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Virtual nature exposure reduces self-reported pain and is associated with decreased brain responses linked to somatosensory and nociceptive processing, providing new insights into the underlying mechanisms of nature-induced analgesia.

A phase 3 trial found that VER-01, a full-spectrum cannabis extract, reduces chronic low back pain, improves physical function and sleep and shows no signs of dependence or withdrawal.

Here the authors show the prefrontal cortex simultaneously predicts context, the thoughts of others and future changes, while the precuneus acts as a hub to fuse these into a coherent experience.

Individuals with schizophrenia show reduced structural similarity in temporal, cingulate, and insular lobes, especially those with worse cognition and symptoms, affecting late maturing association areas with low metabolism and high neurotransmission.

Delphi-2M forecasts a person’s future health, covering more than 1,000 diseases, provides insights into co-morbidity dynamics and generates synthetic data for the training of AI models that have never seen actual data.

López-Izquierdo et al. test the associations between prehospital blood cortisol levels and visual analogue scale (VAS) in pain assessment of patients with acute diseases treated by emergency medical services (EMS). Findings reveal that cortisol evaluations via the EMS are comparable to VAS scores and provide insight into pain status.

In a phase 3 trial for Huntington’s disease, pridopidine did not meet its primary endpoints but was safe and favored in some prespecified subgroup analyses.

An expert recommendation is presented for the design and evaluation of research studies using transcranial electrical stimulation, resulting in the selection of a 66-point checklist aimed at improving the quality of transcranial electrical stimulation studies.

A meta-analysis using the Burden of Proof method found increased but modest relative risk of cardiometabolic disease and/or colorectal cancer associated with the consumption of processed meat, sugar-sweetened beverages and trans fatty acids.

An analysis of T cell responses in people with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis shows that the C9orf72 antigen is a key target of autoimmune responses in the disease, and identifies C9orf72 epitopes that are recognized.

People cheat more when they delegate tasks to artificial intelligence, and large language models are more likely than humans to comply with unethical instructions—a risk that can be minimized by introducing prohibitive, task-specific guardrails.

This genomic study of magnetic resonance imaging-based brain age in 56,348 people identifies 59 genetic loci, links brain aging to mental and physical health, and suggests high blood pressure and type 2 diabetes as causal factors of brain aging.

The SWEET project is a multicenter, randomized, controlled trial that shows that long-term consumption of sweeteners and sweetness enhancers improves body weight control and elicits beneficial gut microbiota changes in adults with overweight or obesity.

Here, the authors show a developmental shift in emotion understanding throughout childhood and early adolescence: while perceptual discrimination of facial cues becomes less influential with age, conceptual knowledge plays an increasingly important role in emotion understanding.

As large-scale neurodevelopmental MRI studies gain prominence, the authors identify tradeoffs between sample size and quality control that can dramatically affect results, and they evaluate a range of approaches to mitigate risk for error.

A lightweight, modular assistive soft exosuit is introduced, which supports shoulder and elbow movement in individuals with cervical spinal cord injury. The device enhances endurance and range of motion, reduces muscle effort and improves clinical test scores.

This research investigates aperiodic neural activity in depressed individuals versus healthy controls using resting state electroencephalography recordings. Findings reveal significant differences in aperiodic exponent and offset, influenced by lifetime depressive episodes, highlighting the relationship between depression heterogeneity and neural mechanisms.

Persisting symptoms after concussion (PSaC) present a complex neuropsychiatric challenge with limited treatment options due to inconsistent neuroimaging findings. Here the authors employ a multi-analytic approach to identify the salience network as a core dysfunction hub in PSaC, proposing specific cortical regions as potential targets for personalized neuromodulation therapies.

The use of complementary, alternative and integrative medicine (CAIM) is highly prevalent among autistic individuals. This umbrella review finds that there is no high-quality evidence to support the efficacy of any CAIM for core or associated symptoms of autism. Although several CAIMs showed promising results, they were supported by very low-quality evidence.

A free-living trial in people with overweight or obesity found that minimally processed diets led to greater weight loss and cardiometabolic improvements than ultraprocessed diets following UK healthy eating guidelines at 8 weeks.

Losin et al. use neuroimaging to identify a brain mechanism underlying increased pain sensitivity in African Americans. This mechanism correlated with racial discrimination and implicated brain systems involved in context-based pain evaluation.

The ventromedial prefrontal cortex has been identified as a key node for judging the pleasantness of various situations. In a series of fMRI experiments, Lebreton and colleagues demonstrate that the same brain region also computes an implicit representation of confidence, defined as an estimate of judgment accuracy.

People try to infer how others feel, with varying success. Here, the authors show that others’ feelings and our inferences can both be predicted from our brain activity, and that we are more accurate when these brain patterns align.

A survey across 90 societies reveals that variation and change in everyday norms are explained by a single value dimension: the priority societies place on individualizing versus binding moral concerns.

Lopez-Persem et al. used intracranial recordings in people with epilepsy to uncover key functional properties of neural value signals that might explain irrational choice behavior.

A purpose-built implantable system based on biomimetic epidural electrical stimulation of the spinal cord reduces the severity of hypotensive complications in people with spinal cord injury and improves quality of life.

Heller et al. showed dense longitudinal imaging in four females, including one with endometriosis and one using oral contraceptives, and the finding that different hormonal milieus influence widespread brain volume changes linked to progesterone or estradiol.

The SLC45A4 gene encodes a neuronal polyamine transporter and is linked to pain response in humans and mice.

Surprisingly consistent replication failure of gray matter correlates of childhood maltreatment raises questions about publication bias in prior literature and about prevailing models linking maltreatment to brain structure in adult populations.

Previous research shows surprising rewards drive learning. Here, the authors show that affective error signals (emotional surprise) independently promote learning, and are associated with neural signals separable from reward error signals.

This study reveals that excitatory–inhibitory imbalance in Alzheimer’s disease is diverse including both impaired long-range synaptic integration and altered local excitability, with distinct links to β-amyloid and tau pathology.

Gender-based violence is widespread, affecting women and men worldwide. Stein et al. use a meta-analysis and the Burden of Proof methodology to evaluate associations between gender-based violence and eight health outcomes, including major depressive disorder, substance use and reproductive health.

Around the world, more than a billion children are regularly exposed to violence or neglect. Flor et al. systematically review evidence that links childhood physical violence, psychological violence and neglect to increased risks for 14 health outcomes.

Trained and validated on multimodal data from 14.5 million images from multicountry datasets, a foundation model is shown to increase diagnostic and referral accuracy of clinicians when used as an assistant in a trial involving 16 ophthalmologists and 668 patients.

A randomized, sham-controlled, superiority trial of a 10-week course of home-based transcranial direct current stimulation found greater improvements in depressive symptoms with active compared to sham stimulation in major depressive disorder.