Summary: A $3.3 million grant from the National Institute on Aging will fund a five-year UC Davis study led by Dr. Sarah Tomaszewski Farias and Dr. Rachel Whitmer. The research will enroll roughly 4,000 racially, culturally, and socioeconomically diverse adults aged 55 and older to determine how subjective cognitive complaints predict future Alzheimer’s disease and … Read more

Summary: New research shows that gut-to-brain signals carried by the vagus nerve are essential for forming memories—especially memories about where nutrient-rich food was found. The investigators demonstrate that eating caloric foods activates vagal signaling to the hippocampus, triggering increased release of acetylcholine, a neurotransmitter important for spatial learning and memory encoding. The study also shows … Read more

Summary: A new study shows that whether a person’s eyes are open or closed completely reverses how alpha-band brain activity relates to mind wandering. The finding resolves long-standing contradictions in cognitive neuroscience about whether alpha oscillations (7–14 Hz) encourage or inhibit task-unrelated thoughts. Using electroencephalography (EEG) during auditory attention tasks, researchers found that increased alpha … Read more

Summary: A new study finds that habit formation is governed by two separate neural circuits: one that determines whether a behavior becomes a habit and another that controls how strongly or how often that habit is performed. Researchers used an accelerated training protocol in mice to follow the neural shift as behavior moved from goal-directed … Read more

Summary: New research finds that the widely cited Dunning-Kruger effect is largely a statistical artifact. After correcting for measurement noise and regression to the mean in large replication datasets, the apparent pattern reverses: overconfidence is common across ability levels and tends to be strongest among the highest performers. Applying improved statistical modeling to extensive replication … Read more

Summary: New research shows that human microglial cells develop far more slowly than those of other species, a delay linked to human-specific duplications of the SRGAP2 gene. Scientists report that human microglia require roughly four to eight years to reach full maturity, compared with about three weeks in mice. This extended developmental timing—neoteny—aligns microglial maturation … Read more

Summary: A pilot clinical trial found that combining time-restricted eating with a modest calorie reduction produced measurable cognitive benefits for older women with overweight or obesity that went beyond the effects of weight loss alone. Over six months, 47 women aged 50 to 79 followed a structured weight-loss program that cut daily intake by 500 … Read more

Summary: New multicenter research shows that exceptional memory in advanced age—seen in “SuperAgers”—is not explained merely by having a lower inherited genetic risk for Alzheimer’s disease. Researchers assessed 142 SuperAgers (people in their 80s and 90s whose memory scores match or exceed those typical of individuals decades younger) and 89 cognitively average peers across five … Read more

Summary: A new study shows that non-Brownian suspensions can form, retain, and overwrite multiple microscopic memories at once. These physical memories follow dynamics that parallel how cognitive memories interact in neuroscience. Researchers examined mixtures of relatively large particles suspended in a viscous fluid. They found that two distinct types of memory—directional memory imprinted by steady … Read more

Summary: A new study presents a practical framework for recall-by-genotype (RbG) research in large, diverse healthcare-system biobanks to advance precision psychiatry. Using Mount Sinai’s BioMe biobank, researchers recontacted individuals carrying rare copy number variants (CNVs) associated with elevated risk for neurodevelopmental disorders and performed direct clinical and cognitive assessments that revealed critical details not captured … Read more