Study Shows Vision Can Predict Dementia 12 Years Before Diagnosis

The eyes are a window to the sould annd also the brain – and this outward extension of the central nervous system may reveal early signs of cognitive decline, research suggests.

Two recent and large population studies, one in the United Kingdom and another in Australia, suggest that those who perform worse on simple vision tests have a higher risk of developing dementia more than a decade down the road.

The UK study, which was published in 2024, found that participants with slower visual processing speeds were more likely to develop dementia over the following 12 years.

The study from Australia, meanwhile, found that deteriorating visual acuity was a significant predictor of cognitive decline over a similar 12-year period.

"A decline in vision can be caused by a range of factors, some of which are treatable. For example, cataracts, or vision decline that can be supported with the correct glasses," said the lead author of the Australian study, neuroscientist Nikki-Anne Wilson at Neuroscience Research Australia (NeuRA).

"What the research is now showing is that identifying these changes early and addressing them may help reduce the risk of developing dementia."

In light of compelling new evidence, The Lancet's latest Commission on dementia in 2024 identified vision loss in late life as a new risk factor for cognitive decline, contributing to up to 2.2 percent of cases.

By comparison, untreated hearing loss in mid-life contributes to an estimated seven percent of cases.

Just because an older individual is suffering from hearing or vision loss doesn't mean they are doomed to develop dementia. These issues can be indicative of numerous underlying health problems – so as a diagnostic tool for dementia, sensory tests like these are less than perfect.

At a population level, however, emerging research suggests that wearing hearing aids may reduce the risk of developing dementia, and the same could be true of treating vision issues.

Assessing these sensory issues in older adults could, therefore, be crucial.

In the 2024 study from Australia, scientists analyzed visual acuity and cognitive decline among 2,281 participants. Their models showed that deteriorating vision significantly predicted poorer problem-solving, memory, and attention scores.

Interestingly, however, social engagement somewhat mediated that association.

"We show for the first time that the relationship between a decline in vision and global cognitive performance may be partly explained by reduced social contact," explained Wilson.

"People experiencing poorer vision may be more likely to avoid social events due to anxiety and this too may impact their cognitive performance. Our findings indicate the importance of maintaining social contact, not only because social isolation is a risk factor for dementia itself but also because it might also help to reduce the impact of other risk factors, such as poorer vision. However, further work is needed."

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Study Shows Brain Can Still Develop New Cells After 70 Years

A recent study is challenging a long-standing assumption regarding the adult brain. It surmises that individuals can continue to develop new brain cells into old age. Researchers at Sweden’s Karolinska Institutet, under Jonas Frisén’s leadership, have presented direct evidence that new neurons continue to develop in the memory center of the brain, the hippocampus, in 78-year-olds.

Brian Smith underscored the importance of this study, noting that it is fundamental to the ongoing debate in neuroscience related to whether or not neurogenesis (growing new neurons) ceases after childhood or continues throughout life.

The hippocampus is central to memory, learning, and mood, and is often called the "memory center" of the brain. Animal studies have revealed the continuous development of new neurons in this brain structure throughout life, yet researchers have had difficulty finding this in a human study.

In 2013, Frisén’s research team captivated the neuroscience field with what was a paradigm-shifting study. They used carbon-14 in DNA to date when human cells in the hippocampus were born and found evidence of new neurons developing in adult brains.

However, many scientists in the field were skeptical because they simply found dividing neural progenitor cells, which are foundational to the process of neurogenesis. In the present study, the research teams’ work focused on identifying definitive progenitor cells (cells that give rise to new neurons) in the human brain. Previously, no studies had looked for definitive progenitor cells in the human adult brain.

Through examining human brain samples, the authors were able to assess the installation of neurogenesis in humans from birth to adult ages of 78 years old. The human brain tissue was obtained from multiple biobanks in several different countries, a unique opportunity for researchers to study brain development across the human lifespan.

Researchers employed single-nucleus RNA sequencing, which analyzes gene activity in individual cell nuclei, often used to study brain development. Through this, they characterized all stages of progenitor cells in the human brain from stem cells to immature neurons. They also employed a mechanistic approach called flow cytometry, which allows the separation of the cells by characteristics, and then coupled this technique with machine learning to identify very small populations of dividing cells.

In brain tissue from children obtained during early childhood, the team was painstaking in confirming that all stages of neural progenitor cells were clearly identified. The principal finding of the study was the validation of definitive progenitor cells in the adult human brain. The researchers then demonstrated that these neural progenitor cells were actively dividing. They validated this by using antibodies to Ki67, a well-known marker of cell proliferation.

To identify the specific location of the new neurons within the brain of an adult, the authors utilized RNAscope and Xenium, which reveal sites of active gene expression in discrete locations of tissue.

Notably, in an important finding, the progenitor cells and young neurons were located in a small subregion of the hippocampus known as the dentate gyrus, which is a critical brain region that is involved with the formation of new memories, spatial learning, and adaptation to change.

The precise mapping of neural progenitor cells has added weight to the idea that the adult human brain continues to generate new neurons, while at the same time providing researchers with a specific region to investigate in future studies and prospective treatments.

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The Common Root Cause Of Psychiatric Disorders

Researchers recently discovered that there are eight different psychiatric conditions that share a common genetic basis. There study pinpointed specific variants among those shared genes and shows how they behave during brain development.

The US team found many of these variants remain active for extended periods, potentially influencing multiple developmental stages – and offering new targets for treatments that could address several disorders at once.

"The proteins produced by these genes are also highly connected to other proteins," explained University of North Carolina geneticist Hyejung Won in January.

"Changes to these proteins in particular could ripple through the network, potentially causing widespread effects on the brain."

Back in 2019, an international team first identified 109 genes linked in different combinations with eight psychiatric disorders: autism, ADHD, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, major depressive disorder, Tourette syndrome, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and anorexia.

This may explain why these conditions often co-occur – for example up to 70 percent of individuals diagnosed with autism or ADHD have the other too – and why they frequently cluster in families.

Each of these eight conditions also has gene differences that are unique to them individually, so Won and team compared the unique genes with those shared between the disorders.

They took almost 18,000 variations of the shared and unique genes involved and put them into the precursor cells that become our neurons to see how they could impact gene expression in these cells during human development.

