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Eco-Anxiety in Children: Art and Philosophy Trial

MHD featured image for eco-anxiety in children and a classroom art and philosophy trial.

A 2026 pilot trial tested a classroom program for children's climate anxiety: art projects plus guided discussion were supposed to help students express climate emotions and build coping skills. The intervention did not work better than waitlist control, but it also did not make children more anxious. Research Highlights The intervention failed to separate: 46 …

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Cholinergic Modulators Improved Schizophrenia Negative Symptoms

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A 30-trial meta-analysis found that cholinergic modulators improved schizophrenia negative symptoms, SMD −0.42, while the overall total PANSS/BPRS effect was not statistically significant.1 The clearest signal came from muscarinic agonists, which makes acetylcholine biology promising but not uniformly positive across every cholinergic drug class. Research Highlights Negative symptoms improved: Cholinergic modulators reduced PANSS-N/SANS negative symptom …

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Falling Dementia Rates Linked to Generational Memory Gains

Photoreal illustration representing generational gains in memory across older adults, with imagery of overlapping age trajectories and hippocampal motifs.

Dementia rates in the US, UK, Netherlands, Sweden, France, and several other high-income countries have been falling for decades, despite population aging. The standard explanation — improved cardiovascular care, more education, and less smoking in later-born cohorts — is real but incomplete. Research Highlights Dementia incidence has been falling about 13% per decade in Western …

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Heart Failure Depression Linked to Oral Health and Microbiome Dysbiosis

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A 2026 analysis linked emotional disorders in heart failure to poorer cardiovascular health, oral-health burden, and oral microbiome dysbiosis, but the strongest mediation signal came from oral health rather than systemic immune-inflammation index.1 In fully adjusted NHANES models, emotional disorders were associated with lower Life’s Essential 8 cardiovascular health, OR 0.39, while self-rated oral health …

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Infrasound Raised Cortisol and Irritability Without Conscious Detection

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A 36-person experiment found that 18 Hz infrasound raised salivary cortisol and negative mood appraisal even though participants did not detect the infrasound above chance (p = 0.241).1 The result is a controlled acute signal, not proof that every real-world low-frequency noise complaint is physiologically caused by infrasound. Research Highlights Cortisol rose with infrasound: Infrasound …

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Chlorpyrifos Exposure Linked to Up to 174% Higher Parkinson’s Risk

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A human, mouse, and zebrafish study linked long-term chlorpyrifos exposure to Parkinson’s disease risk, with the strongest exposure-duration estimate reaching OR 2.74 for workplace proximity across the 1974-to-index-year window.1 The paper is stronger than a single epidemiology result because animal experiments pointed to dopaminergic neuron loss, microglial activation, pathological α-synuclein, and autophagy dysfunction. Research Highlights …

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Early-Life Visceral Stress Sensitized Auditory Brainstem Responses in Rats

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A 40-rat early-life visceral stress study found auditory pathway sensitization without hearing-threshold loss: neonatal colorectal distension produced IBS-like visceral hypersensitivity, normal ABR thresholds, shortened auditory brainstem latencies, increased amplitudes, and 219 differentially expressed cochlear proteins.1 The result turns IBS-like stress exposure into a gut-pain and sensory-processing question. Research Highlights Visceral hypersensitivity was strong: At 20 …

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