TL;DR: A 2026 sham-controlled study in BMC Psychiatry found that one 15-minute session of 1.5 mA anodal transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) over the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex did not improve visuospatial or verbal working memory in clinically stable schizophrenia patients. Key Findings 27 schizophrenia patients: The final analysis included 14 men and 13 women …
TL;DR: A 2026 preprint in medRxiv used whole-genome sequencing in two families with many obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) cases and prioritized rare variants in NPY5R, DLGAP1, and MAPK8IP3, but the findings still need replication and functional testing. Key Findings Two densely affected families: Researchers sequenced 25 people from two multiplex OCD pedigrees, meaning families with several …
TL;DR: A 2026 preprint posted to medRxiv found that intermittent theta-burst transcranial temporal interference stimulation (iTBS-tTIS), a noninvasive electrical method aimed at the right putamen, lowered left-sided Parkinson’s motor scores during stimulation in 19 patients. Key Findings 19 Parkinson’s patients and 19 healthy controls completed a randomized, double-blind crossover stimulation study. MDS-UPDRS III, the motor …
TL;DR: A 2026 medRxiv preprint found that older adults with Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA)-defined mild cognitive impairment had less coordinated pulse-wave responses during a cognitive challenge than cognitively intact older adults. Key Findings Community cognitive-aging sample: The southern Taiwan dataset included 101 older adults: 12 reference participants, 50 people in a MoCA-defined mild cognitive impairment …
TL;DR: A 2026 Molecular Psychiatry ENIGMA mega-analysis found that medication status in bipolar disorder was linked to subtle differences in subcortical brain volume, with antiepileptic and antipsychotic exposure most consistently tied to smaller hippocampal and thalamic volumes. Key Findings 6,729-person ENIGMA sample: Researchers pooled MRI data from 2,664 people with bipolar disorder and 4,065 controls …
TL;DR: A 2026 study in Advanced Science found that flexible polyimide brain-implant probes produced lower long-term tissue reactivity than stiff silicon electrodes, while thinner probe designs and skull-detached mounting mattered less than the implant material itself. Key Findings Material mattered most: Flexible polyimide probes triggered less brain-tissue reactivity than stiff silicon electrodes. Not reaction-free: Polyimide …
TL;DR: A 2026 preprint in medRxiv used electroencephalography (EEG), a scalp electrical-activity recording method, and electrocardiogram (ECG) recordings to test whether brain-heart interplay, meaning coupling between brain-network organization and cardiac autonomic activity, tracks aging, Parkinson’s disease, cognitive screening scores, and freezing of gait. Key Findings Three datasets: Researchers analyzed resting EEG-ECG data from healthy young …
TL;DR: A 2026 Nature Communications study in aging mouse and killifish brains found that deubiquitylases (DUBs), enzymes that help edit protein-cleanup tags, lost about 40% of their catalytic activity with age even when many of the same enzymes were still present. Key Findings Brain DUB activity fell with age: In old mouse brains, researchers saw …
TL;DR: A 2026 mouse study in Cell found that olfactory receptor neurons, the smell-sensing cells in the nose, were arranged in spatial bands that lined up with matching sensory maps in the brain’s olfactory bulb. Key Findings Organized receptor bands: Researchers found that odor receptor neurons were not randomly scattered across the mouse nose; receptor …
TL;DR: A 2026 study in Journal of Exposure Science & Environmental Epidemiology linked prenatal PM2.5 and non-freeway NOx exposure with newborn amino-acid metabolism pathways that also tracked autism spectrum disorder (ASD) diagnosis before age 5. Key Findings 100 newborn blood spots: Researchers analyzed 50 children later diagnosed with ASD and 50 matched controls from Kaiser …
