#brain-imaging — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #brain-imaging, aggregated by home.social.
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DATE: August 21, 2026 at 06:00AM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------TITLE: Brain scans reveal biological divides based on subtle political differences
URL: https://www.psypost.org/brain-activity-synchronizes-among-people-with-similar-political-views/
People with even slightly different political views process information using different patterns of brain activity. A recent brain imaging experiment reveals that listening to political statements about immigration prompts synchronized neural responses among individuals who share similar attitudes. These findings, published in iScience, suggest that the biological roots of political division extend to subtle ideological disagreements.
In recent years, researchers have documented a biological phenomenon called neural polarization. This occurs when the brain activity of individuals holding similar political beliefs synchronizes while they consume political content. At the same time, their brain activity diverges from people who hold opposing views. Past studies typically focused on stark divides in the United States or Israel, comparing staunch conservatives to strong liberals.
These previous experiments often found that political attitudes influence how the brain processes information. Some research pointed to polarization in higher-order brain regions responsible for complex thought. Other studies found that political leanings alter activity in lower-order areas responsible for basic sensory perception.
A team of researchers wanted to know if this biological divide happens even among people whose political views are only slightly different. The research was led by neuroscientists Niloufar Zebarjadi and Annika Kluge at Aalto University in Finland, along with Jonathan Levy at Bar-Ilan University in Israel. They designed an experiment focusing on attitudes toward immigration in Finland.
Finland has a multiparty political system with relatively low levels of societal polarization compared to other Western nations. Because the country is not strictly divided into a two-party system, it provides an ideal setting to study subtle ideological differences. The researchers wanted to see if identical information is interpreted differently depending on minor variations in a person’s worldview.
The researchers recorded fMRI data from 48 participants, of whom 40 remained after exclusions and were included in the final analysis. Functional magnetic resonance imaging, or fMRI, tracks blood flow in the brain to measure neural activity in real time. While inside the scanner, the participants listened to 44 audio statements about immigration to Finland.
Half of these statements supported immigration, and the other half opposed it. The audio clips were specifically balanced to ensure they were similar in length and grammatical structure. Some statements focused on immigration in general, while others specifically mentioned Muslim immigrants.
After hearing each statement, participants rated how much they agreed with the message on a five-point scale. The researchers used these ratings to calculate an overall immigration attitude score for each person. After the scanning session, participants also filled out several questionnaires measuring their political inclination, empathy, and attitudes toward multiculturalism.
The participants’ immigration attitude scores strongly correlated with their survey answers. Those who scored lower on immigration support also reported higher levels of perceived threat and discriminatory attitudes. The researchers divided the participants into two groups of 20 based on a median split of their immigration attitude scores. Both groups were generally supportive of immigration, but one group was highly supportive while the other was slightly less supportive.
To find evidence of neural polarization, the researchers used a technique called inter-subject correlation. This method looks at how the activity in tiny sections of the brain rises and falls over time. The researchers compared the brain activity time courses among people in the same group and compared them against people in the opposing group.
If the brain waves in a specific area synced up closely among people in the same group, but did not sync up with the other group, that area was marked as polarized. When analyzing all the audio statements together, the researchers found that brain activity was more similar among people in the same group than it was between the two groups. This divergence appeared in two specific brain areas: the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and the left premotor cortex.
The dorsolateral prefrontal cortex is a region associated with complex cognitive tasks like reasoning, memory, and decision making. The premotor cortex is traditionally involved in planning physical movements. Finding differences in both areas indicates that political attitudes filter information through high-level thinking centers as well as lower-level regions tied to physical action.
Next, the researchers analyzed the data to see if the type of political narrative changed the brain’s response. They separated the brain scans recorded during the pro-immigration audio from the scans recorded during the anti-immigration audio. They repeated their inter-subject correlation analysis for each set of data.
When participants listened to pro-immigration statements, the researchers observed a similar pattern of neural polarization. The brain activity diverged between the highly supportive and less supportive groups in the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and the right premotor cortex. The results closely mirrored the findings from the overall analysis.
When participants listened to anti-immigration statements, the brain mapping looked different. Neural polarization still appeared in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, though in the right hemisphere instead of the left. The researchers also found polarized activity in the primary somatosensory cortex, which processes physical sensations like touch.
Another area that showed polarization during anti-immigration audio was the superior temporal gyrus. This part of the brain is involved in processing sounds and understanding language. By comparing the overall level of synchronization, the researchers noticed another pattern during the anti-immigration narratives.
The group that was less supportive of immigration showed a stronger degree of neural polarization than the highly supportive group. The brain responses were distinctly sensitive to the political leaning of the audio content. The researchers noted that focusing on specific polarizing topics, such as immigration, can alter how different ideological groups biologically process political speech.
There are several limitations to consider when interpreting these results. The study group consisted mostly of individuals who favored immigration, and a majority identified as politically left-leaning. Because the participants were mostly uniform in their overall support for immigration, the findings might look different in a highly divided population with extreme opposing views.
The study relied on an observational design, meaning it cannot prove that a person’s political beliefs caused their brain activity to change. It is possible that underlying biological differences influence a person’s political attitudes. The self-reported nature of the surveys also means that some participants might not have revealed their true attitudes due to social pressures.
The participant pool was relatively small, heavily female, and drawn from a single industrialized, democratic country. The researchers also pointed out that the findings were not statistically significant when the groups were analyzed completely separately for some of the brain regions, likely due to reduced statistical power from dividing a small sample size. Expanding the research to include larger, more diverse groups of people would help determine how universal these patterns of neural polarization might be.
Scientists are continuing to investigate how biological mechanisms relate to political beliefs. The study, “Polarized neural responses to political narratives are sensitive to small variations in self-reported political perspectives,” was authored by Niloufar Zebarjadi, Annika Kluge, Enrico Glerean, Matilde Tassinari, Iiro P. Jääskeläinen, Inga Jasinskaja-Lahti, and Jonathan Levy.
URL: https://www.psypost.org/brain-activity-synchronizes-among-people-with-similar-political-views/
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#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #NeuralPolarization #PoliticalBrains #ImmigrationDebate #fMRIResearch #NeuroscienceOfPolitics #BrainImaging #PoliticalNarratives #DLPFC #PremotorCortex #InterSubjectCorrelation
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New research shows how psychedelics reorganise the patterns in your brain
#Science #Psychology #Nature
#Psilocybin #Psychedelics #Brain #MentalHealth #BrainImaging #MRI #EEG #Consciousness #AIResearch #BrainResearch #Neuroscience #HealthResearch #MedicalScience
https://the-14.com/new-research-shows-how-psychedelics-reorganise-the-patterns-in-your-brain/ -
DATE: August 20, 2026 at 10:00AM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------TITLE: Brain imaging reveals why some people struggle to resist sweet foods
URL: https://www.psypost.org/how-your-brain-s-cellular-vacuums-might-drive-your-sugar-cravings/
How our brains process sugar might influence our ability to resist dessert. A recent study found that individuals who exhibit a specific change in their brain chemistry after receiving sugar tend to have a harder time controlling their intake of sweet foods. The research, published in Human Brain Mapping, suggests that an overly efficient system for removing reward-related chemicals could leave some people craving more sweets.
The global rate of obesity has increased massively over the past few decades, bringing elevated risks for cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and certain cancers. The human brain plays a central role in regulating our energy balance, deciding when we feel hungry and when we feel full. Food acts as a natural reward, and the neurotransmitter dopamine is a primary driver of this system. Dopamine is a chemical messenger that helps modulate motivation, habit formation, and the pleasurable sensations associated with eating.
When we eat highly palatable foods like sweets, dopamine is released into the microscopic gaps between our brain cells. Researchers have proposed that obesity might be linked to irregularities in this dopamine system. Some suggest that certain individuals are hypersensitive to the rewarding aspects of food, leading to excessive intake. Others propose a reward deficit model, where people who are insensitive to everyday rewards overeat to boost their dopamine to normal levels.
