Medical Xpress news

Medical Xpress / Newly found immune cells link strep throat to psoriasis

A common strep throat infection can trigger guttate psoriasis by altering the behavior of key immune cells, according to a new study from Karolinska Institutet published in eBioMedicine. The findings suggest how an infection ...

Feb 20, 2026 in Immunology
Medical Xpress / Why chronic pain lasts longer in women: Immune cells offer clues

Chronic pain lasts longer for women than men, and new research suggests differences in hormone-regulated immune cells, called monocytes, may help explain why.

Feb 20, 2026 in Neuroscience
Medical Xpress / Astrocytes, not just neurons, found to drive fear memory signals in the amygdala

Picture a star-shaped cell in the brain, stretching its spindly arms out to cradle the neurons around it. That's an astrocyte, and for a long time, scientists thought its job was caretaking the brain, gluing together neurons, ...

Feb 20, 2026 in Neuroscience
Medical Xpress / Stunning new maps of myelin-making mouse brain cells advance understanding of nervous system disorders

Johns Hopkins scientists say they have used 3D imaging, special microscopes and artificial intelligence (AI) programs to construct new maps of mouse brains showing a precise location of more than 10 million cells called oligodendrocytes. ...

Feb 20, 2026 in Neuroscience
Medical Xpress / Toxic exposure creates disease risk over 20 generations, epigenetic inheritance study suggests

A single exposure to a toxic fungicide during pregnancy can increase the risk of disease for 20 subsequent generations—with inherited health problems worsening many generations after exposure. Those are the findings of ...

Feb 20, 2026 in Genetics
Medical Xpress / Down syndrome study sheds new light on early brain development

A research team led by scientists at Queen Mary University of London and University College London (UCL) has found new clues about how the brains of people with Down syndrome develop differently from a very early age. The ...

Medical Xpress / How the brain balances continuity and segmentation

Life doesn't arrive in neat chapters. It flows, one conversation bleeding into the next, one thought quietly reshaping the one that follows. Yet our brains do something remarkable: they preserve a sense of continuity while ...

Feb 20, 2026 in Psychology & Psychiatry
Medical Xpress / Invisible harms: Drug-related deaths spike after hurricanes and tropical storms

Tropical cyclones, including hurricanes and tropical storms, are linked to increased rates of drug-related deaths up to three months after the storm passes—particularly in higher-income, white communities and among younger ...

Feb 20, 2026 in Health
Medical Xpress / How targeting the STING pathway could change care for a common brain tumor

Northwestern Medicine scientists have discovered a potent immunotherapy approach for treating meningiomas, the most common type of primary brain tumor, according to a study published in Nature Communications.

Feb 20, 2026 in Oncology & Cancer
Medical Xpress / Anxiety and depression are widespread in adults with disabilities. What the data show

Adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities, such as autism and Down syndrome, experience substantially higher rates of anxiety and depression than the general population of adults, researchers report in JAMA ...

Feb 20, 2026 in Psychology & Psychiatry
Medical Xpress / Key alterations discovered in the cerebral cortex of people with psychosis

Researchers at the University of Seville have analyzed alterations in the cerebral cortex in people suffering from psychosis. Their findings show that psychosis does not follow a single trajectory, but rather its evolution ...

Feb 20, 2026 in Psychology & Psychiatry
Medical Xpress / Engineered CAR-NK cells appear more 'attack-ready'

Researchers at the Ribeirao Preto Blood Center and the Center for Cell-Based Therapy (CTC) conducted a study using the NK-92 cell line to test new models of chimeric antigen receptors (CARs) with specific costimulatory domains, ...

Feb 20, 2026 in Immunology