Intelligence News

August 19, 2026

Top Headlines

Scientists Tracked Kids for 8 Years — The Screen Time Result Was Unexpected

Aug. 17, 2026 An eight-year Finnish study found that children who spent more time on screens tended to show better cognitive processing as teenagers, challenging common assumptions about screen use. Researchers ...

A Little Movement in Midlife Could Pay Off for Your Brain Years Later

Aug. 16, 2026 Exercise and healthy blood sugar levels in midlife may help slow cognitive decline decades later. Physical activity appeared especially beneficial for Mexican American adults, suggesting that some brain-protective factors may differ across ...

A Stress Hormone May Help the Brain Repair Itself

Aug. 14, 2026 A surprising stress-related signal may help the brain repair itself after injury. Researchers found that myelin-producing precursor cells rapidly release the stress hormone CRH near damaged brain tissue, helping control how those cells mature and ...

Scientists Say Just 7 Days of Meditation Can Rewire Your Brain

Aug. 8, 2026 An intensive seven-day meditation retreat triggered striking changes across the brain and body, including shifts tied to neuroplasticity, immunity, metabolism, and natural pain relief. Participants also showed brain connectivity patterns resembling ...

Teen Cannabis Use Linked to Slower Memory and Thinking Growth

Aug. 7, 2026 Teens who start using cannabis may experience slower growth in memory, attention, language, and processing speed. Their abilities often developed normally at first, then began leveling off while nonusers continued improving. THC appeared to be the ...

THC Medication Made PTSD Nightmares Disappear for More Than a Third of Patients

Aug. 5, 2026 A prescription form of THC helped many people with PTSD escape recurring trauma-related nightmares, with more than one-third reporting that the nightmares disappeared completely after ten weeks. The ...

Superagers Keep Youthful Memories but Their DNA Does Not Explain Why

July 25, 2026 Scientists expected SuperAgers might simply inherit fewer Alzheimer’s-related risks, but their genes looked much like those of typical older adults. Their extraordinary memories may instead come from still-unknown protective forces involving the ...

Alzheimer’s Breakthrough: Scientists Restore Two Hours of Sleep Without Clearing Brain Plaques

July 20, 2026 Researchers have uncovered a surprising culprit behind sleep loss in Alzheimer’s disease: the brain’s own immune cells. In mice with amyloid plaques, overactive microglia triggered inflammation ...

July 18, 2026 Several popular sugar substitutes may not be as harmless as they seem. Adults who consumed the most artificial sweeteners showed substantially faster declines in memory and thinking, especially if they were under 60 or had diabetes. The highest ...

Common Constipation Drug May Help Clear Depression Brain Fog

July 15, 2026 An existing constipation drug may have an unexpected new use: helping clear the "brain fog" that often lingers after depression. In a small clinical trial, people with a history of depression who took the medication prucalopride for about a week ...

Scientists Discovered the Brain Doesn't Make Decisions the Way We Thought

July 13, 2026 A new study suggests the brain begins making decisions much earlier than scientists previously thought. Researchers found that even primary sensory regions are influenced by higher brain areas through rapid feedback loops, rather than simply passing ...

Alzheimer's Tau Protein Has a Surprising Secret Role in Memory

July 12, 2026 Researchers found that tau is essential for turning new experiences into lasting memories by helping organize the brain's memory-storing cells. The mouse study also revealed how abnormal tau may contribute to Alzheimer's by disrupting both the ...

Latest Headlines

updated 10:52pm EDT

A Therapy That “rewrites” Childhood Memories Can Ease Fear of Failure

Aug. 18, 2026 Childhood criticism can leave people carrying a fear of failure long into adulthood, but new research suggests those emotional patterns may be surprisingly flexible. Young adults who revisited ...

Human Brain Cells Are Far More Powerful Than Scientists Thought

Aug. 13, 2026 A single human brain cell may be far more powerful than scientists once realized. Researchers found that cortical neurons can perform remarkably complex computations, giving them capabilities more ...

MIT Neuroscientists Discover the Brain Can Reason Without Words

Aug. 11, 2026 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 ...

Scientists Discover the Brain Cells That Keep You Motivated

Aug. 5, 2026 A group of brain cells called orexin neurons appears to help us keep working when reaching a reward becomes increasingly difficult. Blocking their activity weakened motivation in rats, pointing to a ...

Your Gut May Help Your Brain Decide What to Remember

July 29, 2026 Signals traveling from the gut to the brain may help turn meals into lasting memories. Rats showed stronger memory activity after consuming nutritious foods, but not after drinking sweet liquids with ...

Scientists Discover How the Brain Rewires Itself to Truly Multitask

July 12, 2026 Practice may do more than make perfect. Researchers found that extensive training physically reorganizes the brain, allowing learned tasks to bypass the prefrontal cortex and run through specialized ...

Drinking to Cope With Stress May Permanently Rewire Your Brain

July 3, 2026 Using alcohol to cope with stress when young may permanently alter the brain, making it harder to adapt to challenges and increasing the risk of returning to drinking later in life. Researchers also ...

Scientists Discover Why Some Brains Resist Alzheimer's

July 3, 2026 Some brains appear to fight back against Alzheimer's by helping immature brain cells survive damage instead of succumbing to it. Understanding this natural resilience could point researchers toward ...

