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

Summary: Researchers report that a single exposure to cocaine produces profound and lasting structural changes in the genome of key brain cells. Using three-dimensional genome mapping in mice, the team found that one dose physically reshapes the DNA folding inside reward-related neurons of the ventral tegmental area, leaving a persistent genetic “scar” that could increase … Read more

Summary: A pooled analysis of randomized trials followed 95 adults who reduced their nightly sleep by roughly 80 minutes for six weeks. Even this modest, chronic-like sleep loss produced measurable metabolic and behavioral changes: participants gained about one pound on average and increased daily sedentary time. When projected over a year, losing less than an … Read more

Summary: Astrocytes—star-shaped, non-neuronal brain cells—act as active gatekeepers of long-term memory stability. Researchers identified a scaffolding protein, ankyrin-2 (Ank2), and traced a molecular pathway showing how astrocytes physically embrace and stabilize specialized memory-storing “engram” neurons. When this astrocytic mechanism is disrupted, initial memory formation remains intact, but the long-term stabilization process fails and memories fade … Read more

Summary: New research offers early evidence of how the infant brain gradually converts music into spontaneous movement. The study combined electroencephalogram (EEG) recordings with automated video motion-tracking to measure neural responses and body movements in infants listening to music. Results show that while infants can process structured music from as early as three months, the … Read more

Summary: A new study analyzed a very large functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) dataset from more than 700 participants and, by using more permissive statistical thresholds to capture smaller signals that conventional analyses typically filter out, identified 17 additional, distinct brain regions that respond to language. These newly revealed language-responsive sites extend well beyond the … Read more