Medical Xpress news

Medical Xpress / Pleasure and pain: Tiny worm reveals secret to protecting skin sensations

A tiny roundworm has helped University of Queensland scientists uncover minuscule structures in skin tissue that may protect the body's ability to feel temperature, touch and pain. The research is published in Science Advances.

8 hours ago in Neuroscience
Medical Xpress / Name it to tame it: Researcher discovers technique to reduce cigarette cravings

If you name it, you can tame it. That's a new tool for fighting cigarette cravings, according to assistant research psychologist Golnaz Tabibnia.

10 hours ago in Psychology & Psychiatry
Medical Xpress / Chill brain-music interface: Using brain signals to enhance the emotional power of music

Musical chills are pleasurable shivers or goosebump sensations that people feel when they resonate with the music they're listening to. They reduce stress and have beneficial side effects, but they are difficult to induce ...

10 hours ago in Psychology & Psychiatry
Medical Xpress / Radiotherapy is more effective when administered at the right time of day, study finds

A team of researchers have identified a fundamental mechanism that links the 24-hour circadian cycle to the precise repair of DNA breaks. This study, conducted by researchers from the Andalusian Center for Molecular Biology ...

10 hours ago in Oncology & Cancer
Medical Xpress / Researchers discover genetic ancestry is a critical component of assessing head and neck cancerous tumors

Genetic ancestry plays a key role in determining the behavior of head and neck tumors and may help explain why African-American patients survive for half as long as their counterparts of European ancestry, according to a ...

10 hours ago in Oncology & Cancer
Medical Xpress / Emotional support from social media found to reduce anxiety

Anxiety is the second leading cause of disability and mortality worldwide. Roughly a third of adults in the United States will experience an anxiety disorder within their lifetime, and the median age of onset is 17 years ...

10 hours ago in Psychology & Psychiatry
Medical Xpress / Scientific 'spam filter' flags over 250,000 potentially fake cancer studies

A new machine learning tool has identified more than 250,000 cancer research papers that may have been produced by so-called "paper mills." Developed by QUT researcher Professor Adrian Barnett, from the School of Public Health ...

23 hours ago in Oncology & Cancer
Medical Xpress / Heart damage is common and often unnoticed after surgery, but those who see a cardiologist may fare better

An estimated 4.2 million people die within 30 days of surgery worldwide each year. A new study suggests that deaths and serious heart disease might be prevented if some patients see a specialist heart doctor as part of their ...

Jan 29, 2026 in Cardiology
Medical Xpress / The brain's protein cleanup process may play a role in dementia

Microglia are the brain's immune cells that clean out debris, such as damaged proteins and old cell parts, to keep the organ healthy. But the very properties that make these cells so useful might also be a driving factor ...

Jan 29, 2026 in Neuroscience
Medical Xpress / Procrastination in adulthood linked to brain development during adolescence

Procrastination, the tendency to unnecessarily delay or put off tasks even if this will have negative consequences, is a common behavior for many people. While occasionally delaying or putting off bothersome tasks is not ...

Jan 29, 2026 in Psychology & Psychiatry
Medical Xpress / AI-supported mammography screening results in fewer aggressive and advanced breast cancers

Artificial intelligence (AI)-supported mammography identifies more cancers during screening and reduces the rate of breast cancer diagnosis by 12% in the years following, finds the first randomized controlled trial of its ...

Jan 29, 2026 in Health informatics
Medical Xpress / Metformin shown to prevent long COVID across risk groups in multiple randomized trials

Multiple randomized clinical trials and electronic health record studies now show that metformin, a widely used and well-established medication, significantly reduces the risk of developing long COVID when taken during or ...