The Placenta May Decide Autism Vulnerability

Summary: A new study in mice reveals that maternal immune activation during a precise gestational window triggers autism-like developmental disruptions exclusively in male fetuses. Researchers traced this vulnerability to damaged…

Nighttime Light Exposure Linked to Sleep Loss in Schizophrenia

Summary: A new study reveals that nighttime light exposure is strongly associated with objective sleep disruption in outpatients with schizophrenia, resulting in nearly an hour less total sleep per night.…

Eye-Blink Rate Predicts Cognitive Flexibility in Preschoolers

Summary: Researchers have discovered that spontaneous eye-blink rate serves as a simple, noninvasive marker for tracking the development of executive function in early childhood. The study revealed that children aged…

Disruption of Striatal D2 Receptor Neurons Drives ADHD and Impulsivity

Summary: Researchers have demonstrated that deleting the membrane-fusion protein NSF specifically from dopamine D2 receptor (D2R)-expressing neurons leads to striatal shrinkage, severe dopamine depletion, and classic ADHD-like hyperactivity and impulsivity…

Aging Brains Maintain Robust Language Networks Despite Cognitive Decline

Summary: While executive functions like memory and problem-solving naturally decline as we age, new brain imaging research reveals that the neural network responsible for language remains preserved and fully functional.…

Youth Protein TIMP2 Restores Immune Function in the Aging Brain

Summary: Researchers have discovered that the youth-associated protein TIMP2 plays a critical role in maintaining the healthy function of microglia, the brain’s primary immune cells. Supplementing this protein in aged…

Study of Brain Immune Cells Reveals New Clues to Alzheimer’s Disease Progression

Summary: Researchers have mapped over 830,000 brain immune cells, discovering a protective subtype of microglia that expands as Alzheimer’s disease progresses. Driven by the TREM2 molecular pathway, these cells actively…

Regenerative Astrocytes Repair Brain Damage

Summary: Researchers discovered a previously unknown mechanism through which the adult mammalian brain repairs itself following focal injuries or autoimmune damage. Using two-photon microscopy and longitudinal gene mapping in living…

Eye Tracking Reveals Where Human Reading and AI Processing Diverge

Summary: A new study evaluated whether large language models (LLMs) can accurately account for human reading dynamics. The team compared eye-tracking data from 368 adult readers against predictions generated by…

Dog Brains Differentiate Human Anger, Fear, and Sadness

Summary: A new study demonstrated that dogs possess specialized neural networks for processing human facial expressions. The team used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and machine learning to analyze canine…