Brain & Mental Health

Cognition & memory

Midlife epilepsy tied to sixfold risk of dementia before 65, still about 2 in 100

Oct 20, 2026

Hands holding a blister pack of white capsules against dark clothing.

Fluoroquinolones showed no extra peripheral neuropathy versus cephalosporins in 3.9 million UK adults

Oct 20, 2026

An older person's hand rests on the curved handle of a wooden cane, in front of a dark green jacket and a blue floral scarf.

Global dementia study: about 10 new cases a year per 1,000 followed, estimate higher in poorer countries

Oct 14, 2026

An older man with white hair and a beard sits at a laid table with a hand to the mouth, looking toward a window.

ADHD linked to later dementia and mild cognitive impairment in the records and genes of 187,341 US adults

Oct 12, 2026

A person sits on a bed in near darkness looking down at a lit phone screen, seen from above.

A hospital found 28 cases of 'AI psychosis' among 215,712 mental health patients, most in a first episode

Oct 12, 2026

A gloved hand holds a small light up to the face of a bearded person, casting a bright patch across one eye and brow.

Light sensitivity rose in 7 of 10 blind people given an optogenetic gene therapy and special goggles

Oct 12, 2026

A person in olive scrubs writes on a sheaf of papers while standing in front of a large white scanner.

Brain age explained: what scans from 48,598 people showed across nine disorders, and what the gap means

Oct 9, 2026

Cannabis leaves lit in bright green against a dark background.

Cannabis and violence: what a review of 265,000 people found, and what the link does and does not mean

Oct 9, 2026

An older man with glasses and a white beard sits in a clinic chair while a woman in a white top stands behind him.

One in five developed dementia in the years after a mini-stroke, against 15% of matched peers, in Ontario

Oct 9, 2026

A group of teenagers walks along a paved path through a green park, two of them carrying skateboards.

Adolescents who took more daily steps had fewer mental health problems a year later, in a US study of 5,515

Oct 9, 2026

A square plate of smoked salmon on lettuce, topped with raspberries and blackberries.

The MIND diet explained: what it is and what studies show about brain shrinkage, memory and dementia

Oct 6, 2026

Glowing blue and green points of light at the tips of fanned-out optical fibers against a dark background.

Optogenetics explained: the light switch for nerve cells that won the 2026 Nobel Prize in medicine

Oct 6, 2026

The hands of an older person in a pale linen jacket holding a puzzle page on their lap.

Brain training sharpens the skill practiced, and one type was tied to fewer dementia diagnoses

Oct 4, 2026

Hearing aids showed no clear effect on dementia progression in 703 adults with mild cognitive impairment

Oct 4, 2026

A soccer player in a blue kit and white socks leaning back with the ball at head height on an artificial pitch.

Soccer and dementia: defenders had five times the brain disease risk, goalkeepers no clear rise

Oct 4, 2026

Old apartment buildings on a city street, with tall trees and climbing plants growing against the walls.

Greenspace within 100 meters of home was linked to about 20% lower dementia risk over 16 years

Oct 2, 2026

Several pairs of hands passing a clear plastic box of canned food across a table.

Volunteering was linked to slower cognitive decline in APOE4 Alzheimer's gene carriers among 17,972 adults

Oct 1, 2026

Older adults exercising with hoops in a gym, one of them in a wheelchair.

Exercise training improved thinking skills in adults over 60 across 227 trials

Sep 29, 2026

A clinician in gloves examining the neck of an older man who is wearing a face mask.

Carotid stenting or surgery did not improve memory or thinking in the CREST-2 trials

Sep 26, 2026

A parent checking a sick child's temperature with a forehead thermometer as the child lies in bed.

Febrile seizures and school: children scored almost the same as peers in a 672,000-child study

Sep 26, 2026

A person with eyes closed pressing their fingertips to their temples.

Migraine prevention: which medicines work, according to a review of 217 trials

Sep 26, 2026

A toddler stacking colorful toy blocks into a tall tower.