This allowed the researchers to identify 683 genetic variants that impacted gene regulation and to further explore them in neurons from developing mice.

Genetic variants behind multiple seemingly unrelated traits, or in this case conditions, are called pleiotropic. The pleiotropic variants were involved in many more protein-to-protein interactions than the gene variants unique to specific psychological conditions, and they were active across more types of brain cells.

Pleiotropic variants were also involved in regulatory mechanisms that impact multiple stages of brain development. The ability of these genes to impact cascades and networks of processes, such as gene regulation, could explain why the same variants can contribute to different conditions.

"Pleiotropy was traditionally viewed as a challenge because it complicates the classification of psychiatric disorders," said Won.

"However, if we can understand the genetic basis of pleiotropy, it might allow us to develop treatments targeting these shared genetic factors, which could then help treat multiple psychiatric disorders with a common therapy."

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Music Affects Brain's Emotional Flexibility

As emotions rise and fall in everyday life, your brain keeps up, constantly adjusting. These transitions between feelings—like joy, sadness, or fear—aren’t just random reactions. They’re part of a highly organized process that helps guide behavior and decision-making, according to a new research.

Researchers from Columbia University, led by neuroscientist Matthew Sachs, recently explored this complex emotional process using music. Their work, published in the journal eNeuro, looked at how the brain switches between emotions and how past feelings shape present ones.

The findings also shows that not only does the brain actively track these changes in feelings, but it also adjusts its response depending on the emotional situation that came just before.

To study emotional transitions in the brain, Sachs and his team worked with composers to write original musical pieces. These compositions were carefully crafted to move listeners through different emotional states—such as happiness, sadness, and tension—at specific points in the music.

A group of 39 participants (20 male, 19 female) listened to the music while undergoing functional MRI (fMRI) scans. This allowed researchers to capture detailed images of brain activity in real time. As participants moved through the emotional journey of the music, the scientists tracked how the brain responded.

The songs didn’t just stir up feelings—they acted as tools for understanding how emotions work in the brain. By manipulating the emotional context of the music, the team was able to see how brain activity changed depending on what emotion had come just before.

The brain doesn’t just react to an emotion—it maps it out. Sachs and his team used both data-driven analysis, such as Hidden Markov modeling, and theory-based methods to interpret the brain scans. What they found was striking: patterns of activation along the brain’s temporal-parietal axis clearly reflected emotional transitions.

This region of the brain helps with processing sounds and interpreting social signals. When a participant’s emotional state changed in response to music, this part of the brain showed clear changes too. These neural changes weren’t random—they had both spatial and temporal signatures, meaning they could be pinpointed in both location and timing.

Even more fascinating was how timing changed depending on emotional context. When the new emotion was similar in valence—like going from happiness to calm instead of from happiness to sadness—the transition in brain activity happened earlier. That means your brain shifts more smoothly and quickly between similar emotions.

Understanding these emotional transitions isn’t just interesting—it could be life-changing for people struggling with mental health. Many people with mood disorders, such as depression, experience what scientists call emotional rigidity. They get stuck in a single emotional state, unable to shift easily.

Sachs believes this new research might lead to better treatment tools. "We know that people who suffer from mood disorders or depression often demonstrate emotional rigidity, where they basically get stuck in an emotional state," he says. "This study suggests that maybe we could take someone with depression, for instance, and use the approach we developed to identify neural markers for the emotional rigidity that keeps them in a very negative state."

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3D Brain Models Can Be Tailored For Therapies

A few MIT scientists have developed a new 3D human brain tissue model that could change how researchers study neurological diseases.

The platform, called Multicellular Integrated Brains or miBrains, recreates key features of real human brain tissue, offering a more accurate way to test drugs and understand disorders like Alzheimer’s.

The breakthrough comes at a time when neuroscience research is pushing beyond traditional lab models and animal testing to create systems that truly reflect how the human brain functions.

Each miBrain is smaller than a dime, but it brings together the brain’s six major cell types, including neurons, glial cells, and vascular structures, in one living model.

"The miBrain is the only in vitro system that contains all six major cell types that are present in the human brain," said Li-Huei Tsai, Picower Professor, director of The Picower Professor of Learning and Memory, and senior author of the study.

In their first demonstration, the researchers used miBrains to uncover how a common genetic marker for Alzheimer’s disease alters cell interactions to produce disease-related changes.

Traditional brain research relies on two main approaches: simplified cell cultures and animal models. While cell cultures are easy to produce, they lack the complexity needed to study how different brain cells interact.

Animal models, on the other hand, are more biologically complete but expensive, slow to yield results, and not always reliable for predicting human outcomes.

miBrains combine the strengths of both systems. They are easy to grow and modify, yet complex enough to replicate real brain behavior. Because they are derived from patient-specific stem cells, researchers can create personalized versions that reflect an individual’s genetic makeup.

The six integrated cell types self-organize into functional structures, including blood vessels and immune components, and even form a working blood-brain barrier that filters what can enter the tissue.

"Recent trends toward minimizing the use of animal models in drug development could make systems like this one increasingly important tools for discovering and developing new human drug targets," said Robert Langer, co-senior author of the study.

Creating a model with so many cell types took years of experimentation. One major challenge was building a structure that could physically support cells and sustain their activity.

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Scorpions May Hold The Key To Cancer Treatment

A team of researchers from City of Hope, a network of cancer research centers based in major cities across the United States, is reframing these misconceptions about scorpions and proving that they’re actually quite useful to us. In fact, a few years ago, a team of scientists there published a paper in the journal Science Translational Medicine outlining a new treatment method for cancerous brain tumors.

The researchers used deathstalker scorpions, a species native to the arid regions of North Africa and the Middle East. They used a genetically engineered component of the scorpion’s venom called chlorotoxin, to recognize tumor cells, particularly of glioblastoma, the most common type of brain tumor and one of the most deadly human cancers.

Glioblastoma are difficult to treat because the tumors are often dispersed throughout the brain. In theory, the new treatment should be the perfect solution for these hidden killers, as the chlorotoxin will act as a radar, telling your T cells—or your body’s natural defense system—where to attack.