To study this in living humans, researchers typically use Positron Emission Tomography, or PET scans. A PET scan is an imaging test that uses harmless radioactive tracers to visualize specific cellular functions and brain chemistry. Past PET scan research often focused on dopamine receptors, which act as the docking stations on brain cells that receive the dopamine signal. The results from those studies were highly inconsistent.
Some studies showed higher receptor levels in obese individuals, while others showed lower levels or no difference at all. Because dopamine receptors are difficult to interpret on their own, a research team led by Kyoungjune Pak at Pusan National University Hospital in South Korea shifted their focus to the dopamine transporter. This transporter is a protein that acts like a cellular vacuum cleaner. After dopamine has been released and done its job, the transporter sweeps the chemical out of the space between neurons and returns it to the sending cell.
Previous research by the same team demonstrated that giving humans a dose of glucose increases the activity of these dopamine transporters. When blood sugar rises, the body releases the hormone insulin to help cells absorb the energy. Insulin also appears to signal the brain to deploy more dopamine transporters. Pak and his colleagues wanted to see if this physiological response relates to how people subjectively experience and crave sweet foods.
The researchers recruited thirty-five healthy young men for a small study. Each participant visited the hospital on three separate days, fasting overnight for at least twelve hours before each appointment. This fasting ensured that recent meals would not interfere with their baseline brain chemistry or hormone levels.
During two of these visits, the participants received an intravenous infusion while resting in the scanner. On one day, they received a dose of liquid glucose, and on the other day, they received a placebo of normal saline. The participants did not know which infusion they were receiving on which day, eliminating the influence of expectation.
Following each infusion, the participants underwent a PET scan using a specific tracer designed to bind exclusively to dopamine transporters. This allowed the researchers to measure the availability of the transporters in the striatum. The striatum is a cluster of neurons located deep in the center of the brain that is heavily involved in reward, motivation, and decision-making.
On the third visit, the participants underwent a different type of PET scan that measures overall brain glucose metabolism. This scan provided a baseline map of their normal brain cellular activity. Between all these visits, the researchers tracked the participants’ body mass index, height, and weight.
In addition to the brain scans, all participants completed a twelve-item sweet taste questionnaire. This survey measures an individual’s psychological attitude toward sweets, scoring them on their sensitivity to the mood-altering effects of sugary foods. It also measures their perceived lack of control over eating sweet items. The researchers measured the participants’ blood sugar and insulin levels before and after the infusions to track the body’s physical response.
The glucose infusions successfully raised the participants’ blood sugar and insulin levels, mimicking the biological aftermath of eating a carbohydrate-heavy meal. When analyzing the PET scans, the researchers observed that dopamine transporter availability was generally higher following the glucose infusion compared to the placebo infusion. The participants essentially had more cellular vacuums ready to sweep up dopamine.
When the team compared the brain imaging data to the questionnaire responses, a consistent pattern emerged. The participants who showed higher dopamine transporter availability after the glucose infusion also scored higher on the sweet taste questionnaire. They reported being more sensitive to the mood-altering effects of sweets and having a harder time controlling their consumption of them.
The researchers did not find this relationship when looking at the baseline placebo scans. A person’s dopamine transporter levels under normal, fasting conditions did not predict their attitude toward sweet foods. Similarly, the participants’ baseline brain glucose metabolism and their body mass index did not correlate with their questionnaire scores.
The authors suggest that this biological mechanism might explain why some people struggle to resist sugary snacks. If a spike in blood sugar prompts the brain to rapidly deploy dopamine transporters, those transporters will quickly vacuum up the available dopamine. This rapid removal would abruptly end the rewarding sensation of the treat.
As a result, the individual might feel an immediate desire to eat more sweets to bring the dopamine levels back up. Their brain essentially curtails the pleasure of the sugar, creating a cycle of craving. The faster the dopamine is removed, the faster the person wants another dessert.
The authors noted a few limitations to their research. As a cross-sectional analysis, the results highlight a correlation between brain chemistry and dietary attitudes but cannot prove a direct sequence of cause and effect. It is possible that individuals with an inherent sensitivity to sweet foods simply have different underlying biological traits. Future experiments involving repeated interventions would be needed to establish exactly how these variables influence one another.
The sample size of this small study also limits the strength of the conclusions. The statistical models showed consistent directional trends, but some of the specific regional brain data were not statistically significant after adjusting for multiple comparisons. A larger cohort of participants is required to confirm the findings.
The research exclusively enrolled male participants. Past studies have shown that men and women can exhibit entirely opposite neuroendocrine responses to food-related signals. For example, previous brain imaging research found that intravenous glucose alters dopamine receptor availability differently depending on a person’s sex.
The mechanisms observed in this experiment likely have sexually dimorphic characteristics, meaning the results cannot be automatically generalized to females. Finally, because the study focused primarily on lean individuals, the findings might not apply to populations with clinical obesity. Medical professionals will need to replicate these scans in diverse groups to fully understand how sugar influences dopamine across the general public.
The study, “The Change of Dopamine Transporter After Glucose Loading Is Associated With an Individual’s Attitude Toward Sweet Foods in Healthy Young Males,” was authored by Kyoungjune Pak, Jihyun Kim, Keunyoung Kim, Seongho Seo, and Myung Jun Lee.
URL: https://www.psypost.org/how-your-brain-s-cellular-vacuums-might-drive-your-sugar-cravings/
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#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #SugarCravings #DopamineScience #BrainImaging #PETScan #DopamineTransporter #SweetTooth #SugarAndBrain #ObesityResearch #FoodReward #GlucoseLoading
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DATE: August 20, 2026 at 07:00AM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------TITLE: Negative social media posts correlated with changes in the brain’s fear network during the COVID-19 lockdown
The collective emotional stress of the COVID-19 pandemic may be reflected in how the human brain regulates fear and anxiety. A recent study published in Frontiers in Nuclear Medicine indicates that on days when public social media posts expressed higher levels of negative emotions, brain scans of patients taken on those same days showed reduced activity in areas responsible for emotional regulation. This provides evidence that societal stress can have measurable, wide-reaching neurological effects on vulnerable populations.
The COVID-19 pandemic brought about widespread isolation, uncertainty, and fear. Public health lockdowns, intended to limit the spread of the virus, placed intense psychological burdens on communities worldwide. These environmental and societal factors can interact with human biology, a dynamic that population neuroscience aims to understand. By studying this interaction, scientists hope to learn how collective experiences shape large-scale brain function.
An earlier study by the same research group explored the physical impacts of the lockdown. The scientists found that social isolation and reduced physical activity were associated with lower brain metabolism in the sensorimotor network, the areas that process movement and sensory information. In separate work, they also observed that long COVID was associated with metabolic changes in olfactory regions, the temporal lobe, and the brainstem.
“The idea grew directly out of our previous study,” said study author Eric Guedj, a professor at Aix-Marseille University in France. “In that work, we investigated the more physical side of lockdown — reduced activity and deconditioning — and found measurable effects on brain metabolism.”
“We then wanted to explore another question: how does our individual brain absorb the emotional shocks experienced collectively by society?” Guedj explained. “The first COVID-19 lockdown provided a unique natural setting to examine this.”
To capture the psychological climate, the researchers used a sentiment analysis of public social media posts. “We used social media as a real-time window into the collective emotional climate and compared daily negative-emotion levels, derived from approximately 2.6 million French tweets, with FDG-PET brain scans performed on the same days in 95 patients with neurological conditions,” Guedj said.
These posts were created on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, during the 55-day national lockdown in France from March to May 2020. The authors calculated a daily negative-emotion score by evaluating the intensity of words related to fear, anger, disgust, sadness, and surprise. They then compared this daily national mood score to brain imaging data collected in clinical settings during the same period.
The sample included 95 adult patients, with an average age of 54, who underwent brain positron emission tomography scans. A positron emission tomography scan, commonly known as a PET scan, uses a small amount of radioactive material to measure cellular metabolism, showing how different parts of the brain utilize energy. The patients in the study were already receiving these scans for pre-existing neurological conditions, such as cognitive impairment, brain tumors, or focal epilepsy.
