THE LATEST RESEARCH
New findings about the brain, behavior and mental health—with the evidence and limits in view.
TL;DR: In a 2026 study, researchers fed brain wave recordings from 121 children, taken while they counted cartoon characters on a screen, into computer programs that learned to tell children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) from those witho…
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TL;DR: A 2026 study used worldwide health estimates to compare anxiety disorders in China with G20 countries from 1990 to 2021. In China, the share of people with anxiety, adjusted for age, slowly fell after 2000, but models projected about 22% more total case…
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TL;DR: In a 2026 study in South Korea, 53 older women with memory problems had a blood test for signs of Alzheimer's disease and a brain scan. Among women with 7 or more years of school, worse blood results went with a thinner outer layer of the brain, as expe…
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TL;DR: In people with two copies of the APOE4 gene and mild memory problems, the experimental Alzheimer's pill valiltramiprosate lowered a blood tau marker by 36%, while it rose 17% on placebo. But the main trial missed its primary goal, and this company-run a…
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TL;DR: In two year-long trials of adults with obesity and moderate to severe sleep apnea, the weight-loss drug tirzepatide eased apnea more than placebo in every group checked, whether split by age, sex, weight, neck size or apnea severity. This is a drugmaker…
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TL;DR: Among 450 older stroke survivors in a Chinese hospital who lived with ongoing pain, thinking abilities fell into three patterns, and about 1 in 10 had broad thinking problems. Men and people with depression were more often in the weaker groups, but this…
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TL;DR: In UK Biobank data, people who slept either less than about 6 or more than about 8 hours tended to look biologically older across several organs, and both groups had higher death rates. The "youngest" clocks lined up with roughly 6 to 8 hours of sleep,…
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TL;DR: When 28 Spanish-speaking adults silently decided whether the names of two pictures rhymed, brain scans showed a wide left-side speech network at work, including Broca's area and regions for movement planning and sound. The new task avoids written words,…
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TL;DR: A 42-year-old man lost part of his vision in one eye from a stroke-like event in the optic nerve after losing about 40 kg in two months on semaglutide (Wegovy). One case can't show the drug caused it, and he had several other risk factors. Key Findings…
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TL;DR: Female rats that learned to stop fearing a sound during their active hours (night, for rats) held on to that lesson better than rats trained during their resting hours. A brain pathway that calms fear was more active, and had more nerve-cell contact poi…
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