January 12, 2026 – New research has identified that neuroinflammation driven by microglia (immune cells in the brain) is a primary underlying driver of prolonged negative feelings caused by repeated, sustained binge drinking (binge exposure). Negative emotional states caused by alcohol contribute to alcohol use disorder (AUD) and its associated mental health conditions such as depression. The findings from a study in The American Journal of Pathology, published by Elsevier, open the door for immune therapies to treat AUD, for which effective treatments are currently limited. The natural history of AUD ...

About The Study: This qualitative analysis characterizes the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA’s) decision-making with respect to the regulation of mifepristone, with a particular interest in the agency’s rationale for establishing, maintaining, or modifying key components of its regulatory approach over time. Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, G. Caleb Alexander, MD, MS, email galexan9@jhmi.edu. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/ (doi:10.1001/jama.2025.23091) Editor’s ...

About The Study: Despite decades of guidelines cautioning against their use, many older adults receive potentially inappropriate central nervous system-active medications. Patients with cognitive impairment were more likely than those with normal cognition to receive such medications. Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, John N. Mafi, MD, MPH, email jmafi@mednet.ucla.edu. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/ (doi:10.1001/jama.2025.23697) Editor’s Note: Please see the article for additional information, including other authors, ...

Despite years of clinical guidelines warning against the practice, one in four Medicare beneficiaries with dementia is prescribed brain-altering medications linked to falls, confusion, and hospitalization, according to new research to be published January 12 in the peer-reviewed journal JAMA. While prescriptions for these medications fell from 20% to 16% over the nine-year study period among all Medicare beneficiaries, they continue to be prescribed to individuals with cognitive impairment who are particularly susceptible ...

About The Study: In this cohort study of students in grades 4 through 12, social media’s association with adolescent well-being was complex and nonlinear, varying by age and sex. While heavy use was associated with poorer well-being and abstinence sometimes coincided with less favorable outcomes, these findings are observational and should be interpreted cautiously.  Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Ben Singh, PhD, email ben.singh@unisa.edu.au. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/ (doi:10.1001/jamapediatrics.2025.5619) Editor’s ...

About The Study: This study found that overall, from 2022 to 2025, most counties experienced a population-level decline in child poverty rates, with rates for Black and Hispanic children experiencing the greatest changes. Despite overall decline, Black and Hispanic children continued to experience disproportionately higher poverty rates compared with white children.  Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Daniyal Zuberi, MSc, AM, PhD, email daniyal.zuberi@utoronto.ca. To access the ...

As we age, we don’t recover from injury or illness like we did when we were young. But new research from UCSF has found gene regulators — proteins that turn genes on and off — that could restore the aging body’s ability to self-repair.   The scientists looked at fibroblasts, which build the scaffolding between cells that give shape and structure to our organs.     Fibroblasts maintain this scaffolding in the face of normal wear, disease, and injury. But over time, they slow down, and the body suffers.    The study found telltale signs of decline in the way that old fibroblasts expressed their ...

Korea University's Institute for Environmental Health (Director Choi Jae-wook) invited faculty members from Karakalpakstan Medical Institute in Uzbekistan from August 24nd (Sun) to 31st (Sun) to complete a training to strengthen their competence in the field of environmental health.   This training, conducted as part of the 2025 International Cooperation-Leading University Cultivation and Support Project, aims to check the operations of the Department of Environmental Health at Karakalpakstan Medical Institute in Uzbekistan and improve the level of environmental health in the region.   Four faculty members from Karakalpakstan Medical ...

Researchers who examined Canadian child welfare data found that Black children were not only investigated at a higher rate than their white peers but were also more likely to be taken from their homes, even when the only difference between cases was the child’s race. “We know that Black children, and Black people generally, are more likely to face socioeconomic hardship because of systemic racism. And, so, what we wanted to do here is address the question, with all things similar, is it economics or racial bias?” explained Alicia Boatswain-Kyte, lead author of the study and an Assistant Professor at ...

