TL;DR: A 2026 medRxiv preprint found that ex-smokers had higher fMRI blood oxygen level dependent (BOLD) responses to high-energy food pictures than adults with obesity or abstinent alcohol dependence, suggesting a brain reward route for post-quitting weight gain. Key Findings 77-person fMRI comparison: Researchers compared 25 ex-smokers, 26 abstinent adults with alcohol dependence, and 26 …
TL;DR: A 2026 rat study in Neurobiology of Stress found that early-life visceral stress produced adult IBS-like symptoms alongside auditory brainstem sensitization and cochlear protein changes, giving a mechanistic explanation for sound sensitivity reported by some IBS patients. Key Findings Early-life visceral stress sensitized the auditory brainstem: Rats exposed to early-life visceral stress (the standard …
TL;DR: A 2026 study in Frontiers in Psychology found that braless images were rated as more attractive but less faithful, while women who feared sexual harassment reported being less likely to go braless in public. Key Findings 409 Slovak women surveyed: Researchers asked women about bra wearing in public and private settings, body-related factors, sexual …
TL;DR: A 2026 study in PLOS One found that Big Five personality traits were linked to how often 5,225 partnered adults reported sexual fantasies: conscientiousness and agreeableness predicted lower fantasy frequency, while the depression facet of negative emotionality predicted higher frequency. Key Findings Partnered adult sample: researchers surveyed 5,225 partnered adults recruited through Qualtrics Panels, …
TL;DR: A 2026 Communications Biology transcriptomic analysis identified three molecular subtypes of autism spectrum disorder, each linked to a distinct phenotypic profile and biological pathway pattern. Key Findings Three molecular subtypes emerged from transcriptomic analysis: Researchers identified three distinct molecular subtypes of autism spectrum disorder using transcriptomic data, each with its own gene expression signature. …
TL;DR: A 2025 Molecular Psychiatry study of more than 36,000 people found that higher autism polygenic risk was associated with lower MRI-derived neurite density, a measure of neural-fiber packing, across cortex and white matter in both children and adults. Key Findings Higher autism polygenic score predicted lower neurite density: Across over 36,000 individuals, a robust …
TL;DR: A 2026 rat study in Psychopharmacology found that THC exposure during late adolescence left adult animals with elevated anxiety-like behavior and impaired object-recognition and spatial-memory performance after a drug-free recovery period. Key Findings Adolescent THC exposure produced lasting anxiety-like behavior in adulthood: Rats given THC (5 mg/kg/day) from postnatal day 42 to 62 (late …
TL;DR: A 2025 study in European Journal of Neuroscience found that slow breathing sharpened fearful-face perception during inhalation but weakened it during exhalation, with magnetoencephalography showing brain-timing changes before the face appeared. Key Findings 31 adults judged faces while breathing on cue: The main experiment paired normal-paced and slow-paced breathing with a fearful-versus-neutral face discrimination …
TL;DR: A 2026 meta-analysis in Psychological Medicine found postpartum depression (PPD) brain-activity differences across default-mode, limbic, and sensorimotor regions, with spatial overlap in serotonin, dopamine, and vesicular acetylcholine transporter maps. Key Findings 12 imaging studies pooled: The meta-analysis included 475 postpartum depression patients and 504 healthy controls. Higher activity appeared in two regions: PPD was …
TL;DR: Across 4,000+ people, the relationship between brain activity and cognitive control flipped direction depending on whether researchers compared people to each other or tracked the same person over time. The finding is called nonergodicity — and it means decades of group-level brain studies may have been telling us the opposite of what’s true inside …
