TL;DR: In 3 large birth studies covering 5.3 million children, kids whose mothers had type 1 or type 2 diabetes before pregnancy were about a third more likely to develop epilepsy. Diabetes that first appears during pregnancy showed no clear link, and none of this proves diabetes is the cause. Key Findings 3 studies, 5.3 …
TL;DR: Women who reported 10+ brain injuries from a partner performed on a speed test like someone about 21 years older than their actual age. They scored about 11 years “older” than survivors with no brain injury; the study of 207 women found a link, not proof that the injuries caused the difference. Key Findings …
TL;DR: A 2026 meta-analysis in Neurological Sciences pooled 10 studies that gave people with Parkinson’s disease, tested while on their dopamine medication, and healthy adults the same “think of as many ideas as you can” tasks. On average, the two groups scored about the same, with neither a creative boost nor a clear deficit. Key …
TL;DR: In a controlled Dutch feeding trial, 41 healthy young adults ate a diet made almost entirely of ultra-processed foods for two weeks, twice. Afterward, the gut hormones that help signal fullness responded to a test meal about the same as they had on the participants’ usual diets. Hunger and fullness ratings shifted only a …
TL;DR: In a crossover trial of 119 adults living near busy highways, a month with a real HEPA air purifier did not clearly speed up a thinking test across the whole group. Among adults 40 and older, though, participants finished the harder test 12% faster after the real-purifier month than after the fake-purifier month. That …
TL;DR: Researchers used wrist trackers to estimate the sleep stages of 95,559 British adults, then followed their hospital records for about 9 years. Adults who spent more time in REM sleep had lower risk of 83 different diagnoses, and adults sleeping under 5 hours a night had higher risk of many conditions than those sleeping …
TL;DR: A 2026 medRxiv preprint found that pupil dilation measured inside a virtual reality (VR) headset increased as working-memory load rose in healthy adults, was reproducible 60–90 days later in 33 returnees, and was smaller under the highest load in cognitively impaired patient cohorts than in 81 healthy controls. Key Findings Forty-three healthy adults completed …
TL;DR: A 2026 randomized training study in Nature Communications found that sensory-guided joint learning—a combination of performance-triggered wrist vibration, Copy/New strategy cues, and an adaptive electroencephalography (EEG) decoder—produced a 19.0-percentage-point improvement in motor-imagery brain-computer interface (BCI) accuracy in healthy BCI-naïve adults, versus 6.3 and 3.0 points in two control groups. Key Findings Thirty-one healthy adults …
TL;DR: A 2026 mouse study in Nature Communications reported that 10 daily bouts of optogenetic dentate-gyrus stimulation produced weeks-long changes in chromatin, nuclear structure, behavior, and spatial coding, while Cyclin B deletion weakened several effects; this ECT-inspired model does not establish how electroconvulsive therapy works in people. Key Findings Ten stimulation sessions produced the durable …
TL;DR: A 2026 randomized study in Psychological Medicine reported that 7–10 days of prucalopride improved word-learning recall and working-memory response speed versus placebo in adults with remitted recurrent depression, but the 49-person analysis did not test durability, daily functioning, or relapse prevention. Key Findings Short randomized exposure: Researchers analyzed 49 adults ages 18–40 after 7–10 …
