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New MRI measure maps blood flow and cellular organization

Researchers from the Mark and Mary Stevens Neuroimaging and Informatics Institute (Stevens INI) at the Keck School of Medicine of USC have developed a new, noninvasive way to examine how blood flow and cellular organization align across the layers of the living human brain.

17 Sep 2026

Military blast exposure associated with long-term health conditions

Exposure to high-level blasts from incoming explosive devices or land mines among military veterans is associated with an increased risk of several conditions such as seizures, neuropathy and stroke years later, according to a study published September 16, 2026, in Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

16 Sep 2026

Study identifies neural signature of pure awareness during meditation

What happens in the brain when thoughts, perceptions and other everyday mental activity become very quiet, while we remain awake and aware?

16 Sep 2026

RES-AGE project explores cost-effective ways to strengthen older adults' wellbeing

How can we develop evidence‑based and cost‑effective ways to strengthen older adults' resilience and mental wellbeing? With just over 1 million euros from the Strategic Research Council, Åbo Akademi University will, over an initial period of three years, examine social, health‑related, psychological and biological factors that promote resilience, with a particular focus on loneliness, stress and health.

16 Sep 2026

New patient-specific AI model improves precision in minimally invasive surgeries

Researchers created a new technique that accurately and rapidly matches X-rays captured during surgery with a patient's preoperative 3D medical scan.

16 Sep 2026

One brain implant could give people with paralysis a more expressive way to communicate

Researchers showed that a single high-density ECoG implant could decode attempted speech and upper-body gestures in parallel in people with severe paralysis, allowing two participants to control a personalized full-body avatar. Training the decoders on both isolated and concurrent behaviors improved performance across contexts and reduced false activations, offering proof-of-concept evidence for more expressive multimodal BCIs.

16 Sep 2026

College BORG drinking associated with blackouts and other alcohol-related harms

A newly popular college drinking trend, the blackout rage gallon (BORG), fosters binge drinking and can lead to a host of alcohol-related harms, according to a new study in the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs, published at Rutgers University.

15 Sep 2026

Living in disadvantaged neighborhoods linked to adverse brain health

In a study analyzing nearly 3,000 brain MRI exams, researchers found that living in highly disadvantaged neighborhoods was associated with adverse brain health.

15 Sep 2026

Reading for pleasure linked to better mental health and greater empathy

Reading for pleasure – from tucking into a Jane Austen classic to devouring a Heartstopper graphic novel – is linked to better mental health, greater empathy and a lower risk of dementia, say researchers.

15 Sep 2026

Scientists discover brain spot that drives risk-taking decisions

Every day, your brain runs the same calculation: take a risk or play it safe? Your gas tank might be low, but there's just enough to make it to work on time.

15 Sep 2026

New brain computer interface restores simultaneous speech and physical gestures

A National Institutes of Health (NIH)-funded scientific team has shown that a new brain-computer interface (BCI) can allow people with vocal tract and bodily paralysis to convey both speech and upper-body gestures simultaneously.

15 Sep 2026

Rare cortical neurons actively promote the transition into sleep

What makes the brain fall asleep? For nearly a century, scientists have looked to structures deep within the brain for the answer.

11 Sep 2026

Brain interference explains why multitasking becomes difficult

Multitasking feels like a required skill in modern life, but as anyone who has tried keeping track of multiple chat windows, an email inbox, and a stream of phone notifications during a video call can tell you, figuring out which messages are important comes at a cost.

10 Sep 2026

Aging brain actively shapes biology and progression of tumors

Brain tumors develop within an organ that changes substantially with age. A new review in Ageing and Cancer Research & Treatment examines evidence that the aging brain microenvironment may influence brain tumor progression, treatment resistance, and cognitive outcomes.

10 Sep 2026

Study reveals how brain reward circuitry builds psychological resilience

New research has uncovered that how the brain responds to anticipated rewards plays a key role in building psychological resilience after a traumatic experience.

10 Sep 2026

New genetic variant linked to previously unrecognized retinal disease

An international team of researchers led by the University Hospital and University of Bonn, as well as the universities of Edinburgh, Basel and Pennsylvania, has identified a previously unrecognized form of inherited retinal degeneration caused by a specific variant in the EFEMP1 gene.

10 Sep 2026

Study reveals structure of color-sensing cone cells in primates

For over 60 years, scientists have debated a basic structural question about cone photoreceptors, the cells that let vertebrates see color: are their light-sensing disk membranes closed off inside the cell, or are they open to the extracellular space? In non-mammalian species, the answer is clear - cone disk membranes typically stay continuous with the surrounding plasma membrane and are therefore open.

10 Sep 2026

Review highlights solute carriers as targets for central nervous system disorders

Solute carriers (SLCs) are specialized transport proteins that control the movement of nutrients, ions and neurotransmitters across cell membranes and are essential for brain metabolism and neuronal communication.

10 Sep 2026

Early B-cell therapy linked to better MS disease control

For people recently diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS), early treatment choices were associated with only slight differences after two years, based on the first treatment they used, according to a study published September 9, 2026, in Neurology Open Access, an official journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

9 Sep 2026

Gut infection leaves long-lasting immune ‘memories’ at the brain’s borders in mice

In mice, intestinal infections reshaped dural CD4+ T-cell populations and seeded the brain’s outer meningeal border with antigen-specific memory cells that persisted for months and mounted rapid recall responses to bloodborne antigens. Oral priming was associated with reduced Salmonella spread to the brain and modest cross-protection in an engineered shared-antigen Candida model, although the researchers could not definitively prove that dural CD4+ T cells alone caused the protection.

9 Sep 2026