Brain, intellect, IQ

Researchers at Duke University School of Medicine are investigating how to keep opioids' pain-relieving benefits while reducing their addictive potential. In a study published in Nature, they report a step toward that goal.

Researchers have developed a computer model of the human cortex that links its microscopic chemistry to its brain-wide patterns of activity, providing new evidence that regional differences in receptor density help shape how activity and information move across the brain.

Beginning around age 50, the brain’s memory center appears to lose many of its longtime immune cells and replace them with more inflammatory ones. This surprising shift may help explain how normal aging sets the stage for Alzheimer’s disease and dementia.

Fruit, honey and other naturally sweet foods may have helped fuel the evolution of the human brain, according to new research from the University of Sydney and the University of Glasgow.

For many who have struggled to learn a new language or instrument, it's a familiar pattern: they make rapid progress at first, then hit a plateau that no amount of diligent practice or concentration seems to break.

Fruit, honey and other naturally sweet foods may have helped fuel the evolution of the human brain, according to new research from the University of Sydney and the University of Glasgow.

A new study led by a Duke University scientist overturns a long-held idea about how primates, including humans, came to have such large and sophisticated brains. The research finds that the dramatic expansion of the primate neocortex was driven largely by vision, not by the disproportionate growth of the frontal lobe often associated with higher reasoning.

Which neurons in the brain control movements, and how? This question was addressed by a team of researchers from the fields of neuroscience and artificial intelligence in a study conducted on an animal model at the interdisciplinary research centre BrainLinks-BrainTools at the University of Freiburg.

Glioblastoma is the most aggressive form of brain cancer. It's difficult to treat because tumor cells infiltrate the surrounding brain tissue, making it hard for surgeons to remove the cancer completely without damaging healthy tissue. Treatment is further complicated by the blood-brain barrier, which limits how well drugs and radiation therapy reach the brain. All these factors contribute to a five-year survival rate of only around 7%.

THURSDAY, Aug. 6, 2026 — Your brain's future may hinge on three key health factors in middle age.A study published Aug. 5 in the journal Neurology Open Access found that adults with normal blood pressure, no diabetes and no history of smoking...

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Glyphosate was long thought to be safe for honeybees because they lack the enzyme the chemical targets in weeds. However, researchers found that exposed bees foraged 13 percent less after only three days and showed changes in brain chemicals linked to behavior. Across a whole hive, that decline could reduce honey production, weaken pollination, and threaten long-term survival.

The updated Rome V criteria broaden IBS diagnosis and emphasize multidisciplinary care, including diet and psychological support, in chronic digestive disorders.

A study finds that neighborhood socioeconomic conditions shows the strongest association with children’s brain organization, with sleep and stress emerging as possible pathways.

Viral clips of Donald Trump stumbling through a Fox News answer on Venezuela and appearing unsteady after leaving Marine One have reignited fierce debate over the 80-year-old president's health.

The brain's immune system has long been thought to exist independently from the rest of the body, complete with its own specialized immune cells and a blood-brain barrier that limits what can travel into the brain.

To investigate these mechanisms, the researchers integrated microelectrode array stimulation with simultaneous recording and single-nucleus genomics from resected temporal cortex obtained from neurosurgery patients. The post Electrical Stimulation’s Effects on Neurons, Gene Expression Mapped in Living Human Brain Tissue appeared first on GEN - Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology News.

Hypertension and heart disease showed the most robust associations with white matter microstructure alterations in older adults, while diabetes and BMI demonstrated weaker effects.

An exceptionally preserved snake fossil from Brazil reveals that early snakes were far more diverse than scientists once thought. Detailed brain reconstructions show that Tametara mirim was adapted for burrowing, while another ancient snake was suited to life above ground. Other fossils point to marine lifestyles as well. By 80 million years ago, snakes were already experimenting with very different habitats and sensory systems.

A group of brain cells called orexin neurons appears to help us keep working when reaching a reward becomes increasingly difficult. Blocking their activity weakened motivation in rats, pointing to a possible new target for understanding why people sometimes struggle to sustain goal-directed behavior.

