#whitematter — Public Fediverse posts
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DATE: August 9, 2026 at 12:00PM
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: The hidden architecture of forgotten first languages in the human brain
URL: https://www.psypost.org/the-hidden-architecture-of-forgotten-first-languages-in-the-human-brain/
Babies exposed to a tonal language during their first months of life maintain a unique structural wiring in their brains as adults, even if they completely stop speaking that language before age two. A recent study published in Communications Biology found that international adoptees who forgot their birth language still possessed the neural architecture resembling that of native speakers. These findings demonstrate that early linguistic environments shape brain development in ways that persist entirely independently of ongoing practice or conscious memory.
White matter tracts are the bundles of nerve fibers that connect different regions of the brain, acting like cables that transmit information. Two of these tracts, the arcuate fasciculus and the superior longitudinal fasciculus, play a leading role in how humans process language. The arcuate fasciculus connects areas located in the temporal lobe, which process auditory sounds, to frontal regions responsible for speech production. This pathway is heavily involved in mapping the sounds we hear to the physical movements required to articulate them. The superior longitudinal fasciculus connects similar frontal areas to the parietal lobe, creating a loop that helps individuals monitor and organize the speech sounds they are trying to produce.
In most people who speak non-tonal languages like English or French, these language connections are heavily concentrated in the left hemisphere. However, tonal languages like Mandarin use pitch to determine the meaning of words. Because processing pitch generally engages the right side of the brain, speaking a tonal language requires both hemispheres to work together to integrate the sound’s tone with its linguistic meaning.
Elise Barbeau, a researcher at McGill University, along with neuroscientist Denise Klein and a team of colleagues, wanted to know how this early sensory environment alters physical brain development. Specifically, they sought to determine whether the structural changes associated with learning a tonal language are maintained if the person stops hearing and using that language entirely.
To test this, the researchers compared brain scans from four distinct groups of young people and adults living in Canada. The first group consisted of 36 international adoptees born in China who were exposed to Mandarin early in life but were adopted by French-speaking families between the ages of three months and two years. After adoption, they spoke and heard only French, with no conscious memory of Mandarin.
The second group included 26 Mandarin-French bilinguals who learned Mandarin from birth and French later in childhood. The third group was made up of 33 people who grew up speaking only French. Finally, a fourth group included 25 English-French bilinguals who had never been exposed to a tonal language. All participants were highly proficient in French and used it in their daily lives.
Using an imaging technique called diffusion-weighted magnetic resonance imaging, the team mapped the nerve fiber bundles in the participants’ brains. This specialized scanning method tracks the movement of water molecules along nerve fibers, allowing researchers to reconstruct the shape, direction, and volume of white matter connections.
The researchers isolated the specific sections of the arcuate fasciculus and the superior longitudinal fasciculus responsible for language processing. They then measured the total volume of these tracts, which indicates macro-level size. They also assessed their fractional anisotropy, a metric that reveals the microstructure of the tracts, such as how densely packed the nerve fibers are and how thickly they are coated in insulating myelin.
The brain structures of the international adoptees closely mirrored those of the Mandarin-French bilinguals. In both of these groups, the language pathways were distributed more symmetrically across the left and right hemispheres. They also exhibited a smaller total volume in the left hemisphere tracts compared to the groups unexposed to tonal languages. The participants who grew up speaking only French, as well as the English-French bilinguals, displayed the classic pattern of highly concentrated, larger pathways strictly in the left hemisphere.
The inclusion of the English-French bilingual group allowed the researchers to isolate general bilingualism as a factor. Because the English-French speakers shared the heavily left-leaning brain structure of the French monolingual speakers, the researchers concluded that the symmetrical brain wiring was a specific response to the demands of processing a tonal language, not just learning multiple languages.
The differences between the groups were strictly related to the overall size and volume of the tracts, as the researchers did not find statistically significant differences in the microstructural density of the nerve fibers. This suggests that the early language experience changed the physical shape and layout of the connections without necessarily altering the internal makeup of the individual fibers.
The team also examined how these brain connections grew over time by comparing the tract volumes across different ages. They found that in the international adoptee and Mandarin-speaking groups, the nerve fibers in both the right and left hemispheres continued to grow in volume as the individuals aged. In contrast, the French-only speakers mostly experienced age-related growth in the left hemisphere.
For the international adoptees, this continued structural development was not tied to the age at which they were adopted, but rather to how many years they had been speaking their new language. The early tonal experience essentially set a bilateral blueprint that the brain continued to follow even as it adapted to speaking only French.
This age-related growth pattern was specific to the arcuate fasciculus. The superior longitudinal fasciculus did not show the same continued volume increases over time, likely because different parts of the brain mature at different rates. The pathways connecting the temporal and frontal lobes tend to develop later in childhood than other regions, making them more susceptible to the long-term influence of early childhood environments.
While the results point toward early language exposure as the primary driver of these differences, the researchers note that ethnicity or genetics could play a role in brain anatomy. The groups exposed to Mandarin were of Asian descent, while the other groups were predominantly Caucasian. To address this, the researchers checked the total intracranial volume across all participants and found no disparities between the groups.
