A 2026 case series of 5 adults with bodily distress disorder found mean pain scores decreased from 9.0 to 3.8 after accelerated transcranial direct current stimulation, with 4 of 5 patients achieving at least 50% pain reduction.1 The result is a feasibility signal, not proof of efficacy, because every patient knew they were receiving stimulation …
A 2026 brain tumor prehabilitation study involving 26 surgical patients found that language-targeted non-invasive stimulation plus intensive language training shifted fMRI language activation away from the stimulation target, while measured language and cognition stayed stable. Research Highlights Language-targeted prehabilitation moved the fMRI signal: the group-by-time interaction for stimulation-target overlap was significant, F(1,23) = 4.61, p …
A 2026 iScience metabolomics study found 211 differentially expressed metabolites in migraine patients with patent foramen ovale; in a 220-person validation cohort, lower indoleacrylic acid plus hs-CRP reached AUC 0.722 for distinguishing migraine with PFO from controls.1 Research Highlights Metabolomics found a broad signal: The discovery cohort included 30 migraine-with-PFO patients and 17 controls, with …
A 2026 systematic review found 15 clinical reports of deep brain stimulation for cerebellar ataxia, covering only 27 human patients across heterogeneous targets, causes, and outcome measures. Research Highlights The human evidence base was tiny: the review found 27 patients across 15 clinical studies, including 10 case reports, 4 case series, and 1 randomized trial. …
A 2026 Human Connectome Project MRI study linked asymmetric anterior cingulate cortex sulcal pattern to lower delay discounting in 390 healthy young adults: asymmetric ACC morphology predicted a higher delay-discounting area under the curve, meaning delayed rewards lost less value.1 The finding is not a diagnostic scan for impulsivity, but it puts an early-formed cortical-folding …
A 244-person functional MRI study found no significant evidence that ventral striatum activation during reward anticipation works as an endophenotype — a measurable trait used to connect inherited risk with diagnosed illness — for bipolar and psychotic disorders. Research Highlights The registered hypothesis failed: Barendse et al. found no significant ventral striatum reward-anticipation difference among …
A 2026 medRxiv preprint involving 370 healthy adults found that each increase in neighborhood-deprivation percentile rank was associated with epigenetic age acceleration on 3 of 4 second-generation DNA-methylation clocks, with lifetime adversity explaining 20.3% of the GrimAge association and 23.3% of the PCGrimAge association.1 Research Highlights 3 of 4 clocks accelerated: each increase in Area …