"Much like a scorpion uses toxin components of its venom to target and kill its prey, we’re using chlorotoxin to direct the T cells to target the tumor cells," Michael Barish, PhD, chair of the Department of Developmental and Stem Cell Biology at City of Hope, says in a press release.

Contrary to popular belief, venom and poison aren’t the same, though the terms are often used interchangeably. Both substances are toxic and can hurt you, but their main difference lies in how they make their way into your body in the first place. Poisons are absorbed through the skin, digestion, or inhalation—think poison ivy or those colorful dart frogs.

Venom, on the other hand, must enter the bloodstream through a wound, often inflicted through a bite or a sting. The toxins in venom allow animals to disable prey, but those same toxins are great at regulating complex processes in the human body, making them invaluable in modern therapeutic treatments.

While the new treatment may seem revolutionary, this is by no means the first time humans have used animal toxins for medicinal purposes. In ancient Rome, healers often used snake venom as a treatment for small pox, leprosy, fever, and wounds. There have even been some reports of rattlesnake bites stopping seizures in individuals with epilepsy, and we, of course, still use venom to develop antivenom today.

The chlorotoxin treatment is just one example of chimeric antigen receptor T cell (CAR-T cell) therapy, a type of immunotherapy that uses cells from the body to fight cancer. Immunotherapy differs from other treatments methods because it doesn’t target the cancer directly, but instead makes the immune system more effective.

On the other hand, treatments like chemotherapy use drugs that are toxic to cells in order to halt their rapid division. According to experts, immunotherapy and chemotherapy both have their pros and cons. Immunotherapy is better at targeting cancer cells, but is slower, and success varies. Meanwhile, chemotherapy is much more aggressive and can quickly shrink tumors, but it also kills healthy cells.

City of Hope’s research on CAR-T cell therapy has been ongoing, and results of the team’s most recent study, published in August in the journal Cell Reports Medicine, seems promising. The study reports findings from phase one of clinical trials using chlorotoxin.

The researchers found that the treatment is "well tolerated" among patients. Three out of four participants (75 percent) achieved stable disease—meaning their tumors were temporarily neither growing nor shrinking—after receiving three rounds of treatment. Sadly, all four patients eventually died from disease progression, with three individuals surviving for less than six months and one for more than 20 months after the preparatory surgery, which is one of the first steps of the trial treatment.

Given the small sample size, the authors note that they can’t draw any large conclusions, but they are optimistic about the future use of chlorotoxin CAR-T cell therapy.

According to the team, their findings motivate more research on the efficacy of the treatment, and they are currently exploring options to make the solution more potent, which will hopefully lead to more noticeable improvements.

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Is "Dry Begging" A Form Of Manipulation?

Have you ever frustratingly mumbled to your partner that it "must be nice to have a partner who walks the dog" in hopes of them walking the dog more often? Or have you ever sighed that you’ll "just do the errands alone" even though you don’t want to? Turns out, you may be dry begging, a tool that people use in relationships of all sorts to get their needs met.

"Dry begging is when someone indirectly asks for something. There’s a need there, but they’re not stating it clearly," said Aerial Cetnar, a therapist and owner of Boulder Therapy and Wellness in Colorado.

Instead of making a straightforward request or voicing a direct want, someone who is dry begging hints at a need or makes a vague complaint, Cetnar added.

So, instead of stating, "I wish we spent more time together," someone who is dry begging may say, "Oh, I guess I’ll just stay home with the cat" — they’re hinting at their displeasure instead of addressing it.

"I’ll say it can come from a place of insecurity, fear or manipulation," said Tori-Lyn Mills, a licensed clinical professional counselor with Thriveworks in Columbia, MD. But it can also be something that folks grew up with and learned as a way to get their needs met, Mills added.

It’s also not an official psychological term that you’ll find in mental health literature, said Cetnar — "regardless, it’s very much a thing."

While it can feel easier than directly asking for what you want, dry begging really isn’t meant for the long haul.

According to Mills, dry begging can weaponize emotion and empathy while also shifting responsibility in a situation. It can "even weaponize a person’s role as a partner, specifically in romantic relationships," she said.

For example, in a romantic relationship, if one partner wants to have sex and the other doesn’t, instead of flat-out saying how they feel, someone who is dry begging may say something like "well, most people would be happy that their partner wants to have sex with them all the time [and] is attracted to them all the time," Mills said.

This can put the other partner in a position where they feel guilty about not wanting to have sex in the moment. It can even put responsibility on them and make them think, "Oh, I should be happy about this," Mills noted.

"It’s kind of like — I should be giving into this. That’s how dry begging can work," she said.

If this sounds manipulative, it’s because it often is.

If it becomes a pattern, that’s a red flag for manipulation, Cetnar said. More, if the partner ends up doing things they don’t want to do without ever being clearly asked, it’s another red flag, she said.

"It’s not always manipulative — it certainly can be — but I like to give people the benefit of the doubt. First, look at what’s the intention and is it a pattern," Cetnar said. Once again, if it’s a pattern, that is not OK.

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Diet Change Can Help Cure Brain Cancer

A change t healthy diet may make the fatal brain cancer glioblastoma more vulnerable to cancer therapies, a new study suggests.

The researchers behind the work think this dietary change exploits a key metabolic vulnerability in the cancer, and their work demonstrates that the approach extends survival in mice when used in combination with chemoradiation therapy.

The study, published 3 September in the journal Nature, suggests that a deeper understanding of how tumor cells tweak their metabolisms in the pursuit of all-out growth could open treatment windows for this notoriously deadly cancer.

Healthy cells in the brain need fuel to maintain their extensive list of functions, like electrical signaling and the release of chemical messengers. Cancer cells dispose of these normal processes as they rewire to become "professional dividing cells," said study co-author Costas Lyssiotis, a professor of oncology at the University of Michigan.

These changes are of great interest to cancer researchers because they may allow therapies to distinguish between healthy cells and tumors, making them more targeted.

"The real art of delivering therapy is making it so that you kill the cancer way more than you kill the normal [cells]," Lyssiotis told Live Science.

The work, coordinated by University of Michigan oncologist Dr. Dan Wahl, assessed how glioblastoma warps its metabolism in both human and animal brains. The study ambitiously combined laboratory research and clinical practice by drawing some of its data from tissue taken from the brains of patients undergoing cancer surgery. The study required the collaboration of experts in human and rodent brain surgery, metabolic pathways, and molecular analysis.

