Brain News and Research

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The human brain is the center of the human nervous system and is a highly complex organ. Enclosed in the cranium, it has the same general structure as the brains of other mammals, but is over three times as large as the brain of a typical mammal with an equivalent body size.

Some popular drinks were linked to depression and anxiety. Coffee was different

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6 Sep 2026

ART-conceived children show reassuring long-term health outcomes

The birth of Louise Brown in 1978, the world's first baby conceived through assisted reproductive technology (ART), was a major breakthrough that reshaped the field of reproductive medicine.

4 Sep 2026

More Americans with disabilities found work despite broader employment decline

More Americans with disabilities were working in August, tying the record high reached in November 2025, even as employment among people without disabilities declined, according to today's National Trends in Disability Employment–Jobs Report (nTIDE), issued by Kessler Foundation and the University of New Hampshire's Institute on Disability.

4 Sep 2026

JMIR Publications: Emerging health tech trends

JMIR Publications released three feature News and Perspectives articles this week, covering an emerging application of drone delivery, the implications of AI tools used in early education, the nascent field of cancer neurotech, and the future of consumer wearable devices.

4 Sep 2026

Preschool children show contrasting effects after brief gameplay

A study of preschool children found that brief digital or traditional gameplay improved performance on tasks requiring quick responses, but reduced performance on tasks demanding greater concentration and self-control.

4 Sep 2026

New V-UNet model improves efficient medical image segmentation

Segmentation tools help doctors identify and delineate tumors, lesions, and other abnormalities in medical images.

4 Sep 2026

Younger and older brains respond differently to traumatic injury

Conventional wisdom holds that younger brains are better equipped to recover from injury. Their greater flexibility allows them to adapt, rebuild connections and compensate for damage in ways older brains often cannot.

4 Sep 2026

Dual-drug microneedle patch targets inflammation and fat browning

The worldwide obesity crisis has become a dominant public health crisis across the globe. Over 3 billion people worldwide currently suffer from obesity, and forecasts warn the number will rise above 4 billion by 2035, accounting for more than half the global population.

4 Sep 2026

Community brain health programs successfully improve attention in older adults

As aging populations drive rising global healthcare demands, finding scalable ways to prevent cognitive decline has become a vital public health priority.

4 Sep 2026

Crucial brain stem cells rely on metabolic pathways to make decisions

As the human brain takes shape before birth, a remarkable type of stem cell helps give it many of the features that make it distinctly human.

4 Sep 2026

Submicron IR map of the human cell: Label free cellular imaging with O-PTIR, FTIR and Raman

What if you could map the chemistry inside a human cell - without fluorescent labels or stains?

From Photothermal Spectroscopy Corp 4 Sep 2026

What your gut microbes may have to do with how your brain ages

This review examines how diet-driven changes in the gut microbiota and microbial metabolites may influence cognitive aging through immune, metabolic, neural, endocrine, and barrier-related pathways. It highlights SCFAs, tryptophan-derived metabolites, and bile acids as key signaling mediators while emphasizing that much of the mechanistic evidence remains preclinical and human evidence is largely associative.

3 Sep 2026

The obesity-microbiome story is more complicated than ‘good’ and ‘bad’ bacteria

This review finds that obesity is linked to reciprocal interactions between diet, the gut microbiome, microbial metabolites, and host metabolic pathways that influence appetite, insulin sensitivity, inflammation, and energy balance across the lifespan. It highlights diet as a particularly tractable way to influence this system, while emphasizing that microbiome changes associated with GLP-1 therapies remain difficult to separate from weight loss and that functional multi-omics approaches may help enable more personalized interventions.

3 Sep 2026

What your genes can, and cannot, tell us about your personality

A meta-analysis of 46 cohorts involving 611,037 to 1.14 million participants identified 1,260 lead genetic variants associated with the Big Five personality traits, including 824 in previously unlinked genomic regions. The associations were broadly consistent across cohorts and measurement contexts, while polygenic analyses linked personality-related genetics to health, behavior, psychopathology, and life outcomes, although effects were modest and could not predict individual behavior.

3 Sep 2026

Coffee, tea and dementia risk: Why the amount you drink could matter

A targeted perspective synthesizes epidemiological and mechanistic evidence examining how caffeine consumption during midlife may influence dementia risk later in life. The authors highlight potential roles for dose, age, CYP1A2 genotype, adenosine signaling and cultural drinking practices, while stressing that current observational evidence cannot establish causality.

3 Sep 2026

The four-day week has plenty of fans. Now researchers are testing what it really changes

The Sussex 4-Day Week study is a 14-week UK protocol designed to investigate how reduced working hours affect physical and mental health, wellbeing, sleep, work performance, and potential biological and psychological mechanisms. Researchers aim to combine questionnaires with actigraphy, inflammatory biomarkers, interoception testing, and brain imaging in at least 150 adults, with data collection expected to continue until 2027.

3 Sep 2026

Cerebral palsy may be a trait rather than a disease

Historically, cerebral palsy (CP) was linked largely to events at birth, including prematurity or temporary loss of oxygen to the brain, but research over the past decade has suggested that genetic factors contribute to CP in many children.

3 Sep 2026

Brain-protecting immune cells may actually drive Alzheimer's disease

Immune cells that normally protect the body from damage by attacking foreign or infected cells are found in the brains of patients with Alzheimer's disease and related disorders at much higher levels than in healthy brains.

3 Sep 2026

Neural networks reveal how training shapes learning in living brains

A new study has used a type of machine learning called a neural network to reveal how different kinds of training can change how learning happens-both in machines, and in living brains.

3 Sep 2026

Immigrants face longer ICU stays after stroke in Canada

Among people who have a stroke in Canada, immigrants were admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU) at similar rates as long-term residents or people who were born in Canada, but they were more likely to have longer stays in the ICU, according to a study published September 2, 2026, in Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

2 Sep 2026