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Medical Xpress / Early healthy eating shapes lifelong brain health, new research finds

Eating unhealthy foods early in life leaves lasting brain and feeding changes, but gut bacteria can help restore healthy eating, a new University College Cork (UCC) research study finds. A high-fat, high-sugar diet during ...

Feb 24, 2026 in Neuroscience
Medical Xpress / Dopamine selects, astrocytes refine: A new mechanism for motor-learning circuit rewiring

When we learn a new motor skill—whether mastering a piano passage or refining balance while walking—the brain must reorganize the circuits that control movement. For decades, this process of synaptic remodeling has been ...

Feb 24, 2026 in Neuroscience
Medical Xpress / Children born with upper limb difference show the incredible adaptability of the young brain

A unique study imaging brain activity in children born with upper limb difference—for example, one hand—has shown the amazing ability of the brain to adapt to compensate and support their daily lives. The research, led ...

Feb 24, 2026 in Neuroscience
Medical Xpress / Ultrasound gives the brain a nudge in the right direction

Neuroscientist Soha Farboud of the Donders Institute at Radboud University has succeeded in adjusting activity in specific brain areas using a new technique. With ultrasonic brain stimulation, she was able to influence whether ...

Feb 24, 2026 in Neuroscience
Medical Xpress / Dysregulation of the immune system differentiates depression and psychosis in young adulthood

In the early phases of depression and psychosis, patients often show altered inflammatory markers in the blood and structural changes in the gray matter of the brain. This was demonstrated in the international study entitled ...

Feb 24, 2026 in Psychology & Psychiatry
Medical Xpress / A human mini-bladder shows the culprit of recurrent infections

Researchers at EPFL, Heidelberg University and Roche have built a human mini-bladder to show how urine composition weakens bladder tissue, helping infections recur even after antibiotics. The work was led by John McKinney ...

Feb 24, 2026 in Inflammatory disorders
Medical Xpress / Could a gene lower nicotine dependence? What a CHRNB3 variant suggests

Variants in a nicotine receptor gene are associated with a lower likelihood of heavy smoking, according to a study published in Nature Communications. The findings are based on data from populations in Mexico and validated ...

Feb 24, 2026 in Genetics
Medical Xpress / How an anti-obesity drug improves metabolism beyond weight loss

Tirzepatide is one of the drugs that has revolutionized the treatment of obesity and other conditions such as diabetes in recent years. Despite its clinical success, its precise molecular and cellular mechanisms are still ...

Feb 24, 2026 in Overweight & Obesity
Medical Xpress / Why do falls rise with age? Study points to cerebellar neuron firing

A new McGill University study has found a direct link between age-related declines in neuron activity in the cerebellum and worsening motor skills, including gait, balance and agility. While it is well known that these abilities ...

Feb 23, 2026 in Neuroscience
Medical Xpress / Smarter tissue and organ repair thanks to next-gen hydrogel

A multidisciplinary team have built hydrogels built entirely from synthetic peptides so their properties can be precisely tailored through chemical design. By harnessing the power of collagen-inspired peptides and light-triggered ...

Feb 23, 2026 in Biomedical technology
Medical Xpress / Rising temperature may shift sex ratios at birth, analysis of five million births finds

"Temperature and sex ratios at birth," a new study led by researchers at the Department of Sociology at the University of Oxford and published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, provides new evidence that ...

Feb 23, 2026 in Obstetrics & gynaecology
Medical Xpress / New 'liver-on-a-chip' device could make drug safety testing more reliable

Creating a drug that might help treat or cure a health condition in humans is a long, complex process. After developing a candidate drug that shows potential—a process that, in and of itself, can take decades—scientists ...

Feb 23, 2026 in Biomedical technology