Each month our editorial team sifts through hundreds of papers and curates notable findings—for practitioners and informed readers who want to stay current with the evidence. Subscribe to the monthly Research Digest for expert analysis and concise summaries of key papers.
Research links ADHD — which shows up as inattention, impulsivity, and too much activity — to weaker structure and function in the brain’s prefrontal cortex (PFC), especially on the right side. The PFC helps control top-down attention, stop inappropriate actions, and regulate emotion, and it needs the right balance of…
Several brain-imaging studies found that people with long-term work-related burnout showed differences in brain structure and function compared with matched healthy adults. In groups where participants had worked more than about 60–70 hours per week for several years, researchers reported larger amygdala size, thinner medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) tissue, weaker…
This randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled crossover study gave subanesthetic S‑ketamine to 24 healthy young people while recording fMRI and EEG at rest. After ketamine, fMRI showed less connectivity in the medial prefrontal cortex and more connectivity in left and right intraparietal (parietal) areas of the default mode network. EEG showed more…
Long-term MRI studies show that people with bipolar disorder often have unusual brain changes over time, but the pattern is mixed and not fully clear. Some studies link manic episodes to faster thinning and volume loss in parts of the prefrontal cortex. A large multi-site study (307 patients, 925 controls,…
Ketamine is a drug that blocks NMDA glutamate receptors and can produce symptoms like those of schizophrenia in healthy people. In this multicenter study the researchers compared resting-state brain scans after ketamine or placebo and looked at key brain networks, the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), and thalamic sub-nuclei. They found…
