Comparing Current Appearance to Past Selves Harms Body Image

Summary: A new psychometric study from The Ohio State University reveals that comparing our current body to former versions of ourselves is just as harmful to mental health as comparing…

Why Past Trauma Amplifies Future Stress

Summary: Researchers at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai have uncovered an overlooked neural circuit in the anterior hypothalamic nucleus (AHN) that dictates how past trauma primes the…

Making Music May Rewire the Addicted Brain

Summary: A pilot neuroimaging study from Anglia Ruskin University reveals that music therapy directly modulates brain wave dynamics linked to emotional regulation and craving suppression in individuals recovering from drug…

Flawed AI Summaries Distort Eyewitness Memory

Summary: AI-generated summaries can manipulate eyewitness memory, causing people to misremember events they witnessed firsthand. In a controlled experiment, exposure to misleading automated summaries nearly halved participants’ recall accuracy, implanting…

Mitochondria in the Brain’s Reward Hub Drive Nicotine Dependence

Summary: Supported by a $943,000 NIH grant, neuroscientists at the University of Central Florida are investigating how nicotine alters neuronal mitochondria within the nucleus accumbens. By examining the subcellular mechanisms…

Firsthand Experience Dictates Social Judgment

Summary: When public reputation clashes with direct personal experience, people prioritize their own history over social gossip to judge non-cooperation. A new study reveals an asymmetric moral calculus: while helping…

Chronic Stress Shapes Cognitive Aging

Summary: A longitudinal study of nearly 3,900 older adults revealed that while robust social support helps shield attention from age-related decline across all demographics, it does not counteract the harmful…

Can Humor Treat Depression? – Neuroscience News

Summary: A comprehensive review of clinical psychology and neuroimaging research shows that while humor can build resilience and protect against depressive relapse, it often does more harm than good during…

Five Brain Profiles of Depression Identified

Summary: Researchers using magnetoencephalography (MEG) identified five distinct neurophysiological subtypes of major depressive disorder based on functional brain connectivity. The findings show that patients sharing the same clinical diagnosis can…

Ancient Midbrain Circuit Decodes Social Escape Cues

Summary: Researchers at UC San Diego discovered an evolutionarily conserved midbrain circuit that detects the escape movements, and sudden disappearances, of social partners to trigger rapid collective avoidance. Using transparent…