Past studies have also shown that learning a tonal language later in life induces identical changes in Caucasian learners, making early experience the most probable explanation for the current results. Still, future research comparing genetic differences alongside linguistic backgrounds could help definitively separate these factors.
Additionally, each study group consisted of less than 40 participants, making this a small study. Larger sample sizes in future studies could help confirm the consistency of these anatomical variations across broader populations. Exploring whether this enduring neural architecture gives international adoptees an advantage if they attempt to learn a new tonal language later in life remains an open question. Tracking infant brain development over time in a longitudinal study could also provide direct evidence of exactly when these permanent physical changes take place.
The study, “Early but discontinued exposure to a language exerts lasting effects on white matter architecture in the brain,” was authored by Elise B. Barbeau, Lara Pierce, Stephanie Deschamps, Shanna Kousaie, Annie Gilbert, Jen-Kai Chen, Shari Baum, and Denise Klein.
URL: https://www.psypost.org/the-hidden-architecture-of-forgotten-first-languages-in-the-human-brain/
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#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #languagedevelopment #tonallanguage #neuroscience #brainarchitecture #whiteMatter #arcuatefasciculus #superiorlongitudinalfasciculus #diffusionMRI #bilingualism #earlyexposure
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DATE: August 4, 2026 at 09:00AM
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: Inflammation corresponds to altered brain wiring in borderline personality disorder
People with borderline personality disorder may experience higher levels of immune system inflammation that relate to structural differences in the brain’s wiring. A recent small study found that individuals with the condition showed reduced integrity in specific brain networks alongside elevated inflammatory markers. Understanding this biological relationship could offer new ways to view the physical mechanisms behind emotional dysregulation. The research was published in the journal Psychoneuroendocrinology.
Borderline personality disorder is a psychiatric condition characterized by intense emotional instability, impulsivity, and difficulties in interpersonal relationships. Historically, psychological trauma was viewed as the primary origin of the condition. Researchers are increasingly investigating the underlying biological and neurological factors that might accompany these symptoms. The latest research looks beyond outward behavior to map the physical architecture of the central nervous system.
White matter is the brain’s internal communication network. It consists of long nerve fibers that connect different regions of the brain, allowing them to share information. Myelin, the protective coating around these fibers, acts like insulation on an electrical cable to keep neural signals moving efficiently. When the microscopic structure of white matter is altered, it can disrupt how different areas of the brain regulate emotions and process incoming information.
Simultaneously, researchers have observed that people with various psychiatric conditions often exhibit low-grade systemic inflammation. The immune system releases proteins called cytokines to signal inflammation throughout the body. There is growing interest in how these circulating inflammatory proteins might interact with the physical structure of the brain. Chronic immune activation is thought to influence how the brain develops and maintains its cellular architecture over time.
Piotr Podwalski, a researcher at Pomeranian Medical University in Poland, and his colleagues designed a study to explore these overlapping systems. They wanted to investigate whether people with borderline personality disorder showed measurable differences in white matter and immune markers compared to healthy individuals. They also sought to determine if higher levels of inflammation correspond to reduced white matter integrity in the patient group. Understanding these overlapping systems could eventually lead to new medical interventions that target the immune system to help manage psychological symptoms.
To conduct the small study, the research team recruited 40 women diagnosed with borderline personality disorder and 37 healthy women of similar ages. The researchers restricted the participant pool to females to reduce biological and clinical variations, as men and women often express symptoms of the disorder differently. The participants underwent clinical assessments and provided blood samples in the morning after fasting.
The researchers analyzed the blood samples for specific inflammatory biomarkers, including interleukin-6 and C-reactive protein. When the body encounters stress or infection, immune cells release interleukin-6, which then prompts the liver to produce C-reactive protein. Chronic elevation of these proteins indicates a persistent state of low-grade inflammation. This ongoing immune response can negatively impact healthy tissues, including the delicate architecture of the nervous system.
The researchers then used a specialized type of magnetic resonance imaging to scan the participants’ brains. This imaging technique tracks how water molecules diffuse through brain tissue. In an unrestricted environment, water molecules move randomly in all directions. Inside the brain’s white matter, water diffuses primarily along the length of the nerve fibers.
By tracking this directional movement, scientists can calculate a metric known as fractional anisotropy. Lower scores on this metric suggest that the microscopic organization of the nerve fibers has been disrupted or damaged. The researchers used this calculation to map out the integrity of major fiber bundles throughout the brain.
When comparing the two groups, the researchers initially found elevated levels of interleukin-6 and C-reactive protein in the participants with borderline personality disorder. The initial results indicated a heightened immune response in this clinical group. However, when the researchers adjusted their statistical models to account for body mass index and smoking habits, the differences in inflammation between the two groups were not statistically significant.
The brain imaging analysis revealed distinct structural differences regardless of lifestyle factors. The participants with borderline personality disorder displayed reduced white matter integrity in two specific pathways in the left hemisphere of the brain. These pathways are known as the superior longitudinal fasciculus and the superior thalamic radiation. Both of these neural pathways are highly active during complex cognitive tasks.