Alzheimer's disease has traditionally been studied as a condition that primarily affects the brain's gray matter, where neuronal cell bodies are located and some of the disease's most characteristic lesions accumulate.

Investigators find strong links between disorders of gut-brain interaction and eating disorders, while depression emerges as a key factor associated with both.

Mark Ruffalo reveals the dream that prompted him to seek medical help before doctors discovered a benign brain tumour behind his left ear

An AI-based method uses MRI scans to generate detailed maps highlighting how different areas of the brain age, and shedding light on how patterns of brain changes correlate with changes in cognitive function across lifespan. The post AI Uses MRIs to Generate Brain Aging Maps for Neurodegenerative Disease Research appeared first on GEN - Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology News.

Thousands of skeletal human remains have been discovered with their brain tissue unexpectedly intact. Now, a team of scientists may have finally figured out why.

How readily a cell divides and how well it survives are fundamental to life, shaping everything from organ size to the body's ability to withstand disease. That combination, known as cell fitness, isn't the same for everyone. Differences in genetics and environment can tip the scales toward developmental disorders, tissue degeneration and cancer.

President Trump's recent Oval Office speech led to social media discussions about his cognitive abilities, following verbal slip-ups during a military family announcement.

How can Alzheimer's research be made faster, better, and more effective? After decades of intensive research worldwide and despite recent therapeutic advances, scientists have not managed to fully arrest the progress of the disease.

Weight loss is not simply a test of willpower. The human brain evolved to protect body fat during times of scarcity, and it can treat a previously higher weight as the new normal, triggering stronger hunger, cravings, and lower energy use after weight loss. This biological “memory” helps explain why many people regain weight after dieting and why medications such as Wegovy and Mounjaro can help by reducing appetite signals, although their effects may fade when treatment ends.

USC researchers have developed an approach that uses artificial intelligence to generate detailed maps that highlight differences in how distinct parts of the brain age.

In a study led by Jii Kwon and Chun Kee Chung, from Seoul National University, researchers explored whether they could recreate melodies from the brain activity of people imagining how songs continue after listening to a few bars.

The gut and brain are in constant conversation, exchanging signals that regulate hunger and digestion, as well as the body's response to stress.

As global temperatures continue to rise, scientists are racing to understand why heat so profoundly threatens fertility across the animal kingdom. A new study from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and collaborators has uncovered a surprising answer: The brain itself may help decide whether reproductive cells can withstand environmental stress.

Scientists have identified a molecular switch that may help explain why aging makes the brain more vulnerable to diseases such as ALS and Huntington’s. In worms, the protein EPS8 builds up with age and triggers signaling that encourages toxic proteins to clump together, damaging neurons and shortening lifespan. Reducing EPS8 activity prevented these harmful aggregates and preserved nerve function.

Image credit: Olivier Porchet, Biorobotics Laboratory, EPFL When a fish holds its position against a current in a river, its brain must figure out how fast to swim and how to steer to offset the water flow. Most fish use vision to register the world sliding past, detect optic flow speed and direction, and their […]

What enables us to sustain effort toward goals, even when the task becomes increasingly difficult? A recent study by researchers at Nagoya University in Japan revealed the underlying brain mechanism, showing that orexin neurons play a crucial role in driving and regulating motivated behavior.

A new path has opened toward stopping cancer-associated cachexia, a devastating complication that gradually wastes patients away.

Freeman Hrabowski Scholar Bianca Jones Marlin studies how caregiving takes shape in the brain and how some biological adaptations are passed to the next generation.

Doctors use ketamine on patients as general anesthesia before surgery. They also prescribe it in low doses for pain management, and more recently, it's been used for treatment-resistant depression where other drugs have failed.

During ketamine anesthesia, the brain's nerve cells fall silent-as consciousness returns, they begin to reconnect.

Ant parenting may have evolved from the same brain systems that once controlled hunger. Researchers found that two chemical signals push clonal raider ants toward either caring for larvae or leaving to forage, with the balance changing as the ants grow older. Similar signals are involved in mammalian caregiving, suggesting that evolution may have followed the same basic blueprint across very different animals.

