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Medical Xpress / Pregnancy may tune women's brains to infant cues, study suggests

Pregnant women react more positively than non-pregnant women when exposed to audio recordings, videos, and images of infants. This suggests that pregnancy mentally prepares women to process infant signals, according to a ...

Feb 9, 2026 in Psychology & Psychiatry
Medical Xpress / Algorithm supports doctors tackling antimicrobial resistance

New research by scientists at the University of Liverpool looks at how artificial intelligence (AI) can help doctors make better choices when prescribing antibiotics for urinary tract infection (UTI), one of the world's most ...

Feb 9, 2026 in Medications
Medical Xpress / One in eight higher-risk drinkers reported guilt or remorse, study finds

Dr. Sharon Cox (UCL Institute of Epidemiology & Health Care) reports on a new analysis finding that 1 in 8 people who drink at increasing or higher-risk levels felt guilt or remorse after drinking in the past six months. ...

Feb 9, 2026 in Psychology & Psychiatry
Medical Xpress / Therapy dogs ease loneliness among people hospitalized for mental illness

Regular visits by a therapy dog can aid the healing of people hospitalized for treatment of mental disorders, a new study says. Therapy dogs eased the loneliness and isolation of patients in a hospital for psychiatric care, ...

Feb 9, 2026 in Psychology & Psychiatry
Medical Xpress / Structural differences found in brains of people with panic disorder

Panic disorder (PD) is a mental health disorder characterized by recurring panic attacks, episodes of intense fear and anxiety accompanied by physical sensations and physiological responses such as a racing heart, shortness ...

Feb 8, 2026 in Psychology & Psychiatry
Medical Xpress / Meal timing in time-restricted eating matters for metabolic health, find study

Time-restricted eating has emerged as a popular dietary approach because it focuses on when people eat rather than strictly limiting calories. Instead of counting calories, individuals restrict their daily food intake to ...

Feb 8, 2026 in Gastroenterology
Medical Xpress / Point-of-care hepatitis B DNA testing proves as accurate as lab tests

A clinical trial led by Kirby Institute at UNSW Sydney has found that point-of-care testing for hepatitis B DNA is as effective as traditional laboratory testing, paving the way for faster diagnosis and treatment in hard-to-reach ...

Medical Xpress / Review of 40 years of genetics suggests dyslexia involves broader brain networks

A University of Houston psychology professor is challenging the notion that dyslexia, or specific reading disorder, stems from a single faulty gene in the brain, suggesting instead that it is caused by an overall brain network ...

Feb 8, 2026 in Genetics
Medical Xpress / Why Huntington's proteins pile up: Two key tags guide their disposal

There is no known cure for Huntington's disease. A genetic mutation creates harmful proteins that accumulate and cause the disease's typical symptoms. A team from the Department of Human Genetics at Ruhr University Bochum, ...

Medical Xpress / Choosing an IVF embryo is uncertain: A new dish design could improve what labs see

Selecting the healthiest embryo is one of the most important steps in in‑vitro fertilization (IVF), yet it remains one of the most uncertain. Roughly 15% of couples worldwide experience infertility, and IVF success rates ...

Feb 8, 2026 in Biomedical technology
Medical Xpress / Researchers find brain mechanism behind 'flashes of intuition'

Despite decades of research, the mechanisms behind fast flashes of insight that change how a person perceives their world, termed "one-shot learning," have remained unknown. A mysterious type of one-shot learning is perceptual ...

Feb 7, 2026 in Neuroscience
Medical Xpress / i-DNA 'peek-a-boo structures' form in living cells and regulate genes linked to cancer

DNA's iconic double helix does more than "just" store genetic information. Under certain conditions, it can temporarily fold into unusual shapes. Researchers at Umeå University, Sweden, have now shown that one such structure, ...

Feb 7, 2026 in Oncology & Cancer