The superior longitudinal fasciculus is a long bundle of nerve fibers that connects the front of the brain to regions in the back. This specific pathway is heavily involved in language processing, memory, and the regulation of emotions. The superior thalamic radiation is another fiber bundle that links a deep brain relay center to the outer cortex. Disruptions in these pathways can impair the brain’s ability to filter sensory information and exert control over emotional responses.
The research team then combined the blood test data with the brain imaging results to look for specific relationships. They discovered an inverse correlation between the inflammatory markers and the structural integrity of the superior longitudinal fasciculus. Participants who had higher levels of circulating inflammation generally exhibited lower structural integrity in this specific brain network.
The research design relied on a single snapshot in time, which limits how the results can be interpreted. It is not possible to determine if elevated inflammation directly causes the observed alterations in brain structure. An alternative explanation is that structural brain differences and psychological distress trigger an inflammatory response in the body.
The study sample consisted entirely of women, meaning the results may not apply to men with borderline personality disorder. The two groups of participants also differed in their average body mass index, smoking habits, and years of education. While the researchers used statistical techniques to adjust for these variables, lifestyle factors are known to heavily influence both immune function and brain health over time.
Future investigations will need to track participants over several years to observe how inflammatory markers and brain structures change together. Tracking these biological measures across different developmental stages could map the sequence of events in the brain. Researchers may also incorporate more diverse groups of participants to see if these patterns hold true across the broader population.
The study, “Inflammatory biomarkers and white matter microstructure in borderline personality disorder: A cross-sectional study,” was authored by Piotr Podwalski, Bartosz Dawidowski, Kamil Lipiński, Łukasz Franczak, Patryk Wysocki, Marcin Jabłoński, Krzysztof Wietrzyński, Piotr Plichta, Ernest Tyburski, Łukasz Zwarzany, Andrea Amerio, Błażej Misiak, Wojciech Poncyljusz, and Jerzy Samochowiec.
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#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #BorderlinePersonalityDisorder #Inflammation #WhiteMatter #BrainConnectivity #Neuroimaging #Psychoneuroendocrinology #InflammatoryBiomarkers #IL6 #CRP #MentalHealthResearch
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DATE: August 1, 2026 at 08:00AM
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: Infant brain structure predicts future intelligence scores
URL: https://www.psypost.org/infant-brain-maps-predict-childhood-intelligence-test-scores/
Researchers have found that the physical wiring patterns of a one-year-old child’s brain can predict their intelligence scores several years later. By analyzing specific brain imaging maps using artificial intelligence, the study suggests that the foundations of cognitive ability are established in early infancy. The findings were published in the journal Frontiers in Human Neuroscience.
Early childhood is widely recognized as a major period for the development of lifelong cognitive abilities and behaviors. Identifying biological indicators of brain development allows professionals to potentially predict and track cognitive trajectories over a person’s lifespan. Identifying these biological markers might also allow for timely interventions to optimize learning outcomes.
The human brain depends on a vast network of nerve fibers called white matter. This material acts like physical cables, transmitting electrical signals between different biological processing centers. The complete map of these neurological connections is known as a structural connectome.
Because a connectome contains an overwhelming amount of raw data, researchers often use mathematical tools to create simplified models called gradients. A connectome gradient represents how brain connectivity gradually changes across different spatial dimensions. This provides a topographical map of the organ’s physical layout.
Previous studies have looked closely at functional gradients, which track how different brain areas communicate with one another in real time. Functional gradients often show how the brain handles tasks ranging from primary senses, like vision and touch, to advanced reasoning. However, less attention has been paid to structural gradients.
Structural gradients represent the actual physical nerve pathways that dictate where and how those real-time communications can travel. They represent the anatomic scaffolding of the mind.
Yoonmi Hong, a researcher in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and her colleagues wanted to know if these physical scaffolding gradients look fully formed in toddlers. They also designed a study to test whether a child’s structural connectome at age one could predict their general cognitive abilities throughout the rest of their early childhood. Cognitive performance plays a major role in how well children adjust academically and socially once they reach school age.
The research team suspected that networks associated with advanced thought processing would be particularly relevant to their predictions. Areas like the frontal and parietal lobes are known to govern executive functions, which include problem-solving, attention, and working memory. By measuring how well these regions are physically wired together early in life, the researchers hoped to capture a baseline snapshot of future cognitive development.
To investigate this idea, the research team analyzed brain scans from a long-term infant development project. They focused on imaging data from around one hundred children who underwent brain evaluations at one year of age. The specific type of scan used, called diffusion magnetic resonance imaging, tracks the microscopic movement of water molecules in the brain.
Because water travels more easily along the length of a nerve fiber than across it, scientists can use this water movement to map out the direction and thickness of white matter tracts. Using these scans, the investigators calculated two main structural gradients for each child.
The primary gradient measured the connectivity patterns running from the left side of the brain to the right side. This axis is heavily defined by the relative lack of physical connections between the two hemispheres, meaning each half forms its own distinct networking architecture.
The secondary gradient measured the pathways running from the front of the brain to the back. This typically reflects a transition from basic sensory regions in the rear to complex executive centers in the front.
