TL;DR: A 2026 randomized phase 2 trial in Nature Medicine found that three targeted drugs added to radiotherapy did not improve overall survival for children with diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma (DIPG), a lethal brainstem tumor, although everolimus caused fewer treatment-stopping side effects. Key Findings 233 randomized patients: BIOMEDE assigned 36 children to erlotinib, 102 to …
TL;DR: A 2025 study in Neurochemistry International from Kindai University showed that oral arginine, a naturally occurring amino acid, blocked the formation of toxic amyloid-beta aggregates in lab tests and reduced amyloid pathology in two well-established mouse models of Alzheimer’s disease — with the authors flagging that the research-grade doses and methods are not equivalent …
TL;DR: A 2026 study in JAMA Network Open analyzed Medicare claims for adults 66+ from 2008 to 2021 and found that cognition-altering medications — antipsychotics, benzodiazepines, hypnotics, anticholinergics — were disproportionately initiated in emergency rooms, hospitals, and skilled nursing facilities rather than doctors’ offices, especially in dementia patients (43% of antipsychotic starts vs 22% of …
TL;DR: A 2026 systematic review in The Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews pooled 17 trials of anti-amyloid monoclonal antibodies (N=20,342 people with mild cognitive impairment or mild Alzheimer’s dementia) and concluded that any effect on memory decline or dementia severity was either nonexistent or well below the threshold considered clinically meaningful for patients. Key Findings …
TL;DR: A 2024 Gastroenterology study found that intestinal epithelial serotonin reduced anxiety- and depression-like behavior in mice through vagal signaling, while prenatal SSRI exposure in a human cohort predicted infant functional constipation independent of maternal depression. Key Findings Gut-only serotonin reuptake transporter ablation reduced anxiety and depression-like behavior: Targeting SERT only in the intestinal epithelium …
TL;DR: A 2026 mouse study in iScience found that anesthetic emergence slowed sharply below 31.9°C because two hypothalamic thermoregulatory pathways pushed anesthesia in opposite directions: preoptic BDNF neurons deepened anesthesia, while a dorsomedial-hypothalamus-to-raphe-pallidus glutamate pathway accelerated emergence. Key Findings Emergence delay grows logarithmically below 31.9°C core temperature: In mice, anesthetic emergence time increases logarithmically as …
TL;DR: A 2026 rat study in Psychopharmacology found that THC exposure during late adolescence left adult animals with elevated anxiety-like behavior and impaired object-recognition and spatial-memory performance after a drug-free recovery period. Key Findings Adolescent THC exposure produced lasting anxiety-like behavior in adulthood: Rats given THC (5 mg/kg/day) from postnatal day 42 to 62 (late …
TL;DR: A 2026 medRxiv preprint on schizophrenia reported that illness insight tracked with resting-state functional MRI (fMRI) flexibility, a measure of how dynamically brain regions reconfigure their connectivity, and that these brain-dynamics patterns aligned with dopamine D2 and serotonin 5-HT2A receptor maps after accounting for antipsychotic receptor occupancy. Key Findings Two insight subtypes: Clinical clustering …
TL;DR: A 2026 exploratory study in Nature Communications found that a first 25 mg psilocybin dose in 28 psychedelic-naive adults increased electroencephalography (EEG), a scalp recording of brain electrical activity, entropy during the acute session and that entropy predicted one-month well-being change. Key Findings 28 psychedelic-naive adults: Participants received 1 mg psilocybin as a low-dose …
TL;DR: A 2026 study in Brain, Behavior, & Immunity – Health found that depression symptoms, alcohol use, and alcohol use disorder (AUD) symptoms were not associated with C-reactive protein (CRP), a blood inflammation marker, or a pro-inflammatory cytokine index in 972 community adults, and twin analyses suggested familial confounding explained several cytokine-AUD links. Key Findings …
