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Maternal COVID-19 and Autism Screening: 10.1% Positive MCHAT-R/F

MHD featured image for maternal COVID-19 exposure, autism screening, and immune signatures.

A 745-child cohort found positive MCHAT-R/F autism screens in 22 of 218 children exposed to maternal SARS-CoV-2 infection during pregnancy (10.1%) vs. 30 of 527 pre-pandemic controls (5.7%; p = 0.03).1 The same 2026 analysis added a small serum-proteomics layer: exposed newborns who later screened positive showed altered immune and metabolic markers, but the paper …

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High Cytokines Predicted Weaker Placebo Response in Cancer Symptom Trial

MHD featured image for cytokine biomarkers and placebo response in cancer symptom trials.

A 2026 exploratory analysis of the ABCD cancer dyspnea trial found that higher baseline cytokines predicted less placebo symptom improvement than lower baseline cytokines across 33 of 40 cytokine-symptom combinations at day 7 and 29 of 40 at day 14.1 The signal is not ready for clinical prediction, but it sharpens a trial-design problem: patients …

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sCD27 Biomarker Flags Autoimmune Disease in Severe Psychiatric Disorders

MHD featured image for sCD27, autoimmune disease, severe psychiatric disorders, and neuroinflammation biomarker triage.

A 2026 immunopsychiatry cohort study found that soluble CD27 (sCD27), a marker of T-cell activation, was positive in cerebrospinal fluid in 23% of severe psychiatric patients selected for suspected immune involvement and in 88% of multiple sclerosis patients used as a positive-control group. In the psychiatric cohort, combined cerebrospinal fluid or blood sCD27 positivity was …

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Parkinson’s Speech Pauses Track Sentence Complexity and MoCA Scores

MHD featured image for Parkinson's speech pauses, sentence complexity, MoCA scores, and dysarthria.

A 2026 connected-speech study found that people with Parkinson’s disease produced more silent pauses than older controls while reading aloud: 2.185 vs. 1.595 mean pauses, while long sentences produced 2.676 pauses vs. 1.033 in short sentences.1 Within the Parkinson’s group, MoCA scores correlated with total pause count (rs = −0.502, p = 0.005). Research Highlights …

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Adult Hippocampal Neurogenesis Added 670,000 Rat Dentate Neurons

MHD featured image for adult hippocampal neurogenesis and dentate gyrus neuron turnover.

A 2026 rat study estimated that adult hippocampal neurogenesis added 670,000 dentate gyrus granule neurons from 2 to 18 months of age, but the total dentate gyrus population grew by only 385,000 cells because older developmentally born neurons were also being lost.1 The result makes adult neurogenesis look numerically larger than the usual “tiny trickle” …

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