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 2026 randomized study involving 80 people with schizophrenia found that adding high-frequency repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation to risperidone improved PANSS cognitive-factor scores and aggressive-behavior ratings more than risperidone alone over 4 weeks.1 Research Highlights Design was randomized but short: 80 patients were assigned to risperidone alone or risperidone plus rTMS, 40 per group, with …
A 2026 review of electroacupuncture for depression found a familiar split: mechanistic evidence is rich, but clinical proof remains uneven because representative trials ranged from 65 to 270 participants, used different sham or drug comparators, and often failed to connect stimulation parameters with biological endpoints.1 Electroacupuncture is plausible as a subtype-matched neuromodulation strategy, but it …
A 2026 preclinical study found that 25C-NBF, a selective 5-HT2A psychedelic phenethylamine, increased plasticity-related markers and produced rapid antidepressant-like effects in male rodents, while showing no detected reward or reinforcement signal in the models tested. Research Highlights 25C-NBF was preclinical: Nadal-Gratacos et al. tested cells, male mice, and male rats, not patients with depression.1 5-HT2A …
A 7-day mind-body retreat study in 20 healthy adults found pre/post shifts across fMRI brain networks and plasma biology, with p values as low as 0.000003.1 Those numbers are striking, but the design was observational, so the honest reading is biological signal without causal isolation. Research Highlights Neural signal was broad: Meditation-state fMRI showed lower …
A 91-player adolescent football preprint mapped head-impact-related cortical slowing onto brain receptor and gene-expression maps: concussion-related slowing aligned with norepinephrine transporter density, r = 0.43, and alpha-4 beta-2 nicotinic receptor density, r = 0.50, while aligning inversely with dopamine D2, BDNF, and APOE maps.1 The result is a mechanistic clue about where head-impact physiology may …
A 2026 randomized sham-controlled trial in 76 adults with primary insomnia found an 8-week Sancai acupuncture protocol reduced post-treatment Insomnia Severity Index scores to 7.80 vs. 16.45 with sham acupuncture, while total sleep time increased to 366.83 minutes vs. 287.97 minutes.1 Research Highlights Insomnia severity fell far more with real acupuncture: Zhao et al. randomized …