When running their statistical models, the authors controlled for several potential confounding variables. They adjusted for the patients’ age, sex, and the presence of specific focal brain lesions. They also accounted for the duration of the lockdown, noting how many days had passed since the lockdown began at the time of each scan.
The data suggests an inverse relationship between collective negative emotions and the metabolism of specific brain regions. On days when the national negative-emotion score was higher, the patients’ PET scans tended to show lower metabolic activity in the right ventromedial prefrontal cortex and the anterior cingulate cortex.
These two regions are core components of the brain’s fear network. The ventromedial prefrontal cortex helps regulate emotional responses and decision-making, while the anterior cingulate cortex is involved in processing emotions and assessing threats.
“The broader message is that our brains do not function in isolation from the social world,” Guedj told PsyPost. “On days when negative emotions expressed collectively on social media were more intense, we observed lower brain metabolism in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex and anterior cingulate cortex, two regions that play important roles in regulating fear, stress and emotions.”
The correlation between the daily negative-emotion score and brain metabolism was moderate, with a correlation coefficient of -0.40. A correlation coefficient measures the strength of a relationship on a scale from -1 to 1, meaning this represents a moderate negative relationship at the group level. When the authors looked at specific emotions, they found that sadness, fear, and surprise drove this effect. In contrast, emotions like anger and disgust were not statistically significant in their primary brain imaging analysis.
Social media served as an indicator of the environment rather than the direct cause of the brain changes. “This does not mean that social media itself was changing the brain,” Guedj clarified. “Rather, social media provided us with a kind of real-time mirror of the emotional climate experienced by society, and that collective emotional climate was associated with measurable differences in brain function.”
The authors also analyzed how these specific brain regions interacted with others. They found that the prefrontal and cingulate cortices were connected to a broader network located primarily in the right hemisphere of the brain. This network included the amygdala, which detects threats, as well as the hippocampus, which is involved in memory processing.
“What struck us most was the anatomical coherence of the finding,” Guedj said. “The association was not scattered randomly across the brain: it involved regions at the core of emotional regulation, connected to a broader limbic network including the amygdala, hippocampus, thalamus and basal ganglia.”
The reduced metabolism in these regulatory areas points to a potential impairment in how the brain processes collective stress. Notably, this pattern of reduced metabolism in the fear network was entirely separate from the sensorimotor changes the researchers previously linked to physical deconditioning. It also only had a ten percent overlap with the pattern seen in long COVID patients, suggesting that collective emotional stress affects the brain through its own distinct pathways.
“It was also interesting that this pattern was distinct from the brain changes we had previously associated with physical deconditioning during lockdown, and also distinct from the brain changes associated with long COVID,” Guedj added. “This suggests that the physical and emotional dimensions of a collective crisis may affect the brain through partly different mechanisms.”
The study relies on observational data, meaning it indicates a correlation but cannot establish that the national mood directly caused the brain changes. Additionally, the proxy measure for societal stress is limited to users of a single social media platform. Social media users do not perfectly represent the demographics, socioeconomic status, or emotional state of an entire country.
“The most important point is that this is an observational study showing an association, not proof of causality,” Guedj warned. “We cannot say that collective negative emotions directly caused the metabolic changes we observed. The Twitter-derived score was also a measure of the broader emotional environment, not of what each individual patient personally felt or saw online.”
The sample consisted exclusively of individuals with neurological conditions, who may possess a heightened vulnerability to societal stressors. Conditions like brain tumors or cognitive impairments can disrupt neural connectivity, potentially making these patients more susceptible to the effects of collective negative emotions.
“Finally, our participants had neurological conditions and may represent a particularly vulnerable population, so the findings cannot yet be directly generalized to healthy people,” Guedj said.
The findings suggest a new way to conceptualize emotional well-being during wide-scale events. “One concept I find particularly important is that mental health is not exclusively an individual matter,” Guedj explained. “We are relational beings, continuously influenced by our social and emotional environment.”
“Social media is often viewed mainly as a potential source of psychological harm, but from a research perspective it can also provide an extraordinary real-time measure of collective emotional states,” he continued. “Combining these large-scale societal data with objective biological markers such as brain imaging may help us better understand how events experienced by society become associated with what happens in individual brains.”
Future research could track individuals over longer periods to see if these metabolic patterns persist after a crisis resolves. Expanding data collection beyond social media to include personal diaries or longitudinal surveys could provide a more accurate picture of collective stress.
The researchers hope to expand this framework to other contexts. “We would like to develop this approach within what could be called population or societal neuroscience: studying how large-scale social and environmental events interact with individual brain function and vulnerability,” Guedj noted. “The COVID-19 pandemic offered an exceptional natural experiment, but the broader questions go far beyond COVID. How does the brain respond to periods of collective fear, major social crises, terrorist attacks, wars or climate-related disasters?”
Investigating the potential benefits of shared positive experiences is another goal for the team. “And conversely, could positive collective experiences — major celebrations, sporting events or periods of social cohesion — produce measurable protective effects? These are questions we would now like to explore,” Guedj said.
Understanding how vulnerable populations react to environmental shifts may eventually guide public health interventions. “In that sense, the most vulnerable individuals may also act as particularly sensitive indicators of the effects of collective stress,” Guedj said. “Understanding this interaction between society and the brain could become increasingly important for public health.”
“Ultimately, this type of research could help identify both individual vulnerability and population-level warning signals, and perhaps contribute to better mental-health strategies during future collective crises,” he concluded.
The study, “Emotional stress during the COVID-19 lockdown: how negative X/Twitter posts correlated with changes in the brain’s fear network,” was authored by Eric Guedj, Jacques-Yves Campion, Tatiana Horowitz, Fanny Barthélémy, Stéphanie Khalfa, and Wissam El-Hage.
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#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #COVID19 #MentalHealth #BrainImaging #NegativeEmotions #SocialMediaImpact #FearNetwork #PrefrontalCortex #AnteriorCingulate #PublicHealth #PopulationNeuroscience
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DATE: August 19, 2026 at 08:38PM
SOURCE: SCIENCE DAILY PSYCHIATIRY FEEDTITLE: Researchers reveal deeper workings of brain’s information hub
URL: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/08/260819041224.htm
The brain has a remarkably flexible system for handling uncertainty and changing situations. Researchers found that the frontoparietal cortex constantly shifts how it communicates with other brain regions depending on what information is needed to make a decision. Rather than simply becoming more active when things get difficult, this network appears to reorganize itself in real time.
URL: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/08/260819041224.htm
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#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #BrainResearch #FrontoparietalCortex #DecisionMaking #Neuroscience #BrainNetworks #UncertaintyProcessing #CognitiveFlexibility #NeuralConnectivity #BrainImaging #NeuroscienceNews
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DATE: August 16, 2026 at 08:00PM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------TITLE: Brain scans reveal lasting tissue and chemical changes in both long COVID and recovered patients
Even after people recover from COVID-19, their brains may retain lasting physical and chemical changes. A recent scanning study found altered brain tissue patterns and neurochemical levels in both long COVID patients and those who fully recovered, compared to individuals who were never infected. The findings were published in the journal Brain, Behavior, & Immunity Health.
The virus responsible for COVID-19 can cause a range of persistent neurological symptoms, including brain fog, fatigue, and memory issues. While these symptoms are defining features of long COVID, some cognitive slowing also appears in people who report feeling fully recovered from the virus. Medical researchers are currently trying to map the biological roots of these brain-based symptoms. Medical imaging techniques allow experts to look inside the living brain to measure the health of its structural connections and the chemical environments that support cell function.
One target of interest is myelin, the insulating sheath that wraps around the long fibers of nerve cells. Myelin acts like the rubber coating on a copper wire, helping electrical signals travel quickly and efficiently across the brain. When myelin is damaged, communication between brain regions can slow down or fail. Another focus is the microscopic movement of water molecules through brain tissue, which can reveal subtle structural damage.
