TL;DR: A 2026 eNeuro study of 163 people ages 3-25 found that sleep history and age shaped waking electroencephalography (EEG) oscillations, while children with ADHD showed distinct sleep-wake EEG patterns. Key Findings Sleep and development interact to shape wake EEG oscillations: The amount of recent sleep or wakefulness produces age-dependent effects on EEG oscillation amplitude …
TL;DR: A 2026 study in Biological Psychiatry: Global Open Science linked higher psychopathy in MRI data from 804 incarcerated men to lower empathic concern and broader cortical surface area, while empathy scores themselves were not directly tied to cortical thickness or surface area. Key Findings The sample was large for prison MRI research: the study …
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 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 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 …
TL;DR: A 2026 population-based study in The Canadian Journal of Psychiatry found that early-life adversity scores were linked to higher group-level mental health risk but performed poorly for identifying which Canadian adults had anxiety, mood disorders, substance use disorders, or suicidality. Key Findings 7,608 Canadian adults: Researchers analyzed nationally representative 2022 survey data collected during …
