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brain research

Research articles and news stories tagged with brain research

·December 5, 2025·5 min read

Astrocytes Found to Drive Key Brain Changes in Nicotine Addiction

New research shows that astrocytes play an active role in nicotine-induced brain changes, challenging the long-held neuron-centered view of addiction. Nicotine stimulates receptors on astrocytes, triggering signaling cascades that boost glutamine synthetase activity and amplify glutamate-related pathways.

Featured Neuroscience Psychology

·December 5, 2025·6 min read

Warmth and Hugging Strengthen the Feeling of Being You

Changes in skin temperature play a key role in how strongly we experience our bodies as our own. Thermoception influences emotion, identity, and mental health by acting as a direct “skin-to-brain” pathway supporting bodily self-awareness.

This shows a person drinking from a plastic water bottle and a brain.

Featured Neurology Neuroscience

·December 5, 2025·6 min read

Microplastics Accelerate Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s Damage

A new review highlights five major ways microplastics can harm the brain, raising concerns that they may worsen neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. These tiny particles can trigger inflammation, disrupt the blood–brain barrier, generate oxidative stress, impair mitochondria, and damage neurons.

This shows a person and a natural environment.

Featured Neuroscience Psychology

·December 4, 2025·5 min read

Growing Fear of Nature: Study Reveals Causes of Rising Biophobia

An increasing number of people experience fear, discomfort, or disgust toward nature—a phenomenon known as biophobia. The findings reveal that negative emotions form through both external factors such as urban environments and media portrayals, and internal factors like health and emotional traits.

This shows a child and parent walking in a "forest" of DNA.

Featured Genetics Neurology Neuroscience

·December 4, 2025·7 min read

Mutation in Key Enzyme Triggers Ferroptosis and Childhood Dementia

Researchers have identified how a single mutation in the GPX4 enzyme causes neurons to undergo ferroptosis, leading to severe early-onset dementia. The study provides the first molecular evidence that ferroptosis can directly drive neurodegeneration in the human brain.

Brain Cancer Featured Neurology Neuroscience

·December 4, 2025·9 min read

Fungal Molecule Shows Promise Against Brain Cancer

For the first time, chemists have fully synthesized verticillin A, a notoriously complex fungal molecule with striking anticancer potential. The molecule’s fragile structure required a complete rethinking of its synthetic sequence, enabling researchers to not only recreate it but design more stable and potent derivatives.

Featured Neuroscience

·December 4, 2025·5 min read

Your Next Breath Could Decide What You Remember

The simple act of breathing shapes how and when memories are successfully retrieved. Participants recalled learned word-image pairs more accurately when reminder cues were presented during or just before inhalation, while the brain’s actual reconstruction of the memory occurred during exhalation.

Featured Neuroscience

·December 4, 2025·6 min read

Strong Marriages May Rewire Brain–Gut Signals

Strong emotional support within marriage may help protect against obesity by altering how the brain and gut communicate. People in highly supportive marriages showed better control of food cravings, healthier gut metabolism, and higher levels of oxytocin, a hormone linked to bonding and appetite regulation.

This shows a child reaching to touch neurons.

Featured Genetics Neuroscience

·December 3, 2025·6 min read

Early-Life Stimulation Switches On a Molecular Code for Memory

New research shows that childhood environments shape lifelong memory through a single molecular switch that controls learning-related gene activity. In animal models, enriched early experiences activated this switch, strengthening neural circuits involved in memory and cognition, while deprived environments suppressed it.

This shows people standing in a spotlight.

Featured Neuroscience Psychology

·December 3, 2025·6 min read

Mental Illness Can Also Bring Strengths

Mental illness is typically defined by its challenges, but growing evidence shows it is also linked to surprising strengths. Certain psychological conditions are associated with enhanced creativity, social sensitivity, emotional awareness, and resilience.

Featured Genetics Neuroscience

·December 3, 2025·7 min read

Hidden Brain Layers Revealed in Key Memory Center

Scientists have identified a previously unseen layered organization inside one of the brain’s most important memory hubs. The CA1 region of the hippocampus was found to contain four distinct bands of neuron types, each defined by unique genetic signatures that shift subtly across the structure.

This shows a person looking into a void and a hologram.

Featured Neuroscience Psychology

·December 3, 2025·5 min read

AI Is Changing the Way Humans Grieve, Remember, and Face Death

Generative artificial intelligence is quietly reshaping how humans process grief, remembrance, and mortality. Digital reconstructions of the deceased may offer comfort, but they also risk blurring the natural boundary between presence and absence.