A third area of interest involves brain neurochemicals, the molecules that power brain cells and facilitate their communication. To see how these brain characteristics change after a viral infection, neuroimaging expert Kiran Thapaliya and colleagues at Griffith University in Australia designed a comparative study. The researchers set out to measure myelin levels, tissue microstructure, and neurochemical balances simultaneously. They wanted to see if distinct physical differences exist between those who never had the virus, those who fully recovered, and those still suffering from long COVID.
The research team recruited 47 adult participants for a small study. The group included 19 people with long COVID, 12 individuals who had fully recovered from a COVID-19 infection, and 16 healthy control subjects who had never contracted the virus. All participants underwent brain scanning using a powerful magnetic resonance imaging machine.
First, the team captured two types of structural images, known as T1-weighted and T2-weighted scans. By calculating the ratio between these two image types, the researchers could estimate the concentration of myelin across different regions of the brain. They also used a technique called diffusion tensor imaging to track how water molecules diffuse through brain tissue.
Normal brain tissue allows water to flow in predictable patterns, while damaged tissue alters this flow. Finally, the researchers used magnetic resonance spectroscopy to measure the concentration of specific chemical compounds in the brain.
After processing the brain scans, the researchers compared the results across the three participant groups. The myelin mapping analysis revealed altered signal intensities in both long COVID patients and fully recovered individuals when compared to the never-infected group. Specifically, people with long COVID showed elevated myelin signals in the precentral gyrus and middle temporal gyrus, brain regions involved in motor control and memory. The recovered group also showed elevated signals in the precentral gyrus and the posterior cingulate cortex compared to the uninfected control group.
When comparing long COVID patients directly to the recovered individuals, differences in myelin signals appeared in unique regions. The recovered group had higher signal intensities in the brainstem and cerebellum compared to those with long COVID. The researchers noted that these altered signals might indicate an active biological process, such as the brain attempting to repair damaged myelin sheaths or ongoing inflammation.
The water diffusion scans also pointed to lingering tissue changes. Long COVID patients displayed reduced water diffusion in certain brain regions compared to the uninfected control group. The fully recovered participants similarly showed reduced diffusion in the caudate region of the brain, an area involved in learning and memory. These altered water movement patterns suggest that the microscopic structure of the brain tissue changed following the initial viral infection.
The chemical analysis revealed imbalances primarily between the long COVID and recovered groups. The researchers found that individuals with long COVID had higher levels of N-acetyl-aspartate, a molecule related to energy metabolism in neurons. The recovered participants had higher levels of glutamine. Glutamine is an amino acid that brain cells consume for energy and immune regulation.
The team also checked to see if the brain scan measurements matched the physical and cognitive symptoms reported by the long COVID patients. They found that lower myelin signals in the middle temporal gyrus corresponded with greater physical impairment. Additionally, lower myelin signals in the midbrain correlated with worse cognitive dysfunction. This indicates that myelin health relates directly to the severity of long COVID symptoms.
The study provides an initial look at how a viral infection might leave a lasting imprint on the brain, but it has limitations. With a total of 47 participants, this is a small study, meaning the results must be interpreted cautiously until they can be replicated in a larger population. Because the researchers only scanned participants at a single point in time, the data cannot show how these brain changes develop or resolve over months or years. The findings highlight associations between brain changes and viral recovery, but they do not prove that the virus directly caused the specific myelin or chemical alterations.
Future research will need to track patients over extended periods to see if these brain changes are permanent or if they slowly revert to normal. Larger studies could also help clarify whether the elevated myelin signals represent a healthy repair process or a sign of chronic inflammation.
The study, “Altered brain tissue microstructure and neurochemical profiles in long COVID and recovered COVID-19 individuals: A multimodal MRI study,” was authored by Kiran Thapaliya, Sonya Marshall-Gradisnik, Maira Inderyas, and Leighton Barnden.
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DATE: August 11, 2026 at 09:12AM
SOURCE: SCIENCE DAILY MIND-BRAIN FEEDTITLE: MIT neuroscientists discover the brain can reason without words
URL: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/08/260811011140.htm
MIT neuroscientists have found striking evidence that language and logical reasoning are powered by separate systems in the brain. Even people with severe language impairments caused by stroke were able to solve challenging logic puzzles as well as people without those impairments, while brain scans showed that language-processing regions stayed largely quiet during reasoning tasks.
URL: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/08/260811011140.htm
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DATE: August 11, 2026 at 06:00PM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------TITLE: Amygdala volume increases with age, more strongly in boys
URL: https://www.psypost.org/amygdala-volume-increases-with-age-more-strongly-in-boys/
A neuroimaging study involving participants from the fetal period up into the first four years of life found that the volume of the amygdala region of the brain increases with age and that this increase is steeper in boys than in girls. The paper was published in Human Brain Mapping.
The amygdala is a small, almond-shaped structure located deep within the brain’s temporal lobes. It is best known for its role in processing emotionally significant information. The amygdala is particularly involved in detecting potential threats and coordinating responses to fear, although its functions extend well beyond negative emotions.
The amygdala helps the brain determine which events are important and therefore deserve attention or should be remembered. It interacts closely with regions involved in memory, decision-making, and physiological stress responses, including the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex. Through these connections, it can influence changes in heart rate, hormone release, vigilance, and behavior when a person encounters something emotionally meaningful.
The amygdala also contributes to learning associations between particular situations and positive or negative outcomes. It participates in a broader neural network that evaluates the relevance and motivational significance of experiences.
Study author Megan E. Mueller and her colleagues investigated the development of the amygdala during late fetal, newborn, and early childhood periods—timeframes for which there has not been much published data so far. They also examined the links between amygdala development and specific aspects of psychological development for those participants for whom this data was available.
They analyzed data from cross-sectional (looking at different children at one specific point in time) and longitudinal (following the same children over a period of time) studies collected at Western University (Ontario, Canada) and from three open-access datasets. Data came from 11 unique participants of the Alberta Pregnancy Outcomes and Nutrition Study (APrON), from 30 participants of the CMIND study, 348 participants from the Developing Human Connectome Project, and from three more groups collected at Western University involving a total of 82 participants (Fetal Cohort 1, Fetal Cohort 2, and the Infant Cohort).
In total, these datasets contained data from 471 unique participants. Across datasets, females comprised 47% of participants. The age of participating children ranged between 27 weeks postmenstrual age (measured from the mother’s last menstrual period, representing the fetal stage) to 195 weeks postmenstrual age (around 3 years postnatal age) at the time of neuroimaging.
For 30 participants from the CMIND dataset, data on neurodevelopmental abilities, collected using the Bayley Scales of Infant and Toddler Development, Third Edition, were also available. These included assessments of cognitive, language, motor, social-emotional, and general adaptive abilities (practical, everyday life skills).
Results showed that the volume of the amygdala increases with age and that this age-related change is steeper in boys than in girls. Also, male participants tended to have larger amygdalae overall. The amygdala on the left side of the brain was larger and showed a steeper age-related increase than the right side.
When study authors looked at the 30 participants for whom neurodevelopmental data were available, they found that participants with smaller left amygdala volumes tended to have somewhat better social-emotional outcomes, cognitive outcomes, and better receptive communication (the ability to understand spoken language).
“We found that sex, laterality [differences between the left and right sides of the brain], and age predicted the volumes of the amygdala in a typically developing sample [children without neurodevelopmental disorders], providing a more thorough understanding of its development in the fetus and throughout infancy,” the study authors concluded.
“Additionally, identifying the impact of the development of the left amygdala on later communication, cognitive and social outcomes in toddlerhood provides further evidence that biological differences may be predictive of later prosocial or adverse outcomes, even in typically developing populations.”
The study contributes to scientific knowledge about the development of the brain. However, the associations with developmental outcomes were calculated only on data from a single dataset that included a very small number of children and infants. Because of this, the study authors suggest that these associations should be treated as preliminary.
