TL;DR: A 2026 randomized clinical trial in the Journal of Sport and Health Science assigned 130 midlife adults to 150 minutes/week aerobic exercise or no-exercise control for 1 year and found sustained lower long-term cortisol in the exercise group. Key Findings Year-long randomized trial in 130 midlife adults: Participants aged 26 to 58 were randomly …
TL;DR: A 2026 preprint in medRxiv used 18F-DOPA positron emission tomography (PET) to estimate dopamine synthesis and storage, and found that caudate dopamine synthesis decreased as schizophrenia patients moved from active psychosis into early psychotic remission. Key Findings Patient group: Researchers scanned 28 schizophrenia patients twice and compared them with 21 healthy controls scanned over …
TL;DR: A 2026 randomized study in Psychological Medicine found that right orbitofrontal cortex repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS), a noninvasive brain-stimulation method, improved visuospatial memory on the Brief Visuospatial Memory Test-Revised (BVMT) in people with first-episode schizophrenia. Key Findings The analysis included 90 patients: Researchers studied 48 people assigned to active rTMS and 42 assigned …
TL;DR: A 2026 study in The Journal of Sex Research found that teenage daughters’ own humor during sexuality conversations was linked to more open mother-daughter communication and higher sexual well-being, while mothers’ humor was linked to less openness from daughters. Key Findings 98 mother-daughter pairs: Researchers analyzed confidential survey data from Israeli mothers and teenage …
TL;DR: A 2026 iScience study found that both humans and rats could report their own timing errors in a 2-second task, but rats made more accurate error-based choices than humans. Key Findings Matched timing task: Researchers compared 34 adults with 16 male Sprague-Dawley rats in a similar 2-second time-production task. Both species monitored errors: Humans …
TL;DR: A 2026 Nature study found that training language models to sound warmer made them less accurate across factual, medical, and misinformation tasks, with error rates rising by about 5 to 9 percentage points by task and sycophancy increasing when users expressed incorrect beliefs. Key Findings Five models tested: the study fine-tuned Llama-8b, Mistral-Small, Qwen-32b, …
TL;DR: A 2026 functional MRI (fMRI) study in Translational Psychiatry found that counterconditioning, a form of exposure learning that replaces a threat cue with a positive outcome, strengthened safety-memory signals in adults with PTSD more than standard extinction did. Key Findings Safety learning was tested: Researchers studied 54 adults, including 32 with post-traumatic stress disorder …
TL;DR: A 2025 study in Thinking & Reasoning found that twelfth graders outperformed seventh graders on fast probability reasoning, but adult-like logical intuition was still not fully developed by the end of high school. Key Findings More than 300 French students were tested: The study compared seventh graders around age 12 with twelfth graders around …
TL;DR: A 2026 protocol in PLOS One describes a 90-person pilot randomized controlled trial that will test whether virtual reality mindfulness can reduce depression, anxiety, stress, and caregiver burden in family caregivers of people with dementia. Key Findings 90-caregiver pilot: The planned sample includes 90 caregivers of community-dwelling people with dementia in Hong Kong. Three …
TL;DR: A 2026 npj Parkinson’s Disease study used brain transcriptome data and genome-scale metabolic modeling to predict Parkinson’s metabolite biomarkers, including dopamine-related changes, and separated 104 postmortem samples into three metabolic clusters. Key Findings Metabolic model: The study used TAMBOOR, a transcriptome-based metabolic modeling algorithm, to predict metabolite oversecretion and undersecretion. Brain tissue data: The …