Phelan-McDermid syndrome may affect about 1 in 7,300 people, far more than earlier estimates

Sep 26, 2026

An older person fitting a hearing aid while sitting at a table with a cup

Hearing aids clearly helped hearing-related quality of life, across 16 trials in 2,261 adults

Sep 23, 2026

A busy cafe with people sitting and standing at tables, talking

Trouble hearing speech in noise went with higher dementia risk, whatever a person's genetic risk

Sep 23, 2026

A clinician showing brain scan images on a tablet to a patient at a bedside, in black and white

Brain scans showed fewer dopamine nerve markers in 24 people with long COVID than in matched controls

Sep 23, 2026

A dark, motion-blurred road at dusk seen from a moving car, lined with trees

Cannabis edibles impaired simulated driving at 10 and 20 mg, even below roadside THC limits, in 40 users

Sep 22, 2026

People sitting on a wide lawn in a city park, with houses and a tower block beyond

More grass near home, not more trees, went with lower dementia risk over 19 years in 6,761 US adults

Sep 22, 2026

A woman blowing into a handheld breath-testing device

More carbon monoxide on the breath went with lower Parkinson risk in 512,701 adults, smokers or not

Sep 22, 2026

A seven-day pill organizer with three compartments open and loose tablets beside it

Weekend breaks from ADHD medication brought no advantage in 43 men, and went with more procrastination

Sep 21, 2026

A teenage girl resting her head on her arms in dim light

School was the only source of migraine triggers for half the children who could name one

Sep 21, 2026

Gloved hands using a pipette behind a laboratory glass shield

A protein on breast cancer cells calmed the brain's immune cells and helped tumors settle there, in mice

Sep 20, 2026

A toddler in a red dress stacking colored wooden blocks

Toddlers' cognitive scores rose as New York's air cleaned up, across three birth groups from 1998 to 2020

Sep 20, 2026

Two women sitting together in a bright room, signing to each other

Deaf adults gave more of the brain's visual map to the far edges of vision in a 32-person scan study

Sep 20, 2026

A white mouse perched on a person's hand, in black and white

A serotonin circuit that quietens during pregnancy drove food-craving behavior in pregnant mice

Sep 20, 2026

Brain scan slices displayed on a tablet resting on a bed

White matter tracts that span the brain's hierarchy tracked the widest range of thinking skills

Sep 20, 2026

A colored anatomical model of a human skull on a stand

The skull's bone marrow holds immune structures that keep watch over the brain, a mouse study finds

Sep 18, 2026

A young woman resting her head on her arm while writing in a workbook on the floor

Mild brain stimulation cut procrastination in a small trial, with some effect still visible six months later

Sep 17, 2026

An older woman in glasses reading a book at a table beside a cup and saucer

Cognitive resilience predicted Alzheimer's dementia about as strongly as the disease's hallmark proteins did

Sep 17, 2026

A small brown mouse among fallen leaves with its paws raised to its mouth

An anti-itch drug calms scratching through a deep brain region called the claustrum, research in mice suggests

Sep 17, 2026

A girl wearing a crown of white flowers between a younger woman and an older woman

Brain scans show gray matter shrinks through puberty and pregnancy but may hold steady during menopause

Sep 17, 2026

American football players in helmets at practice, backlit by low sun

Memory was the most damaged ability in 33 NFL players whose CTE was confirmed at autopsy

Sep 8, 2026

An MRI scanner's circular opening shown on a monitor screen

Kidneys filtering faster than normal tracked more small-vessel damage in 7,254 stroke patients

Sep 8, 2026

An older man sitting on the edge of a bed with his head lowered

People with a common cause of brain bleeds had 16 times the odds of possible depression

Sep 7, 2026

An empty scanner bore with a head coil waiting on the table

An antibody blocking B12 from reaching the brain was found in over half of unexplained spinal cord cases

Sep 7, 2026

Earlier menopause tracked faster memory decline and an earlier Alzheimer's diagnosis

Sep 7, 2026

A radiographer at a workstation studying brain scans on a monitor

Clot removal failed to help in smaller stroke vessels, where it is increasingly being tried

Sep 7, 2026

A close-up of a person's ear against dark hair

Hearing loss tracked worse memory and smaller brain regions; tinnitus tracked neither

Sep 2, 2026

A man in a red jacket with a backpack walking across a grassy hillside

Physical activity tracked 23% less motor neuron disease across 384,836 UK adults

Sep 1, 2026

A small child's hands arranging coloured wooden blocks in a row on a wooden floor

Starting autism intervention earlier predicted better outcomes across 582 children

Sep 1, 2026

A glass of water on a white table beside a wooden chair

Blood sodium in the upper normal range tracked up to 3 times the dementia risk

Sep 1, 2026

Broken pieces of dark chocolate scattered with cocoa crumbs on a grey surface

Dark chocolate cut 13 seconds off a standard attention test across 16 randomized trials

Sep 1, 2026

A close portrait of an older woman with short white hair looking away in low light

