Psychology

Centaur AI Model Passed Psychology Tests Without Following New Instructions

June 16, 2026 by BrainASAP

TL;DR: A 2026 study in National Science Open argued that Centaur, an AI model promoted as a simulator of human cognition, could reproduce psychology-test answers while failing a simple instruction-understanding check. Key Findings Centaur was tested as a cognition simulator: the earlier model reportedly performed well across 160 psychology tasks, including decision-making and executive-control experiments. …

CBT-I Trial Will Test Sleep Treatment in Treatment-Resistant Schizophrenia

June 16, 2026 by BrainASAP

TL;DR: A 2026 study protocol in Trials describes COSTS, a randomized trial that will compare cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I) with standard cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) in 60 people with treatment-resistant schizophrenia and persistent sleep disturbance. Key Findings Planned sample: Researchers aim to enroll 60 adults with treatment-resistant schizophrenia or related chronic psychosis plus …

CBD Psychiatric Claims Need Standardized Products and Safety Monitoring

June 15, 2026 by BrainASAP

TL;DR: A 2026 paper in Neuropsychopharmacology argued that cannabidiol (CBD), a non-intoxicating cannabis compound, has plausible psychiatric and neurological uses, but clinical claims need standardized products, exposure tracking, and safety monitoring before retail CBD can be treated like medicine. Key Findings Epilepsy evidence is strongest: Approved prescription CBD has the clearest support in rare pediatric …

Bumetanide Study Captured Sensory-Reactivity Changes in Neurodevelopmental Disorders

June 15, 2026 by BrainASAP

TL;DR: A 2026 preprint in medRxiv found that a parent-cocreated sensory-reactivity outcome set captured anxiety, mood, sleep, fatigue, cognition, and peer-relationship changes during bumetanide treatment in children and adolescents with neurodevelopmental disorders, but the unmasked design means the results should not be treated as definitive drug efficacy evidence. Key Findings Treatment cohort: 113 children and …

Arts on Prescription Helped Young Adults Rebuild Mental-Health Routines

June 15, 2026 by BrainASAP

TL;DR: A 2026 qualitative study in iScience found that a 10-week Arts on Prescription program helped unemployed young adults with anxiety, depression, or stress report better mood, stronger routines, and less isolation, but some activities also caused stress, fatigue, or boundary concerns. Key Findings Young adult mental-health sample: The study focused on 22 Danish participants …

Anxious Depression Showed Distinct Whole-Brain fMRI Patterns

June 15, 2026 by BrainASAP

TL;DR: A 2026 meta-analysis in Dialogues in Clinical Neuroscience pooled whole-brain functional MRI studies and found that anxious major depressive disorder (anxious MDD, depression with prominent anxiety symptoms) showed different brain-activity patterns from both non-anxious MDD and healthy controls. Key Findings 11 studies were included: The meta-analysis covered 829 anxious MDD patients, 681 MDD patients, …

Antidepressant Side Effects in Pakistan Varied by Drug Class in 457 Adults With MDD

June 15, 2026 by BrainASAP

TL;DR: A 2026 study in Annals of General Psychiatry found that, among 457 adults with recurrent major depressive disorder in Pakistan, escitalopram was the most common single antidepressant and reported side effects varied sharply by drug class. Key Findings Clinic sample covered 457 adults: All participants had recurrent major depressive disorder and were recruited from …

Amitriptyline Pollution Disrupted Male Guppy Spatial Learning

June 15, 2026 by BrainASAP

TL;DR: A 2026 study in Environmental Science & Technology found that male guppies exposed for 11 days to environmentally relevant amitriptyline, a tricyclic antidepressant detected in waterways, made more spatial-learning errors in a maze while females were largely unaffected. Key Findings 170-fish learning test: Researchers tested wild-caught male and female guppies across 12 maze trials …

Mental-Health AI Agents Still Lack Real Clinical Validation

June 14, 2026 by BrainASAP

TL;DR: A 2026 medRxiv review found that mental-health AI agents are moving quickly toward large-language-model chatbots, but most systems still rely on text self-report, narrow depression/anxiety/suicide use cases, and offline tests rather than prospective clinician or patient trials. Key Findings More than 300 recent papers were reviewed: Researchers audited mental-health AI agent systems from 2023 …

Adolescent Trauma Disrupted Parent-Cued Fear Extinction in fMRI Study

June 14, 2026 by BrainASAP

TL;DR: A 2026 study in Biological Psychiatry: Global Open Science found that trauma-exposed adolescents, especially those with higher posttraumatic stress symptoms, showed disrupted parent-cued fear extinction across skin-conductance, behavioral-learning, and functional MRI (fMRI) measures. Key Findings 87 dyads entered the extinction task: The analysis included typically developing adolescents and trauma-exposed adolescents with lower or higher …

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