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MS Memory Loss: 7-Day Recall Finds What 30-Minute Tests Miss

Photoreal illustration representing memory and forgetting in multiple sclerosis, with imagery of a fading word list and brain consolidation pathways.

Standard memory testing can tell a multiple-sclerosis (MS) patient that recall is normal after 30 minutes while missing a deficit that appears days later. Jansen et al. tested that exact blind spot in 62 MS patients and 65 matched controls: 7-day/30-minute recall ratios were lower in MS on both verbal-list recall (0.64 vs. 0.78, p …

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Drug Addiction Linked to Cortical Thinning in 65 of 68 Brain Regions

Photoreal illustration of a human brain with cortical regions highlighted across substance categories, representing the cross-substance morphometric pattern in addiction.

Whether alcohol, cocaine, nicotine, and cannabis damage the same brain regions or different brain regions has been hard to settle in the addiction-imaging literature. A 2026 ENIGMA Addiction analysis by Georgiadis et al. — pooling 4,733 brains across 51 sites — now has an answer. Research Highlights Across 2,782 people with substance use disorder (SUD) …

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Gamma Brain Stimulation Helps Schizophrenia More Than Depression

Photoreal illustration of gamma-frequency brain stimulation showing TMS coil and oscillation waveforms in 30-50 Hz range over a brain.

A 2026 meta-analysis of 56 controlled trials found the clearest gamma-frequency neuromodulation signal in schizophrenia: overall symptoms improved vs. control (g = −0.46), global cognition improved (g = 0.55), and MDD showed a smaller depression effect than the schizophrenia symptom estimate (g = −0.34). Bipolar disorder and autism stayed directional but nonsignificant, and the paper’s …

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VNS After Failed Epilepsy Surgery Reduced Seizures 76% at 36 Months

Photoreal illustration showing an implanted vagus nerve stimulator and brain pathways, representing neuromodulation for drug-resistant epilepsy.

A 2026 CORE-VNS registry analysis found that implanted vagus nerve stimulation still produced large 36-month seizure reductions after failed intracranial epilepsy surgery: median all-seizure reduction was 76.3% with prior surgery vs. 76.6% without prior surgery.1 Research Highlights Prior surgery did not blunt the main VNS signal: CORE-VNS reported 76.3% median all-seizure reduction at 36 months …

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PTSD Trauma Memories Are Encoded in Hippocampal Semantic Maps

Photoreal illustration of the hippocampus with semantic encoding pathways highlighted, representing trauma memory processing in PTSD.

A 2026 fMRI study of 79 women with interpersonal-violence-related PTSD found that the hippocampus does encode the meaning of autobiographical trauma narratives, t(140) = 4.05, p < 0.001, even though average hippocampal encoding did not rise for trauma vs. neutral memories. Research Highlights Hippocampal semantic encoding was significant: Cisler et al. analyzed 3,928 narrative sentences …

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Catatonia Linked to Lower Left Paracingulate Sulcus Rate (28% vs 53%)

Photoreal illustration of a brain with the anterior cingulate cortex highlighted, representing transdiagnostic structural markers of catatonia.

A 2026 hospital MRI study found that the left paracingulate sulcus was present in 31 of 109 catatonia patients (28%) vs. 171 of 323 psychiatric controls without catatonia (53%), a left-hemisphere group effect that survived adjustment for age, sex, scanner, brain volume, benzodiazepines, and antipsychotics.1 Research Highlights Left PCS signal: left paracingulate sulcus (PCS) presence …

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Negative Emotionality Reduces Frontal Midline Theta in 106 Recruits

Photoreal illustration of frontal-midline brain activity overlaid on a stylized portrait, conveying personality-brain link in cognitive control.

A 2026 EEG study of 106 Army National Guard recruits found that higher negative emotionality predicted poorer Go/No-Go discrimination (β = −.234, 95% CI −.392 to −.076) and lower frontal midline theta (β = −.149, 95% CI −.290 to −.001). The key result was not a vague personality-brain link: frontal midline theta, not occipital alpha, …

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