A 2026 qualitative study from Ethiopia’s Somali Regional State found a harsh care-seeking pattern: mental illness was often recognized only when it looked like visible “madness,” was commonly explained through spiritual causes, and carried stigma severe enough to delay biomedical care.1 Research Highlights 16 interviews shaped the analysis: Warfa et al. interviewed health workers, service …
A 2026 Shanghai study of 1,589 preschoolers found that children sleeping ≤9 hours at night had higher parent-rated anxiety scores than children sleeping >10 hours. The effect sizes were small, but the pattern appeared across total anxiety, physical injury fears, social phobia, obsessive-compulsive symptoms, and generalized anxiety symptoms.1 Research Highlights 1,589 preschoolers were analyzed: Zhang …
A 244-person functional MRI study found no significant evidence that ventral striatum activation during reward anticipation works as an endophenotype — a measurable trait used to connect inherited risk with diagnosed illness — for bipolar and psychotic disorders. Research Highlights The registered hypothesis failed: Barendse et al. found no significant ventral striatum reward-anticipation difference among …
A 2026 FAERS pharmacovigilance study of 28,938 dystonia reports found the strongest reporting signal for metoclopramide, while antipsychotics dominated the high-volume psychiatric medication signal and most timed cases began within 30 days of drug exposure.1 Research Highlights 28,938 dystonia reports: Chen et al. analyzed 27,618 patients represented in FAERS reports from Q1 2004 through Q3 …
A 2026 community study of 101 older adults found that pulse-wave harmonics changed in a more organized way during a subtraction task in cognitively intact participants than in people with MoCA-defined mild cognitive impairment: amplitude-coherence scores averaged 9.00 vs. 6.40, a 2.60-point gap on a 0-10 scale. Research Highlights Cognitive stress exposed the signal: resting …
A 2026 medRxiv preprint involving 370 healthy adults found that each increase in neighborhood-deprivation percentile rank was associated with epigenetic age acceleration on 3 of 4 second-generation DNA-methylation clocks, with lifetime adversity explaining 20.3% of the GrimAge association and 23.3% of the PCGrimAge association.1 Research Highlights 3 of 4 clocks accelerated: each increase in Area …
A 2026 ABCD cohort preprint involving 10,112 youth found that childhood poverty strengthened the link between cumulative early-life adversity and later behavioral problems; among poverty-exposed youth, inhibitory-control fMRI profiles split children into higher-vulnerability and buffered pathways. Research Highlights Poverty steepened adversity risk: In 10,112 ABCD youth, childhood poverty amplified the baseline early-life-adversity-to-CBCL Total Problems slope …