A gene involved in the brain’s overnight cleaning system may change how strongly poor sleep affects Alzheimer’s-related brain changes. The findings point toward more personalized prevention strategies based on both genetics and sleep habits.

A person’s sleeping brain may reveal warning signs of dementia long before memory problems begin. Researchers used machine learning to analyze EEG recordings from about 7,000 adults and found that an older-than-expected “brain age” was tied to a sharply higher dementia risk. Every additional 10 years of brain aging raised that risk by nearly 40%.

How does the brain make sense of what we see, hear, and feel—and transform these separate signals into a coherent perception of the world?

A study in mice has shown how shown that microglia immune cells in the brain play a critical role in how the brain recovers from ketamine anesthesia, and indicates that there are differences between female and male brains. The post Ketamine Triggers Sex-Specific Brain Recovery Responses appeared first on GEN - Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology News.

Microglia are innate immune cells of the brain, very similar to the macrophages found elsewhere in the body outside the central nervous system. Both microglia and macrophages do much more than defend against pathogens; both are deeply involved in tissue maintenance, function, and regeneration. It is by now well established that microglia become inappropriately inflammatory in old age, and researchers increasingly see this as an important component of age-related neurodegeneration. Here, researchers present provocative data to argue that the microglia of old age are not the same cell type as the microglia of youth; they are instead more like macrophages, derived from circulating monocytes outside the brain. This is a sizable departure from the present understanding, a wrench thrown into the works for several possible […]

Researchers analyzed 485 mother-child pairs in Canada to examine whether estimated fluoride intake from tea during pregnancy was associated with IQ at ages 3 to 4. Each 0.5 mg/day increase was associated with a 2.24-point lower full-scale IQ score, although the observational design and estimated exposure prevent causal conclusions.

In a promising sign for the potential of focused sound waves to improve care for brain tumors, UVA Health researchers have determined that tumors called gliomas may be even more receptive to targeted drug delivery than normal brain tissue.

Entering and manipulating dreams may sound like science fiction, but for Freeman Hrabowski Scholar Walter Gonzalez, these scenarios aren't confined to the big screen.

Untreated and undiagnosed, the crews that save lives in the roughest seas face the relentless pounding of waves.

A structured multidomain lifestyle intervention slows increases in free water, an early MRI marker of white matter injury, in adults younger than 70 years at risk for cognitive decline.

Christof Koch is taking on one of science’s deepest mysteries: how the brain creates conscious experience, or whether it creates it at all. He argues that materialism has yet to solve this “hard problem” and will explore puzzling phenomena such as near-death experiences and terminal lucidity. His work points toward the possibility that consciousness may be woven into reality itself.

The vessels of the glymphatic system run parallel to blood vessels entering the brain. Glymphatic vessels provide a path for drainage of cerebrospinal fluid into the body. This is a way to remove metabolic waste from the brain, such as the protein aggregates that contribute to neurodegenerative conditions. Loss of glymphatic flow is a feature of aging, allowing the build up of metabolic waste in the brain and consequent cellular dysfunction. Researchers here report on interesting results from a relatively simple approach to restore a greater drainage of cerebrospinal fluid through the glymphatic system, intermittently changing gas levels known to affect blood vessel contraction and dilation in order to encourage fluid flow in the glymphatic system close to those vessels. It remains to be seen […]

An upgrade transformed the beleaguered virtual assistant into a modern chatbot. It’s imperfect but worth trying.

DGIST (President Kunwoo Lee) announced that a research team led by Professor Byung Chang Suh of the Department of Brain Sciences has, for the first time, uncovered a novel molecular mechanism that regulates the "N-type voltage-gated calcium channel (CaV2.2)," which plays a critical role in neural signal transmission.

Nanoplastics—plastic particles smaller than one micrometer—are generated through the degradation and abrasion of plastic products and are increasingly detected in food, drinking water, air and biological tissues. Although the presence of plastic particles in animals and humans is well-established, determining how nanoplastics are distributed within complex organs, such as the brain, remains challenging.

