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 study by Bai et al. in Dialogues in Clinical Neuroscience uses Mendelian randomization (MR) — inherited genetic variants as a natural experiment to test causality — and concludes that migraines causally lower cognitive performance in a Han Chinese sample.1 The headline conclusion is plausible; the effect-size numbers in the popular MR shorthand (odds …
A 2026 PRONIA preprint involving 727 discovery-sample participants found that early mental illness severity cut across psychosis risk, recent psychosis, and recent depression: groups with higher symptom severity also had poorer functioning, higher schizophrenia and depression polygenic risk, and lower gray matter volume. Research Highlights Severity crossed diagnostic labels: Ye et al. stratified 727 participants …
A 2026 multi-ancestry genome-wide association study of urinary aMT6s, a melatonin metabolite used as a proxy for overnight melatonin secretion, found 0 genome-wide significant loci in 11,744 people, even though 23 variants reached suggestive significance and 8 were supported by 2 analytic methods. Research Highlights No common variant dominated: the 2026 GWAS meta-analysis involving 11,744 …
The intricate connection between mental health and educational attainment is a subject of growing interest and importance. Recent studies have shed light on how genetic predispositions to certain mental disorders can influence academic performance, challenging our understanding of how mental health impacts learning. Highlights: Polygenic Risk Scores Reveal New Insights: Studies utilizing polygenic risk scores …
A recent study examined how our genetic makeup influences our temperament traits, particularly in relation to depression. By analyzing the polygenic risk for depression (PRS) and its correlation with various temperament traits over time, this research provides significant insights into the complex interplay between genetics and mood. Highlights: High PRS Linked to Increased Persistence: Individuals …