Research
Latest scientific findings about intelligence, IQ, and cognition.
Beta Brain Waves and ALS: What a Two-Country Replication Found
In a Dutch-Irish ALS replication study, reduced beta ERD and ERS appeared only in the Irish cohort, while stronger beta ERS tracked faster Go responses in both centres.
Gel Turns Brain Astrocytes Into Neurons — Alzheimer's Research
A new lab study used a gel to lower a key protein in astrocytes, converting them into neurons. The technique may point toward replenishing brain cells lost to Alzheimer's.
APOE4 Gene May Be Reversible: How Alzheimer's Risk Damages Brain Vessels
Mount Sinai researchers found APOE4 turns brain blood vessel support cells into scar-producing cells, but blocking one signaling pathway reversed the damage in mice and human tissue models.
Sugar Rationing in Early Life Tied to Lower Dementia Risk
People who experienced World War II sugar rationing in their first 1,000 days of life had a 23% lower dementia risk and a 28% lower Alzheimer's risk decades later, a U.K. Biobank study finds.
Brain Wiring Changes Distinguish Early Alzheimer's from Normal Aging
A study of over 1,000 people shows Alzheimer's drives a unique pattern of brain rewiring, distinct from normal aging, appearing before symptoms and tracking cognition better than amyloid or tau.
Speech Patterns in Memory Tests Predict Cognitive Decline 7 Years Early
Boston University researchers used natural language processing to show that how you speak during a memory test can flag cognitive impairment and forecast decline seven years in advance.
MRI Study Maps How Different Brain Disorders Age the Brain
A 48,000-scan MRI study finds Alzheimer's, MCI, addiction, and psychiatric disorders show distinct patterns of accelerated brain aging, while ADHD and autism show little overall difference.
Hibernating Mice Shed Half Their Synapses and Keep Memories
Hibernating mice lost nearly half the synapses in their memory center, then regrew them within two days — while keeping the memories they had formed beforehand.
Rapamycin Boosts Brain Blood Flow in APOE4 Carriers
A four-week trial found low-dose rapamycin increased cerebral blood flow in healthy middle-aged APOE4 carriers, with the largest gains in women.
Magnetic Headset May Improve Long COVID Brain Fog
A triple-blind pilot trial from Mount Sinai found that an at-home magnetic headset improved working memory, processing speed, and mood in long COVID patients—with benefits lasting a month after treatment.
8-Year Study: More Screen Time Linked to Better Teen Cognition
A Finnish study tracking children for eight years found more screen time was linked to better cognitive processing in adolescence — suggesting what kids do on screens matters most.
Quantum-Inspired AI Maps Brain Hubs in Schizophrenia and Bipolar Disorder
A tensor network machine learning framework identifies stable gray-matter hubs like Heschl gyrus and insular cortex across schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, with bipolar features forming a subset of schizophrenia's.
Machine Intelligence Is Only Partially Interpretable, Study Finds
A large-scale factor analysis of 13,251 evaluation scores from 1,618 language models finds that a general intelligence factor explains at most 70.8% of performance variance, challenging the idea of a single domain-free AI ability.
Midlife Movement May Shield Your Brain Decades Later
A UT Health San Antonio study of 402 adults finds midlife physical activity and healthy blood sugar may slow cognitive decline years later — with benefits varying by ethnicity.
Neck Surgery May Drain Brain's Waste System, Study Finds
A Neuron study links cervical lymph node removal during neck cancer surgery to blocked cerebrospinal fluid drainage, brain atrophy, and higher-than-expected cognitive impairment rates.
AI Models Show Stroop-Like Conflict, Rivaling Human Brain
Large language models show congruency effects like humans in a verbal conflict task, revealing competition between default habits and rule-based control.
Alzheimer's Immune Trigger Found Outside the Brain in Lymph Nodes
WashU Medicine scientists found that T cells driving Alzheimer's brain damage get activated in lymph nodes first. Blocking that signal preserved cognition in mice.
Brain-Inspired AI Trick Stops 'Stability Gap' Learning Drop
Researchers borrowed a trick from noradrenaline in the brain to help AI keep old skills while learning new ones — without the usual dip in performance.
Your Breath Sets Your Reaction Speed, Study Finds
Northwestern researchers found people react 41 milliseconds faster while exhaling than inhaling, linking the rhythm of breathing directly to motor speed.
