TL;DR: A 2026 preprint in medRxiv from the CORE-VNS study reported that vagus nerve stimulation (VNS), a neuromodulation therapy for drug-resistant epilepsy, produced similar 36-month seizure reductions in people with and without prior intracranial epilepsy surgery. Key Findings 531 VNS implants: The analysis included 531 people with drug-resistant epilepsy who received an initial VNS implant …
TL;DR: A 2026 study in Journal of Medical Case Reports described a 71-year-old breast-cancer survivor whose Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA), a cognitive screening test, increased from 16 to 20 and whose 15-item Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS-15), a depression-symptom questionnaire, decreased from 8 to 2 after 12 sessions of left DLPFC, a prefrontal executive-control region, transcranial …
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 study in PNAS from Oregon Health & Science University and Anhui University used optogenetics in mice to map a specific serotonin-producing brain circuit that runs straight to the auditory system, showed that activating this circuit produced tinnitus-like behavior, and traced a likely mechanism for why some patients on SSRI antidepressants report worsened …