The protocol began in the hours before surgery. The patients received an infusion of glucose, which was tagged so that it was detectable by molecular analysis techniques. The glucose flowed through their bloodstreams and into both their healthy and tumorous cells.

A common approach for glioblastoma surgery is to remove the tumor and some surrounding brain tissue to minimize the risk of the cancer quickly growing back. The team took blood samples every 30 minutes during surgery and then flash-froze the excised tumor and healthy tissue for analysis.

These extracted cells had metabolized the glucose, and the researchers tracked the molecules' path through the cells. In concert with experiments in mice, the researchers gained a clear view into what tumor cells were doing differently as they gobbled up the sugar.

Healthy cells metabolized glucose for cell processes like respiration, in which sugar and oxygen are converted into fuel for the cell. These cells also converted glucose into an amino acid called serine, a key ingredient for important neurotransmitter molecules.

The tumor cells, by contrast, set these processes aside. Instead, the cancer cells directed glucose to produce nucleotides — the building blocks of DNA. These molecules are vital fuel sources for the tumor cells' endless replication.

Chemoradiation therapies attack cancer by destroying its DNA, but this rerouting gives the cancer cells a steady source of nucleotides with which to repair the damage. The study showed that the tumor cells also scavenged serine from surrounding tissues to further fuel their growth.

Here, Wahl and his team saw an opportunity. They put mice that had been transplanted with human cancer cells on a feeding regimen that drastically reduced their dietary serine. Lyssiotis suggested that this could potentially be replicated in human cancer patients with a low-protein diet supplemented with serine-free protein shakes.

As this cut the amount of serine available for tumor cells, it forced the cancer to reroute its glucose metabolism back into serine production. In turn, this slashed their nucleotide synthesis and made the cells more vulnerable to chemoradiation. Mice given this treatment combination lived longer than mice that were only given chemoradiation.

Lyssiotis explained that this vulnerability would likely work for a limited time, as glioblastoma cells can deftly adapt their metabolisms. In addition, some tumor cells appeared to rely less than others on scavenged serine. "If you can hit that sweet spot, you deprive them of serine, and you come in with the therapies, you get them before they figure out a workaround," he suggested.

Wahl is already beginning work on a follow-up clinical study to back up these results in mice with data from human cancer patients.

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Brain Implant Surgeries Now Available In Canada

After a successful first brain-computer interface implant surgery in the United Kingdom last month, Neuralink has now conducted procedures on two people in Toronto, marking its first surgeries in Canada.

The surgeries took place at University Health Network (UHN) on 27 August and 3 September as reported by Neetika Walter of Interesting Engineering.

These implants involved individuals with cervical spinal cord injuries receiving Neuralink’s wireless device via robotic surgery as part of the CAN-PRIME Study.

It follows Neuralink’s earlier UK launch in its first European clinical trial, making Canada the second country outside the US hosting such operations.

The CAN-PRIME Study is testing both the implant and the surgical robot. Its goal is to evaluate safety and to see if people with paralysis can use thought to control external devices. Participants could learn to move a cursor, send a text, or operate a robotic arm.

Dr. Thomas Forbes, Surgeon-in-Chief at UHN, said, "We are incredibly proud to be at the forefront of this revolutionary advancement in neurosurgery."

The Canadian team was led by Dr. Andres Lozano, Alan and Susan Hudson Cornerstone Chair in Neurosurgery at UHN.

Lozano said, "This milestone represents a convergence of neuroscience, engineering, and clinical care."

He added, "The patients who volunteered to be the first in Canada are remarkable individuals, making significant contributions to advancing science and healthcare."

Recruitment for CAN-PRIME is ongoing. People with cervical spinal cord injuries or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) may be eligible. Patients who join will attend follow-up appointments and research sessions to practice using the device.

For patients, the impact could be life-changing. The implant is designed to restore some control in daily routines. It could allow a person with quadriplegia to check emails, interact on social media, or use smart devices at home.

These tasks are simple for many people, but can transform life for those with paralysis.

The surgeries also highlight Canada’s growing role in neurotechnology. UHN is Canada’s largest research hospital and one of the world’s top centers for surgical innovation. Hosting Neuralink’s first Canadian trial adds to its reputation as a leader in neuroscience.

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What Causes Sleep Paralysis Demons?

Many of us have experienced hallucinating while getting out of bed, only to find out later that we are actually still asleep? How about multiple times in a row?

Manasee Wagh of Popular Mechanics wrote that Ben Rein, Ph.D., a neuroscientist at Stanford University, actually has had that jarring experience many, many times. Your brain can trick you into having hallucinations while you hover at the boundary of sleep, Rein says.

Rein is diagnosed with narcolepsy — a chronic sleep disorder characterized by overwhelming, uncontrollable daytime drowsiness and sudden attacks of sleep. He has also experienced hypnagogic hallucinations, or short-lived, disturbingly realistic imagery that tricks the brain as you’re falling asleep.

First the brain enters a sleep state, then slowly descends into a deep sleep, before finally surfacing slightly to enter a dreaming period called Rapid Eye Movement (REM). The full process takes about 60 to 90 minutes. This acts as a buffer between being conscious and dreaming, which is why people often have trouble remembering their dreams, Rein explains.

For people who experience sleep hallucinations, the period between consciousness and REM sleep is shorter. These fits can plague people with narcolepsy, in which a person enters directly into REM sleep — they’re awake, and then they’re suddenly partially conscious and dreaming. This situation is comparable to a hallucination before reaching a true dreaming state.

"I've experienced a lot of hypnagogic hallucinations," Rein admits. "They're definitely pretty wild." These types of hallucinations aren't very common, because you need to have some sort of condition that affects your sleep, he adds.

Hypnopompic hallucinations, on the other hand, happen while you’re waking up. They are connected to sleep paralysis, which can be downright scary.

"What happens is in sleep paralysis, during REM sleep, when you’re dreaming, your body is paralyzed, you have your brain intentionally disconnected from your body so that you’re not moving around acting out your dreams, for obvious reasons, of course," Rein says. (Naturally, you wouldn’t want to inadvertently punch your sleeping partner in the face while acting out a fight scene in your dream.)