The paper, “Age-Related Changes in the Amygdala From In Utero to Early Childhood: Association With Social and Cognitive Outcomes,” was authored by Megan E. Mueller, Emily S. Nichols, Sarah Al-Saoud, Barb de Vrijer, Charles A. McKenzie, Roy Eagleson, Sandrine de Ribaupierre, and Emma G. Duerden.
URL: https://www.psypost.org/amygdala-volume-increases-with-age-more-strongly-in-boys/
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DATE: August 11, 2026 at 04:00PM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------TITLE: Brain imaging study links childhood trauma to chronic procrastination in adulthood
Childhood trauma can leave lasting marks on human development, and a new study links these early adverse experiences to higher rates of procrastination in young adults. By scanning the brains of over a thousand participants, researchers mapped how trauma-related changes in neural networks might elevate anxiety and lower self-control, paving the way for chronic delay. The research was published in the journal NeuroImage.
Procrastination is often dismissed as simple laziness or poor time management. Psychologists generally view chronic procrastination as a failure of self-control. When faced with a stressful or unpleasant task, people may delay doing it as a way to find temporary relief from negative feelings. This concept is known as the short-term emotion repair theory. While putting off a difficult project provides immediate comfort, it interferes with long-term goals.
Experiencing abuse or neglect in childhood can disrupt the development of systems in the brain that handle emotion and cognitive control. This early adversity can make individuals highly sensitive to negative emotions, elevating their baseline stress. It can also reduce their ability to suppress immediate impulses in favor of future rewards.
Researchers at Southwest University in China wanted to see if the neurobiological changes associated with childhood trauma might explain the tendency to put things off. The study was led by psychologist Tingyong Feng along with Luo Xu and colleagues. They hypothesized that early traumatic events alter large-scale brain networks. These structural and functional changes would subsequently raise a person’s baseline anxiety and degrade their ability to maintain self-control.
To test this framework, the research team recruited undergraduate students with no history of psychiatric disorders, dividing them into a primary discovery group of 760 participants and a validation group of 429 participants. Every individual completed a series of standardized questionnaires. These surveys assessed their history of physical and emotional abuse or neglect, general tendency to procrastinate, trait anxiety, and baseline self-control. Trait anxiety refers to a person’s general, everyday level of stress and worry, rather than temporary anxiety tied to a specific passing event.
The participants then underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging. This brain scanning technique measures blood flow to track brain activity while a person is resting. By observing which areas of the brain activate in sync, researchers can map out functional networks. The team focused on the strength of the connections between 268 different brain regions, looking for patterns that corresponded with the behavioral survey scores.
In the first part of their analysis using the behavioral survey data, the researchers found that higher scores on the childhood trauma questionnaire predicted higher levels of procrastination. When they introduced the other survey variables into their statistical models, they found that trait anxiety and self-control acted as mediators. The data indicated that childhood trauma was associated with higher trait anxiety and lower self-control. These two emotional and cognitive states in turn predicted the urge to procrastinate.
Next, the researchers used a statistical technique to analyze the brain scans from the participants in the discovery group. They searched the entire brain to find specific patterns of neural connectivity that could predict the severity of a participant’s childhood trauma. Their models successfully identified a set of brain connections that correlated with the initial survey scores. To ensure their computer model was reliable, they tested it on the brain scans of the students in the validation group. The model accurately predicted trauma scores in this independent group based solely on their resting neural connectivity.
The neural connections identified by the model primarily involved several major brain networks. These included the frontoparietal network, which is responsible for goal-directed behavior, and the salience network, which helps the brain detect and react to emotional stimuli. The researchers observed weaker connectivity in areas related to top-down cognitive control, such as the prefrontal cortex. At the same time, they saw stronger connections between visual processing areas and the cerebellum. These latter regions are highly active when processing emotional cues and learning fear responses.
The researchers noted that these brain patterns align with a recognized framework called the triple-network model of procrastination. In this model, chronic delay arises from an imbalance between brain networks that manage self-control, emotion regulation, and future planning. The weaker connectivity in the prefrontal cortex suggests a diminished capacity to stay focused on long-term goals. The stronger connections between the salience network and visual areas suggest a hyperactive threat-detection system. Under these conditions, visual inputs are more readily interpreted as threatening or stressful, which elevates anxiety.
The researchers then merged the neurological data with the behavioral data. They found that the exact brain network patterns associated with childhood trauma predicted higher procrastination scores. Just as with the survey data, this relationship was bridged by the participants’ levels of trait anxiety and self-control. The altered brain connectivity predicted higher anxiety and lower self-control, which ultimately mapped onto higher procrastination.
The study relies on a cross-sectional design, meaning all data was collected at a single point in time. This approach prevents researchers from proving that childhood trauma directly causes brain changes or procrastination later in life. The researchers noted that longitudinal studies, which track the same individuals over many years, are required to confirm the direction of these effects.
The observed associations between the brain networks and behavioral traits were also relatively modest in size. Modest effects are common in brain imaging research, partly due to the limits of current scanning technology and the natural variations in how human brains are wired. The reliance on self-reported questionnaires for assessing childhood trauma can also introduce memory biases or measurement errors.
The research team recommended that future studies test more diverse populations, as the current data came exclusively from healthy college students. Including physiological markers and specific behavioral tests could also refine our understanding of how early life stress changes the brain.
The study, “Early Wounds, Delayed Consequences: Brain-Behavior Modeling Reveals Neural Pathways Linking Childhood Trauma to Procrastination,” was authored by Luo Xu, Yao Yin, Xueke Wang, Ting Xu, Xi Zhang, and Tingyong Feng.
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DATE: August 7, 2026 at 08:00PM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------TITLE: Lower myelin levels in gray matter suggest a biological tie between early trauma and depression
A recent study published in the journal NeuroImage: Clinical indicates that adults who developed depression after experiencing childhood trauma tend to have lower levels of myelin, a protective coating on nerve cells. This reduction in brain insulation provides evidence for a potential biological link between early life adversity and the later onset of depressive symptoms.
Major depressive disorder affects millions of people worldwide and carries a heavy personal and economic toll. Exposure to adverse experiences during childhood is a well-documented risk factor for developing this mental health condition in adulthood. However, the exact biological mechanisms that connect early trauma to adult depression remain poorly understood. To explore this connection, scientists have increasingly looked at the brain’s microscopic structure.
One area of interest is myelin. Myelin is a fatty substance that wraps around the thread-like extensions of nerve cells. It acts much like the plastic insulation on an electrical wire. By insulating the nerve cells, myelin helps speed up the transmission of electrical signals between neurons, allowing different parts of the brain to communicate effectively. When myelin is damaged or fails to develop properly, this communication can break down.
Most previous research has focused on myelin in the brain’s white matter, which acts as the deep communication highways of the brain. Much less is known about myelin in the gray matter, the outer layer of the brain where most information processing occurs. Myelin in the gray matter is less dense but is thought to play a role in synchronizing complex neural circuits. The authors of the current study wanted to explore whether abnormal myelin levels in the gray matter might serve as a biological bridge explaining how childhood trauma leads to depression.
The research team recruited 35 young adults diagnosed with major depressive disorder and 49 healthy control participants. The patients had a median age of 23 years, and seven of them were men. The healthy controls had a median age of 24 years, with 18 men in the group. None of the patients had taken systematic antidepressant medications prior to joining the study.
To evaluate the participants, the researchers used clinical questionnaires, including the Hamilton Depression Rating Scale, the Hamilton Anxiety Rating Scale, and the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire. They then scanned the participants’ brains using a technique called synthetic magnetic resonance imaging. This specific type of brain scan allowed the scientists to measure the exact volume of myelin in the gray matter of the brain in a single five-to-six-minute session. It also measured proton density, which reflects the concentration of water in the brain tissue.
The brain scans indicated that the participants with depression had lower myelin content and higher proton density in several specific areas on the left side of their brains compared to the healthy controls. These areas included regions involved in language processing, visual attention, and emotional regulation, such as the left inferior frontal sulcus and the left insula. Other imaging metrics recorded during the scans, such as the T1 and T2 relaxation times of the tissue, were not statistically significant between the groups.
