Summary: A four-year longitudinal study found that regular participation in municipally supported community gathering places lowered the risk of developing cognitive disability by roughly 50% among older adults who did not maintain routine exercise habits. Researchers followed 2,578 community-dwelling older adults in Habikino City, Osaka Prefecture, who were not certified as requiring long-term care at … Read more

Summary: Researchers reveal an unexpected dual role for the telomeric protein TRF2: in addition to protecting chromosome ends, TRF2 actively preserves muscle stem cell identity and supports tissue regeneration. New research from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania shows that TRF2 functions beyond telomere protection. In skeletal muscle, TRF2 dynamically controls … Read more

Summary: A comprehensive review of more than 350 studies finds that reducing dietary protein can improve metabolic health, lower cellular damage, and in some contexts extend lifespan. This synthesis challenges recent one-size-fits-all recommendations that favor higher protein intake. While increased protein supports muscle synthesis and recovery in active people and athletes, excess protein in largely … Read more

Summary: Researchers have identified a previously unrecognized neuropathological structure in Alzheimer’s disease: mitochondrial plaques. A team at the University of Minnesota reports that these intracellular, mitochondrially localized plaques appear in preclinical models and in human post-mortem brain tissue. Unlike the well-known extracellular beta-amyloid (Aβ) plaques, mitochondrial plaques accumulate high levels of intact amyloid precursor protein … Read more

Summary: Researchers found that natural language processing (NLP) models analyzing speech patterns in children aged 9 to 13 can predict the later emergence of mental health disorders with greater accuracy than panels of human clinical experts. The study analyzed audio-recorded clinical interviews from more than 200 young people who described stressful life experiences. Across four … Read more

Summary: Researchers identified a sex-specific mechanism by which ketamine promotes neuroplasticity in female mice. During recovery from ketamine anesthesia, female mice show a transient rise in circulating corticosterone that triggers microglia—the brain’s resident immune cells—to increase expression of the Fkbp5 gene and produce the FKBP51 protein. This signaling cascade induces microglia to extend processes that … Read more

Summary: An international consortium has produced the first consensus-based framework and standardized taxonomy for vocal biomarkers, establishing clear definitions and a hierarchical model to advance clinical, regulatory, and research applications of voice-based health technologies. A multi-stage Delphi process convened 24 experts from Europe and North America through the eVoiceNet and NIH Bridge2AI-Voice consortia to resolve … Read more

Summary: A new study shows that primary brain tumors called gliomas respond well to targeted drug delivery using focused ultrasound (FUS) combined with microbubbles, and that an MRI-based approach can precisely track blood-brain barrier (BBB) opening and drug transport inside the tumor microenvironment. Researchers developed a high-resolution MRI protocol to visualize how focused ultrasound opens … Read more

Summary: The first U.S. clinical trial of psilocybin-assisted therapy for military veterans with treatment‑resistant post‑traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) has shown a favorable safety profile and substantial clinical benefit. In an 11‑week open‑label pilot, intensive psychotherapy combined with two synthetic psilocybin dosing sessions produced high remission rates and large reductions in clinician‑rated PTSD symptoms. Over the … Read more

Summary: A new study shows that learning in neural networks is driven mainly by adjusting the strengths of existing connections rather than by continuously expanding or reorganizing the underlying network structure. Researchers trained artificial neural networks on language tasks while gradually increasing the amount of training data. Although model performance improved substantially with more data, … Read more