AI Learns Brain Equations From Chaotic Data, Even With Extreme Noise
A new machine learning method called PEM-UDE recovers the hidden equations behind chaotic systems — even when noise is five times the signal — and extracts brain network rules from neuron data.
7-Day Meditation Retreat Changed Brains and Blood, Study Finds
A UC San Diego study found that a 7-day intensive meditation retreat produced measurable changes in brain connectivity, neuroplasticity, immunity, metabolism, and natural pain relief.
Glucosamine Linked to 25% Faster MCI-to-Dementia Progression
A University of Florida analysis of 2012–2024 health records found glucosamine use tied to a 25% higher likelihood that mild cognitive impairment progresses to dementia.
Nearly Half of Dementia Cases Linked to Risks You Can Change
A four-year Lund University brain study found smoking, high blood pressure, heart disease, and high blood lipids were strongly tied to vascular brain damage, suggesting healthier habits could help delay dementia.
Information Theory Explains Autism's Insistence on Sameness
A new information-theory framework proposes that insistence on sameness in autism reflects a drive to reduce surprise and uncertainty, with implications for learning therapies.
AI Decodes Brain Waves in Fragile X Syndrome via Alpha and Gamma EEG
A new hybrid deep learning model analyzes alpha and gamma brain waves to identify Fragile X Syndrome biomarkers, combining CNNs, LSTMs, and recurrence plots for better detection.
Ancient vs Modern PSPH Gene: How Human Brain Chemistry Evolved
Modern human PSPH gene variants produce L-serine more efficiently than ancient hunter-gatherer versions, a new yeast study reveals about brain evolution.
Hippocampus as Brain's Data Augmentation System, Study Finds
A new framework proposes the hippocampus works like data augmentation in machine learning—refactoring past experiences offline and online to fuel flexible, zero-shot generalization.
Your Brain's Weight Memory: Why Lost Pounds Come Back
Human brains evolved to defend body fat, treating your highest weight as the new normal. New research explains why dieting often fails despite willpower.
Orexin Neurons Drive Sustained Motivation, Study Finds
Nagoya University researchers show orexin neurons scale with effort and are necessary for goal-directed motivation, with implications for apathy and ADHD.
Upright Posture Boosts Risk-Taking and Pride, Study Finds
A McGill University study found that people subtly nudged into sitting upright took smarter risks and reported more pride — all without realizing their posture was being manipulated.
Brain Signals Reveal the Songs You Only Imagine
Seoul National University researchers decoded imagined melodies from intracranial brain signals in 10 epilepsy patients, reconstructing songs by tracking relative pitch classes like do, re, mi.
Cognitive Dark Matter: The Missing Ingredient in AI Intelligence
New research proposes "cognitive dark matter"—brain functions like metacognition and emotional intelligence that shape behavior but are missing from AI training and benchmarks.
16 Blood Molecules During Menopause Predict Alzheimer's Risk
UCSF researchers found 16 blood molecules that peak during menopause track with cognitive decline and a 15% higher Alzheimer's risk decades later.
How Musical Improvisation Rewires Brain Activity
Improvisation quiets self-critical prefrontal areas and engages reward networks in both expert adults and children, revealing creativity as an innate brain function.
AI Automates Cognitive Testing of Wild Monkeys With 97% Accuracy
CapuchinAI uses facial recognition and touchscreens to test wild capuchin monkeys' cognition in Costa Rica, identifying individuals with 97% accuracy.
APOE4 Alzheimer's Gene Damages Brain Vessels, Waste Clearance
Mount Sinai researchers find APOE4 actively scars brain blood vessels and blocks astrocyte waste disposal — and blocking TGF-β reversed the damage in aged mice.
Dogs and Humans Share the Same Consonant Bias in Speech
An EEG study led by Boglárka Morvai shows dogs, like humans, use consonants rather than louder vowels to find word boundaries in continuous speech.
Cultural Evolution: How Communicating Networks Learn Better
A new neural network model shows that a population of communicating agents can learn progressively better descriptions of its environment — a ratchet-like process called Cultural Evolution.
Brain Signals for Error Detection Decoded Under Multisensory Feedback
New research shows a multi-branch EEGNet model can reliably decode error-related brain potentials even with mixed visual, auditory, and tactile feedback — a step toward better brain-computer interfaces.
More Electrodes, Faster Minds? Rethinking BCI Bandwidth
A new Perspective argues that brain-computer interface gains don't scale linearly — embodiment, learning, and personal confirmation limit meaningful thought output.
