https://medicalxpress.com/neurology-news/ en-us Latest medical news and research in Neurology Soft electrodes designed to perfectly match a person's brain surface may help advance neural interfaces for neurodegenerative disease monitoring and treatment, according to a new study led by Penn State researchers. Neural interfaces are powered by tiny sensors capable of tracking biophysical signals, known as bioelectrodes. These sensors are usually made from stiff materials in a one-size-fits-all design that struggles to match the brain's complex structure. The researchers have created a novel approach to 3D printing bioelectrodes that can stretch and morph to fit the minor differences that make every brain unique. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-04-3d-brain-sensors-personalized-neural.html Sat, 18 Apr 2026 17:00:01 EDT news695572909 The physical differences between men and women are all too obvious, but the biological divide goes right down to the cellular level in the brain, according to a new study published in the journal Science. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-04-sex-differences-brain-gene-disorders.html Sat, 18 Apr 2026 10:00:01 EDT news695651908 Scientists looking for the causes of neurodegenerative diseases like Parkinson's and Alzheimer's generally focus on the buildup of aberrant proteins in the brain that impede normal neural connections. But new research from Binghamton University and Drexel University looks at a different, lesser-studied issue that also hurts patients and their quality of life: how Parkinson's affects the human vascular system. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-04-brain-chip-reveals-parkinson-proteins.html Sat, 18 Apr 2026 08:00:02 EDT news695565036 Women taking antiseizure medication for epilepsy have around a 45% reduced risk of major congenital anomalies in their children—if they initiate high-dose folic acid before pregnancy. This is the finding of a large Nordic register-based study (SCAN-AED) involving Aarhus University Hospital. The study also finds that starting folic acid supplementation after pregnancy onset is not associated with any protective effect. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-04-early-folic-acid-supplementation-halve.html Fri, 17 Apr 2026 16:00:03 EDT news695647099 A comprehensive new review led by Mayo Clinic is helping shape how clinicians diagnose and treat meningioma, the most common primary brain tumor, with a focus on personalized, patient-centered care and the latest advances in precision oncology. Published in Nature Reviews Clinical Oncology, the review brings together global expertise to map the future of meningioma care, highlighting innovations that aim to improve outcomes and quality of life for patients. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-04-era-personalized-patients-meningioma.html Fri, 17 Apr 2026 13:40:05 EDT news695649362 Despite its small size—it could sit in the palm of your hand—the zebra finch is a remarkable learner. A songbird native to Australia, it's renowned for its ability to pick up new songs. That talent has made it a favorite of scientists studying how animal brains imprint new skills, particularly vocal learning, or the capacity to perfect new sounds. And now researchers at Boston University have discovered another quirk to the zebra finch brain—one that could also have implications for understanding human gray matter. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-04-songbird-brains-generate-neurons-human.html Fri, 17 Apr 2026 11:00:02 EDT news695547121 UCF researchers have uncovered evidence that some movement-related symptoms of Alzheimer's disease may originate outside the brain, which could change how the disease is diagnosed and treated in the future. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-04-alzheimer-symptoms-brain.html Fri, 17 Apr 2026 07:20:06 EDT news695618641 In a recent publication appearing in Advanced Science, researchers at the Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience challenge the assumptions surrounding the design and materials used for brain implants. Softer, flexible implants are gentler than older ones, but they are not completely harmless. By carefully studying these effects, researchers can begin to design safer implants, and bring long-term, reliable implants closer to reality. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-04-subtle-science-safer-brain-implants.html Thu, 16 Apr 2026 18:40:03 EDT news695576701 If humans or animals eat something that causes them to feel unwell, they subsequently avoid this food source. Until now, it has been unclear precisely how this avoidance learning takes place. A new study shows that communication between the brain cells and fat cells could play a crucial role here. The participants from the Universities of Bonn and Tohoku (Japan) and University Hospital Bonn have revealed the previously unknown mechanism in the fruit fly Drosophila. It may also exist in a similar form in mammals and even in humans. The results have now been published in the journal Neuron. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-04-fat-cells-flies-pathogen-tainted.html Thu, 16 Apr 2026 17:00:05 EDT news695573401 Investigators led by Northwestern Medicine scientists have identified mutations in a gene coding for a key ion channel in the brain as a new cause of a debilitating form of migraine, according to a study published in Brain. Familial hemiplegic migraine (FHM), a rare and severe form of migraine, is marked by temporary paralysis or weakness on one side of the body during attacks. Although the disorder runs in families, known migraine-linked genes explain fewer than one in five genetically diagnosed cases, said Alfred L. George, Jr., MD, chair and the Alfred Newton Richards Professor of Pharmacology, who was co-corresponding author of the study. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-04-epilepsy-gene-implicated-severe-migraine.html Thu, 16 Apr 2026 14:40:04 EDT news695563691 Yale School of Medicine (YSM) researchers have tested a new and potentially more sensitive neuroimaging tool for diagnosing behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD). They reported their findings on April 9 in the journal Alzheimer's & Dementia. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-04-dementia-neuroimaging-technique.html Thu, 16 Apr 2026 13:40:02 EDT news695558822 Why does the same genetic mutation cause a severe brain malformation in some patients but not in others? Researchers from the MOSAIC team at the Paris Brain Institute have developed mosaic human cortical organoids carrying mutations in the DEPDC5 gene in order to model focal cortical dysplasia—a brain malformation responsible for drug-resistant epilepsy in children. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-04-lab-grown-mini-brains-childhood.html Thu, 16 Apr 2026 12:40:07 EDT news695556061 Restoring both walking and sensation to patients with paraplegia is an ambitious goal—but a team of researchers from the Keck School of Medicine of USC, the University of California, Irvine (UCI) and the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) is now one step closer. The team is building a fully implantable brain-computer interface (BCI) that allows patients to use their thoughts to control wearable robotic legs, known as a robotic exoskeleton. The system is designed to help patients walk while also restoring the sensation of walking. