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Antipsychotic Dose Was Not Linked to MoCA in Schizophrenia

A 2026 cross-sectional schizophrenia study found no meaningful association between antipsychotic dose and Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) performance in young, clinically stable outpatients. Cognitive scores related more strongly to symptom burden, illness duration, education, and age at diagnosis than to daily or 1-year cumulative antipsychotic exposure.1 Research Highlights Daily dose was not linked to MoCA: …

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Facial Markers Differed in 31 Older Adults With MCI-Level MoCA Scores

MHD featured image for resting facial expression markers and MCI-level cognition.

A 2026 medRxiv preprint found that older adults with mild-cognitive-impairment-level MoCA-J scores showed distinct resting facial action-unit patterns: AU10 upper lip raiser, AU23 lip tightener, and AU28 lip suck differed after correction in 45 analyzable participants.1 The result supports facial-expression screening research, but it does not show that a face video can diagnose MCI or …

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Pulse-Wave Harmonics Flag MCI During Cognitive Stress: 2.6-Point Gap

MHD featured image for pulse-wave harmonic coherence, cognitive stress, and mild cognitive impairment screening.

A 2026 community study of 101 older adults found that pulse-wave harmonics changed in a more organized way during a subtraction task in cognitively intact participants than in people with MoCA-defined mild cognitive impairment: amplitude-coherence scores averaged 9.00 vs. 6.40, a 2.60-point gap on a 0-10 scale. Research Highlights Cognitive stress exposed the signal: resting …

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White Matter Hyperintensity Penumbra MRI Links Hidden Damage to Cognition

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A 245-person BeLOVE MRI analysis found that tissue immediately surrounding white matter hyperintensities already carried measurable injury: magnetization transfer saturation was lower inside lesions than contralesional white matter, β = −0.48, p < 0.001, and the gradient extended into normal-appearing tissue around the lesion border. The cognitive signal was narrower but clinically interesting: higher perilesional …

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Parkinson’s Speech Pauses Track Sentence Complexity and MoCA Scores

MHD featured image for Parkinson's speech pauses, sentence complexity, MoCA scores, and dysarthria.

A 2026 connected-speech study found that people with Parkinson’s disease produced more silent pauses than older controls while reading aloud: 2.185 vs. 1.595 mean pauses, while long sentences produced 2.676 pauses vs. 1.033 in short sentences.1 Within the Parkinson’s group, MoCA scores correlated with total pause count (rs = −0.502, p = 0.005). Research Highlights …

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