More REM Sleep Linked to Lower Risk of 83 Diseases
A new study of 95,559 people found that more REM sleep was linked to lower risk of 83 conditions, including dementia and heart failure.
Brain-Inspired AI Mimics Hippocampal Maps to Cut Energy Use
Researchers at Graz University of Technology built an AI that plans like the brain's hippocampus, using cognitive maps and stochastic search to cut energy use dramatically.
Study Inverts Dunning-Kruger: High Performers Are Most Overconfident
A new study in Psychological Review finds the Dunning-Kruger effect is a statistical artifact — and when corrected, top performers show the greatest overconfidence.
Weak Bone Density Linked to Faster Cognitive Decline
Johns Hopkins researchers found low spinal bone density predicts faster cognitive decline and white matter injury, pointing to shared metabolic aging drivers.
3-Brain-Region Circuit Found to Consolidate Memory During Sleep
A human intracranial study shows sleep memory consolidation requires coordinated activity across the orbitofrontal cortex, thalamus, and hippocampus — and epileptic spikes break it.
Loneliness Linked to Fewer Years Free From Depression and Anxiety
A study of 277,489 adults finds loneliness and social isolation cut years of disease-free life, with men losing nearly 6 mental-health-free years. Healthy habits did not offset loneliness.
Microglia May Hold Alzheimer's Tipping Point, Study Finds
New research on donated human brain tissue identifies a microglial tipping point that may decide whether Alzheimer's pathology leads to dementia.
New HOLMES Model Learns Hierarchical Structure in Real Time
A new computational model called HOLMES uses online inference to learn nested categories from sequential data, supporting one-shot transfer to higher-level concepts without explicit supervision.
Missing Brain Circuit Behind Chronic Fear Identified
Salk researchers discovered the amygdalostriatal transition zone (ASt) sustains long-lasting fear and anxiety behaviors—a missing link between emotion and action.
Dyscalculia Brain: Neural Circuit Glitches Block Math Strategy Switching
Stanford researchers found that children with developmental dyscalculia show altered cognitive control circuits, making them slower to switch and optimize math strategies.
Sports Boost Motor Skills in Autistic Children, Review Finds
A review of 11 clinical trials finds organized sports — especially martial arts and aquatic training — improve balance and motor skills in children with autism.
Gut Jet Lag: How Time Zone Shifts Disrupt Intestinal Rhythms
A new study from Wroclaw Medical University reveals how long-haul flights desynchronize gut bacteria from the brain's clock, affecting energy and cognition.
How Brain Wave Tuning Maintains Consciousness: New Study
A Kyoto University study shows the awake brain channels information along traveling waves with directional precision, while anesthesia floods it with noisy signal flow.
Traveling Brain Waves: The Visual Cortex's Own Generative Engine
A new Neuron review argues traveling waves in the visual cortex act as a biological generative model, shaping perception, prediction, and memory replay.
Zero-Calibration Brain-Computer Interfaces Edge Closer with 90.97% Accuracy
A new deep learning pipeline combines Riemannian alignment and stochastic weight averaging to enable zero-calibration motor imagery BCIs, achieving 90.97% accuracy in one subject and 74.31% across nine.
Hippocampal Circuit Links Memory Loss to Apathy, Study Finds
A new study links object-location memory errors to clinical apathy in autoimmune limbic encephalitis, tracing both to weakened hippocampus-prefrontal connectivity and hippocampal atrophy.
EEG and MEG: Mapping Brain Networks in Milliseconds
Richard Leahy and Takfarinas Medani review how EEG and MEG map large-scale brain networks with millisecond precision, plus open-source tools like Brainstorm.
Monkeys, Kids, and Adults Share Geometry Intuition, Study Finds
A PNAS study finds baboons, macaques, preschoolers, and adults — including Bolivia's Tsimane' — match abstract 2D shapes using the same cognitive strategies.
Cooperation Without Altruism: New Study Rewrites the Prisoner's Dilemma
New PNAS simulations show cooperation emerges spontaneously when individuals respond differently to different partners — no kinship, reputation, or complex rules required.
Closed-Loop BCIs Could Target Depression and Anxiety
A Mount Sinai review outlines how cognitive brain-computer interfaces could detect and respond to psychiatric states in real time by tracking multi-region brain networks.
