A 147-person feasibility randomized trial found that both a structured AI therapy chatbot and general ChatGPT reduced PHQ-9 depression scores compared with assessment-only control, with effect sizes of d = −0.47 and d = −0.44.1 The purpose-built therapy bot did not significantly outperform ChatGPT on depression, anxiety, impairment, or wellbeing. Research Highlights Both chatbots reduced …
A 2026 Nature single-neuron study recorded 3,109 medial temporal lobe neurons from 16 neurosurgical epilepsy patients and found that human item-context memory mostly used separate item and context populations: 597 stimulus-modulated neurons, 200 context-modulated neurons, and only 50 neurons that encoded specific picture-question combinations.1 The result argues against a simple “one cell stores the whole …
A 2026 medicinal-chemistry study found that thymol carbamate TC-6 inhibited human butyrylcholinesterase at 3.6 nM, showed more than 2,500-fold selectivity over human acetylcholinesterase, crossed a blood-brain-barrier screening assay, and improved spatial-memory behavior in amyloid-β-injected mice. Research Highlights TC-6 hit BuChE hard: Wu et al. reported human butyrylcholinesterase (BuChE) inhibition at 3.6 nM, compared with 9,320 …
A 2026 Journal of Neuroinflammation study involving 33 people with multiple sclerosis and 10 healthy controls found disease-specific B-cell repertoire signatures even when ordinary B-cell subset counts looked modest, then showed that most disease-modifying therapies shifted repertoire diversity after 6 months. Research Highlights Repertoire sequencing found MS signal: Vasilenko et al. analyzed more than 196,100,000 …
A 2026 Nature study found that parasite-sensing tuft cells can release acetylcholine, activate crypt enterochromaffin cells through muscarinic receptors, trigger serotonin release, stimulate vagal afferent neurons, and suppress food intake during established infection.1 The finding is a precise gut-defense circuit, not a generic claim that the gut-brain axis explains every mood or appetite problem. Research …
A 2026 iScience study recorded 27 substantia nigra neurons during deep-brain-stimulation surgery in 11 Parkinson’s disease patients and found that prior reward shaped both putative dopamine-neuron firing and the next reaction time: responses were faster after a +$10 outcome than after neutral or negative outcomes (0.916 s vs. 1.017 s, p = 0.0175).1 Research Highlights …
A 2025 Journal of the American Chemical Society study identified 4 unusual Morganella morganii phospholipids that activated TLR2/TLR1 immune receptors and induced inflammatory cytokines, especially IL-6.1 The finding does not prove that one gut bacterium causes depression, but it gives the microbiome-depression field something it often lacks: a named molecule and a receptor pathway. Research …