However, during this rapid shift from REM sleep to wakefulness, the brain-body disconnection doesn’t necessarily happen for people who experience sleep paralysis. "And so you end up remaining body-locked and paralyzed because your brain thinks, '’m still dreaming right now.'But you are conscious enough to recognize that you are awake," Rein says.

Since your brain is still hovering at the border between dreamland and wakefulness, you are not only paralyzed, but also hallucinating. You may even think you’re being attacked—a horrifying experience people call sleep paralysis demons. "These are actually hypnopompic hallucinations, because really, what’s happening is, the mysterious things happening in the dream world are leaking over into real life. And so it seems very real, but it’s still really a dream," he explains.

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Superager's Brain Refused To Grow Old

Ask anyone what they dread about aging, and the thought of Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia is likely an answer high on the list. The irreversible symptoms of dementia only worsen with time and can become severe enough for the person to struggle remembering the faces of those close to them and even their own identity.

There is no cure for dementia (even though treatments that mitigate symptoms do exist). However, answers for prevention may lie in the brains of superagers, individuals over the age of 80 who have memories superior to others in their age group and can recall things as well as people decades younger.

A Northwestern University study that spanned 25 years studied the lifestyles and brain activity of superagers both during life and in those who had donated their brains postmortem.

What the researchers at the Northwestern Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center found were physical differences in brain structures that delayed symptoms of brain aging that often lead to dementia. Superagers would remember at least as many words from a list read to them as neurotypical adults who were 20 to 30 years younger. Their brain age of these subjects, mostly octogenarians and novogenerians, defied the expectations of the degenerative processes that often happen to the brains of people who reach their biological age. What is considered “normal” brain aging involves decline. The average brain usually does not stay so remarkably intact.

"During the first 25 years of this program, we established that superagers constitute not only a neuropsychological but also a neurobiological phenotype distinctive from cognitively average age peers," they said in a study recently published in Alzheimer’s & Dementia.

What gives superagers these superpowers? There are several contributing factors.

Somehow, their cerebral cortex resists thinning that is often a cause of neurodegenerative diseases. This outermost portion of the brain, also known as gray matter, is made of tightly packed neurons and responsible for higher-level processes that include memory, as well as learning, thought, reasoning, intelligence, language, decision-making, emotion, and personality. Superagers experience little to no cortical thinning, giving them cortical volumes similar to those of much younger brains.

There are also less obvious parts of the brain that give them an advantage, such as the cingulate gyrus, which is located below the cerebral cortex and above the corpus callosum. The cingulate gyrus also processes memory, along with emotion, self-regulation and pain. Superagers have a region in the cingulate gyrus that is thicker than the same region in younger adults. Their brains also show fewer signs that often indicate the onset of Alzheimer’s, such as less plaque buildup.

Nerves and the neurons they are made of are another factor critical for brain health, especially in advanced age. Superagers were discovered to have larger entorhinal neurons, which are found in the entorhinal cortex and involved in memory of times, places and objects. Their cholinergic nerves, which are involved in memory and help control many physical processes, are especially well preserved.

There is also a greater density of von Economo neurons, which speed up information processing, in their brains. Microglia, cells which are found in nerve fibers and often behind brain inflammation and lesions in older individuals, are less prone to causing inflammation in superagers.

Something that surprised the Northwestern research team was that superagers did not necessarily have many lifestyle parallels. Some took every measure to keep themselves healthy. Others had done just about everything that would seem to counter that, such as smoking, drinking, and being sedentary.

Many suffered from stress and were not able to get adequate sleep. The one thing that most superagers did have in common was that they were had active social lives, making extracurricular activities a regular part of their lives. They even reported having more positive relationships with others than people around the same age who were cognitively average.

Eventually, the structure and function of superager brains may be the basis for preventative treatments and gene therapies targeting Alzheimer’s, other dementias, and more neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson’s.

There are some aspects of this phenomenon that have yet to surface: whether superagers are born with larger brains, or with factors that make their brains almost immune to the ravages of time that cause others to experience the effects of brain degeneration. Either way, researchers are going to remember these findings for future studies.

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Illinois Governor Requires Mental Health Screening On Children

A new Illinois law requiring annual mental health screenings for public school students is drawing backlash from parents, policy experts and lawmakers who warn the policy may overstep boundaries and wrongly label children.

Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed the measure on 31 July, making Illinois the first state in the country to mandate mental health screenings for students in grades three through 12.

The law, set to take effect in the 2027–2028 school year, directs schools to provide self-conducted screenings each year using digital or paper forms. Parents will have the ability to opt their children out.

Supporters say the initiative will help schools identify early signs of depression, anxiety or trauma — before they develop into crises. But critics argue the plan could create more problems than it solves.

"I want to be on-the-record and crystal clear. This is a disastrous policy that will do vastly more harm than good," Abigail Shrier, a fellow at the Manhattan Institute, wrote on X. "Watch as tens of thousands of Illinois kids get shoved into the mental health funnel and convinced they are sick. Many or most of which will be false positives."

Katherine Boyle, a partner at venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, also raised concerns about government overreach and what she called the "mental health industrial complex."

"If a school nurse or a state-mandated mental health test tells you you’re sick, you’re going to believe them," Boyle wrote. "This is why so many families are opting out of primary school completely — the overreach is astounding."

Illinois education officials say the screenings will not be diagnostic and are designed to flag students who may benefit from further evaluation. The Illinois State Board of Education will develop the screening tools and guidelines by September 2026, and school districts will be responsible for implementing them.

"Mental health is essential to academic readiness and lifelong success," State Superintendent Tony Sanders said in a statement. "Too often, we only recognize a student’s distress when it becomes a crisis. With universal screening, we shift from reaction to prevention."

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Air Pollution Increases The Risk Of Brain Bleeds

The type of air pollution common in wildfires and smoggy inversions — PM2.5 — may be linked to rare but serious and sometimes deadly brain bleeds.

New research from University of Utah Health has for the first time linked the small particulate matter pollution to ruptured brain aneurysm, which is more formally called aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage. The resulting brain tissue damage can be severe enough to leave patients paralyzed or in a coma, if they survive it.