Brain Protein Menin Linked to Aging; Restoring It Helped Mice
Lower Menin in the mouse hypothalamus tracked with inflammation, cognitive decline, and thinner skin. Restoring it improved memory and balance; D-serine also boosted cognition.
Locus Coeruleus: Targeted Norepinephrine Signals Drive Learning
Allen Institute study shows the locus coeruleus sends precise norepinephrine signals, not a broad broadcast, and contains the longest mouse axon at 70.32 cm.
How Adolescent Brain Remodeling Temporarily Hides Early Memories
A new study in mice reveals that perineuronal nets in the retrosplenial cortex temporarily break down during late adolescence, making early memories inaccessible before they resurface with less precision in adulthood.
New Alzheimer's Drug Repairs DNA Damage and Reduces Brain Inflammation
KCL-286, a drug originally developed for spinal cord injury, repaired DNA double-strand breaks and reduced inflammation in Alzheimer's mouse models. It has already passed Phase 1 safety trials.
Most Neurons Are Multi-Tasking Generalists, New Study Finds
A new Nature study shows most brain neurons are multi-tasking generalists, not specialists—reshaping how we understand cognition and neural computation.
Brain Tracks Two Conversations at Once, Study Finds
EEG research from Trinity College Dublin reveals a 1–2 second 'dual tracking' window where the brain processes two conversations simultaneously before switching focus.
Human Brain Organoids Restore Circuits in Cortex-Depleted Mice
Stanford researchers transplanted lab-grown human brain organoids into mice engineered without most of their cerebral cortex, forming functional neural circuits that influenced motor behavior.
Brain Scans Reveal Synaptic Loss Starts in Left Frontal Lobe in Schizophrenia
PET imaging of 122 people found widespread synaptic loss in schizophrenia, starting in the left frontal lobe and following the brain's neurotransmitter blueprint, separate from MRI volume changes.
New Alzheimer's Drug Diranersen Lowers Tau and Slows Memory Loss
Biogen's diranersen cut tau levels by up to 65% and slowed cognitive decline versus placebo in a Phase II trial—but the biggest tau reductions didn't produce the best cognitive outcomes.
Entropy Measures Reveal How Brain Regions Communicate During Tasks
New research uses information theory to map brain connectivity during motor, memory, emotion, and language tasks—without pre-existing models.
Infants Learn Which Arm Moves the Mobile: A Computational Model
A new computational model reproduces how infants learn to move the limb connected to a crib mobile, revealing four mechanisms behind early sensorimotor learning.
Brain Genome Regulation Shifts Sharply Between Ages 50 and 75
A single-cell study of the human hippocampus finds microglia replacement, blood-brain barrier decline, and 3D genome disorganization beginning in midlife.
Cerebellum and Sensorimotor Cortex Shape Visual Attention and Anxiety
A new neuroimaging study finds that greater grey matter in cerebellar lobule VI and thicker sensorimotor cortex predict more flexible visual attention, especially in people with lower trait anxiety.
Brain Activity Predicts Risky Choices 500 ms Before You Act
Direct recordings in the human orbitofrontal cortex reveal two opposing neural circuits that forecast risky vs. safe choices half a second before action.
Disadvantaged Neighborhoods Linked to Accelerated Brain Aging
A study of 2,826 brain MRIs links neighborhood socioeconomic disadvantage to older-looking brains, reduced volume, and vascular white matter damage.
Infant Brain Turns Music into Movement by 12 Months
A new study shows babies process musical structure as early as 3 months, but spontaneous movement to music—and later beat-syncing—only emerges around 12 months.
C1 Neurons: Brainstem's Master Switch for Lasting Anxiety
St. Jude researchers found that C1 neurons in the brainstem's medulla can lock in week-long anxiety after trauma, and silencing them may block it entirely.
Brain's Hidden Wiring May Protect Cognition as Gray Matter Shrinks
New brain imaging study links healthy superficial white matter to better language skills and weaker cognitive impact from age-related gray matter loss.
AI Predicts Parkinson's Motor Severity from Brain Scans
A new machine-learning study shows QSM MRI and fMRI brain features can predict Parkinson's motor symptom severity, explaining 45.4% of variance with clinically close accuracy.
Geometry Offers New Way to Map Brain Synchrony During Social Exchange
A NeurIPS 2025 paper proposes using discrete geometry and curvature entropy to detect key shifts in interbrain connectivity during social interaction.
