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

Summary: A systematic review and meta-analysis finds that controlled breathing interventions significantly reduce substance cravings across a range of drug classes, including alcohol, nicotine, opioids, stimulants and polysubstance use. This synthesis pooled data from 20 studies involving 1,249 participants to evaluate the effectiveness of various breathwork approaches. Overall, breathing-based interventions produced modest but statistically significant … Read more

Summary: Researchers identified a neural signature in mice that encodes the intrinsic value of information, separate from physical rewards. In a series of experiments, laboratory mice actively sought advance knowledge about upcoming outcomes—even when obtaining that information reduced the amount of physical reward they received. Concurrent population neural recordings revealed that roughly 20% of decision-related … Read more

Summary: Research highlighted by Karen Barrett of the Institute for Health & Aging at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) shows that musical improvisation engages brain networks differently than playing memorized music. Building on foundational neuroimaging work by Charles Limb, studies show that when experienced jazz musicians improvise, they reduce activity in the dorsolateral … Read more