The study is published in the journal npj Clean Air. The "npj" indicates it’s part of the Nature Partners Journal portfolio.

The findings are preliminary, said lead researcher Dr. Robert Rennert, a neurosurgeon and assistant professor of neurosurgery at the University of Utah. But it’s compelling and shows that pollution from a wildfire or smog can have an impact even several months later.

PM2.5 pollution is made up of tiny particles or droplets that are easy to breathe in and can damage lungs and contribute to risk of ischemic strokes. A university news release says PM2.5 pollution particles are 30 times finer than human hair.

Rennert said earlier research has shown negative health effects from the pollution, including increased risk of ischemic and hemorrhagic stroke, as well as neurological, cardiovascular and pulmonary diseases.

"People in the past have naturally thought that there may be a link between air pollution exposure and risk of bleeding from an intracranial aneurysm. These aneurysms occur in 3 percent-6 percent of the adult population," he said.

"That type of brain bleed kills about a third of the time, while a like share suffer very severe neurologic injuries," per Rennert.

The study involved a retrospective look at 70 adult patients University of Utah Hospital treated over the course of five years for that type of brain aneurysm. The researchers went backwards from the medical event, looking at close to 13,000 data points to see what the PM2.5 levels were in the days, weeks and months before a brain bleed occurred. Rennert said they wanted to see whether the pollution itself changed each patient’s risk of having the hemorrhage.

All of the patients in the study lived within 36 selected ZIP codes within the Salt Lake, Ogden, Provo and surrounding valleys.

Rennert said he thought the research team would find that the patients would have the hemorrhage soon after a spike in PM2.5 pollution. Instead, the brain bleeds occurred between 90 and 180 days after high air pollution levels.

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Stanford Scientists Discovered Potential Parkinson's Treatment

A recent study from Stanford Medicine that "totally surprised" researchers highlighted what could be a promising approach to slowing Parkinson’s disease progression.

The research, published in the journal Science Signaling, took a closer look at enzymes — proteins in the body that speed up chemical reactions and are essential for digestion, liver function and other key functions, according to Cleveland Clinic — and their role in Parkinson's.

The team found that targeting a certain enzyme helped to restore neuron and cell communication in mice.

Lead author Suzanne Pfeffer, PhD, the Emma Pfeiffer Merner Professor in Medical Sciences and a professor of biochemistry at Stanford, told Fox News Digital that the team was "totally surprised that we saw as much improvement as we did."

In about 25 percent of Parkinson’s cases, the culprit is some form of genetic mutation. One of the most common mutations creates an overactive enzyme called LRRK2, according to a Stanford press release.

When there is too much LRRK2 activity, it changes the structure of the brain cells, disrupting important communication between neurons and cells. This system is crucial to movement, motivation and decision-making, according to the researchers.

The goal of the study was to determine whether a specific molecule — the MLi-2 LRRK2 kinase inhibitor — could reverse the effect of overactive enzymes.

Using mice that had the genetic mutation that causes overactive LRRK2 and also had symptoms consistent with early Parkinson’s disease, the scientists tried feeding them the inhibitor for two weeks.

There were initially no changes detected in brain structure, signaling or function of the dopamine neurons.

However, after three months of eating the inhibitor, mice affected by the overactive enzyme appeared to have restored their neurons to the point where they were virtually the same as those without the genetic mutation, the study found.

"Findings from this study suggest that inhibiting the LRRK2 enzyme could stabilize the progression of symptoms if patients can be identified early enough," Pfeffer said in the press release.

The study did have some limitations, the researchers acknowledged.

"This was in mice, not people, but our current results indicate that similar pathways are important in humans," Pfeffer told Fox News Digital.

While the study focused on a specific genetic form of the disease, overactive LRRK2 is also present in other cases, meaning this treatment could help multiple types of Parkinson's patients and possibly those with other neurodegenerative diseases, the reseachers claimed.

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Study Claimed That Heat Exposure Leads To Depression

Reports claimed that exposure to oppressive and often life-threatening heat waves is tied to an increased risk of depression and anxiety in adolescents.

Chinese researchers found that young males and rural students in the East Asian country may be the most susceptible, suggesting that targeted response strategies should be implemented.

"Our findings emphasize the need to develop public health strategies to protect students from the adverse effects of extreme heat," the authors wrote in a research paper recently published in the Journal of Affective Disorders.

The study’s authors were able to estimate exposure to the heat waves by looking at the health data of nearly 20,000 adolescents between the ages of 10 to 18. The data was collected from a national school-based health survey conducted in 2021. Of those, more than half of the adolescents were females and the majority were junior high school students, aged around 15.

Measured using a questionnaire and scale, 19.37 percent and 16.27 percent of adolescents reported depression and anxiety, respectively.

The students' exposure to heat was assessed by using three heatwave metrics: excess heat, maximum temperature and minimum temperature.

They found that there higher odds of depression, anxiety, and other mental health conditions for each unit increase in the magnitude of the heat wave. Although, when using different definitions of heat waves, the results were not as consistent.

The study comes as heat waves become more frequent and intense due to the effect of human-caused climate change. The dangerous heat across the East Coast of the U.S. this week was made between three and five times more likely because of climate change, according to the non-profit Climate Central. Heat alerts were also issued in Beijing this week, the official English-language website of China News Service reported.

Research published earlier this year found that the number of people suffering mental health crisis is spiking in areas most impacted by climate change. The authors said young people in southern Madagascar reported extremely high levels of anxiety and depression. In a separate report, authors said that climate change stress is also responsible for symptoms of anxiety.

The effects of heat on mental health have also been established, with hot weather disrupting hormones and sleep and resulting in changes to mood and behavior.

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What Happens To Your Brain When You Use ChatGPT?

Your brain works differently when you're using generative AI to complete a task than it does when you use your brain alone. Namely, you're less likely to remember what you did. That's the somewhat obvious-sounding conclusion of an MIT study that looked at how people think when they write an essay -- one of the earliest scientific studies of how using gen AI affects us.

The study, a preprint that has not yet been peer-reviewed, is pretty small (54 participants) and preliminary, but it points toward the need for more research into how using tools like OpenAI's ChatGPT is affecting how our brains function.

