Summary: New research examined the corticostriatal circuit — a key neural pathway that supports decision-making, goal-directed actions, and behavioral flexibility — and found that alcohol interacts with Alzheimer’s-related pathologies in unexpectedly different ways. In animal models that isolate amyloid-beta pathology, alcohol sharply reduced communication across this circuit. In models dominated by tau pathology, the same … Read more

Summary: Researchers report that a ketogenic diet—which shifts the body from glucose toward fat-derived ketones for fuel—produced rapid metabolic benefits and notable improvements in persistent psychiatric symptoms. By bypassing impaired glucose pathways, the intervention restored brain energy availability and produced measurable gains in metabolic health, cognition, and mood without major adverse effects. This randomized controlled … Read more

Summary: An international research team developed a postage-stamp-sized electrochemical sensor made from laser-patterned graphene to measure dopamine noninvasively in tear fluid. Engineered to analyze biological fluids without invasive procedures, the device accurately identified precise dopamine concentrations in artificial human tears, demonstrating potential for rapid, point-of-care screening for neurodegenerative disorders such as Parkinson’s disease. Key Facts … Read more

Summary: A pooled analysis of 26 international studies reveals a consistent association between long-term exposure to ambient fine particulate air pollution and an increased risk of Parkinson’s disease. The evidence indicates that chronic exposure to PM2.5 and PM10 elevates the relative risk of developing Parkinson’s, likely through mechanisms involving oxidative stress and neuroinflammation that damage … Read more

Summary: Researchers have shown that individual human cortical neurons act like powerful, compact microchips. Using artificial intelligence to quantify the computational complexity of single cells, the team demonstrated that a single human cortical neuron is far more than a simple switch: it performs computations comparable in depth and sophistication to a multi-layered deep artificial neural … Read more

Summary: Researchers analyzed data from more than 200 adult couples and found that adverse childhood experiences create a subtle, cumulative “wear and tear” that undermines an adult’s ability to sustain a romantic relationship. People with higher adversity scores show more difficulty with everyday communication, affection, and conflict management, which lowers relationship satisfaction for themselves and … Read more

Summary: An international team of scientists and clinicians has created a generative artificial intelligence framework that reveals cortical lesions previously hidden in routine MRI scans. By synthesizing subtle, sub-visual differences across multiple MRI contrasts, the AI acts like a computational lens that extracts diagnostic information from standard images and exposes an otherwise invisible layer of … Read more

Summary: A new population-based study found that children born decades after World War II to mothers who were older than five years when Nazi persecutions began face a markedly higher risk of schizophrenia. The increase—more than twofold—persisted after accounting for birth weight, sociodemographic factors, and the mother’s psychiatric history, pointing to long-lasting intergenerational effects of … Read more

Summary: New research from King’s College London reveals that exposure of human hippocampal stem cells to inflammatory signaling molecules halts the production of new neurons. Rather than simply being damaged or dying, these neural stem cells switch into an immune-alert state that promotes local neuroinflammation and suppresses neurogenesis—an effect driven by Type I Interferon signaling … Read more

Summary: For the first time, researchers have traced the causal brain circuitry responsible for obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). Instead of relying on conventional functional imaging—which can’t distinguish causes from consequences—the team applied a technique called Causal Network Mapping to rare historical cases of “lesional OCD”: patients who suddenly developed obsessive-compulsive symptoms after a focal brain injury … Read more