are no direct quotes from him in the surviving archive.

Completing my 340-page study therefore felt like somewhat of an achievement. To do so required intricate detective work (and indeed the advice of a real retired detective) to interrogate every piece of contemporary evidence.

This included the sparse legal record of the murders, the first Sussex assizes (court) record to be kept in the National Archives at Kew; a contemporary diary from a local landholder; and copious reports in British newspapers which “borrowed” heavily from one another.

There was also a bill sent to the Treasury by the county of Sussex for the catching, imprisonment, trial, hanging and gibbeting of Harris (gibbeting involves placing a hanged body in a specially constructed iron cage at the scene of the crime). And there was a ballad which would have been written and sold at the gibbeting and has survived in various forms ever since.

Not one of these sources is straightforward, and this is also true of most of the authors and major players in contemporary responses to the murders.

The complexities of the case

Harris was not the only person in the case who had multiple names. There was also his first victim, the publican Richard Miles. His many names strongly suggest that he was on the wrong side of the law and almost certainly a fellow smuggler.

The lead justice of peace in the case, who later became an MP and major landowner, had also changed his name. As did the newspaper entrepreneur who was the only one who made explicit Harris’s Jewishness when reporting in his new title, Walker’s Weekly Post.

Even Sir Robert Eyre, the judge from London who sentenced Harris to be hanged and gibbeted, had a reputation for corruption, though I’m not saying it affected the decision in this case. I don’t doubt that Harris was guilty of the horrendous crimes he was charged with.

The gibbeted body

Having been found guilty in the county assizes at Horsham and hanged in that town, Harris’ body was then carted to the scene of the crime a good 15 miles away to be placed in the gibbet cage.

Illustration of a post surrounded by a crude wooden fence
Remnants of the gibbet post, illustration from Thomas Blaker, Burgess Hill as a Health Resort (1883).
Author provided

A history of a local Sussex family compiled over many generations suggests that his skull remained in the cage some decades later. The post from which the gibbet cage was hung remained in position for much longer and soon became known as “Jacob’s Post”. Despite his crimes and his Jewish origins, he became a local folk hero.

To this day there is a heritage display on Ditchling Common to mark this momentous event in the district’s history.

Later Jewish criminals who were hanged became prized for their body parts by surgeons such as William Hunter (of the Hunterian museum in London) for racialised display. I didn’t want to treat Harris as this kind of object of study, but as a human being with family and friends (and no doubt enemies).

To discover more about Harris, his occupations and identity, I covered the period up to the second world war and followed Jewish pedlars and criminals in many different places from China to South America, from Sierra Leone to the Hebrides and from South Africa to the Caribbean. I also charted how the memory of Harris altered through time, from the Victorians who saw him as racially different and “naturally” criminal, through to a growing sensitivity towards his Jewishness in a post-Holocaust world.

It might be argued that at a time of growing hostility towards those of migrant origin and increasing racism, including antisemitism, what we don’t need now is a book on a Jewish criminal. I would argue that by trying to understand the individuality of these often remarkable – if often controversial – figures, it emphasises their fundamental humanity.

We cannot – and must not – expect any group of people to be perfect. As an asylum seeker (a former professional in Yemen) in an Essex hotel which has been subject to constant demonstrations in summer 2025 told The Guardian: “Yes, there are some refugees who do not behave respectfully or who do not follow the rules of the host society.” He added that this should not mean that all are regarded as such and that “every refugee has a story, and every human deserves dignity”.

In this respect in my book I certainly do not glorify Harris or downplay his crimes. I do, however, insist that he is not demonised as a “Jew murderer” as the Victorians would have it, and that see him instead as part and parcel of 18th century English rural life – a world far more diverse than we often assume.


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This article features references to books that have been included for editorial reasons, and may contain links to bookshop.org. If you click on one of the links and go on to buy something from bookshop.org The Conversation UK may earn a commission.

The Conversation

Tony Kushner does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

ref. Why I had to become a murder detective for my book about an 18th-century Jewish pedlar – https://theconversation.com/why-i-had-to-become-a-murder-detective-for-my-book-about-an-18th-century-jewish-pedlar-262671

Winners and losers in a hotter ocean

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Will de Freitas, Environment + Energy Editor, The Conversation

Meet your winners. E. PUIG / shutterstock

The ocean is heating up – in some places, faster than scientists once thought possible. For the fish, crustaceans and plankton that underpin life in the sea, this means habitats will shift, food supplies will change, and predators may suddenly find their prey has vanished. This isn’t a simple story of loss, but of winners and losers in a lottery weighted by climate change.


