Why ADHD Can Look Completely Different in Girls and Women
A look at what the research shows about why ADHD presents differently in many girls and women — from internalizing symptoms and masking to hormonal influences across the lifespan — and what the evidence does and does not establish.
What Your Brain Is Doing During a Migraine Before the Pain Even Starts
The yawning, the food cravings, the stiff neck — they arrive hours before the pain. Research published between 2022 and 2025 shows what the brain is already doing during that interval, and why migraine begins long before the headache does.
Can Stronger Muscles Be Connected to a Healthier Aging Brain?
A 2026 study of 353 older adults found that muscular fitness and aerobic fitness each connect to the aging brain — but through distinct structures and mechanisms, and not through cognitive performance.
The Bipolar Brain: Why Mood Regulation Is Far More Complex Than Mood Swings
Bipolar disorder is commonly described as extreme mood swings — cycling between mania and depression. That description is accurate as far as it goes. Neuroscience over the last decade points to something more distributed: four separate brain systems, each disrupted in its own way, each contributing to the pattern clinicians observe.
Why Trauma Can Change Your Sense of Time
A biological look at why a past event can feel neurologically present — tracing how episodic memory fragments, bodily signals become conditioned alarms, and the brain loses its grip on when.
The Brain’s Executive Office: What the Prefrontal Cortex Actually Does All Day
The prefrontal cortex coordinates working memory, inhibitory control, planning, and emotional regulation through a collection of distinct subregions working together. Understanding what this system actually does — and what makes it fail — gives a more precise account of what focus, self-control, and clear thinking depend on.
Fibromyalgia: What New Research Is Finding Inside the Central Nervous System
Fibromyalgia has been dismissed as ‘all in your head’ for decades. A 2026 systematic review of neuroimaging and cerebrospinal fluid studies now shows the central nervous system is genuinely involved — though not in any way researchers have fully mapped yet.
The Brain After a Frightening Event: Why Some Memories Fade and Others Won’t Let Go
After something frightening ends, why do some memories fade while others keep returning with full force? Research on the amygdala, hippocampus, and prefrontal cortex is mapping the circuit that determines which memories persist — and why the answer has less to do with forgetting than with which competing neural population is currently in control.
Landmark Study: What More Than 4 Million People Can Teach Us About Fitness, Mental Health and Dementia
A 2026 meta-analysis pooled data from 4 million people across 9 countries to ask whether cardiorespiratory fitness is linked to lower rates of depression, dementia, and psychosis. The findings were more nuanced than the headlines suggested.
Depression Isn’t Simply a Chemical Imbalance: What Neuroscience Says Today
For decades, depression was explained as a shortage of serotonin in the brain. When researchers conducted a systematic review of all the relevant evidence, they reached a different conclusion — and a more complex picture of what depression involves has been taking shape since.