The children in the study later completed standardized cognitive assessments at ages four, six, and eight. To link the early brain scans with these later intelligence scores, Hong and her team developed a particular type of machine learning model designed to analyze complex networks. They trained an artificial neural network to find computational relationships between the one-year-old structural connectome gradients and the subsequent childhood intelligence evaluations.
Typically, traditional network analysis looks at specific points in the brain in isolation. This approach can miss the broader, highly distributed topographical patterns that the structural gradients are designed to capture. By utilizing an artificial neural network, the model could evaluate the brain’s entire connective architecture simultaneously. It learned to compare how slight variations in spatial organization correlated with variations in the final intelligence scores.
The computer model successfully forecast the children’s later cognitive abilities based entirely on their physical brain maps at age one. Even though the original scans were taken in infancy, the computer’s predictions remained highly consistent across the intelligence evaluations at ages four, six, and eight.
The researchers point to the stability of white matter maturation as the reason for this success. When they examined additional scans taken at ages two, four, and six, the structural gradients looked very similar to the ones originally measured at twelve months.
By analyzing the inner workings of their artificial intelligence model, the researchers identified which brain regions contributed most heavily to the prediction. The mapping tool relied almost exclusively on regions within the frontoparietal network and the executive control network. These are the areas of the brain involved in managing attention, guiding cognitive flexibility, and integrating basic sensory information. The model’s reliance on these specific regions aligns with existing theories about where human intelligence is localized in adults.
While the computer model successfully predicted cognitive scores, the researchers outlined some limitations to their approach. Reconstructing the brain’s physical wiring by counting nerve pathways is an imperfect science. Minor head movements during an infant’s brain scan can distort the imaging data, resulting in an artificially low count of connecting fibers. Complex intersections where multiple distinct nerve fibers cross paths can also confuse the tracking software, creating potential inaccuracies in the map.
The choice of software mapping definitions, known as cortical parcellations, also influences the boundaries used to define network nodes. Using a different mapping program could alter the shape of the gradient topography, potentially changing which specific brain regions the artificial intelligence flags as predictive.
The early intelligence prediction model also did not include demographic details, such as maternal education levels. During statistical testing, the researchers noted that demographic variables actually predicted child intelligence scores better than the biological brain imaging features did. Maternal education is heavily associated with later cognitive outcomes, likely due to differences in household learning resources, early language exposure, and general environmental support.
Future research will examine how demographic advantages and physical brain development might biologically relate to one another. The team hopes to determine if the development of physical white matter networks acts as a mediating bridge between environmental factors completely outside a child’s brain, like early education, and biological intelligence. They will also test whether a computer model that incorporates both brain imaging and demographics yields the highest predictive accuracy.
Additional studies are also needed to explore specific types of cognitive tasks. Instead of grouping all childhood abilities into a single intelligence quotient score, researchers plan to track specific skills. The team intends to investigate whether separate brain connectivity gradients can predict distinct educational outcomes, isolating things such as verbal fluency from nonverbal visual memory. Mapping multiscale structural gradients could completely open up new possibilities for uncovering the comprehensive principles of organizational brain development.
The study, “Structural connectome gradients and their relationship to IQ in childhood,” was authored by Yoonmi Hong, Emil Cornea, Jessica B. Girault, Rebecca L. Stephens, Maria Bagonis, Mark Foster, Sun Hyung Kim, Juan Carlos Prieto, Martin A. Styner, and John H. Gilmore.
URL: https://www.psypost.org/infant-brain-maps-predict-childhood-intelligence-test-scores/
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#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #InfantBrain #StructuralConnectome #WhiteMatter #EarlyCognition #Neuroscience #AIinNeuroscience #ChildDevelopment #ExecutiveFunction #BrainGradients #IQPrediction
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DATE: July 21, 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: Socioeconomic status shapes brain networks in different ways for boys and girls
A child’s socioeconomic environment shares a measurable relationship with their physical brain architecture and cognitive test scores. A large study of elementary schoolers has found that while biological sex fundamentally alters these relationships, socially constructed categories like race do not. The findings suggest that unequal access to resources is what truly drives most observed racial differences in brain development. The study was published in Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience.
A child’s socioeconomic status encompasses more than just household income. It includes a variety of environmental factors, such as parental education, food security, neighborhood safety, and the emotional environment at home. Researchers know that children from lower socioeconomic backgrounds often experience different developmental trajectories than their wealthier peers. These differences show up in cognitive test scores and in the physical structure of the brain itself.
In the United States, systemic inequalities have led to a reality where race and socioeconomic status are heavily intertwined. Because of this, it can be difficult for researchers to isolate the effects of environmental resources from other demographic factors. Previous research often treated race as a simple statistical adjustment. But scientists have grown increasingly concerned that this approach might obscure important nuances in how poverty and resources interact with childhood development.
To understand how the environment alters the brain, scientists look at white matter. The brain’s white matter acts as the physical communication network between different gray matter regions. Researchers evaluate this network by looking at two main properties known as integration and segregation.
