TL;DR: A 2026 study in Neuron from Weill Cornell used mouse melanoma models to find that sympathetic nerves growing into tumors release norepinephrine, which activates alpha adrenergic receptors on tumor-associated macrophages and reduces their pro-tumor numbers — flipping the conventional view of the nervous system as a cancer accelerator into evidence that one branch of …
TL;DR: A 2026 study in Journal of Neuroscience found that when people expected sugar, an artificially sweetened drink became more pleasant and produced a stronger midbrain response, even though perceived sweetness was similar. Key Findings Expectation changed the reward readout: The researchers selected participants who reported similar perceptual experiences of sugar and non-nutritive sweetener. 27 …
TL;DR: A 2026 medRxiv preprint reported that closed-loop subgaleal intersectional short-pulse stimulation reduced seizure duration and rapidly lowered seizure incidence in a small first-in-human treatment-resistant epilepsy study. Key Findings Subgaleal implantation reached 13 patients: Researchers enrolled 15 adults, 2 withdrew before implantation, and 13 underwent subgaleal electrode implantation and inpatient monitoring. 2,283 hours of video-EEG …
TL;DR: A 2026 preprint in medRxiv used natural language processing (NLP) on Scottish CT and MRI reports to subtype stroke at scale, linking lobar intracerebral hemorrhage to higher later dementia risk and cortical ischemic stroke to higher early myocardial infarction risk. Key Findings 785,331 head scans: Researchers applied NLP to CT and MRI head-scan reports …
TL;DR: A 2026 preprint in medRxiv reported that an interpretable CatBoost machine-learning model predicted stroke-associated pneumonia after acute ischemic stroke bridging therapy with a test-set AUC of 0.932, with 7-day stroke severity and early inflammatory markers among the strongest contributors. Key Findings 135 stroke patients: The retrospective analysis included 135 acute ischemic stroke patients who …
TL;DR: A 2026 study in BJGP Open found no clear cohort-level increase in major bleeding outcomes when selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) were used with direct oral anticoagulants (DOACs), but the self-controlled analysis still pointed to extra caution when an SSRI is newly started during DOAC treatment. Key Findings No cohort increase: DOAC plus SSRI …
TL;DR: A 2026 study in Glia used human single-nucleus RNA sequencing datasets and mouse validation to identify a shared neurodegeneration-linked microglial transcription program, highlighting SPP1 as a disease-associated microglia marker. Key Findings Five disease contexts: The analysis integrated human microglia datasets from Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, frontotemporal dementia, and aging. Single-nucleus RNA-seq: …
TL;DR: A 2026 systematic review in Cognitive, Affective, & Behavioral Neuroscience found that stroke and traumatic brain injury populations showed consistent social cognition alterations across domains, while insula, cingulate cortex, middle frontal gyrus, and corpus callosum were repeatedly implicated. Key Findings Study type: a PRISMA-guided systematic review of social cognition domains after stroke and traumatic …
TL;DR: A 2026 uncontrolled pilot study in BJPsych Open found that SMART, a personalized text-message program for metabolic health in people with schizophrenia spectrum disorders, improved patient activation, diabetes self-management confidence, health literacy, and recovery scores over 12 weeks, while objective cardiometabolic markers did not significantly change. Key Findings SMART reached a schizophrenia-risk group: Researchers …
TL;DR: A 2026 mouse study in Nature mapped more than 76,000 single-neuron projections from the orofacial motor cortex (OMC) and found that Alston’s singing mouse, which produces audible song, has 2.8-fold higher OMC connectivity to an auditory cortical region and 3.3-fold higher OMC connectivity to the midbrain periaqueductal grey (PAG) than the laboratory mouse. Key …
