A 2026 ANTLER mechanistic analysis found no evidence that maintaining antidepressants preserved a happier facial-emotion recognition pattern compared with placebo substitution at 12 weeks (adjusted mean difference 0.23, 95% CI −0.5 to 1.0, p = 0.5) or 52 weeks (0.29, 95% CI −0.5 to 1.2, p = 0.5). Research Highlights No 12-week maintenance advantage: discontinuation …
A 2026 case report described valproate 800 mg/day improving agitation in residual-phase treatment-resistant schizophrenia but being followed by hypoglycemia and pancytopenia; after discontinuation, lithium 600 mg/day at 0.8 mEq/L was associated with BPRS improvement from 80 to 64.1 The calibrated read is mixed: valproate looked behaviorally useful in 1 patient, but the safety signal was …
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 randomized crossover trial found that 150 mg caffeine did not increase subjective anxiety, interoceptive attention, or anxiety from body sensations in 29 people with panic disorder compared with 53 healthy controls.1 The result runs opposite the hypothesis, but it does not make caffeine inert: caffeine still increased physiological arousal, costly avoidance, and attention problems …
A 2026 neuron and mouse study found that CB1 receptors accumulate when autophagic flux is blocked, but p62 deficiency did not significantly increase steady-state CB1 receptor abundance in brain or hypothalamus and did not make CB1 signaling the primary explanation for late-onset obesity.1 The result separates 2 claims that are easy to blur: CB1 can …
A 2026 emergency department claims analysis estimated 3.87 million United States ED visits in 2021 where take-home naloxone could have been clinically relevant, compared with 226,453 ED-treated opioid-overdose visits in the same database.1 The finding reframes naloxone distribution as an emergency-care workflow for overdose risk, polysubstance exposure, long-term opioid use, and patients who arrive after …
A 53-study resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) meta-analysis found substance use disorder (SUD) linked to altered connectivity across prefrontal, striatal, thalamic, cingulate, and amygdala circuits. The most clinically relevant finding was an impulsivity correlation, not a diagnostic brain signature. Research Highlights Meta-analysis scale was meaningful: Zhang et al. pooled 53 whole-brain resting-state functional magnetic …