(Toronto, January 12, 2026) JMIR Publications invites submissions to a new section titled “Novel Technological Advances for Neurological Disorders” in its open access journal JMIR Neurotechnology. The premier, peer-reviewed journal is indexed in Sherpa/Romeo, DOAJ, EBSCO/EBSCO Essentials, PubMed Central and PubMed. Researchers, clinicians, and technologists are welcome to submit review articles, including systematic literature reviews and scoping literature reviews that explore novel technological advances for neurological disorders. JMIR Neurotechnology aims to bridge the gap between clinical neuroscience, neuropsychology, and information technology ...

WASHINGTON (January 12, 2026) — Through its commitment to a data-driven approach to improving cardiovascular health, JACC, the flagship journal of the American College of Cardiology, today published the first JACC Cardiovascular Statistics report. This comprehensive analysis examines five major cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk factors - hypertension, diabetes, obesity, LDL-cholesterol and cigarette smoking - and the five conditions that collectively account for most CVD deaths and disability in America: coronary heart disease (CHD), acute myocardial infarction (AMI), heart failure ...

SAN ANTONIO — January 12, 2026 — Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) conducted a series of large-scale tests to investigate factors that affect flame spread beneath photovoltaic (PV) panel installations on flat, commercial and industrial rooftops. The research will help fire safety organizations update standards and fire mitigation strategies. The team fabricated test decks to replicate large roofing assemblies with mounted PV solar panels. Researchers exposed the leading edge of the deck to flame and crosswind to better understand fire hazards and evaluate mitigation strategies. ...

A previously unknown mechanism that makes it possible for aggressive so-called triple-negative breast cancer to fine-tune its production of proteins has been discovered by researchers at Umeå University, Sweden. The discovery increases our understanding of how tumours grow and adapt, and it opens up for research into new future treatments. "We have found a critical control point that, when disturbed, can tip the balance against cancer," says Francesca Aguilo, associate professor at the Department of Molecular Biology at Umeå University and who has led the current study. All cells in the body use ribosomes, small molecular ...

Sinai Health researchers have shown a blood test that can predict Crohn’s disease years before symptoms appear, opening the doors to early diagnosis and potentially prevention. The test measures a person’s immune response to flagellin, a protein found on gut bacteria. This response is elevated in individuals long before they develop Crohn’s Disease, a team led by Dr. Ken Croitoru, a clinician scientist at the Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute, part of Sinai Health, has found. The team also included gastrointestinal medical resident, Dr. Richard Wu, and clinician scientist, and staff gastroenterologist Dr. Sun-Ho Lee. Drs. Croitoru and Lee are also a part of ...

Bullying in the United States remains a serious public health issue with consequences that extend far beyond the school grounds. For adolescents, being bullied – or engaging in bullying – can lead to lasting mental, physical and social challenges that follow them into adulthood. Victims face higher risks of depression, anxiety, hallucinations, suicidality, and other long-term mental health conditions, while perpetrators often experience increased rates of delinquency, dating violence and criminal behavior. Social factors, including socioeconomic disadvantages, race and physical differences, further intensify the problem. Bullying is ...

To make cancer care smoother and more effective, the Alliance for Clinical Trials in Oncology has introduced a new clinical trial for people with gastrointestinal cancers, such as cancers of the stomach, colon, and esophagus. The PAGODA trial (Alliance A232402CD) will test a proactive approach to chemotherapy dose adjustments, aiming to minimize treatment interruptions and help patients complete their chemotherapy as planned. “Unplanned chemotherapy interruptions can be stressful, time consuming, and may affect how well treatment works,” said study chair Gabriel Brooks, MD, MPH, an Associate Professor ...

A stable "exceptional fermionic superfluid," a new quantum phase that intrinsically hosts singularities known as exceptional points, has been discovered by researchers at Institute of Science Tokyo. Their analysis of a non-Hermitian quantum model with spin depairing shows that dissipation can actively stabilize a superfluid with these singularities embedded within it. The work reveals how lattice geometry dictates the phase's stability and provides a path to realizing it in experiments with ultracold atoms. In the quantum world, open quantum systems are those ...

