TL;DR: A 2026 randomized feasibility trial in Nature Medicine found that gait-synchronized adaptive deep brain stimulation was feasible and safe in 5 people with Parkinson’s disease, with early findings of improved gait symmetry, lower variability, and fewer reported falls than continuous stimulation. Key Findings 5 Parkinson’s patients: The 1-center feasibility trial enrolled people with Parkinson’s …
TL;DR: A 2026 preprint in medRxiv reported that one session of left central thalamus focused ultrasound increased behavioral responsiveness scores in 16 adults with chronic disorders of consciousness, with no severe adverse events reported. Key Findings 16 chronic DOC patients: Adults had chronic disorders of consciousness after severe brain injury, with an average time since …
TL;DR: A 2026 methods paper in Nature Methods describes Neuropixels Opto probes that combine high-density neural recording with spatially addressable blue and red optogenetic stimulation in 1 mouse-brain device. Key Findings 960 recording sites: Each prototype probe packed 960 electrical sites on a 70-micrometer-wide, 1-centimeter-long shank. 28 light emitters: Two sets of 14 emitters delivered …
TL;DR: A 2026 systematic review in The Cerebellum found that deep brain stimulation (DBS) produced modest symptom improvement in selected cerebellar ataxia patients, with dentate nucleus stimulation most common in humans and interposed nucleus stimulation emerging from animal studies. Key Findings Dentate nucleus is the dominant human DBS target: Across 15 clinical studies (27 patients), …
TL;DR: A 2026 study in Cognitive, Affective, & Behavioral Neuroscience found that visual working memory, the short-term holding of visual details, still showed a strong cardinal-versus-diagonal orientation bias under distraction, while transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS), a weak noninvasive brain-stimulation method, did not improve task reports. Key Findings Two stimulation experiments tested orientation memory: Researchers …
TL;DR: A 2026 study in Psychological Medicine found that transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS), a weak electrical brain-stimulation method, affected empathy differently depending on whether researchers targeted the right temporoparietal junction or the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. Key Findings Two brain targets diverged: right temporoparietal junction (rTPJ) stimulation strengthened cognitive empathy, while left dorsolateral prefrontal …
TL;DR: A 2026 systematic review posted on medRxiv found that transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS), a weak noninvasive brain-stimulation method, added to cognitive training produced a small short-term cognitive benefit across 27 trials, but the effect faded at follow-up and the evidence certainty was very low. Key Findings 27 controlled studies: The meta-analysis included 1,012 …
TL;DR: A 2026 preprint in medRxiv found that deep brain stimulation for severe obsessive-compulsive disorder was followed by lower globus pallidus externus alpha-band activity in clinically responsive patients, suggesting a possible brain readout of sustained DBS response. Key Findings 10 severe OCD patients: Researchers recorded local field potentials from the anterior globus pallidus externus (GPe) …
TL;DR: A 2026 preprint on medRxiv used resting-state functional MRI (fMRI), a brain-connectivity scan taken while people are not doing a task, to divide older adults at Alzheimer’s risk into anxiety biotypes that responded differently to frontal-lobe tDCS stimulation. Key Findings Older-adult tDCS trial: The final sample included 199 older adults, with 99 sham tDCS …
TL;DR: A 2026 study in Journal of Medical Case Reports described a 71-year-old breast-cancer survivor whose Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA), a cognitive screening test, increased from 16 to 20 and whose 15-item Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS-15), a depression-symptom questionnaire, decreased from 8 to 2 after 12 sessions of left DLPFC, a prefrontal executive-control region, transcranial …
