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The internet is abuzz with tributes to a liquid chemical called methylene blue that is being sold as a health supplement. Over the past five or 10 years, methylene blue has come to be touted online as a so-called nootropic agent – a substance that enhances cognitive function. Vendors claim that it amps up brain energy, improves memory, boosts focus and dispels brain fog, among other supposed benefits. Health influencers, such as podcaster Joe Rogan, have sung its praises. In February 2025, shortly before he was confirmed as health and human services secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. appeared in a...

ChatGPT was released two and a half years ago, and we have been in a public panic ever since. Artificial intelligence can write in a way that passes for human, creating a fear that relying too heavily on machine-generated text will diminish our ability to read and write at a high level. We’ve heard that the college essay is dead, and that alarming number of students use A.I. tools to cheat their way through college. This has the potential to undermine the future of jobs, education and art all at once.The Titanic is indeed headed toward the iceberg, but the...

A research team has unveiled the cause and molecular mechanism of chronic brain inflammation that results in repetitive behavioral disorders. The research team demonstrated that an inflammatory response by immune cells in the brain induces overactivity in certain receptors, which may, in turn, lead to the meaningless repetitive behaviors observed in people with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). The research involved mice with a mutated NLRP3 gene. This gene mutation stimulates a chronic inflammatory response by immune cells in the brain that are called microglia. Prolonged inflammation overactivates N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) glutamate receptors, which are important for excitatory...

A common sleep aid restores healthier sleep patterns and protects mice from the brain damage seen in neurodegenerative disorders, such as Alzheimer's disease, according to new research. The drug, lemborexant, prevents the harmful buildup of an abnormal form of a protein called tau in the brain, reducing the inflammatory brain damage tau is known to cause in Alzheimer's. The study suggests that lemborexant could help treat or prevent the damage caused by tau in multiple neurodegenerative diseases, including Alzheimer's, progressive supranuclear palsy, corticobasal syndrome and some frontotemporal dementias. "In this new study, we have shown that lemborexant improves sleep and...

...the only known case of natural organic glass preservation in history. The brain vitrified at temperatures above 510°C followed by extremely rapid cooling, revealing a new timeline of volcanic hazards during the disaster. This unique preservation was only possible because of a perfect sequence: superheated ash cloud exposure, rapid cooling as the cloud dissipated, then burial by cooler volcanic flows...The victim, believed to be approximately 20 years old, was discovered in the Collegium Augustalium, a public building dedicated to the worship of Emperor Augustus. He is believed to have been the guardian of this important structure, which was located on...

Buried for hundreds of years, ancient brains are finally speaking. What they’re saying could change everything we thought we knew. A pioneering scientific breakthrough has made it possible to extract proteins from preserved soft tissues, including human brains, revealing a vast archive of biological information that has long remained inaccessible. This new method promises to reshape our understanding of evolution, diet, microbiomes, and even the development of brain cells over millennia. Tapping Into Hidden Biological Archives Every organism is built from proteins—molecules that drive vital processes such as heartbeats and neural communication. When an organism dies, these proteins usually degrade...

Would having your brain connected to the Internet 24 hours a day be heaven, or would it be hell? Today, a very large portion of the population is seemingly glued to their phones or their computers much of the time. But soon implantable brain-computer interfaces will allow those people to stay connected to their devices all the time. Apple has partnered with a shadowy tech company known as “Synchron” to develop a “brain implant that allows users to operate digital devices by thinking”… Imagine controlling an iPhone or MacBook with nothing but thoughts. It may sound far-fetched, but Apple’s latest...

The implications of this research could redefine the boundary between life and death. ================================================================= About five years ago, Yale School of Medicine neuroscientist Zvonimir Vrselja, Ph.D., and his colleagues shocked the medical community with a groundbreaking experiment. They removed a slaughterhouse pig’s brain from its head and deprived it of oxygen at room temperature for four hours. Then, they hooked it up to their resuscitation machine and revived it—to an extent. A living brain’s vasculature, or network of blood vessels, carries oxygenated, nutrient-rich blood to the brain through arteries and capillaries. So, the researchers used their machine, called BrainEx, to...

Reducing high blood pressure substantially lowers the risk of dementia and cognitive impairment without dementia, according to the results of a phase 3 clinical trial involving almost 34,000 patients. These findings highlight the potential importance of widespread adoption of more intensive blood pressure control among patients with hypertension to reduce the global disease burden of dementia. Research has found that people with untreated hypertension have a 42% greater risk of developing dementia in their lifetime than healthy study participants. Jiang He and colleagues tested the effectiveness of an intervention led by non-physician community health care providers (sometimes called "village doctors")...

A new study is shedding light on how insufficient consumption of vitamin K may adversely affect cognition as people get older. The study suggests that a lack of vitamin K may increase inflammation and hamper proliferation of neural cells in the hippocampus, a portion of the brain that is capable of generating new cells and is central to functions such as learning and memory. Vitamin K is found in green leafy vegetables such as Brussels sprouts, broccoli, green peas, kale, and spinach. In the new research, researchers conducted a six-month dietary intervention to compare the cognitive performance of mice that...