Changes in early tooth development can have surprisingly big effects on a person’s smile. Missing teeth, extra teeth, unusually small or large teeth, or teeth that fuse together can cause problems in appearance, chewing , and long-term oral and general health issues. Because these problems arise from intricate signaling networks that operate during tooth development, the underlying biological causes can be difficult to pinpoint, making diagnosis and prevention challenging. Scientists have uncovered many of the networks involved, but it remains challenging to fully explain how the body decides how many teeth to form—or where each ...

Structural health monitoring (SHM) and condition monitoring are crucial processes that ensure reliability and safety of engineering systems in a variety of fields, including aerospace, civil engineering, and industry. These systems are often assessed using vibration-based methods, where damage is detected by analyzing changes in a structure’s vibration characteristics. Traditional methods typically employ contact-type sensors for this purpose. While effective, these methods face several limitations, including low spatial resolution, high costs, difficulties in sensor placement, and measurements that are restricted to small regions around each sensor. Vision-based methods, where non-contact, ...

Researchers from University of California San Diego report that an expanded, school-based tobacco prevention program in California was associated with significantly lower rates of smoking and vaping among middle and high school students. The study published in the Journal of Adolescent Health on Jan. 12, 2026, evaluated the impact of California’s Tobacco-Use Prevention Education (TUPE) program following a major funding increase approved by voters in 2016. Using data from more than 160,000 students statewide, the researchers found that students attending schools receiving TUPE funding were 20% less likely to use tobacco overall and 23% less likely to vape, compared ...

 Research Highlights: Scripted TV programs in the U.S. often inaccurately portray who is most likely to need CPR and where out-of-hospital cardiac arrests happen, according to an analysis of more than 160 TV episodes aired since 2008. TV programs tend to focus on white people or men receiving CPR, which mirrors real-life disparities where women and Black and Latino adults are less likely than white people to receive CPR from a lay rescuer. The analysis examined TV depictions of out-of-hospital CPR as a potential reason why there is a low prevalence of Hands-Only ...

EMBARGOED FOR RELEASE UNTIL 5 A.M., ET, MONDAY, JANUARY 12, 2026 What TV Gets Wrong About CPR—and Why it Matters for Saving Lives PITTSBURGH, Jan. 12, 2026—Scripted television often shows outdated CPR techniques for lay people, potentially fueling misconceptions that could delay bystanders’ lifesaving interventions in the crucial moments after a real-life cardiac arrest. That’s according to University of Pittsburgh School of Public Health and School of Medicine researchers in the first analysis of TV depictions of bystander CPR, published today in Circulation: Population Health and Outcomes. In 2008, the American Heart Association (AHA) endorsed ...

It is well known that obesity typically leads to inflammation and dysfunction of fat tissue that increases the risk of developing metabolic diseases such as diabetes and cardiovascular diseases. It is also well established that weight loss reduces the risk of developing these diseases. However, it has been unclear whether healthy fat tissue can be reestablished by weight loss. In other words, does fat tissue retain a “memory” of the obese state after weight loss? Now, a new study led by Assistant Professor Anne Loft, Associate Professor Jesper Grud Skat ...

Gas and dust flowing from stars can, under the right conditions, clash with a star’s surroundings and create a shock wave. Now, astronomers using the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (ESO’s VLT) have imaged a beautiful shock wave around a dead star — a discovery that has left them puzzled. According to all known mechanisms, the small, dead star RXJ0528+2838 should not have such structure around it. This discovery, as enigmatic as it’s stunning, challenges our ...

Astronomers have spotted one of the oldest ‘dead’ galaxies yet identified, and found that a growing supermassive black hole can slowly starve a galaxy rather than tear it apart. The researchers, led by the University of Cambridge, used data from the James Webb Space Telescope and the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA), to study a galaxy in the early universe – about three billion years after the Big Bang. The galaxy, called GS-10578 but nicknamed ‘Pablo’s Galaxy’ after the astronomer who first observed it in detail, is massive for such ...