Integration describes the global efficiency of the network. A highly integrated brain resembles a system of long-distance highways that allows information to travel quickly across the entire brain with very few stops. Segregation refers to localized efficiency. A segregated network is similar to tight-knit local neighborhoods, where nearby brain regions communicate heavily with one another rather than reaching out across the brain.
To explore how these environmental and physical factors overlap, lead author Jaden Kropf and senior author Donald J. Mabbott, both based at The Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, worked alongside their colleagues to analyze child brain data. They used information from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development study. This produced a large study of 8,064 nine- and ten-year-old children from across the United States.
The researchers gathered information on sixteen different measures of socioeconomic status. They grouped these measures into four distinct categories. These categories included general resources like parental education, material resources like food security, non-material resources like school engagement, and household dynamics like living with two parents.
The team then evaluated diffusion magnetic resonance imaging scans to map the white matter networks of each child. This imaging technique works by tracking the movement of water molecules along the brain’s fibrous pathways. Finally, they recorded general cognitive ability using a standardized battery of tests that assess memory, language, and attention. By building statistical models, the researchers could look at the associations between socioeconomic status, brain network organization, and cognitive scores.
The researchers found that all categories of socioeconomic status were linked to general cognitive ability. Increased general resources, non-material resources, and household stability were associated with higher cognitive scores. Conversely, higher material resources actually predicted lower cognitive scores. The study authors note that this specific negative association contradicts some previous research, pointing to the varied nature of socioeconomic measures.
In looking at the brain, the team uncovered unexpected patterns. They originally suspected that decreased socioeconomic status would be linked to lower levels of white matter integration and segregation. Instead, they found the opposite. Children with lower socioeconomic status tended to have more highly integrated and segregated white matter networks.
Because integration and segregation usually increase as a person ages, this means the brain networks of low-income children appeared more mature than their peers. The authors suggest this aligns with the stress acceleration hypothesis. This theory proposes that children facing early environmental adversity may experience faster biological development. In a stressful environment, the brain might accelerate its maturation to adapt to immediate survival challenges.
While a highly organized brain network is typically a sign of healthy development in adults, premature maturation might come with trade-offs. In this age group, the researchers found that increased network segregation was associated with lower cognitive test scores. Ultimately, the way the brain wired itself into segregated networks partially explained the link between socioeconomic status and cognitive ability.
After establishing these baseline associations, the researchers set out to see if demographic factors changed the modeled relationships. They first grouped the participants by race. They wanted to know if being part of a specific racial group altered how resources, brain wiring, and cognition interacted.
When the researchers simply grouped the children by race, they observed some group-specific associations. However, because wealth and resources are distributed so unequally across racial lines in the United States, the scientists ran a second analysis. In this analysis, they artificially balanced the sample so that each racial group had an equal number of participants from the exact same income brackets.
Once the socioeconomic distributions were equalized, nearly all unique racial differences vanished. The relationships between resources and cognitive ability were largely the same regardless of a child’s race. The study notes that white matter differences previously attributed to race are likely just the result of unequally distributed socioeconomic resources.
The scientists then examined biological sex, which they recorded as sex assigned at birth. Unlike race, sex is a fundamentally biological characteristic. When the researchers ran their models comparing male and female participants, they found distinct patterns.
Biological sex meaningfully changed how the environment was tied to brain development and cognition. For instance, living in a two-parent household was linked to higher cognitive ability in boys, but the results were not statistically significant for girls. Alternatively, having more non-material resources was associated with network segregation only in girls. The brain’s network segregation mediated the link between socioeconomic status and cognition in boys, but it did not do the same in girls.
These sex-based divergences might reflect different biological timelines for boys and girls. Nine- and ten-year-old children are at the onset of puberty. The authors point out that puberty has sex-specific influences on white matter development, and children in lower socioeconomic environments often enter puberty earlier.
The authors acknowledge a few limitations in their work. Because the study relies on data taken from a single point in time, it cannot demonstrate that a lack of resources causes specific changes in the brain. The associations highlight a pattern, but developmental trajectories can only be confirmed through studies that follow the same children over many years.
The mathematical models used to represent brain networks are also simplifications. Brain connectivity involves actual hierarchies that graph-based metrics do not completely capture. The researchers also note that cognitive tests inherently favor the cultural assumptions of the majorities they were designed around, meaning cultural biases could still influence test scores.
These findings advocate for a customized approach when scientists evaluate demographics. Socially constructed categories like race might not act as biological variables, but they do dictate access to resources. In contrast, biological traits like sex can fundamentally alter the pathways through which the environment shapes the growing brain.
The study, “Demographics Change the Relationships Between Socioeconomic Status, White Matter Network Organization, and Cognition in Children,” was authored by Jaden Kropf, Busisiwe Zapparoli, Julie Tseng, Amy S. Finn, Anne L. Wheeler, Nomazulu Dlamini, and Donald J. Mabbott.
