TL;DR: A 2026 medRxiv preprint found that ex-smokers had higher fMRI blood oxygen level dependent (BOLD) responses to high-energy food pictures than adults with obesity or abstinent alcohol dependence, suggesting a brain reward route for post-quitting weight gain. Key Findings 77-person fMRI comparison: Researchers compared 25 ex-smokers, 26 abstinent adults with alcohol dependence, and 26 …
TL;DR: A 2026 study in Frontiers in Psychology found that braless images were rated as more attractive but less faithful, while women who feared sexual harassment reported being less likely to go braless in public. Key Findings 409 Slovak women surveyed: Researchers asked women about bra wearing in public and private settings, body-related factors, sexual …
TL;DR: A 2026 Communications Biology transcriptomic analysis identified three molecular subtypes of autism spectrum disorder, each linked to a distinct phenotypic profile and biological pathway pattern. Key Findings Three molecular subtypes emerged from transcriptomic analysis: Researchers identified three distinct molecular subtypes of autism spectrum disorder using transcriptomic data, each with its own gene expression signature. …
TL;DR: A 2025 Molecular Psychiatry study of more than 36,000 people found that higher autism polygenic risk was associated with lower MRI-derived neurite density, a measure of neural-fiber packing, across cortex and white matter in both children and adults. Key Findings Higher autism polygenic score predicted lower neurite density: Across over 36,000 individuals, a robust …
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 systematic review in Translational Psychiatry found that depression brain-stimulation studies repeatedly linked treatment response to subcallosal cingulate connectivity, but inconsistent methods still limit its use as a treatment-selection biomarker. Key Findings 28 studies met criteria: The review included resting-state functional MRI (fMRI), a scan that tracks blood-flow changes as a proxy for …
TL;DR: A 2026 systematic review in The British Journal of Psychiatry linked schizophrenia to a multisystem advanced-aging phenotype, including older-appearing brain scans, shorter telomeres, inflammation, and higher dementia risk. Key Findings 170 studies included: The review synthesized studies of aging markers in schizophrenia and non-affective psychosis published after 2009. Most studies were moderate or high …
TL;DR: A 2026 meta-analysis in Psychological Medicine found postpartum depression (PPD) brain-activity differences across default-mode, limbic, and sensorimotor regions, with spatial overlap in serotonin, dopamine, and vesicular acetylcholine transporter maps. Key Findings 12 imaging studies pooled: The meta-analysis included 475 postpartum depression patients and 504 healthy controls. Higher activity appeared in two regions: PPD was …
TL;DR: A 2026 medRxiv preprint found that plasma p-tau217 AI models still separated amyloid-positive from amyloid-negative people across ADNI and A4, but calibration drift made the same probabilities less dependable for clinical decisions. Key Findings Calibration drift weakened clinical utility: The study trained plasma biomarker machine-learning models in one Alzheimer’s cohort and tested them in …
TL;DR: Across 4,000+ people, the relationship between brain activity and cognitive control flipped direction depending on whether researchers compared people to each other or tracked the same person over time. The finding is called nonergodicity — and it means decades of group-level brain studies may have been telling us the opposite of what’s true inside …