The group differences in myelin and proton density were moderate to large in magnitude. To measure this, the researchers used a statistical metric called Cohen’s d, which expresses the size of a difference between two groups. The difference in myelin content between the depressed and healthy groups yielded a Cohen’s d effect size ranging from 0.75 to 0.85 depending on the specific brain region. The higher proton density in the depressed group showed a similar effect size ranging from 0.71 to 0.94.
An increase in proton density often indicates that more brain tissue has been replaced by water. Along with reduced myelin, this water increase suggests a loss of structural integrity in those specific gray matter regions. The researchers theorize that delayed development or disruption of myelin within the gray matter might make these neural circuits more vulnerable to the negative effects of environmental stress.
The researchers then looked at how these structural brain differences related to the participants’ symptoms and histories. Lower myelin content in the left hemisphere correlated with worse scores on both the depression and anxiety questionnaires. Through a statistical mediation analysis, the authors found that reduced myelin in a specific region called the left lateral area 5 helped explain the link between childhood trauma and current depressive symptoms. This region of the brain is generally associated with visual attention, or the ability to focus on specific visual information in the environment.
This structural brain difference in the left lateral area 5 accounted for roughly 6.4 percent to 8.1 percent of the relationship between early trauma and adult depression. A similar mediating effect was found for anxiety symptoms in the left insula, a region heavily involved in processing internal body states and negative emotions like fear and disgust. By accounting for a single-digit percentage of the variance, the myelin reduction suggests a small but measurable contribution, highlighting that depression is a complex condition with many contributing factors.
The study relies on a cross-sectional design, meaning all data was collected at a single point in time. This setup makes it impossible to determine the direction of cause and effect. It is biologically possible that the ongoing stress or inflammation associated with experiencing depression led to the reduction in myelin, rather than the myelin loss preceding the depression. Tracking these brain changes in individuals over several years would be required to establish a firm timeline of events.
The researchers did not control for the presence of comorbid anxiety when selecting their participants. Because anxiety symptoms are highly common in people with depression and were correlated with myelin changes in this sample, it is difficult to isolate which brain changes belong exclusively to depression. The sample size of 84 individuals is also relatively small for structural brain imaging research, and the sex distribution was uneven between the two groups. Future research would benefit from observing larger, evenly matched groups to confirm how childhood trauma and brain development interact.
The study, “Abnormal myelin could be a mediator of childhood-trauma-induced depression: a quantitative synthetic MRI study,” was authored by Junyan Wen, Shuqiong Zheng, Zhimin Chen, Xuecong Lin, Shanshan Yang, Wei Cui, Liaoming Gao, Ziqi Wu, Liya Gong, Zhujia Li, Ying Guo, Yanyu Hao, Mingxuan Gao, Jingwen Luo, Linlin Jing, Honglei Yin, and Ge Wen.
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DATE: August 2, 2026 at 10:00AM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------TITLE: Psilocybin increases brain flexibility and shifts information flow weeks after use
A new study published in Human Brain Mapping suggests that a single high dose of psilocybin, the active compound in “magic mushrooms,” changes how information flows through specific brain circuits up to a month later. By using computer models to analyze brain scans, researchers found evidence that the brain becomes more flexible and shifts its communication patterns from top-down control to bottom-up sensory processing. These long-term changes in brain dynamics might help explain why the substance tends to relieve symptoms across various mental health conditions.
Psilocybin is currently being explored as a potential treatment for debilitating conditions like depression, anxiety, addiction, and eating disorders. Clinical trials provide evidence that one or two moderate to high doses can improve mental well-being for up to six months. The serotonin receptor known as 5-HT2A acts as the primary target for psilocybin in the brain. When this receptor is activated, people experience the immediate psychedelic effects of the drug.
Brain imaging has shown that during this acute phase, higher-level cognitive networks become less cohesive, allowing different parts of the brain to communicate more freely. Much less is known about how the brain reorganizes itself weeks after the drug wears off. Past research points to enduring changes in regions connected by fronto-striatal-thalamic circuits. These pathways connect the frontal lobes, which handle complex decision-making, to deeper structures like the striatum and thalamus, which process rewards, motivation, and sensory information.
“Psilocybin has shown remarkable promise in producing rapid and sustained improvements in symptoms across several psychiatric disorders, yet the brain mechanisms underlying these long-term effects remain poorly understood,” said Lorenzo Pasquini, an assistant professor in the Department of Neurology at the Weill Institute for Neurosciences at the University of California, San Francisco.
“Recent studies in healthy volunteers have suggested that psilocybin can induce lasting structural changes in frontostriatal circuits, a network involved in motivation and goal-directed behavior. We wanted to build on these findings by examining how the functional dynamics of these circuits change over time after a single dose of psilocybin, and whether computational modeling could provide insights into the underlying neurochemical mechanisms.”
The authors recruited 25 healthy adults who had never taken psychedelic drugs. The participants underwent brain scans using functional magnetic resonance imaging, a technique that measures brain activity by tracking blood flow. The participants completed a baseline brain scan and a survey measuring their mental well-being on a scale with a general population average of 51.
The next day, they received a small, one-milligram dose of psilocybin. This served as a control condition because it is too low to produce noticeable psychedelic effects. Four weeks after this control dose, the participants returned for a second brain scan and well-being survey. The next day, they received a fully active, 25-milligram dose of psilocybin. Finally, four weeks after the high dose, the participants underwent their third and final brain scan and completed the well-being survey one last time.
The scientists first examined how uniform the activity in the frontal, striatal, and thalamic brain regions remained over the course of each scanning session. They found that the differences were not statistically significant when comparing the baseline scan and the scan four weeks after the low control dose. However, four weeks after the 25-milligram dose, the brain activity in these regions became much more variable over time compared to the one-milligram control scan.
This increased flexibility in brain activity tended to align with increases in the participants’ self-reported mental well-being scores. The researchers controlled for the participants’ baseline well-being, baseline brain activity, and head movement during the scans to ensure these factors did not distort the findings.
To figure out the mechanics of this increased flexibility, the researchers used a mathematical computer model to simulate the brain’s physical wiring. The physical wiring of the brain normally restricts how different regions fire together, acting like roads that guide traffic. The computer model provides evidence that four weeks after the high dose of psilocybin, this physical wiring had a weaker constraining effect on the brain’s functional activity. This reduced structural constraint allowed the brain regions to adopt more diverse and flexible activity patterns.
Next, the authors looked at the direction of information flow between different brain areas, a concept known as effective connectivity. By analyzing the timing of the brain signals, the model estimates whether one region is sending information to another. The models showed that four weeks after the high dose, top-down information flow from higher-order cortical areas, like the prefrontal cortex, decreased. In contrast, bottom-up information flow from deeper, lower-order subcortical regions, such as the thalamus and putamen, increased.
The researchers then mapped these changes in information flow onto publicly available atlases that show where specific chemical receptors are concentrated in the brain. They found that the decreases in top-down control matched the physical distribution of serotonin 5-HT2A receptors in the cortex. At the same time, the increases in bottom-up information flow from deeper brain regions matched the distribution of dopamine D2 receptors. Dopamine is a chemical messenger heavily involved in processing rewards and learning.
“One of the most exciting aspects of the study was how computational modeling was able to reveal potential neurochemical mechanisms that would not have been apparent from brain imaging data alone,” Pasquini told PsyPost. “This highlights the value of combining neuroimaging with mechanistic modeling to better understand how neuropharmacological interventions affect the brain over time.”
“Our findings suggest that a single psilocybin experience may produce lasting changes in the way brain regions involved in motivation communicate with one another,” Pasquini added. “By combining brain imaging with computational modeling, we found evidence that these long-term changes are consistent with contributions from both serotonin- and dopamine-related systems. While more work is needed, these results provide new clues about how psilocybin may support lasting changes in mood and behavior.”