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#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #socioeconomicstatus #braindevelopment #whiteMatter #cognition #childdevelopment #sexdifferences #puberty #neuroscience #educationandhealth #DevelopmentalCognitiveNeuroscience
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DATE: July 21, 2026 at 09:29AM
SOURCE: SCIENCE DAILY PSYCHOLOGY FEEDTITLE: Watching too much TV in midlife may shrink the brain
URL: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/07/260721000822.htm
Watching television very often in midlife may be linked to troubling brain changes decades later. In a study of about 1,700 adults, frequent TV viewers later showed smaller brain regions involved in memory, decision-making, and visual processing, along with more signs of damage in the brain’s white matter. Surprisingly, sitting itself did not appear to be the main issue, since people who spent long hours seated at mentally engaging jobs often showed healthier brain patterns.
URL: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/07/260721000822.htm
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#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #MidlifeHealth #BrainAging #TVandBrain #CognitiveHealth #WhiteMatter #BrainStudy #MemoryDecay #SedentaryImpact #HealthyHabits #MentalStimulation
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DATE: July 17, 2026 at 02:00PM
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 structure variations are linked to different types of traumatic memories
New research reveals that the microstructural integrity of specific brain pathways is associated with how intensely a person experiences intrusive memories after a trauma. Published in Biological Psychiatry: Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging, the study suggests that distinct white matter connections correspond to different physical and emotional qualities of these recurring flashbacks.
Trauma-related intrusive memories are spontaneous and emotionally overwhelming sensory recollections. Individuals who experience them often feel as though the traumatic event is occurring in the present moment, blurring the line between past trauma and current reality. These intrusive flashbacks are a defining symptom of post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, and they frequently dictate the overall severity of a person’s condition.
Despite the massive impact these intrusive memories have on quality of life, the precise neurobiological mechanisms that govern their unique properties remain poorly understood. Many people experience intrusive memories differently. Some might find that their memories are dominated by intense visual fragments, while others might feel an overwhelming sense of reliving the event physically and emotionally.
To develop better therapeutic interventions, scientists are attempting to understand the exact physical wiring in the brain that supports these varied experiences. Theoretical models propose that the sensory details of traumatic flashbacks stem from a disruption in the way different brain regions communicate.
The hippocampus, a seahorse-shaped region deep in the brain, is fundamentally responsible for forming and retrieving episodic memories. When a memory is recalled, the hippocampus usually communicates with posterior cortical systems. These outer layers of the brain are involved in processing sensory information, reconstructing mental scenes, and maintaining a person’s internal sense of self.
Steven J. Granger, a researcher at McLean Hospital and Harvard Medical School, led a team to investigate the structural pathways that bridge these distinct neural systems. The researchers hypothesized that the microscopic organization of these specific cellular pathways might explain why some people have trauma memories characterized primarily by sudden intrusiveness, while others experience memories defined by a profound sense of reliving the event.
The human brain relies on white matter to facilitate this complex communication. White matter tissue acts as a biological scaffolding, built from insulated nerve fibers called axons that bundle together to connect disparate brain regions. These pathways dictate which parts of the brain can interact, controlling the speed and efficiency with which electrical signals travel.
Prior functional brain imaging indicated that the subjective qualities of intrusive memories tend to correspond with how frequently the hippocampus activates alongside other brain networks. Still, the physical structure supporting these functional networks had not yet been evaluated in relation to the everyday experience of traumatic memories.
To capture the true nature of traumatic memories as they happen, Granger and his colleagues recruited 114 adults who had survived a traumatic event. These participants were experiencing regular intrusive memories, and a majority met the criteria for a formal PTSD diagnosis.
Most laboratory studies of trauma rely on asking patients to voluntarily recall their distressing experiences in a clinical setting. To avoid this artificial environment, the research team used a smartphone application to administer periodic surveys to the participants over the course of two weeks.
This technique, known as ecological momentary assessment, allowed the team to track spontaneous memories as they struck in the real world. Several times a day, participants received prompts to report if an intrusive memory had occurred since their last check-in. If they said yes, they immediately rated the memory’s vividness, visual detail, emotional intensity, intrusiveness, and the degree to which they felt they were actively reliving the event.
After the two-week reporting period, the participants underwent a specialized type of magnetic resonance imaging. The researchers used a technique called diffusion-weighted imaging, which tracks the tiny movements of water molecules within brain tissue. Because water diffuses differently alongside cellular barriers, mapping this movement allows scientists to visualize the direction and density of white matter fibers.
Using this imaging data, the researchers calculated a metric called fractional anisotropy. This metric serves as an index of white matter microstructural integrity, essentially measuring how organized and tightly bundled the nerve fibers are within a specific pathway.
The team focused their analysis on two separate white matter pathways that connect the hippocampus to the back of the brain. The first target was the parahippocampal-parietal cingulum, a localized branch of nerve fibers linking the memory center to regions involved in mental imagery and the integration of internal thoughts.
The second target was the inferior longitudinal fasciculus. This thick band of white matter provides a direct communication route between the brain’s temporal memory areas and the visual cortex, which processes sights.
The researchers analyzed their brain scans alongside the thousands of real-world smartphone survey responses. To ensure their mathematical models were as accurate as possible, they incorporated information from their previous functional imaging studies, a statistical approach that anchors new structural data to known patterns of biological activity.
