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 …
A 2026 review concluded that GLP-1 receptor agonists have plausible stroke biology and modest prevention signals, but current human evidence does not support routine use as acute ischemic stroke neuroprotection.1 The useful clinical split is prevention in cardiometabolic patients vs. acute brain-rescue treatment after stroke onset. Research Highlights Acute neuroprotection is not established: the 2026 …
A 2025 Science Advances mouse study found a more brain-dependent metformin mechanism than the usual liver-gut framing suggests: low-dose metformin lost its glucose-lowering effect when brain Rap1 signaling could not be reduced, and 36 of 47 ventromedial-hypothalamus SF1 neurons responded directly to metformin.1 Research Highlights Low-dose metformin needed brain Rap1: Control mice lowered glucose after …