TL;DR: A 2026 medRxiv preprint reported that bedside 64 mT portable MRI scans from ECMO patients could support brain-volume analysis, with segmented volumes broadly comparable to conventional MRI and low-field MRI scans without ECMO equipment. Key Findings 30 ECMO scans: The volumetric pipeline analyzed T2-weighted portable MRI scans from 30 patients receiving extracorporeal membrane oxygenation. …
TL;DR: A 2026 study in Scientific Reports reported that NeXtSwin-X, a dual-branch AI model combining ConvNeXt and Swin Transformer features, achieved strong brain tumor classification performance across eight public MRI and CT datasets after only 10 training epochs. Key Findings Eight imaging datasets: The model was evaluated on eight public brain tumor MRI and CT …
TL;DR: A 2026 Reviews in the Neurosciences review argues that glycolysis, the cell pathway that turns glucose into usable energy and lactate, is a disease-shaping process across Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, ALS, Huntington’s disease, Wilson disease, and multiple sclerosis rather than a background energy problem. Key Findings Glycolysis changes differed by brain cell type, with …
TL;DR: A 2026 review in Nature Reviews Neurology argued that neural extracellular matrix (ECM), the protein-and-glycan scaffold around central nervous system cells, is an active regulator of brain plasticity and neurological disease. Key Findings Multiple ECM forms: The review describes perineuronal nets, perisynaptic ECM, periaxonal coats, and diffuse interstitial ECM. Brain function link: Neural ECM …
TL;DR: A 2026 electroencephalography (EEG) study in Cognitive, Affective, & Behavioral Neuroscience found that observers’ empathy-for-pain ratings and physiological coupling stayed similar whether they watched another person receive painful stimulation through a live video call or a prerecorded video, although live interaction produced an earlier frontal theta brain response. Key Findings 35 observers tested: Researchers …
TL;DR: A 2026 rat study in Hippocampus found that the dentate gyrus (DG), a hippocampal memory region, gained about 385,000 granule neurons from 2 to 18 months of age even though older development-born neurons were also being lost. Key Findings 385,000-cell net gain: Total DG granule neuron counts increased by about 385,000 cells from 2 …
TL;DR: A 2026 study in eLife found that prior cocaine self-administration disrupted how rat orbitofrontal cortex (OFC), a frontal brain region involved in task structure and flexible behavior, encoded hidden states in an odor-sequence task. Key Findings 3,881 single units: The study recorded 3,881 lateral OFC single units while rats performed a sequential odor task. …
TL;DR: A 2026 study in Critical Care Explorations described a 45-year-old woman whose extended-release carbamazepine and venlafaxine overdose led to cardiac arrest, delayed serotonin syndrome, rebounding carbamazepine levels, bowel ischemia, and right hemicolectomy after retained gastrointestinal drug material kept releasing medication. Key Findings Extended-release overdose: The patient had altered mental status after a carbamazepine-venlafaxine ER …
TL;DR: A 2026 review in Translational Neurodegeneration found that most repurposed multiple system atrophy drugs failed to show disease-slowing effects in trials, while ubiquinol produced the clearest placebo-controlled motor-progression signal. Key Findings No proven disease-modifying therapy: Multiple system atrophy remains a rapidly progressive neurodegenerative disease without an approved treatment that slows progression. Four target classes …
TL;DR: A 2026 Current Biology study found that bacterial polysaccharides, including peptidoglycan from Gram-positive bacteria, activated the C. elegans NSM enteric sensory neuron and shifted feeding and movement behavior through acid-sensing ion channels. Key Findings NSM sensed ingested bacteria: the enteric sensory neuron NSM, which projects into the C. elegans pharyngeal lumen, responded when worms …
