Hospital Clínico San Carlos in Madrid-led research reports that intermittent theta-burst transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) paired with language therapy over six months was associated with positive outcomes in primary progressive aphasia (PPA). Improvements included less decline in regional brain metabolism and improvements in language abilities, functional independence, and neuropsychiatric symptoms.
Primary progressive aphasia is a neurodegenerative clinical syndrome with insidious onset characterized by prominent speech and/or language impairment. It is a syndrome that can be the mode in which common causes of dementia, Alzheimer’s disease and frontotemporal degeneration are initially present.
According to current international consensus criteria, three variants are recognized: nonfluent/agrammatic, semantic, and logopenic. Speech-language intervention has proven to be beneficial.
When you see something—a tree in your backyard, say, or the toy your toddler hands you—that visual information travels from your retinas to your brain. And like a train stopping at stations along its route, the information pauses at particular regions of the brain where it’s processed and sent along to its next location.
A region called the visual thalamus has been thought to be primarily a relay, simply directing visual information to its next area. But a new study published in Neuron finds that the thalamus actually integrates additional information from other brain regions and reshapes the information it sends along to the brain cortex.
Liang Liang, Ph.D., assistant professor of neuroscience at Yale School of Medicine (YSM) and senior author of the study, suspected the thalamus might be doing more than it had been given credit for.
A fading sense of smell can be one of the earliest signs of Alzheimer’s disease even before cognitive impairments manifest. Research by scientists at DZNE and Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München (LMU) sheds new light on this phenomenon, pointing to a significant role for the brain’s immune response, which seems to fatally attack neuronal fibers crucial for the perception of odors.
The study, published in Nature Communications, is based on observations in mice and humans, including analysis of brain tissue and so-called PET scanning. These findings may help to devise ways for early diagnosis and, consequently, early treatment.
The researchers came to the conclusion that these olfactory dysfunctions arise because immune cells of the brain called “microglia” remove connections between two brain regions, namely the olfactory bulb and the locus coeruleus.
Research on exercise and brain disorders has traditionally focused on its direct regulatory effects on neurons and synapses, neglecting peripheral organ-mediated pathways. To address this gap, this review proposes the novel concept of the “multi-organ-brain axis.” This concept posits that during brain disorders, functional alterations in peripheral organs such as skeletal muscle, heart, liver, adipose tissue, and spleen can disrupt metabolic and immune homeostasis, thereby bidirectionally modulating brain function via signaling molecules and metabolites.
For 25 years, scientists at Northwestern Medicine have been studying individuals aged 80 and older—dubbed “SuperAgers”—to better understand what makes them tick.
These unique individuals, who show outstanding memory performance at a level consistent with individuals who are at least three decades younger, challenge the long-held belief that cognitive decline is an inevitable part of aging.
Over the quarter-century of research, the scientists have seen some notable lifestyle and personality differences between SuperAgers and those aging typically—such as being social and gregarious—but “it’s really what we’ve found in their brains that’s been so earth-shattering for us,” said Dr. Sandra Weintraub, a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences and neurology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.
This Perspective article proposes a neurodynamical model of intuition as a fast, embodied pathfinding mechanism shaped by evolution. Drawing on the free-energy principle and metastability, it explores how the brain predicts, feels, and acts through dynamic coordination.
A Death Doula’s Guide to Consciousness After Death with Mayim & Jonathan.
In this powerful and emotional Mayim Bialik’s Breakdown episode, licensed end-of-life counselor and death doula Dr. Martha Jo Atkins explores consciousness after death and what truly happens when we die. Drawing on decades of guiding people through their final moments, she reveals the spiritual, biological, emotional, and psychological changes that occur when consciousness leaves the body—offering profound insights into life after death and the mysteries of the dying process.
You’ll hear jaw-dropping stories of deathbed visions, including dream shifts, visits from deceased loved ones, and shared death experiences where relatives actually feel what the dying person is experiencing. Dr. Atkins shares what she’s witnessed that made her believe in the afterlife, what understanding death can teach us about living, and her own supernatural encounters—from speaking to deceased loved ones in dreams to eerie hospice hauntings.
Dr. Atkins also breaks down: - Why we’re so afraid to talk about death—and how doing so makes us more human. - How sensory perception shifts as people begin to let go, and the signs that death is near. - The difference between a natural death and dying before your time—and what that means for the soul’s journey. - Could Ketamine-Assisted Psychotherapy help us process grief in healthier ways? - Why presence matters most in a loved one’s final days. - How our treatment of elders reflects our values as a society, and why end-of-life care matters deeply.
Plus, Mayim opens up about the raw, painful, yet beautiful experience of caregiving for her father in his final days.
Whether you’re grieving, caregiving, or simply seeking answers to what happens when we die, or wondering what leaves the body when we die, this episode offers rare wisdom and comfort for life’s most inevitable transition.
Scientists from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, working in collaboration with a team from the University of Texas at El Paso, have developed a novel computational framework for understanding how a region of the brain known as the striatum is involved in the everyday decisions we make and, importantly, how it might factor into impaired decision-making by individuals with psychiatric disorders like post-traumatic stress disorder and substance use disorder.
In a study published in Nature Communications, the team reported that modulating activity within the striosomal compartment—a neurochemically discrete area of the striatum—might be an important therapeutic strategy for promoting healthier decision-making in people with psychiatric disorders.
“Though it has been established that the striatum is clearly important for cost-benefit decision-making, the precise role of the striosomal compartment has remained elusive,” says Ki Goosens, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Pharmacological Sciences and Psychiatry, at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and co-lead author of the study.