Nanoplastics-plastic particles smaller than one micrometer-are generated through the degradation and abrasion of plastic products and are increasingly detected in food, drinking water, air, and biological tissues.

An overactive immune response in the brain may play a role in Dravet Syndrome, a rare and severe genetic epilepsy that typically begins in infancy, according to Weill Cornell Medicine researchers.

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Signals traveling from the gut to the brain may help turn meals into lasting memories. Rats showed stronger memory activity after consuming nutritious foods, but not after drinking sweet liquids with little or no nutritional value. Blocking the vagus nerve erased this effect and made it harder for the animals to remember where food had been located. Over time, diets high in fat and sugar also weakened this memory system.

Researchers have developed a new artificial intelligence-based method that could significantly improve the detection and classification of brain tumors from MRI scans, achieving higher accuracy than conventional diagnostic systems.

Emerging evidence suggests that while short-form videos may engage learners, they may also disrupt attention, memory, and brain networks essential for effective learning.

Researchers used single-molecule and super-resolution imaging to profile protein aggregates across six brain regions from 29 post-mortem donors, detecting high-intensity phosphorylated tau aggregates in the Parkinson’s disease putamen despite negligible conventional tau staining. PD cases with dementia showed greater tau burden than those without dementia, while the assay did not detect a PD-specific population of nanoscopic alpha-synuclein aggregates.

Scientists at the Fralin Biomedical Research Institute at VTC have discovered how an experimental therapy can help brain cells overcome the effects of a disease-causing genetic deletion.

Glioblastoma is an aggressive brain tumor that infiltrates deep into the surrounding brain tissue. Even after surgery, tumor cells remain in the brain and the tumor recurs.

Hospitalization due to an acute infection, especially infectious encephalitides, is linked to increased risk for psychiatric and neurologic disorders, a new study shows.

Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) – a non-invasive brain stimulation technique that influences activity in specific areas of the

Our brain demands a lot of energy compared to our other organs. However, it can also make do when energy supplies are sparse, flexibly performing information processing using what is available.

Researchers solved the mystery of why stimulating and blocking a receptor in the brain can help people lose weight, and suggested that the results of their mouse studies could aid the design of drugs that stimulate more weight loss with fewer side effects. The post Solving the Mystery of Why Blocking and Stimulating a Brain Receptor Helps Weight Loss appeared first on GEN - Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology News.

Researchers at Kennedy Krieger Institute and Johns Hopkins Medicine have discovered that memory consolidation during sleep depends on coordinated activity among three brain regions and disruptions to this activity can impair memory performance.

A type of brain activity linked to arousal and attention can track mind wandering. But research is conflicting on whether this activity promotes or hinders mind wandering.

Dreams are not random mental noise. A large study of more than 3,700 dream and waking reports found that what we experience during sleep is shaped by both our personalities and the world around us. Rather than simply replaying daily events, the dreaming brain mixes memories, emotions, imagined possibilities, and familiar settings into vivid new scenarios.

Eating within a shorter daily window may help protect certain thinking skills as people age. In a small six-month trial, older women who limited eating to about 8 to 9 hours a day performed better on planning and problem-solving tests than those who ate over 12 hours. Both groups lost similar amounts of weight, hinting that when people eat could matter in addition to how much they eat.

A recent MIT study suggests AI may reduce creativity and cognitive engagement by encouraging reliance on technology. While AI can boost productivity, habitual use might weaken independent thinking and creativity.

Author Kurt Andersen has imagined Donald Trump's death from a 'massive brain stroke' on the Trump Tower escalator in his new novel The Breakup, triggering riots and a right‑wing uprising.

European regulators recommended a treatment for childhood cerebral adrenoleukodystrophy but refused one for Niemann-Pick disease type C.

When an adult refuses to let an injustice pass—stands up to a bully or asserts their rights—we call it principle. When a 15-year-old retaliates to an insult thrown in a school corridor, risking detention, we call it a failure to think ahead. It's easy to ascribe this to a not-yet-developed teenage brain: a convenient shorthand for assuming they simply cannot weigh consequences properly.

During a visit to The Christie in Manchester, Kate Middleton revealed she 'didn't really have the ability to read' during cancer treatment and turned to colouring to cope with debilitating chemo brain.