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Fish are already threatened by polluted seas and overfishing by humans. Climate change adds another threat by reshaping the very waters they depend on – testing their ability to adapt.

Sevrine Sailley, a marine ecosystem modeller at Plymouth Marine Laboratory, explains:

“As the ocean heats up, fish try to stay in the conditions they’re best suited to. Some species will move, but others can’t relocate so easily – for example, if they need to live in a certain habitat at a particular life-stage, such as in kelp that offers shelter for breeding fish.”

Sailley and her colleagues used a computer programme to simulate the oceans around the UK over the rest of this century. They looked at 17 key commercial species and identified some winners and losers:

“While sardines may thrive, with a 10% boost in Atlantic abundance, our model suggests mackerel could decline by 10% in the Atlantic and 20% in the North Sea.”

Warm-water species like bluefin tuna could do well, she writes, but “bottom-dwelling species like cod and saithe (pollock) face a tougher future. These fish prefer colder, deeper waters and have fewer options to escape warming seas due to depth limitations.”




Read more:
How climate change is making Europe’s fish move to new waters


Sudden changes

Those fish are typically responding to what’s happening below them in the food web. And these shifts don’t just play out slowly. They can unfold dramatically during events such as marine heatwaves, when the sea itself becomes layered in ways that choke the food web.

Ocean scientist Tom Rippeth of Bangor University described this process during an “unprecedented” heatwave in the seas around the UK two years ago. That summer, the already-warm surface was heating up faster than ever.

Smiley cod fish
This cod has nothing to smile about.
Miroslav Halama / shutterstock

“Those stratified seas”, Rippeth writes, “on the continental shelf around Britain and Ireland are some of the most biologically productive on the planet. They have long been an important area for fishing cod, haddock, mackerel and other species. Those fish eat smaller fish and crustaceans, which in turn feed on microscopic plants known as plankton.”

Those plankton depend on nutrients mixed up from the deep water into the surface layer. However, during the marine heatwave, Rippeth feared the high surface temperatures would mean stronger stratification, less mixing, and a diminished supply of nutrients.

Bad news for the plankton. And bad news that will ripple up the food web.




Read more:
An ‘extreme’ heatwave has hit the seas around the UK and Ireland – here’s what’s going on


What the jellyfish tell us

Few creatures illustrate these shifts more clearly than jellyfish. Marine conservation expert Abigail McQuatters-Gollop of the University of Plymouth says jellyfish numbers are increasing in certain regions, including the UK. For her, this is a signal of dramatic changes in the ocean food web.

Jellyfish tend to feed directly on plankton, so they’re pretty low in the food web. In fact, since they drift rather than swim, they’re technically plankton themselves. Yet they’re big enough (and scary enough, in some eyes) for humans to notice when their numbers rise, which makes them an eye-catching indicator that waters are warming.

“Warmer sea temperatures”, McQuatters-Gollop writes, “mean that jellyfish can now inhabit a wider range of habitats, with some species moving polewards into waters that were once too cold for them.”

This has changed how energy moves through the food web:

“The warmer-water zooplankton species which now dominate northern European waters are generally smaller and less nutritious than the cold-water species they have replaced.”

It also contributes to what scientists call a predator-prey mismatch.

“While the seasonal cycle of phytoplankton [tiny plants] is driven by sunlight and so hasn’t changed, the point in the year when some zooplankton species [tiny animals] are most abundant now arrives earlier, as shorter and warmer winters cause the eggs of some species to hatch sooner. This has meant a mismatch between the spring phytoplankton bloom and the annual peak abundance of the zooplankton that gorge on it.”

These shifts cascade upwards through the food web – one reason why those warm-water bluefin tuna are likely to prosper in UK waters, while cold-water cod and herring are set to struggle.




Read more:
Jellyfish alert: increased sightings signal dramatic changes in ocean food web due to climate change


Post-carbon

Last week, we asked if severe heatwaves have affected your holiday plans. Several readers said they had given up on summer holidays in hot countries entirely.

For instance Andrew Strong said: “We are not holidaying in Europe between June and September, not even in the UK! It’s too much.”

Next week, we’d like your thoughts on air conditioning at home. Do you have it? Do you want it? Do you see it as an unnecessary and frivolous waste of energy, or an inevitable response to increasing summer heat? (If you’re American or Australian, do you laugh at us backwards Europeans for even having this debate?).

The Conversation

ref. Winners and losers in a hotter ocean – https://theconversation.com/winners-and-losers-in-a-hotter-ocean-263556