The small sample size of 25 participants means that the statistical evidence supporting these brain changes is relatively modest. The exact mathematical parameters and simulated brain patterns serve as tentative approximations rather than definitive biological facts. Because all participants received the exact same doses in the exact same order, factors like getting used to the scanning environment or expecting a positive outcome could have influenced the brain activity readings. The study design makes it difficult to completely separate the chemical effects of the drug from the psychological effects of participating in a month-long trial.
Another limitation is the use of generalized, public brain maps to locate serotonin and dopamine receptors. Every individual has a slightly different brain structure and chemical makeup, so relying on group averages obscures personal differences that might dictate how someone responds to psilocybin. The study also focuses narrowly on specific frontal and striatal circuits, leaving out other brain networks, like those involving the hippocampus.
“An important point is that our study does not directly measure serotonin or dopamine activity,” Pasquini noted. “Instead, our conclusions are based on computational models informed by known receptor distributions. These findings should therefore be viewed as generating mechanistic hypotheses that will need to be tested in future experimental studies.”
Future research needs to track these brain changes using larger groups of people, individualized brain scans, and randomized, placebo-controlled designs.
“Our long-term goal is to better understand how psilocybin influences motivation, social behavior, and well-being over time,” Pasquini said. “We are now extending this work into longitudinal clinical trials to investigate how changes in brain function relate to meaningful improvements in psychological health, particularly in older adults.”
“This study was a wonderful international collaboration between researchers at the University of California, San Francisco, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, and Imperial College London,” Pasquini concluded. “We are also grateful for the support of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, which helped make this collaboration possible.”
The study, “Modeled Long-Term Effects of Psilocybin on Dynamic Activity and Effective Connectivity of Fronto-Striatal-Thalamic Circuits,” was authored by Lorenzo Pasquini, Jakub Vohryzek, Anira Escrichs, Yonatan Sanz Perl, Adrian Ponce-Alvarez, Sebastian Idesis, Manesh Girn, Leor Roseman, Jennifer M. Mitchell, Adam Gazzaley, Robin L. Carhart-Harris, Morten L. Kringelbach, and Gustavo Deco.
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MIT develops self-organizing laser beam for faster 3D brain imaging
📰 Original title: MIT scientists turn chaotic laser light into powerful brain imaging tool
🤖 IA: It's not clickbait ✅
👥 Usuarios: It's not clickbait ✅View full AI summary: https://killbait.com/en/mit-develops-self-organizing-laser-beam-for-faster-3d-brain-imaging/?redirpost=6cdaa6f2-a99e-41ae-89c5-44c0411508fb
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ggseg.extra now builds cortical brain atlases directly from the mesh geometry! A 150-region Destrieux atlas tok 9 seconds. No screenshots, no ImageMagick, no headless browser.
Same Destrieux atlas: 53,000 vertices before, 6,000 after. The borders are smoother with fewer vertices because the geometry is right from the start.
https://ggsegverse.github.io/ggseg.extra/
ggseg.extra is part of the #ggsegverse ecosystem for brain visualization in R. Dev version on GitHub.
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More signs found that Mediterranean eating reduces brain disease risk
Greek yoghurt, fresh tomatoes and greens, fish so fresh it drips seawater, little by way of saturated fats or pro…
#dining #cooking #diet #food #MediterraneanFood #brainimaging #Cognitivedecline #eatingabalanceddiet #healthyfats #Mediterranean #MediterraneanDiet #mediterraneanfood #ZhejiangUniversitySchoolofMedicine
https://www.diningandcooking.com/2567055/more-signs-found-that-mediterranean-eating-reduces-brain-disease-risk/ -
New scientific data suggest three distinct types of ADHD.
Based on the analysis of brain imaging scans, the researchers concluded that there may be three distinct subtypes of ADHD, each with different profiles.
Read more: https://omniletters.com/new-scientific-data-suggest-three-distinct-types-of-adhd/
#ADHD #MentalHealth #Neuroscience #BrainResearch #ScientificDiscovery #Psychology #BrainImaging #HealthScience #Neurodiversity #ResearchUpdate
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4 Ways Childhood Trauma Physically Changes a Man’s Brain
Originally Published on January 13th, 2026 at 10:23 amIntroduction: More Than a Memory
It is widely understood that childhood trauma, particularly childhood sexual abuse (CSA), leaves deep and lasting psychological scars.
The experience can shape a person’s emotional landscape for a lifetime. It can lead to challenges like post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, and anxiety. For many, the impact feels profound, but the injury itself can seem invisible.
But what if the damage wasn’t just psychological? What if the trauma left a physical, measurable imprint on the very structure of the brain? A new brain imaging study provides compelling evidence that this is exactly what happens.
The research focuses specifically on the long-term neurophysiological effects of CSA in men. We know this is a topic that remains heavily stigmatized and under-researched. Despite its prevalence, with approximately 1 in 25 men in Canada experiencing sexual abuse before age 15 (Heidinger, 2022), the physical toll it takes has been poorly understood until now.
This study begins to change that.
1. Childhood Trauma Physically Alters the Brain’s “Communication Highways”
The researchers used a specialized MRI technique called Diffusion Tensor Imaging (DTI). DTI looks deep inside the brain’s white matter.
You can think of white matter as the brain’s internal communication wiring or its information superhighways. White matter consists of bundles of nerve fibers that connect different brain regions and allow them to work together seamlessly.
The study measured a key property of this wiring called “fractional anisotropy” (FA). In simple terms, FA is a measure of the integrity and efficiency of these communication pathways.
Higher FA values indicate well-organized, healthy wiring. While lower values suggest the wiring may be less organized, frayed, or poorly insulated, leading to disrupted signaling.
The study’s core finding was unequivocal: the group of men with a history of CSA had significantly lower FA values in multiple key brain regions compared to the control group. This provides clear physical proof that the trauma fundamentally rewired the brain’s architecture.
2. The Damage Targets Critical Hubs for Emotion, Memory, and Executive Function
The study revealed that the structural changes were not random. They were concentrated in white matter tracts that are critical for regulating the very functions that many survivors struggle with.
The specific regions affected include:
- The Superior Longitudinal Fasciculus (SLF): This massive tract showed the largest effect. A finding with a statistical effect size (Cohen’s d = 1.902) so large it indicates a profound difference between the groups. The damage was most pronounced in a segment called SLF II. This connects key hubs for attention and memory to the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC), a critical command center for executive function. This provides a direct neurobiological link explaining why a survivor might struggle with daily tasks like concentrating at work or managing complex projects.
- The Cingulum: As a key part of the brain’s limbic system, the cingulum is a hub for processing emotion, behavior, and memory. Damage here has been previously linked to PTSD and depression. This offers a biological reason for the persistent feelings of anxiety or the intrusive memories that can define a survivor’s experience.
- The Anterior Thalamic Radiation and Forceps Minor: These tracts are essential wiring for the frontal lobe, supporting executive functions like planning complex behaviors and impulse control. Compromised integrity in these pathways can help explain difficulties with emotional regulation and decision-making that survivors often report.
In short, the brain scans reveal a physical roadmap of the injury, showing that the damage isn’t random. It targets the very systems that survivors rely on to regulate emotion, process memory, and maintain focus.
Are you exploring your trauma? Do you feel your childhood experiences were detrimental to your current mental or physical health? Utilize this free, validated, self-report questionnaire to find out.
Take the Adverse Childhood Experience (ACE) Questionnaire
3. Structural Damage from Childhood Trauma Helps Explain Real-World Cognitive Emotional Challenges
One of the most powerful aspects of this research is how it connects the brain’s physical structure to its real-time function.
Some of the same men who participated in this DTI study also took part in another study that used a functional MRI (fMRI) to see how their brains worked during a challenging mental task (Chiasson et al., 2021).
That fMRI study found that when performing an emotional working memory task, the men with CSA histories showed altered brain activation patterns.
Instead of relying on their dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC), the brain’s executive control center, they showed increased activation in limbic areas, the brain’s emotional hub.
