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Medicine & Health

Updates every hour. Last Updated: 23-Oct-2026 01:16 ET (23-Oct-2026 05:16 GMT/UTC)

Frequent cannabis use tied to more severe epilepsy

Washington University in St. Louis
Peer-Reviewed Publication

A study led by WashU Medicine researchers found that adults with drug-resistant epilepsy who used cannabis most days had more frequent convulsive seizures and became resistant to antiseizure medications years sooner than nonusers.

Journal: Epilepsia

Blocking immune cells’ path into brain limits neurodegeneration

Washington University in St. Louis
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Researchers at WashU Medicine kept harmful immune cells out of the brains of mice with Alzheimer’s-like damage by blocking the pathway the cells use to find their way in. The drug they tested, injected in the body rather than the brain, preserved brain tissue and memory.

Journal: Neuron

Alliance trial finds fractionated radiosurgery reduces cancer recurrence after surgery for large brain metastases

Alliance for Clinical Trials in Oncology
Reports and Proceedings

Delivering focused radiation therapy over three to five sessions after surgery for a large brain metastasis reduced the risk of cancer returning at the surgical site compared with delivering the radiation in a single session, according to the results of the Alliance for Clinical Trials in Oncology A071801 presented today at the plenary session of the American Society for Radiation Oncology in Boston.

Funder: Alliance for Clinical Trials in Oncology Foundation

Together human genetics, AI and animal studies provide diagnosis for rare, complex neurodevelopmental disorder

Baylor College of Medicine
Peer-Reviewed Publication

An international team of researchers has identified variants in gene BRSK1 as a likely diagnosis for individuals with a rare and complex neurodevelopmental disorder who until now had not received an explanation for their condition.

Journal: American Journal of Human Genetics

Financial stress bleeds into our relationships. But partners who provide emotional support can help.

University of Florida
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Financial stress can spill over into romantic relationships, with couples reporting more relationship stress when money worries were higher.

Journal: Personal Relationships

New $3.1M NIH grant for University of Houston to study how ‘spongy heart’ disease develops — and whether it can be stopped

University of Houston
Grant and Award Announcement

University of Houston researcher Mingfu Wu has received a $3.1 million National Institutes of Health grant to investigate left ventricular noncompaction, a serious heart condition also known as "spongy heart" that can lead to heart failure and abnormal heart rhythms. This brings to $8M the amount funded to Wu by the NIH to explore the disease.

Pennington Biomedical’s Dr. Chris Morrison awarded up to $2 million NIH grant to study how the brain detects dietary protein restriction

Pennington Biomedical Research Center
Grant and Award Announcement

Dr. Chris Morrison was awarded a prestigious National Institutes of Health (NIH) R01 research grant totaling up to $2 million to investigate the hormone FGF21 and the detection of dietary protein restriction. The four-year grant from the NIH National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases will support research into how the brain detects changes in protein intake and how reduced protein intake drives adaptive changes in metabolism and food intake.

Funder: National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases

Researchers discover bullfrog brains can make their own backup fuel

University of Missouri-Columbia
Peer-Reviewed Publication

University of Missouri researchers discovered that bullfrogs can produce ketone bodies directly in their brains when glucose levels are low, creating a built-in backup fuel source that helps keep critical neural functions running during energy shortages. The finding not only explains how bullfrogs survive the extreme conditions of winter dormancy but could also provide new insights into human neurological disorders such as Alzheimer's disease, ALS and schizophrenia, which are linked to impaired brain energy metabolism.

Journal: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

Reading 30 years of Otsego Lake history, one zooplankton at a time

SUNY Cobleskill
Grant and Award Announcement

Tiffany Miele (Hawthorne, N.Y.), a second-year Environmental Management major, spent her summer internship looking through a microscope at organisms smaller than a grain of rice, using them to help answer much larger questions about the long-term health of Otsego Lake in Cooperstown, the source of the 444-mile Susquehanna River. Miele, an undergraduate research intern, worked with Dr. Mairi Meehan, Assistant Professor of Biology, on a project that sought to interpret 30 years of zooplankton monitoring data to identify and describe ecosystem change in the lake.