Women who used estrogen-only hormone therapy had less Alzheimer's damage in 2,959 autopsied brains

Aug 30, 2026

A woman at a desk lifting her glasses and closing her eyes over an open book

Ten hours of cognitive rehab lifted daily function in long COVID, where no treatment is proven

Aug 28, 2026

Two rugby players in matching training kit grappling on the ground over the ball

Rugby training concussions rose across three seasons, and full-contact drills doubled the risk

Aug 28, 2026

An older woman and man sitting on a sofa holding game controllers, a pizza on the table in front of them

Exergames beat doing nothing for older adults' thinking across 51 trials, on very low certainty

Aug 26, 2026

A woman in a spotted headscarf and grey cardigan sitting with her eyes closed and her hands pressed to her face

Exercise improved the mental fog that follows cancer across four domains and 2,809 patients

Aug 25, 2026

An older person's hands filling in a newspaper puzzle with a pen

Practice at brain tests hides a year of cognitive decline

Aug 17, 2026

Tinnitus can show up when the hearing test looks normal

Aug 17, 2026

An older person's arm in a blood pressure cuff attached to a home monitor

Falling blood pressure tracked with memory loss in women

Aug 4, 2026

An older woman wrapped in a striped shirt looking away in a brick-walled room

Swinging mood predicted dementia better than low mood

Aug 4, 2026

Gloved hands transferring a blood sample into tubes in a laboratory

A midlife blood marker tracked dementia 25 years ahead

Aug 4, 2026

A blue blood pressure cuff and its tubing on a white surface

Blood pressure that swings tracked with faster memory loss

Aug 3, 2026

A woman in a kitchen leaning over a pan to smell food on a wooden spoon

Thinking your smell has faded tracked depression best

Aug 3, 2026

An older couple sitting side by side in armchairs, holding hands

Spouses of people with dementia had 1.7 times the risk

Aug 3, 2026

A red sun showing through thick haze above a faint city skyline

Wildfire smoke sent more people to the ER with migraine

Aug 2, 2026

A researcher working at a monitor in a laboratory with colleagues behind

Genetic risk fell as autism and ADHD diagnoses rose in Denmark

Aug 1, 2026

A teenage girl with a backpack standing alone against a bright teal wall

Autism diagnoses rose only in women and girls after 2020

Aug 1, 2026

A group of teenagers sitting on a staircase looking at a phone

Australia banned under-16s from social media. Most kept using it.

Aug 1, 2026

A clinician holding an older patient hand across a desk with a clipboard

Medicare wellness visits raised early memory diagnoses by 28%

Jul 31, 2026

A gloved lab worker holding a blood sample tube up to the light

A blood test told three dementias apart, not just detected one

Jul 29, 2026

A radiographer standing behind the open bore of a scanner

A brain structure few have heard of tracked with dementia

Jul 29, 2026

The weathered hands of an older person resting on a knee

Mental illness before 35 tracked with dementia after 50

Jul 28, 2026

An overhead view of a residential street crossing with houses and gardens

Dementia deaths peak in the suburbs, not the city or country

Jul 27, 2026

An older man sitting on a bed with his head resting in his hand

Nearly 4 in 10 dementia cases tied to modifiable risk factors

Jul 26, 2026

A close-up of legs walking briskly across paving stones

The fastest walkers over 80 had half the cognitive decline

Jul 26, 2026

A busy city street filled with cars, buses and pedestrians at dusk

Road traffic noise linked to Parkinson's in 3.1 million Danes, unless the home had a quiet side

Jul 26, 2026

A plate of chickpea salad with hummus, rocket leaves and olive oil

Diet tracked with dementia risk despite Alzheimer's markers

Jul 25, 2026

Three people sitting on a couch watching television in a dimly lit living room

TV watching, not desk work, tracked with smaller brain regions

Jul 25, 2026

Blister packs of blue and white pills

Pramipexole eased depression's loss of pleasure in a trial

Jul 24, 2026

Industrial smokestacks releasing plumes over a hazy city skyline

Air pollution tied to worse memory at 'safe' levels

Jul 23, 2026

Black-and-white brain scan images arranged on a lightbox

p-tau217 blood test estimated 5-year Alzheimer's risk

Jul 23, 2026

An older woman in athletic wear walks a park path with Nordic walking poles at dusk

Exercise twice a week tracked with lower dementia risk

Jul 21, 2026

Fresh oranges arranged in a close-up, top-down view

Blood vitamin C linked to more gray matter in older adults

Jul 17, 2026