This new DTI study provides a compelling physical explanation for why. The structural damage to the Superior Longitudinal Fasciculus (SLF II), the “highway” that leads directly to the dlPFC, helps explain why that executive control center was less active. The damaged road was unable to carry the traffic. It forced the brain to create functional “detours” through more emotional pathways. It directly links the physical brain changes to the functional difficulties survivors experience.
4. This Evidence is a Powerful Tool Against Stigma Around Male Childhood Trauma
For male survivors of CSA, stigma and shame often create immense barriers to seeking help. This research offers a powerful tool to fight that stigma.
Having objective, empirical evidence that trauma causes a tangible, neurophysiological injury helps reframe the survivor’s experience.
It is not “just in their head” or a sign of weakness; it is a physical injury that requires understanding and clinical support.
The study’s authors highlight this crucial implication in their conclusion:
“Raising awareness of the impact of CSA is crucial—not only to help destigmatize the topic and encourage more men to seek help, but also to equip clinicians with a better understanding of CSA’s neuro-physiological effects, ultimately contributing to more effective interventions and improved treatment outcomes.”
By demonstrating the physical reality of traumatic injury, this research helps move the conversation around male CSA away from silence and stigma and toward one of scientific understanding, compassion, and informed care.
Conclusion: A Deeper Understanding of Healing
This study offers a stark and clear message: childhood trauma is a profound event that can physically reshape the brain’s architecture.
For men who have survived childhood sexual abuse, this research provides concrete, scientific validation of their experience. It shows that the challenges they face are rooted in tangible changes to the brain’s white matter.
The findings underscore that healing from trauma is not merely a psychological exercise but a process that involves a brain that has been physically altered.
As we continue to uncover the deep nature of traumatic injury, it prompts a vital question for us all:
How might this change our approach to healing, compassion, and justice for survivors?
Does this ring true for you or someone you love? Share how this article shined a light on behaviors you hadn’t previously understood in the comments below.
Are you a professional looking to stay up-to-date with the latest information on, sex addiction, trauma, and mental health news and research? Or maybe you’re looking for continuing education courses? Then you should stay up-to-date with all of Dr. Jen’s work through her practice’s newsletter!
Do you feel your sexual behavior, or that of someone you love, is out of control? Then you should consult with a professional.
Have you found yourself in legal trouble due to your sexual behavior? Seek assistance before the court mandates it, with Sexual Addiction Treatment Services.
#ACEs #adverseChildhoodExperiences #anxiety #brainImaging #childhoodSexualAbuse #childhoodTrauma #complexTrauma #CSA #depression #diffusionTensorImaging #DTI #emotionalRegulation #executiveFunction #healingAndRecovery #maleSurvivors #menSMentalHealth #mentalHealthEducation #neurobiologyOfTrauma #neuroscience #PTSD #stigma #traumaAndTheBrain #traumaInformedCare #whiteMatter -
They should have licensed one of @[email protected]'s images for this article... #BrainScience #BrainImaging #EveryDayShouldBeFluorescenceFriday
RE: https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:ipnqgjcngbafxdo3bv3gamrx/post/3m7nd6vfzqn2k -
CW: Non-explicit mention of sex and women's anatomy
This is definitely the least boring research to come across my desk today:
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11809681/
#sex #clitoris #science #meditation #research #brainimaging #PETimaging #neuroscience
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Neurophotonics gets a cool new cover! Inside, depth-resolved fiber photometry @ferruccio-phc.bsky.social and much more!
#Neurophotonics #Neuroscience #Neuroimaging #BrainImaging #OpticalImaging #Microscopy
#studyBRAIN -
Chris Xu talks to Neurophotonics about the 'toy land of optics' and how to channel positive vibes! Thank you Tianyu Wang for conducting this fantastic interview!
https://www.spiedigitallibrary.org/journals/neurophotonics/volume-12/issue-03/030402/Exploring-the-depths-of-light--a-conversation-with-Professor/10.1117/1.NPh.12.3.030402.full
#Neurophotonics #Neuroscience #Neuroimaging #BrainImaging #OpticalImaging #Microscopy -
Neurophotonics' Special Section on Voltage Imaging is open for submissions! Edited by Amanda Foust, Kai Wang, François St-Pierre and Ahmed Abdelfattah
https://spiedigitallibrary.org/journals/neurophotonics/call-for-papers#voltageimaging
#Neurophotonics #Neuroscience #OpticalImaging #Microscopy #Neuroimaging #BrainImaging -
Have you tried Brite Connect yet?
Our intuitive fNIRS data acquisition software works seamlessly with the entire Brite family of devices, making it easier than ever to collect high-quality data—whether you're measuring online or offline.
In our latest video, we show just how fast and simple it is to set up a session.🟡 Watch it now on YouTube: https://youtu.be/uI5qcE7u_Cw
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Inside the Brain: The Role of Dopamine Receptors and Transporters in Mental Disorders
#BrainChemistry #Neurotransmitters #MentalHealthScience #Dopamine #Serotonin #NeuroPathways #BrainImaging #MentalHealthAwareness #Neuroscience #Psychiatry
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Scientists find abnormally slow neural dynamics in visual cortex of depressed individuals https://www.psypost.org/scientists-find-abnormally-slow-neural-dynamics-in-visual-cortex-of-depressed-individuals/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=mastodon #Neuroscience #Depression #MentalHealth #BrainImaging #VisualCortex
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Brain imaging study links reduced synaptic density to social challenges in autism https://www.psypost.org/brain-imaging-study-links-reduced-synaptic-density-to-social-challenges-in-autism/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=mastodon #Autism #Neuroscience #MentalHealth #BrainImaging #SynapticDensity
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#RobertBilder -# Neurosychology: #MentalHealth and #Illness
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_JaJSUuFko
#Philosophy #PhilosophyOfPsychology #Psychology #Psychiatry #Medicine #NeuroPsychiatry #Syndromes #Diagnosis #Biology #MentalDisorder #MentalDisorders #Wellness #PsychoPathology #Brain #BrainImaging #Imaging #Consciousness #PhilosophyOfConsciousness #CloserToTruth #RobertKuhn
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DATE: November 12, 2024 at 07:30AM
SOURCE: BioWorld MedTechDirect article link at end of text block below.
Hyperfine gains CE mark for MRI brain imaging software
#medtech @Hyperfine #mri #brainimaging
Here are any URLs found in the article text:
Articles can be found by scrolling down the page at https://www.bioworld.com/topics/85-bioworld-medtech .
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Since 1991 The National Psychologist has focused on keeping practicing psychologists current with news, information and items of interest. Check them out for more free articles, resources, and subscription information: https://www.nationalpsychologist.com
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DATE: November 11, 2024 at 04:30PM
SOURCE: BioWorld MedTechDirect article link at end of text block below.
Hyperfine gains CE mark for MRI brain imaging software
#medtech @Hyperfine #mri #brainimaging
Here are any URLs found in the article text:
Articles can be found by scrolling down the page at https://www.bioworld.com/topics/85-bioworld-medtech .
-------------------------------------------------
Private, vetted email list for mental health professionals: https://www.clinicians-exchange.org
.
NYU Information for Practice puts out 400-500 good quality health-related research posts per week but its too much for many people, so that bot is limited to just subscribers. You can read it or subscribe at @PsychResearchBot
.
Since 1991 The National Psychologist has focused on keeping practicing psychologists current with news, information and items of interest. Check them out for more free articles, resources, and subscription information: https://www.nationalpsychologist.com
.
EMAIL DAILY DIGEST OF RSS FEEDS -- SUBSCRIBE:
http://subscribe-article-digests.clinicians-exchange.org
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READ ONLINE: http://read-the-rss-mega-archive.clinicians-exchange.org
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It's primitive... but it works... mostly...
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-------------------------------------------------#healthcare #healthtech #healthcaretech #healthtechnology #medgadget #medicine #doctor #hospital #medtech
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Scientists find brain network is doubled in size in depressed people https://www.psypost.org/scientists-find-brain-network-is-doubled-in-size-in-depressed-people/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=mastodon #depressionawareness #mentalhealth #brainimaging #neuroscience #salience