Summary: New research shows that lifelong social advantages — from parental warmth in childhood to supportive friendships, community engagement, and faith-based involvement in adulthood — are linked to slower biological aging. An analysis of more than 2,100 adults found that people with stronger, more consistent social connections had younger biological ages according to epigenetic clocks … Read more

Summary: New research shows that the brain’s susceptibility to inflammatory and degenerative disorders—such as multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer’s disease, and other forms of dementia—can be set early in life. Scientists discovered a developmental “switch” in astrocytes, the brain’s most abundant support cells, controlled by the NR3C1 gene. This switch epigenetically programs astrocytes to restrain immune responses … Read more

Summary: A new five-year research project will investigate how dopamine may drive changes in brain myelin during periods of social isolation. The team will track interactions between dopamine and oligodendrocytes—the specialized cells that produce myelin and support neuron function—to determine whether dopamine controls myelin plasticity and how that may relate to neuropsychiatric and neurodegenerative conditions. … Read more

Summary: A comprehensive Swedish cohort study of nearly 1.8 million pregnancies found that maternal mental health problems have increased in recent years, with a notable rise in risk after childbirth. While rates of new diagnoses for depression and psychosis fall during pregnancy, the risk of postpartum depression rises by about 20% during weeks 5–15 after … Read more

Summary: New research from the University of Florida links brain health closely to everyday lifestyle choices. Using MRI scans and machine learning to estimate an individual’s “brain age,” researchers found that positive habits—such as optimistic thinking, restorative sleep, social support and effective stress management—were associated with brains that appeared years younger than participants’ chronological ages. … Read more

Summary: A new University of Illinois study finds that severe influenza A infection during pregnancy in mice disrupts both the placenta and fetal blood-brain barriers, permitting large blood-borne molecules — including fibrinogen — to enter the developing fetal brain. Those molecules concentrated in critical regions such as the subventricular zone and choroid plexus, raising concerns … Read more

Summary: New research from the University of Washington challenges the common assumption that difficulty understanding speech in noisy places always stems from hearing loss. The study found a strong link between cognitive ability and how well people with normal hearing perceive speech amid competing talkers, suggesting that cognitive factors play a major role in real-world … Read more

Summary: Researchers have produced a comprehensive map of DNA methylation across nearly 1,000 human brains, spanning development from six weeks after conception through old age. The study reveals pronounced epigenetic changes before birth that direct formation of the cerebral cortex—the brain region central to thought, memory, perception, and behavior—and highlights links between these changes and … Read more

Summary: The first major data release from the HEALthy Brain and Child Development (HBCD) Study delivers an unprecedented resource for studying early childhood brain development. This release shares rich biomedical, behavioral, and environmental data from more than 1,400 pregnant people and their children, collected from pregnancy through nine months of age. Combining infant brain imaging, … Read more

Summary: Researchers at Washington State University found that bacterial cell-wall molecules called peptidoglycan (PG) are present in mouse brains and vary with the sleep–wake cycle. These results support a model in which sleep emerges from dynamic interactions between the brain and the body’s microbiome rather than from brain activity alone. The study introduces and reinforces … Read more