A zebrafish experiment found that one 1-hour ayahuasca exposure reversed several effects of 14 days of unpredictable chronic stress: impaired sociability, anxiety-like behavior, stress-related hyperlocomotion, elevated cortisol, and reduced whole-brain BDNF.1 The result is mechanistic animal evidence, not a clinical trial of ayahuasca for human depression or anxiety. Research Highlights 14 days of chronic stress …
A 76-person Nature Communications fMRI study found that people with major depressive disorder spent a higher share of time in a model-derived State 3 than healthy controls, 27.63 vs. 25.65, p(FDR) = 0.035, and State 3 occupancy correlated with QIDS depression severity, r2 = 0.268, p(FDR) = 0.008.1 The result points to altered brain-state transitions …
A 2026 adolescent depression study used resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging to test whether childhood trauma leaves a measurable network signature in the depressed teen brain. The researchers found disrupted default-mode network hubs in teenagers with major depressive disorder and childhood trauma, and baseline functional-connectome patterns predicted treatment response with 82% accuracy.1 Research Highlights Large …
A 5-year PPMI cohort analysis found that lower serum uric acid independently predicted incident depression in prodromal Parkinson’s disease (HR = 0.776; 95% CI 0.619-0.974; P = 0.029).1 The signal sits beside a lower-p-value non-motor symptom predictor: higher MDS-UPDRS Part I scores also predicted depression (HR = 1.177; 95% CI 1.093-1.267; P < 0.001). Research ...
A 2026 longitudinal study found reassuring cognitive trajectories after mild-to-moderate COVID-19: Alpha/Delta and Omicron groups both improved by follow-up, and neither group showed persistent neuropsychological test deficits vs. population norms. Psychiatric symptoms and fatigue were also broadly similar across variants.1 Research Highlights 55 adults were assessed: 27 were infected during the Alpha/Delta era and 28 …
A 2026 community survey of 945 older adults in Nepal's Far-Western Sudurpaschim Province found geriatric depression in 43.9% of participants and a strong inverse link between depression scores and quality of life. The clearest adjusted predictors were age 75 or older and hill-region residence, while income and sex weakened after multivariable adjustment.1 Research Highlights Depression …
Resting-state fMRI studies of postpartum depression have produced inconsistent results for years. A 2026 voxel-based meta-analysis pooled 12 studies of 475 patients and found 4 reliable regional differences (amygdala, precuneus, occipital, precentral cortex) at uncorrected thresholds, none of which held up under strict family-wise error correction.1 Research Highlights 12-study fMRI pool: Chen et al. analyzed …