The findings show a significant difference in what happens in your brain and with your memory when you complete a task using an AI tool rather than when you do it with just your brain. But don't read too much into those differences -- this is just a glimpse at brain activity in the moment, not long-term evidence of changes in how your brain operates all the time, researchers said.

"We want to try to give some first steps in this direction and also encourage others to ask the question," Nataliya Kosmyna, a research scientist at MIT and the lead author of the study said.

The growth of AI tools like chatbots is quickly changing how we work, search for information and write. All of this has happened so fast that it's easy to forget that ChatGPT first emerged as a popular tool just a few years ago, at the end of 2022. That means we're just now beginning to see research on how AI use is affecting us.

Here's a look at what the MIT study found about what happened in the brains of ChatGPT users, and what future studies might tell us.

The MIT researchers split their 54 research participants into three groups and asked them to write essays during separate sessions over several weeks. One group was given access to ChatGPT, another was allowed to use a standard search engine (Google), and the third had none of those tools, just their own brains. The researchers analyzed the texts they produced, interviewed the subjects immediately after they wrote the essays, and recorded the participants' brain activity using electroencephalography (EEG).

An analysis of the language used in the essays found that those in the "brain-only" group wrote in more distinct ways, while those who used large language models produced fairly similar essays. More interesting findings came from the interviews after the essays were written. Those who used their brains alone showed better recall and were better able to quote from their writing than those who used search engines or LLMs.

It might be unsurprising that those who relied more heavily on LLMs, who may have copied and pasted from the chatbot's responses, would be less able to quote what they had "written." Kosmyna said these interviews were done immediately after the writing happened, and the lack of recall is notable. "You wrote it, didn't you?" she said. "Aren't you supposed to know what it was?"

The EEG results also showed significant differences between the three groups. There was more neural connectivity -- interaction between the components of the brain -- among the brain-only participants than in the search engine group, and the LLM group had the least activity. Again, not an entirely surprising conclusion. Using tools means you use less of your brain to complete a task. But Kosmyna said the research helped show what the differences were: "The idea was to look closer to understand that it's different, but how is it different?" she said.

The LLM group showed "weaker memory traces, reduced self-monitoring and fragmented authorship," the study authors wrote. That can be a concern in a learning environment: "If users rely heavily on AI tools, they may achieve superficial fluency but fail to internalize the knowledge or feel a sense of ownership over it."

After the first three essays, the researchers invited participants back for a fourth session in which they were assigned to a different group. The findings there, from a significantly smaller group of subjects (just 18), found that those who were in the brain-only group at first showed more activity even when using an LLM, while those in the LLM-only group showed less neural connectivity without the LLM than the initial brain-only group had.

When the MIT study was released, many headlines claimed it showed ChatGPT use was "rotting" brains or causing significant long-term problems. That's not exactly what the researchers found, Kosmyna said. The study focused on the brain activity that happened while the participants were working -- their brain's internal circuitry in the moment. It also examined their memory of their work in that moment.

Understanding the long-term effects of AI use would require a longer-term study and different methods. Kosmyna said future research could look at other gen AI use cases, like coding, or use technology that examines different parts of the brain, like functional magnetic resonance imaging, or fMRI. "The whole idea is to encourage more experiments, more scientific data collection," she said.

While the use of LLMs is still being researched, it's also likely that the effect on our brains isn't as significant as you might think, said Genevieve Stein-O'Brien, assistant professor of neuroscience at Johns Hopkins University, who was not involved in the MIT study. She studies how genetics and biology help develop and build the brain -- which occurs early in life. Those critical periods tend to close during childhood or adolescence, she said.

"All of this happens way before you ever interact with ChatGPT or anything like that," Stein-O'Brien told me. "There is a lot of infrastructure that is set up, and that is very robust."

The situation might be different in children, who are increasingly coming into contact with AI technology, although the study of children raises ethical concerns for scientists wanting to research human behavior, Stein-O'Brien said.

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Ivy League Students Facing Mental Health Issues

The recent spate of school deaths claimed another life after a Princeton University undergraduate student, just weeks away from completing his junior year, died recently. This prompted renewed conversation about how Ivy League schools handle mental health crises on campus.

Lauren Blackburn, 23, was an English major and creative writing minor from Indiana. He was missing for several days before authorities found him deceased in a lake. Officials have not released his cause of death or said if there was any foul play involved.

Blackburn was the third Princeton undergraduate student to die in two years and the eighth since 2021. Six of those deaths were determined to be suicides, as The Princetonian first reported.

Princeton Professor Yiyun Li, who directs the university's creative writing program, lost both of her sons to suicide, one of whom, James Li, was a Princeton student when he died in 2024.

"What can parents do but give their children the space to be, and allow them to do what they need so that they can become more fully themselves?" Yiyun Li wrote in a New Yorker essay titled "The Deaths — And Lives — of Two Sons" published on 23 March.

"And yet, despite the parents’ efforts, and despite all the beings and doings that occur as the children grow, some among them die before their time. Children die, and they are not happy. And their parents can never know whether those children died because they were not happy, or whether they were not happy because they sensed, too early, that they must face their own deaths."

While mental health crises and suicides are not unique to Princeton, or Ivy League schools generally, experts say Ivy League students face distinct challenges and pressures while attending the country’s most prestigious schools. Experts also say Ivy League institutions should be dedicating more funds to mental health resources than they do currently.

"I think it comes down to the demands, and I would say almost 100% of the time, the Ivy League schools have really high rigorous demands," Ivy Ellis, certified mental health therapist and Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW) who regularly works with college students, told Fox News Digital.

"Whereas at other universities, the demands can be lower in terms of just how much schoolwork is asked, like how many classes they have to take, how much homework they have, how many tests they have."

Ellis added her belief that while Ivy League schools do "care" about their students, "There's limited funding and limited resources that go towards mental health."

"So almost all the universities and Ivy League schools have counseling centers in place, and I know they're excellent, excellent counselors," she said. "They work really hard. There's just such a high number of students that need that support, and the number of counselors just doesn't really meet that level of support."