People’s political affiliation can be shown in their brain activity when they carry out mundane chores such as buying food, a new study shows. How the brain reacts to food purchasing decisions can be used to determine people’s political affiliation with almost 80 per cent accuracy, researchers have found. Although buying eggs and milk can lack emotional potency and political content, understanding how the neural systems lead people to make indistinguishable choices may help to explain the broader mechanisms of partisanship.Experts from Iowa State University, the University of Kansas Medical Center, Oklahoma State University, and the University of Exeter measured...

Scientists have long recognized the brain's need for energy, but new research has now illuminated how the brain's energy utilization significantly influences our sleep patterns. The team discovered certain channels in the brain, called ATP-sensitive potassium (KATP) channels, act as energy sensors and play a pivotal role in maintaining stable sleep-wake cycles and facilitating smooth transitions between cycles. "Our study shows that even small changes in energy usage can profoundly impact behavior," said Macauley. These changes impact when we sleep, how we sleep and the overall quality of our sleep. The study identified a previously unknown function of KATP channels...

A research team is testing a new combination drug therapy that could both treat and prevent melanoma metastasis to the brain. Holmen first examined what causes melanoma cells to spread to the brain and identified focal adhesion kinase (FAK) as a potential target for new therapies. FAK is an enzyme that regulates cell growth, and, they found, is a major contributor to melanoma metastasis. "The window of time to treat a patient with brain metastasis is shortened because the average survival from time of diagnosis of brain metastasis is only about a year—even while using these other therapies." Holmen and...

High-grade glioma, an aggressive form of pediatric and adult brain cancer, is challenging to treat given the tumor location, incidence of recurrence and difficulty for drugs to cross the blood-brain barrier. Researchers established a collaborative team to uncover a potential new avenue to address this disease. The team's study shows that high-grade glioma tumor cells harboring DNA alterations in the gene PDGFRA responded to the drug avapritinib, which is already approved by the US FDA to treat gastrointestinal stromal tumors with a PDGFRA exon 18 mutation as well advanced systemic mastocytosis and indolent systemic mastocytosis. "We were excited to see...

In a new study, scientists analyzed MRI data stored at the UK Biobank and identified seven genes responsible for fast biological brain aging and 13 existing drugs that can target those genes. Slowing the aging process is a powerful strategy to prevent many diseases and enhance longevity. A crucial parameter in brain health research is the brain age gap (BAG), which is the difference between a person's estimated biological brain age and their chronological age. The brain age gap is also a reliable biomarker (or proxy) for studying brain health. While the effects of the BAG are well explored, identifying...

A study has unveiled that brain aging follows a distinct yet nonlinear trajectory with critical transition points. The research offers insights into when interventions to prevent cognitive decline might be most effective. The team analyzed brain networks in more than 19,300 individuals. Their findings reveal functional communication between brain regions (brain networks) begins to destabilize around age 44, with the degeneration of brain networks accelerating most rapidly at age 67 and plateauing by age 90. The researchers identified its primary driver: neuronal insulin resistance. By comparing metabolic, vascular, and inflammatory biomarkers, they found that metabolic changes consistently preceded vascular and...

Scientists have identified a potential new strategy for treating glioblastoma, the deadliest form of brain cancer, by reprogramming aggressive cancer cells into harmless ones. The findings demonstrate that combining radiation therapy with a plant-derived compound called forskolin can force glioblastoma cells into a dormant state, making them incapable of dividing or spreading. When tested in mice, the addition of forskolin to radiation prolonged survival, offering a potential new avenue for combating glioblastoma, a disease with limited treatment options and a median survival time of just 15 to 18 months after diagnosis. "Radiation therapy, while effective in killing many cancer cells,...

The brain was discovered inside a skull found at Heslington near York A human brain, believed to be the oldest ever discovered, may have been preserved for over 2,000 years by mud, archaeologists have said. The organ was found inside a decapitated skull at an Iron Age dig site near York in 2008. Tests on the remains suggested they were from the 6th Century BC, making them about 2,600 years old. York Archaeological Trust said the skull had been buried in wet, clay-rich ground providing an oxygen-free burial. They said the burial location could have helped conserve the brain,...

A brain in near-perfect condition is found in a skull of a person who was decapitated over 2,600 years ago. THE GIST • One of the world's best preserved prehistoric human brains was recently found in a waterlogged U.K. pit. • The brain belonged to an Iron Age man who was hanged and then decapitated, with his head falling in the pit shortly thereafter. • Scientists believe that submersion in liquid, anoxic environments helps to preserve human brain tissue. • One of the pieces of a 2,600-year-old brain after removal from the skull. 
York Archaeological Trust A human skull dated...

An Iron Age man whose skull and brain was unearthed during excavations at the University of York was the victim of a gruesome ritual killing, according to new research. Scientists say that fractures and marks on the bones suggest the man, who was aged between 26 and 45, died most probably from hanging, after which he was carefully decapitated and his head was then buried on its own. Archaeologists discovered the remains in 2008 in one of a series of Iron Age pits on the site of the University’s £750 million campus expansion at Heslington East. Brain material was still...