A 2026 Australian ecological model found that 20-year-lagged cumulative population blood-lead burden was nonlinearly tied to motor neuron disease mortality (lead spline p = 0.00024), while national insecticide use did not independently explain the curve after adjustment (p = 0.39).1 That is a real lead signal, but it is still population-level evidence, not proof that …
A 2026 Molecular Psychiatry study found that RVI-AD, a structural-MRI score measuring how closely a person’s brain anatomy matches an Alzheimer’s disease pattern, predicted mild-cognitive-impairment conversion to dementia most strongly over the next 3 years: OR 2.16, 95% CI 1.81-2.57, p < 2e-16, AUC 0.70.1 Research Highlights Short-term conversion signal: in 965 ADNI participants with …
Mukai et al.’s 499-person Phase 2b schizophrenia trial tested whether higher, sustained PDE10A inhibition could turn MK-8189 into a non-D2 antipsychotic; it did not. At week 6, MK-8189 missed the PANSS total endpoint at 16 mg (−2.8 points vs. placebo; 95% CI −8.3 to 2.6; P = 0.241) and 24 mg (−0.7 points; 95% CI …
A 2026 task-based fMRI study of 91 young adults separated misophonia from hyperacusis inside the same “sound sensitivity” experiment: misophonia-containing groups showed visual association cortex and ACC-visual network changes during unpleasant sounds, while key hyperacusis contrasts showed weaker salience-control connectivity than misophonia.1 The scan data support separating trigger-specific sound aversion from loudness-driven sound intolerance, while …
A 2026 Nature Communications study found that Mecp2 overexpression deregulated approximately 5,000 genes in mouse neural progenitor cells but only approximately 500 mostly small-change genes in mature neurons, with the same progenitor-vs-neuron split reproduced in human iPSC-derived cells.1 For Rett syndrome gene therapy, that is the useful calibration: extra MeCP2 is most dangerous when it …
A 2026 medRxiv preprint did not find one simple autism excitation-inhibition signature. Bertelsen et al. found 2 EEG-derived E:I neurosubtypes in 286 autistic males: a 47% inhibition-dominant subtype with higher Hurst exponent and lower gamma, and a 53% excitation-dominant subtype with the opposite pattern.1 Research Highlights Two subtypes, opposite directions: in 286 autistic males ages …
A 2026 diagnostic-accuracy preprint found that resting-state EEG network features separated non-lesional epilepsy from functional/dissociative seizures (FDS) at 67.5% balanced accuracy, but the signal was not symmetrical: sensitivity was 81.8% for epilepsy and only 53.3% for FDS.1 In plain clinical terms, the model looked more useful as an epilepsy-supporting marker than as a positive test …