If you want to submit an article for possible publication in the magazine, write it using only the brain inside your head. Please do NOT send us anything ‘written’ with or by an AI program. Recently we have been receiving a wave of articles written by or with ChatGPT, Claude, or some other large language […]

Newer oral drugs related to semaglutide medications such as Ozempic reduced pleasure-driven eating in mice by quieting a deep brain reward circuit. The finding could open new avenues for understanding food cravings and potentially treating substance use disorder.

FRIDAY, July 24, 2026 — Being cash-strapped certainly frays your nerves, but it might also accelerate brain aging, a new study says.People who have persistent money struggles or low income as young adults tend to perform less well on cognitive...

Vice President JD Vance is facing criticism from online conservatives over his Iran peace deal stance, with allies dismissing the backlash as inauthentic and possibly coordinated.

Researchers found that specific brain circuits help decide which jobs bees perform as they age. When those circuits were switched off, older worker bees began caring for the queen again instead of carrying out their normal later-life duties. The findings reveal that a bee colony’s complex division of labor may be guided by neural switches hidden inside each bee’s brain.

The longevity-linked APOE2 gene appears to protect brain cells by reducing DNA damage and helping neurons recover from stress. The finding could open a new path toward treatments that mimic APOE2’s defenses in people at higher genetic risk for Alzheimer’s.

Research led by the University of Granada (UGR) paves the way for new intervention and monitoring strategies for this high-risk population.

Most everyday moments are quickly forgotten, while others stay with us for a lifetime. How the brain determines which memories are retained and which are lost remains an open question.

Cambridge scientists have solved the mystery of why both stimulating and blocking a particular 'switch' in the brain can help people lose weight – findings which could help boost the effectiveness of obesity drugs.

One of the hallmarks of dysfunctional lipid metabolism in the brain the context of age-related neurodegenerative disease is an increase in lipid droplets in brain cells. This is seen in a number of different neurodegenerative conditions. Evidence suggests lipid metabolism dysfunction to be involved in the inflammatory behavior of the innate immune cells known as microglia, thought to be an important contributing cause of neurodegeneration. Here, researchers provide evidence for lipid droplet formation to be associated with cellular senescence, a state in which cells cease to replicate and secrete inflammatory signals. Senescent cells are not cleared efficiently in aged tissues, and their numbers grow to disrupt tissue structure and function. It is already known that some fraction of overly inflammatory microglia in the aging brain […]

Decades of UK data show chronic financial hardship, not one-off setbacks, drives worse midlife cognition and brain shrinkage.

Using single-cell multiomics, spatial transcriptomics, and an AI model called Hicformer, the team generated a multiscale view connecting genome structure, gene regulation, and tissue organization in Alzheimer’s disease. The post Single-Cell Maps Reveal Genome Reorganization in Alzheimer’s Brain Cells appeared first on GEN - Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology News.

Researchers from Carnegie Mellon University's School of Computer Science, the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and the University of Washington shed new light on Alzheimer's disease that could point to new directions for treatment.

Researchers have discovered that the human brain undergoes widespread age-related changes in genome regulation beginning in midlife that may help explain why aging is the greatest risk factor for neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's.

An analysis of aging human brains revealed widespread immune remodeling, blood-brain barrier deterioration, and genome architecture changes, challenging long-held assumptions about how the brain's resident immune cells are maintained. The post Midlife Brain Aging Linked to Immune Cell Remodeling, Blood-Brain Barrier Decline appeared first on GEN - Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology News.

Why can zebrafish regenerate damaged gut nerves while humans largely cannot? Michigan State University researchers have developed a new research tool that allows them to remove gut neurons in zebrafish and watch them regenerate in real time, helping scientists investigate one of regenerative biology's biggest questions. The work is published in the journal Stem Cell Reports.

A new mouse study led by UCLA Health suggests that inflammation during pregnancy can trigger autism-like changes in offspring, but also that those brain and behavior effects may be rapidly but temporarily reversible in adulthood with a short-term dose of the immunosuppressive drug rapamycin.