The number of patients living with neurodegenerative diseases that affect movement is rising steadily. Yet a large-scale study from the Paris Brain Institute and the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm shows that this is not an emerging health crisis: the trend conceals very different realities, with direct implications for public health policy and research. The findings are published in Neurology.

Children who spend more time playing outdoors between the ages of two and four may be less likely to develop emotional and behavioural difficulties later in childhood.

That’s according to new research led by the University of Exeter, published in the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry. Previous studies have shown a link between outdoor play and children’s mental health, but this is the first study to explore how outdoor play in the early years relates to children’s mental health over time.

Researchers have shown how an enzyme triggers cell stress and promotes the advance of Alzheimer’s disease in a self-perpetuating process. The team has developed an active ingredient that breaks this vicious circle. In mice treated with the substance, dementia advances much more slowly.