Inflammation Pushes Brain Stem Cells to Stop Making New Neurons
A King's College London study found TNF-α forces human hippocampal stem cells into an immune alert state, halting new neuron growth — and an antibody reversed it.
Mild Heart Issues Linked to Microscopic Brain Damage and Memory Risk
A new study links weaker heart pumping to microscopic brain damage in memory regions, hinting at a connection that may raise the risk of memory loss later in life.
Mild Heart Issues Linked to Hidden Brain Decay in Alzheimer's Zones
A 3.5-year study of 73 cardiac patients finds that even subclinical heart dysfunction predicts microscopic tissue loss in memory-linked brain regions, explaining long-term cognitive decline.
AI Writing Erases Mystery and Complexity From Stories, Study Finds
New CASPER framework study from UNC Chapel Hill finds AI writing models strip narrative mystery, relying on safe archetypes and tidy endings — and bigger models don't fix it.
Why Some Brains Resist Alzheimer's: Rare Immature Neurons May Hold the Key
A Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience study of donated brain tissue finds that immature neurons in resilient brains activate survival programs and reduce inflammation, offering clues to cognitive resilience.
Psychedelics Amplify Cultural Context, Not Just Peace
A 21,990-person study shows psychedelics amplify whatever cultural mood surrounds the trip—unity on July 4th reduced partisan violence support, while election season increased it.
Neuroscience's 'Predictive Brain' Theory Echoes Freud, New Paper Finds
A new paper in Entropy argues the brain's predictive processing model closely mirrors psychoanalytic ideas Freud developed over 130 years ago, opening doors to new ways of understanding mental health.
Vision and Touch Brain Implants Share One Blueprint, Study Finds
A new review finds brain-computer interfaces for restoring sight and touch were developed separately for 50 years but use the same neural and electrical principles.
Why Lip-Reading Errors Are Predictable, Not Random
A University of Kansas study mapped 20,000 English words by visual mouth shapes and found lip-reading mistakes follow a structural pattern shaped by look-alike word clusters.
New Study Revives 'Brain Lag' Hypothesis in Primate Evolution
Robin Dunbar revives the 'brain lag' hypothesis using modern molecular genetics, showing primate body growth preceded brain expansion then overshot baseline, driven by social demands.
How Emotional Toys Shape Children's Memory Order
A quantum-inspired tensor network model predicts children's recognition memory for emotional toys with 77.98% accuracy, revealing how each item's valence affects recall of others in sequence.
Protein Corona as Navigation Interface for Brain Drug Del
A new Perspective reframes the protein corona—the layer of blood proteins coating nanoparticles—as a programmable, five-stage navigation interface for crossing the blood-brain barrier.
MRI Confirms 150-Year-Old Brain Fold Mystery, Ties It to Womb Environment
A rare brain 'bridge' across the central fissure, first described in 1876, appears in about 0.8% of people. MRI now shows it's shaped by the womb, not genes.
Erdős Probabilistic Method Gets First Major Upgrade in 80 Years
Mathematicians have finally improved Paul Erdős's 1947 probabilistic method for estimating Ramsey numbers, opening new frontiers in graph theory and combinatorics.
Brain Bundles Artificial Movement Into Hand Synergies
Two brain-machine interfaces produced identical perceptual maps in amputees, showing the brain processes prosthetic movement feedback as coordinated hand synergies, not isolated signals.
Dog Dementia Linked to Shorter Front-Limb Stride, Study Finds
A study of 88 geriatric dogs found that cognitive decline is linked to shorter strides in front limbs, offering a new early biomarker for canine dementia—and clues about brain-body connections.
Bilingual Brains Store Words on One Shared Map, Study Finds
A study of four bilingual epilepsy patients found the hippocampus stores concepts on a single shared map, using language-specific neurons to switch between English and Spanish.
Hearts Beat Together Within 20 Meters, Study Finds
A study of 72 students in New York City found heart rates synchronize within 20 meters and during shared attention, offering a real-world marker of social engagement.
Comfort Food Shuts Down Chronic Stress Via New Brain Circuit
Scientists mapped a neural circuit from the prefrontal cortex to the hypothalamus that explains how palatable food calms chronic stress by releasing dopamine and suppressing overactive stress neurons.
Brain Handles Surprises Like an Internal Software Update
University of Sydney researchers found the brain uses a dual strategy: it primes fast responses for predictable events and directs rich sensory processing toward surprises, all within milliseconds.