Neuroscience

New-Onset Loneliness Accelerated Cognitive Decline in 635 Older Adults: ELSA Longitudinal Analysis

May 24, 2026 by BrainASAP

TL;DR: A 2026 longitudinal analysis in the Journal of Affective Disorders tracked 635 older adults with new-onset loneliness and found that cognitive decline matched controls before loneliness began, then accelerated after onset, especially when loneliness persisted. Key Findings Pre-loneliness cognitive trajectories were identical: Before the first reported episode of loneliness, cognitive scores in 635 future-lonely …

GABA and Dopamine Interacted During Human Speech Control

May 24, 2026May 23, 2026 by BrainASAP

TL;DR: A 2026 Human Brain Mapping study combined PET receptor imaging with speech functional MRI, or fMRI, in healthy adults and found that GABA signaling and striatal dopamine release interacted with brain activity during human speech control. Key Findings PET-fMRI sample: The study included 17 right-handed volunteers, with mean age about 53 years. Receptor tracers …

Parkinson’s Patients Had a Prominent Mood-Sleep Cluster

May 23, 2026 by BrainASAP

TL;DR: A 2026 preprint on medRxiv using the Harvard Biomarkers Study found that 43% of Parkinson’s disease patients had depression, anxiety, sleep apnea, or restless legs syndrome, compared with 21% of controls. Key Findings 1,224-person cohort: Researchers analyzed 933 Parkinson’s disease cases and 291 controls in the Harvard Biomarkers Study. 43% mood-sleep burden: At least …

Dream-Like Mental States Appeared in Wakefulness Too: Four-State EEG Study With 92 Nappers

May 25, 2026May 23, 2026 by BrainASAP

TL;DR: A 2026 study in Cell Reports used electroencephalography (EEG), a brain-wave recording method, in 92 nappers to identify four mental states across wakefulness, sleep onset, and light sleep, including a bizarre dream-like state with reduced frontal-occipital connectivity. Key Findings Four distinct mental states emerged from the data, not the expected two: A clustering algorithm …

AT(N) Blood Biomarkers Were Often Abnormal in Older Adults With Epilepsy

May 23, 2026 by BrainASAP

TL;DR: A 2026 medRxiv preprint applied the AT(N) framework, an Alzheimer’s disease biomarker system for amyloid, tau, and neurodegeneration, to 84 older adults with focal epilepsy and found that only 32.1% had normal blood biomarkers, while early-onset epilepsy carried higher odds of biomarker abnormality. Key Findings Epilepsy cohort: Researchers analyzed focal epilepsy participants from the …

Dream Content Reflected Traits and COVID Lockdown Stress

May 23, 2026 by BrainASAP

TL;DR: A 2026 study in Communications Psychology analyzed 1,687 dream reports and 1,679 waking reports, finding that dreams were more visual, spatial, social, bizarre, and emotionally negative than waking experiences. Key Findings 3,366 reports analyzed: the main dataset included 1,687 dream reports and 1,679 waking reports from 207 adults collected between 2020 and 2024. Dreams …

Sleep-Like Brain Waves Linked ADHD Attention Lapses

May 23, 2026 by BrainASAP

TL;DR: A 2026 study in The Journal of Neuroscience found that adults with ADHD showed more sleep-like brain waves, known as slow waves, while awake, and those brief local sleep states helped explain lapses in attention and vigilance. Key Findings 32 ADHD adults tested: The study compared 32 medication-free adults with ADHD with 31 neurotypical …

TRD Brain Networks Decoupled Structure From Function

May 22, 2026 by BrainASAP

TL;DR: A 2026 study in npj Mental Health Research found that a 308-person multimodal MRI study found treatment-resistant depression carried a distinct structure-function decoupling pattern, and machine-learning models separated TRD from non-resistant depression with AUCs up to 0.95. Key Findings 72 TRD patients analyzed: The final sample included 72 patients with treatment-resistant depression, 152 with …

Coffee Intake Shifted Gut Microbes, Stress, and Cognition Markers

May 22, 2026 by BrainASAP

TL;DR: A 2026 human microbiome and intervention study in Nature Communications found that coffee drinkers showed distinct gut microbiome composition and lower several microbial metabolites, while caffeinated and decaffeinated coffee shifted stress and mood measures in the intervention phase. Key Findings Study type: a study of habitual coffee intake, caffeinated and decaffeinated coffee, gut microbes, …

Solriamfetol Improved Sleepiness in Early Shift Work

May 22, 2026 by BrainASAP

TL;DR: A 2026 study in NEJM Evidence found that solriamfetol added 9.4 minutes of objective wakefulness in early-morning shift work disorder after 4 weeks, without a higher overall adverse-event rate than placebo. Key Findings 78 early-morning workers: Participants had excessive sleepiness linked to shifts starting between 3 a.m. and 7 a.m. Randomized double-blind design: The …

+ Load more