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Leaded Gasoline and ALS: Australia’s MND Surge Tracks Lead

Photoreal illustration linking historical leaded-petrol exposure with motor neurone disease, with imagery of a vintage gas pump and motor neuron motifs.

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 …

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Alzheimer’s RVI-AD MRI Score Predicted Dementia Conversion With 0.70 AUC

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 …

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Misophonia vs Hyperacusis fMRI: 91 Adults Show Different Brain Networks

Photoreal illustration of brain regions responding to sound waves with overlapping but distinct activation maps, conveying two sound-sensitivity disorder profiles.

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 …

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MeCP2 Overexpression Hit 5,000 Progenitor Genes but Spared Neurons

Photoreal illustration of two neural cell types displaying differential response to MeCP2 dosage, conveying cell-type-specific vulnerability.

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 …

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Autism EEG Study Finds 2 Opposite Excitation-Inhibition Subtypes

Photoreal illustration of two opposing brain-network excitability profiles representing distinct autism neurosubtypes.

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 …

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Resting EEG Supports Epilepsy More Than Functional Seizures

Photoreal illustration of EEG waveforms over a stylized brain, conveying network-based discrimination between two seizure-like disorders.

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 …

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