A 2026 multimodal MRI analysis of 509 healthy adults found that fear acquisition, extinction learning, and renewal were not predicted by one generic “fear circuit” score: functional connectivity predicted acquisition, structural connectivity predicted extinction, and effective connectivity was the only renewal signal.1 The extinction result is the clinically interesting piece because exposure therapy depends on …
A 2026 eLife computational study modeled classical psychedelics by increasing a network state variable from alpha = 0 to alpha = 1, shifting perception from bottom-up sensory inference toward top-down generative replay. The result is a useful but still unproven oneirogen model: hallucinations look less like random noise and more like wake-time replay of a …
A 2026 eNeuro analysis of 163 people ages 3.5–24.7 found that wake EEG amplitude behaved like a sleep-pressure marker, but wake alpha-density changed in opposite directions across development: it decreased overnight in children and increased overnight in adolescents and adults.1 Research Highlights Alpha density flipped by age: In 163 participants ages 3.5–24.7, oscillation density showed …
A 2026 UK Biobank MRI preprint involving 71,214 adults found that chronic pain plus current depression had a structural brain profile that was more than chronic pain plus depression pasted together. The 1,377-person comorbid group showed widespread lower cortical volume, lower bilateral thalamic and hippocampal volume, lower left accumbens volume, and broad white-matter microstructure differences …
Deep brain stimulation works for Parkinson’s, but it requires implanted electrodes. A 2026 randomized crossover trial by Stalter and colleagues tested whether transcranial temporal interference stimulation — a non-invasive technique designed to reach deep targets without exciting overlying cortex — can move the needle on motor symptoms when aimed at the putamen.1 Research Highlights Transcranial …
Parkinson’s disease has a years-to-decades prodromal stage where motor symptoms haven’t yet emerged but pathology is accumulating. A 2026 review by Schaeffer et al. synthesizes the case for (and limits of) intervening during this window — with implications for high-risk individuals weighing whether to enter preventive trials.1 Research Highlights Prodromal Parkinson’s disease is the period …
Until recently, Alzheimer’s pathology could only be confirmed in living patients via PET imaging or lumbar puncture. Plasma p-tau217 changed that calculus — but how to interpret a positive result depends substantially on APOE genotype.1 Research Highlights Plasma p-tau217 is a blood biomarker that rises years before Alzheimer’s symptoms. The 2024 Alzheimer’s Association revised criteria …