They found that the microscopic integrity of the two separate pathways corresponded to entirely different features of the trauma memories. Specifically, they discovered that a lower level of structural integrity in the parahippocampal-parietal cingulum was associated with a higher degree of memory intrusiveness.
To confirm that this association was unique to the examined memory pathway, the researchers also tested a control tract in the frontal lobe of the brain. They found no relationship between the frontal pathway and memory intrusiveness, supporting their hypothesis that the specific connection between the hippocampus and the parietal cortex plays a distinct role in managing unwanted thoughts.
This particular brain bundle projects to posterior regions that help govern memory suppression and the allocation of attention. If the structural integrity of this pathway is degraded, the brain might have a compromised ability to suppress unwanted memories, opening the door for the spontaneous and unprompted intrusions that define traumatic flashbacks.
In contrast, the researchers found that lower microstructural organization in the inferior longitudinal fasciculus was linked to a stronger sense of reliving the trauma in the present moment. This associative pathway connects memory areas to the visual cortex, playing a unique role in integrating incoming visual signals with emotional information.
When this secondary pathway is compromised, individuals might experience a failure to separate internal traumatic memories from their current visual reality. This biological blurring of boundaries could contribute to the overwhelming sensation that makes severe trauma memories so disorienting.
Because the research team conducted their brain imaging at a single point in time, the study cannot definitively determine the directionality of these relationships. It remains entirely unknown whether a natural variation in white matter integrity serves as a preexisting vulnerability that predisposes a person to intense traumatic memories after an event occurs.
Alternatively, the structural differences observed in the scans could be a biological consequence of repeatedly experiencing severe intrusive thoughts over time. The constant, repetitive retrieval of highly charged traumatic memories might physically alter the brain’s white matter pathways, similar to how repeated use changes a physical path through a forest.
Future research will require scientists to image trauma survivors repeatedly during the early aftermath of a distressing event, tracking how both the brain structure and the psychological symptoms evolve over several months or years. Additional studies involving controlled laboratory recall and naturalistic tracking in the exact same individuals could also clarify the biological overlap between voluntary and involuntary memories.
Through integrating the real-world tracking of memory experiences with advanced mapping of anatomical brain connections, researchers are gaining a deeper understanding of PTSD. Eventually, translating these physical variations into clinical profiles could help doctors pinpoint specific neural circuits, opening the door for treatments that target the specific memory symptoms a patient struggles with most.
The study, “Microstructural Integrity of Hippocampal–Posterior Cortical White Matter Is Associated With Phenomenological Properties of Trauma-Related Intrusive Memories,” was authored by Steven J. Granger, Boyu Ren, Kevin J. Clancy, Yara Pollmann, Justin T. Baker, and Isabelle M. Rosso.
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#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #TraumaMemories #PTSDResearch #Hippocampus #WhiteMatter #Neuroimaging #DiffusionTensorImaging #IntrusiveMemories #MemoryReliving #BrainStructure #MentalHealthScience
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“Eureka!”*…
Whence insight?…
New research published in BMC Psychology suggests that the structural wiring of the brain may play a significant role in how people solve problems through sudden insight. The study indicates that individuals who frequently experience “Aha!” moments tend to have less organized white matter pathways in specific language-processing areas of the left hemisphere. These findings imply that a slightly less rigid neural structure might allow the brain to relax its focus, enabling the unique connections required for creative breakthroughs.
For decades, scientists have studied the phenomenon of insight, which occurs when a solution to a problem enters awareness suddenly and unexpectedly. This is often contrasted with analytical problem solving, which involves a deliberate and continuous step-by-step approach.
While previous studies using functional MRI and EEG have mapped the brain activity that occurs during these moments, there has been little understanding of the underlying physical structure that supports them. The researchers behind the new study aimed to determine if stable differences in white matter—the bundles of nerve fibers that connect different brain regions—predict an individual’s tendency to solve problems via insight.
“For over two decades, neuroscience has mapped what happens in the brain during these moments using EEG and fMRI. We know from prior research that insight feels sudden, tends to be accurate, and involves distinct functional activation patterns — including a burst of activity in the right temporal cortex just before the solution reaches awareness,” said study authors Carola Salvi of the Cattolica University of Milan and Simone A. Luchini of Pennsylvania State University.
“But one major question remained open: what structural features of the brain might make some people more likely to experience insight in the first place?”
“Most previous white matter studies of creativity did not specifically focus on Aha! experiences. They measured how many problems people solved, or how creatively, not how they solved them (with or without these sudden epiphanies). Yet insight and non insight solutions are phenomenologically and neurally distinct processes.”
White matter acts as the communication infrastructure of the brain, transmitting signals between distant regions. To examine this structure, the researchers employed a technique called Diffusion Tensor Imaging (DTI). This method tracks the movement of water molecules within brain tissue.
“We wanted to know whether stable white matter microstructure — the brain’s anatomical wiring — differs depending on whether someone tends to solve problems through sudden insight or through deliberate step-by-step reasoning (non insight solutions),” Salvi and Luchini explained. “Diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) allowed us to examine this structural dimension directly.”…
… The findings offered a counterintuitive perspective on brain connectivity. The analysis revealed that participants who solved more problems via insight exhibited lower fractional anisotropy in the left hemisphere’s dorsal language network. This network includes the arcuate fasciculus and the superior longitudinal fasciculus, pathways that connect brain regions responsible for language production, comprehension, and semantic processing.
