TL;DR: A 2026 study in Environmental Science & Technology found that male guppies exposed for 11 days to environmentally relevant amitriptyline, a tricyclic antidepressant detected in waterways, made more spatial-learning errors in a maze while females were largely unaffected. Key Findings 170-fish learning test: Researchers tested wild-caught male and female guppies across 12 maze trials …
TL;DR: A 2026 systematic review and meta-analysis posted as a medRxiv preprint found that mindfulness-based programs were linked to a small improvement in executive function, meaning inhibition, working memory, and flexible thinking, across 13 youth trials. Key Findings 13 trials were included: The meta-analysis pooled randomized and quasi-randomized trials in 1,560 children and adolescents aged …
TL;DR: A 2026 sham-controlled study in BMC Psychiatry found that one 15-minute session of 1.5 mA anodal transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) over the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex did not improve visuospatial or verbal working memory in clinically stable schizophrenia patients. Key Findings 27 schizophrenia patients: The final analysis included 14 men and 13 women …
TL;DR: A 2026 medRxiv preprint found that older adults with Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA)-defined mild cognitive impairment had less coordinated pulse-wave responses during a cognitive challenge than cognitively intact older adults. Key Findings Community cognitive-aging sample: The southern Taiwan dataset included 101 older adults: 12 reference participants, 50 people in a MoCA-defined mild cognitive impairment …
TL;DR: A 2026 study in PLOS One found that people with Parkinson’s disease made more silent pauses while reading aloud, especially when sentences were longer or syntactically more complex. Key Findings Reading task compared 71 adults: Researchers compared 32 people with Parkinson’s disease and 39 older control participants. Parkinson’s readers paused more often: The Parkinson’s …
TL;DR: A 2026 preprint in medRxiv used electroencephalography (EEG), a scalp electrical-activity recording method, and electrocardiogram (ECG) recordings to test whether brain-heart interplay, meaning coupling between brain-network organization and cardiac autonomic activity, tracks aging, Parkinson’s disease, cognitive screening scores, and freezing of gait. Key Findings Three datasets: Researchers analyzed resting EEG-ECG data from healthy young …
TL;DR: A 2026 mouse study in Cell found that olfactory receptor neurons, the smell-sensing cells in the nose, were arranged in spatial bands that lined up with matching sensory maps in the brain’s olfactory bulb. Key Findings Organized receptor bands: Researchers found that odor receptor neurons were not randomly scattered across the mouse nose; receptor …
TL;DR: A 2026 study in Cognitive, Affective, & Behavioral Neuroscience found that lower frontal midline theta, an EEG marker of cognitive-control engagement, partly explained why young adults with higher negative emotionality performed worse on a Go/No-Go inhibition task. Key Findings 106 young adults completed EEG testing: U.S. Army National Guard recruits performed a Go/No-Go task …
TL;DR: A 2026 Nature Communications paper introduced CAptVE, a fluorescent aptamer method that labels molecular features in mouse brain tissue while preserving ultrastructure for electron-microscopy connectomics. Key Findings Detergent-free labeling: CAptVE used slow off-rate modified aptamers to label brain cells without detergent permeabilization that can disrupt ultrastructure. Three fixation steps: The optimized pipeline balanced fluorescence …
TL;DR: A 2026 medRxiv preprint found that a composite cerebral small vessel disease (cCSVD) score from routine T1 MRI predicted 3-month cognitive recovery after stroke better than any single small-vessel marker in a 65-person cohort. Key Findings Recovery window: The study analyzed 65 early subacute stroke survivors who completed baseline and 90-day follow-up visits. MRI …