Scientists Stunned as Bumble Bees Solve a Classic Intelligence Test

July 2, 2026 Bumble bees astonished researchers by inventing a new way to reach a hidden reward, despite never being taught the trick. The discovery adds to growing evidence that these tiny insects are far ...

Brain Activity Under Anesthesia Challenges What We Know About Consciousness

June 28, 2026 The unconscious brain appears to be far more capable than scientists once believed. Researchers found that patients under general anesthesia could still process language at a sophisticated level, ...

Why Grandparents Matter More Than Ever for Children's Mental Health

June 13, 2026 A child psychologist says grandparents are more important than ever as youth mental health challenges continue to rise. He argues that children need supportive relationships, meaningful ...

Vitamin B12 and Folate Deficiencies Linked to Chronic Fatigue

May 28, 2026 Feeling constantly drained might not just be about poor sleep or working too hard. Researchers in Japan found that low levels of key vitamins — especially vitamin B12 and folate — may quietly ...

New Brain Study Reveals Speech Learning Works Differently Than We Thought

June 23, 2026 A new study suggests that learning and remembering speech relies more on how the brain processes sounds and sensations than on the areas that control mouth and face movements. The discovery could ...

Scientists Found the Brain Doesn’t Start Blank, It Starts Full

May 3, 2026 The brain’s memory center may begin life more like a crowded web than an empty canvas. Researchers discovered that early neural networks in the hippocampus are dense and seemingly random, then ...

Ultra-Processed Foods May Be Stealing Your Focus Even If You Eat Healthy

June 9, 2026 A study of more than 2,100 adults found that eating more ultra-processed foods was linked to poorer attention and slower mental processing, even among people with otherwise healthy diets. Researchers ...

Scientists Say They’ve Reversed Brain Aging With a Simple Nasal Spray

May 26, 2026 Researchers at Texas A&M have developed a nasal spray that appears to reverse brain aging by calming inflammation and restoring the brain’s energy systems. After just two doses, memory and ...

Lonely People Have Worse Memory but Don’t Decline Faster, Study Finds

Apr. 14, 2026 Loneliness may quietly affect how well older adults remember things—but it might not be speeding up mental decline after all. A large European study tracking over 10,000 people for seven years ...

Fish Oil May Be Hurting Your Brain, New Study Finds

Apr. 26, 2026 Fish oil has long been praised as brain-boosting, but new research suggests the story may be more complicated. Scientists found that in people with repeated mild head injuries, a key omega-3 fatty ...

They Knew the Pill Was Fake but Their Memory Still Improved

June 25, 2026 Healthy older adults experienced measurable improvements in memory, physical performance, and stress after taking placebo pills for just three weeks. The most surprising finding was that the placebo ...

Caffeine Reversed Memory Problems Caused by Sleep Deprivation

May 30, 2026 Scientists discovered that sleep deprivation damages a key brain circuit responsible for social memory, making it harder to recognize familiar individuals. In laboratory studies, caffeine restored ...

Scientists Link Childhood Stress to Lifelong Digestive Issues

Mar. 17, 2026 Early life stress may set the stage for long-term digestive problems by disrupting the gut-brain connection. Studies in both mice and thousands of children found links to symptoms like pain, ...

ADHD Brains Show Sleep-Like Activity Even While Awake

Mar. 17, 2026 Researchers have identified a surprising brain pattern that may help explain why people with ADHD often struggle to stay focused. Even while awake, their brains can slip into brief episodes of ...

Cannabis Study Finds THC Can Create False Memories

Mar. 11, 2026 THC doesn’t just blur memories—it can create new ones that never happened. In a controlled experiment, cannabis users were much more likely to recall words that were never shown and struggled ...

These Overlooked Brain Cells May Control Fear and PTSD

Apr. 4, 2026 Astrocytes, once thought to be mere brain “support cells,” are now revealed to be key players in fear memory. Researchers found they actively help form, recall, and weaken fear responses by ...

Psychedelics May Work by Shutting Down Reality and Unlocking Memory

Feb. 15, 2026 Psychedelics can quiet the brain’s visual input system, pushing it to replace missing details with vivid fragments from memory. Scientists found that slow, rhythmic brain waves help shift ...

Doing This Throughout Life May Cut Alzheimer’s Risk by 38%

Apr. 15, 2026 A lifetime of mental stimulation—like reading, writing, and learning new skills—may help protect the brain as we age. People with the highest levels of cognitive enrichment had a much lower risk ...

Why Some Kids Struggle With Math Even When They Try Hard

Feb. 15, 2026 A new Stanford study suggests math struggles may be about more than numbers. Children who had difficulty with math were less likely to adjust their thinking after making mistakes during number ...

Just 5 Weeks of Brain Training May Protect Against Dementia for 20 Years

Feb. 11, 2026 A simple brain-training program that sharpens how quickly older adults process visual information may have a surprisingly powerful long-term payoff. In a major 20-year study of adults 65 and older, ...

The Surprising Reason You’re So Productive One Day and Not the Next

Apr. 15, 2026 Feeling mentally “on” isn’t just in your head—it can significantly boost what you accomplish. Researchers found that sharper thinking on a given day leads people to set bigger goals and ...

A Bonobo’s Pretend Tea Party Is Rewriting What We Know About Imagination

Feb. 10, 2026 A bonobo named Kanzi surprised scientists by successfully playing along in pretend tea party experiments, tracking imaginary juice and grapes as if they were real. He consistently pointed to the ...