Summary: What a child eats at age two can influence their cognitive development years later. A longitudinal analysis of thousands of children in the 2015 Pelotas Birth Cohort (Brazil) found that toddlers who regularly consume ultraprocessed and “unhealthy” foods—such as instant noodles, sweet snacks, sodas, and processed meats—tend to score lower on IQ tests at … Read more

Summary: Public health campaigns often emphasize the physical harms of high-sugar diets—such as obesity and type 2 diabetes—but the effects on mental health have received less attention. A new systematic review and meta-analysis now reports a consistent association between high consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) and symptoms of anxiety in adolescents. Researchers reviewed multiple observational … Read more

Summary: Researchers have identified a measurable neurobiological link between age-related hearing loss (presbycusis) and cognitive decline. The new marker, called the Functional-Structural Ratio (FSR), quantifies how well specific brain regions that process sound, speech, memory, and decision-making remain integrated into the brain’s functional networks. The study shows that as hearing worsens, certain brain areas undergo … Read more

Summary: As AI-enabled prosthetic limbs gain more autonomy, a central challenge remains: how to make an independently moving robotic arm feel like a natural extension of the user’s body. A virtual reality study by researchers at TUT shows that timing matters—movement speed determines whether the brain accepts or rejects an autonomous limb. The team simulated … Read more

Summary: The brain’s visual system operates both bottom-up and top-down. New research shows that the top-down “return lane” — feedback connections from higher visual areas back to primary visual cortex — is not a generic, pre-set wiring diagram. Instead, these feedback pathways are sculpted by early visual experience and carry content-specific information shaped by the … Read more

Summary: Researchers have shown that age-related memory loss and some symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease may not be irreversible. Using a targeted form of “partial reprogramming” on specific neurons known as engrams—the sparse cell ensembles that store individual memories—a team at EPFL restored learning and memory abilities in aged mice. The scientists used a gene-therapy combination … Read more

Summary: Researchers have uncovered a powerful brain-to-body pathway that triggers rapid loss of all body fat — including biologically “stubborn” fat — without requiring any reduction in food intake. This discovery, led by a team at WashU Medicine, describes how a central leptin signal puts the body into a low-glucose, low-insulin state that disables protective … Read more

Summary: For decades, scientists placed the human language network largely in the neocortex, the brain’s outer layer responsible for higher cognition. New research reveals a complementary “satellite” component inside the cerebellum — a region historically linked to motor control — that also contributes to language processing. Analyzing functional MRI scans from more than 800 participants, … Read more

Summary: Researchers have found that carefully “tuning” communication between two specific brain regions can make people act more generously. Using non-invasive transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS) to synchronize neural activity in frontal and parietal areas, scientists observed measurable increases in altruistic decisions in a controlled laboratory task. When those regions were guided into a shared … Read more

Summary: Researchers have clarified new insights into a brain signal called “Reward Positivity” (RewP), which may help explain how simple pleasurable responses connect with more complex goal-directed behavior. This brief electrical response—appearing roughly 200 to 500 milliseconds after a positive outcome—has been used to study how people learn from surprising events. A recent theoretical review … Read more