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TikTok's Beauty Filter Will Be Regulated

For years now, lawmakers in the U.K. and the EU have introduced new regulations and initiatives to safeguard young individuals from the potential harms associated with beauty filters. In response to these developments, TikTok has announced new rules designed to enhance protection for users aged 13 to 18.

According to a report from The Guardian, TikTok will soon implement restrictions on beauty filters, specifically for this age group.

Some of the restrictions being planned include the removal of features that allow users to significantly alter their appearance, such as enlarging their eyes, plumping their lips, or changing their skin tone. Filters that drastically modify facial features, like the Bold Glamour filter, will now be prohibited. Conversely, more playful filters, such as those that add bunny ears or dog noses, will still be allowed.

These changes were unveiled during a safety forum in Dublin, Ireland. In the U.K., the government recently implemented the Online Safety Bill, which requires social media platforms to identify new methods of protecting children from harmful content, including promoting unrealistic beauty standards through filters.

Similarly, the EU enacted the Digital Services Act in 2022, which imposes comparable restrictions. This legislation emphasizes a need for platforms to enhance transparency regarding their algorithms and affords users greater control over their content. These measures may contribute to a heightened awareness of filter usage and its potential effects on users.

In addition to restricting access to certain beauty filters for younger users, TikTok is also taking steps to prevent users under 13 from accessing the platform in Britain. This initiative includes employing machine learning technology to identify and prevent users from bypassing age restrictions.

According to Chloe Setter, TikTok’s lead on child safety public policy, "We’re hoping that this will give us the ability to detect and remove more and more quickly."

Additionally, people who are wrongly blocked will be able to appeal. TikTok’s new rules aren’t just for the EU and U.K.; they are also going live worldwide in the coming weeks.

In recent years, beauty filters on social media platforms have sparked significant discussions about self-perception, beauty standards, and mental health, especially among young users. Studies published by Psychology Today and others have shown that frequent exposure to altered images can distort a child’s understanding of beauty. This distortion often leads to dissatisfaction with their natural appearance and a desire to resemble the filtered images they encounter online.

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Arts And Crafts Improves Mental Health

Past studies using various methods of gathering data are saying that creating art reduces levels of cortisol, the body’s stress hormone.

"Engaging with arts and crafts is accessible and affordable. Options such as knitting and drawing require very few tools and can be engaging and creatively fulfilling activities," said Dr. Helen Keyes, cognitive psychologist and head of the school of psychology and sport science at Anglia Ruskin University, via email.

Her new study, together with fellow researchers, has found that engaging in creative activities can significantly boost well-being by providing meaningful spaces for expression and achievement.

Although prior studies have shown that creating arts and crafting is therapeutic for people with mental health conditions, the general population has been understudied, according to the study, which published recently in Frontiers in Public Health.

This is the reason why the study sampled members of the general population without diagnosed illnesses to see how arts and crafts might contribute to well-being and may reduce loneliness outcomes in everyday life.

The team used data from a major national survey in the UK between 2019-2020 to investigate how creative activities could impact life satisfaction, controlling for variables known to affect wellbeing such as gender, age group, health, employment status and deprivation. The researchers analyzed a sample of 7,182 participants living in England (age 16 and over) from the annual Taking Part survey conducted by the UK’s Department for Culture, Media, and Sport, which explores how the public engages with these activities.

"We kept our analysis to arts and crafting at a broad level, rather than focusing on specific hobbies, as we know that people’s preferences vary and they will find the craft or creative activity that works best for them," Keyes said.

More than 37 percent of survey respondents confirmed they had taken part in at least one craft activity over the last year. They were also askabout their employment status, their health, their sense of life being worth living, how frequently they feel lonely and their levels of sensed happiness, anxiety and life satisfaction.

Participants’ reported happiness, life satisfaction and sense of lives being worthwhile were positively correlated to participating in arts and crafts, but arts and crafts were not associated with decreased anxiety or loneliness which requires further investigation. Additional study is needed to examine the social aspects of creative activities, researchers said. "All forms of art can be beneficial in boosting mental health. Benefits include: increase in self-esteem, reduction in anxiety/stress, improving communication, and fostering creativity," said Dr. Frank Clark, a psychiatrist with Prisma Health, via email. Clark was not involved in the study.

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Sex Helps A Lot In Improving Mental Health

It has been revealed that there are a lot of reasons why having a ton of sex is good for the body ... physically. However, the latest findings revealed that regularly getting a raunch-on could actually give more boost to the brain as well.

Researchers from Coventry and Oxford University in the UK have found a link between frequent sexual activity and improved brain function in older adults.

The study, published in in The Journals of Gerontology, Series B: Psychological and Social Sciences, involved quizzing 73 people aged 50-83 on how often, on average, they’d had sex over the past 12 months. Participants also answered questions about their general health and lifestyle.

The 28 men and 45 women also took part in a standardized test, which is typically used to measure different patterns of brain function in older adults, focusing on attention, memory, fluency, language and visuospatial ability.

Scientists found that people who had sex at least weekly scored higher on tests of cognitive function – and, more specifically, on tests that measured verbal fluency and visuospatial ability – than those who had sex less frequently.

So, for example, they were able to name more animals and more words that started with the letter "F," in 60 seconds, and were better able to copy a complex drawing from memory.

Interestingly, there was no real difference when it came to the participants’ performance in memory, language and attentiveness tests.

Although the study authors could not say for sure why the link between sexual activity and brainpower exists, there is speculation that it might have something to do with the release of hormones such as dopamine or oxytocin, which are responsible for transmitting signals in the brain.

Speaking about the findings lead researcher Dr. Hayley Wright, from said: "We can only speculate whether this is driven by social or physical elements – but an area we would like to research further is the biological mechanisms that may influence this."

"Every time we do another piece of research we are getting a little bit closer to understanding why this association exists at all, what the underlying mechanisms are, and whether there is a 'cause and effect' relationship between sexual activity and cognitive function in older people," she continued.

"People don’t like to think that older people have sex – but we need to challenge this conception at a societal level and look at what impact sexual activity can have on those aged 50 and over, beyond the known effects on sexual health and general wellbeing."

Because the study was conducted on older adults it's not exactly clear how having sex affects the brain now. Nevertheless it certainly can’t hurt to stay between-the-sheets-active now in the hope that the brain may well thank you for it later.

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