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-04-brain-interface-paralysis-linking-thoughts.html Thu, 16 Apr 2026 12:20:03 EDT news695555942 Placebo effects, in which patients experience relief without therapeutic treatment, increasingly have been considered as potentially powerful clinical treatments for ailments such as depression and pain. Yet the neurological mechanisms underlying such processes are not fully understood. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-04-neurobiologists-hack-brain-circuits-placebo.html Thu, 16 Apr 2026 11:00:03 EDT news695547901 Drugs once hailed as a breakthrough in the fight against Alzheimer's disease do not meaningfully help patients, a major review found Thursday, however some experts criticized the research. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-04-hyped-alzheimer-drugs-amyloid-brought.html Thu, 16 Apr 2026 05:02:55 EDT news695534509 A research team from the Cognitive Neurotechnology Unit and the Visual Perception and Cognition Laboratory at Toyohashi University of Technology investigated how facial expressions are perceived when a face is located behind an observer. Participants wearing a head-mounted display observed 3D face models presented either in front of or behind them in a virtual reality (VR) environment and made binary judgments about the facial expression. The stimuli varied continuously from neutral to angry, and participants judged whether each face appeared neutral or angry. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-04-brain-stronger-emotions-rewriting-social.html Wed, 15 Apr 2026 19:40:08 EDT news695486449 The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is reviewing a petition to revoke the approval of Roche's top-selling drug ocrelizumab (Ocrevus) for treating primary progressive multiple sclerosis (PPMS)—a form of MS thought to affect around 15% of patients. The petition alleges that the drug was approved despite internal concerns about a lack of effectiveness in women and a potential increased risk of breast cancer. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-04-women-primary-ms-bestselling-drug.html Wed, 15 Apr 2026 18:30:02 EDT news695468221 Every thought, memory, and feeling we experience depends on trillions of tiny connection points in the brain called synapses. These are the junctions where one neuron passes signals to another, forming the vast communication network known as the connectome—the brain's wiring diagram. Although scientists have developed powerful tools to increase or decrease neural activity, directly redesigning the brain's physical wiring has remained far more difficult. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-04-synapses-brain-circuit-memory-stronger.html Wed, 15 Apr 2026 17:40:01 EDT news695488201 Efforts to identify and evaluate next-generation therapeutics for pediatric brain tumors are easily stymied by the quality and availability of laboratory models for research. To address this issue, scientists at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital have developed patient-derived tumor organoids and tumor organoid xenografts that accurately reflect the biologic underpinnings of embryonal brain tumors. These models utilize the latest technical advances, allowing researchers to perform functional assays and preclinical drug testing faster without relying on newly obtained tumor samples. The models are available to other researchers upon request, providing a resource to help advance the field. The work appears in Science Advances. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-04-3d-brain-tumor-organoids-scientific.html Wed, 15 Apr 2026 17:30:02 EDT news695492401 A large international study has found that asundexian, an investigational anti-clotting medication, reduces the risk of a stroke in people who recently experienced a stroke or transient ischemic attack (TIA) caused by a clot forming outside of the heart (non-cardioembolic stroke), without increasing bleeding, the most serious and feared complication of existing stroke prevention treatments. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-04-anti-clotting-medication-lowers-added.html Wed, 15 Apr 2026 17:00:09 EDT news695466481 Air pollution is associated with increased migraine activity, according to a study published in Neurology. Both short-term and cumulative exposure to air pollution as well as climate factors such as heat and humidity were associated with increased migraine activity. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-04-air-pollution-migraine.html Wed, 15 Apr 2026 16:00:08 EDT news695463751 Researchers from the Paris Brain Institute and Sainte-Justine University Hospital in Montreal have, for the first time, revealed the key stages of vascular development in the brain, from birth through adulthood. Using a 3D digital atlas called Lambada, they show that vascularization does not progress continuously, but instead unfolds in three distinct phases, closely linked to the maturation of neural circuits. These findings are published in Cell. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-04-brain-blood-vessel-network-stage.html Wed, 15 Apr 2026 13:40:04 EDT news695478397 From van Gogh to Amy Winehouse, the trope of the suffering artist has been around nearly as long as art itself—but is the connection between creativity and pain mere metaphor, or grounded in science? According to Constructor University Neurobiologist Dr. Radwa Khalil, not only do the two share underlying neurological mechanisms, but their connection holds therapeutic potential to use creativity to reshape how our brains process pain. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-04-pain-creativity-brain-machinery-bold.html Wed, 15 Apr 2026 13:00:09 EDT news695476768 Mice make use of rapid nerve cell interactions in the brain's smell center to distinguish one odor from another, a new study shows. Both mice and humans can rapidly identify odors, researchers say, in a small fraction of a second. Led by researchers at NYU Langone Health, the study shows that the key steps involved in identifying smells happen in the mouse olfactory bulb, a part of the brain located behind the nose. The function was previously thought to occur in the cerebral cortex, a larger part of the brain known for its role in perception, awareness, and thought. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-04-fast-mouse-brains-milliseconds.html Tue, 14 Apr 2026 19:00:02 EDT news695405701 Millions of neurons branch throughout our bodies, keeping them in close communication with our brains. This peripheral network begins to take shape long before birth, as the cells of a growing embryo move into position and adopt their specialized roles. This crucial stage of human development can't be monitored directly, but by examining genetic clues that linger in adult cells, scientists have now gained surprising insights into the developmental origins of the peripheral nervous system. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-04-secrets-human-early-nerve-cell.html Tue, 14 Apr 2026 18:00:01 EDT news695404502