“One striking finding was that people who more frequently experienced insight showed lower fractional anisotropy in specific left-hemisphere dorsal language pathways, including parts of the arcuate fasciculus and superior longitudinal fasciculus,” Salvi and Luchini told PsyPost.
“At first glance, that might sound counterintuitive. Fractional anisotropy is often interpreted as reflecting the coherence or organization of white matter pathways. In many cognitive domains, higher fractional anisotropy is associated with better performance.”
“But insight may operate differently. The left hemisphere is typically involved in focused, fine-grained semantic processing — narrowing in on dominant interpretations of words and concepts. The right hemisphere, by contrast, is thought to support broader, ‘coarse’ semantic coding — integrating more distantly related ideas. Slightly lower fractional anisotropy in left dorsal language pathways may reflect a system that is less tightly constrained by dominant interpretations.
“In other words, it may allow a partial ‘release’ from habitual patterns of thought and it is in line with other studies where lesions in the left frontotemporal regions have been shown to increase artistic creativity,” Salvi and Luchini continued. “Taken together, these findings imply that left hemispheric regions play a regulatory role in creativity and that their disruption lifts this constraint, thus promoting novel ideas.”…
This somehow makes your correspondent feel better about his messy desk…
More at: “Neuroscientists identify a unique feature in the brain’s wiring that predicts sudden epiphanies,” from @psypost.bsky.social.
The journal paper: “The white matter of Aha! moments.”
* Archimedes (after one of his famous insights)
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As we ruminate on revelation, we might recall that it was on this date in 1939 that the college fad of swallowing live goldfish began at Harvard: a freshman named Lothrop Withington, Jr., reportedly bragged to his friends that he had once eaten a live fish. They bet him 10 bucks he couldn’t do it again. Perhaps because he was running for Class President, he took the challenge…
#Brain #craze #culture #epiphany #fad #Harvard #history #humor #insight #LothropWithington #LothropWithingtonJr #neuroscience #revelation #Science #swallowingGoldfish #swallowingLiveGoldfish #whiteMatterThe moment of truth came on March 3, within the hallowed halls of Harvard. Standing in front of a crowd of grinning classmates and at least one Boston reporter, Withington dropped an ill-fated 3-inch goldfish into his mouth, gave a couple chews and swallowed. “The scales,” he later remarked, “caught a bit on my throat as it went down.”
Soon the word spread to other colleges. Other students began to take up the challenge, swallowing more and more goldfish each time to top the last record. By the time students were downing dozens of live, wriggling goldfish to uphold their school’s honor, the Massachusetts legislature stepped in and passed a law to “preserve the fish from cruel and wanton consumption.” The U.S. Public Health Service began to issue warnings that the goldfish could pass tapeworms and disease to swallowers. Within a few months of its start, the fad died out.
– Source
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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 -
Sustained #meditation practice induces measurable #neuroplasticity: #CorticalThickening, #GrayMatter/ #WhiteMatter changes, #DMN modulation, stronger attention and emotion‑regulation networks, and reduced #stress reactivity. In #Buddhist terms, these findings map onto deliberate mental cultivation that reshapes attention and affective habits. In this post, we explore the empirical evidence and implications for mind-brain integration:
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#Myelination enables faster signal propagation in the brain, but takes more energy & space. This study reveals how short- & long-range #WhiteMatter fibers differ, showing how these variations affect neural communication & processing efficiency @PLOSBiology https://plos.io/4mq5tOy
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Digital Biomarkers Shown to Highlight Parkinson’s Disease
Early findings indicate calculations from MRI scans of white matter lesions in the brain can distinguish between Parkinson's disease and other neurological conditions.
https://sciencebusiness.technewslit.com/?p=44970
#News #Business #Science #Biotechnology #Engineering #Biomarkers #ParkinsonsDisease #Neuroscience #Neurology #WhiteMatter #Brain #MRI #DigitalHealth #Diagnostics #France #Europe
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Imaging Technique Captures COVID-19’s Impact on Brain.
“Some may think COVID-19 affects just the lungs,” Dr. Wong said. “What was found is that this new MRI technique that we created is very good at identifying changes to the brain due to COVID-19. COVID-19 changes the white matter in the brain.”
#COVID19 #MRI #Brain #Whitematter
News source: https://www.miragenews.com/imaging-technique-captures-covid-19s-impact-on-1026574/
Study published in the journal Human Brain Mapping:
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/hbm.26322?utm_source=miragenews&utm_medium=miragenews&utm_campaign=news -
"Not only does white matter anatomy differ from person to person to start with, but the differences are also exacerbated as time goes by."
#brain #whitematter #research
https://nautil.us/your-brain-is-shaped-like-nobody-elses-297950/?utm_source=pocket_mylist
>Every brain’s white matter is different—and that might hold the key to better treatments.
