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Psychopharmacology
Psychopharmacology is the study of drug-induced changes in mood, thinking, and behavior. These drugs may originate from natural sources such as plants and animals, or from artificial sources such as chemical syntheses in the laboratory. These drugs interact with particular target sites or receptors found in the nervous system to induce widespread changes in physiological or psychological functions. The specific interaction between drugs and their target sites or receptors is referred to as drug action. The widespread changes in physiological or psychological function is referred to as drug effect. In psychopharmacology, researchers are interested in a wide range of drug classes such as antidepressants and stimulants. Drugs are researched for their pharmaceutical properties, physical side effects, and psychological side effects.
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Mind & Brain News
December 9, 2025
Dec. 9, 2025 Most people worldwide aren’t getting enough omega-3, leaving a major gap between scientific recommendations and daily diets. Researchers emphasize the critical role of EPA and DHA across all life stages and point out that food alone often can’t ...
Dec. 9, 2025 Researchers discovered that a tiny structural feature of the enzyme GPX4 helps keep neurons safe. A rare mutation removes this protection, allowing harmful molecules to damage cell membranes and trigger early dementia. Mouse and cell studies showed ...
Dec. 8, 2025 Deep-brain recordings showed that Mounjaro and Zepbound briefly shut down the craving circuits linked to food noise in a patient with severe obesity. Her obsessive thoughts about food disappeared as the medication quieted the nucleus accumbens, the ...
Dec. 8, 2025 Researchers have built a fully implantable device that sends light-based messages directly to the brain. Mice learned to interpret these artificial patterns as meaningful signals, even without touch, sight, or sound. The system uses up to 64 ...
Dec. 8, 2025 Human biology evolved for a world of movement, nature, and short bursts of stress—not the constant pressure of modern life. Industrial environments overstimulate our stress systems and erode both health and reproduction. Evidence ranging from ...
Dec. 6, 2025 Scientists uncovered a surprising four-layer structure hidden inside the hippocampal CA1 region, one of the brain’s major centers for memory, navigation, and emotion. Using advanced RNA imaging techniques, the team mapped more than 330,000 genetic ...
Dec. 5, 2025 A large study found that people with impaired kidneys tend to have higher Alzheimer’s biomarkers, yet they don’t face a higher overall risk of dementia. For those who already have elevated biomarkers, kidney problems may speed up when symptoms ...
Dec. 4, 2025 Researchers found that people with anxiety disorders consistently show lower choline levels in key brain regions that regulate thinking and emotions. This biochemical difference may help explain why the brain reacts more intensely to stress in ...
Dec. 4, 2025 Researchers studying people with major psychiatric disorders found that drinking up to four cups of coffee a day is associated with longer telomeres. This suggests a potential slowing of biological aging by about five years. However, drinking five ...
Dec. 3, 2025 A unique vaccine rollout in Wales gave researchers an accidental natural experiment that revealed a striking reduction in dementia among seniors who received the shingles vaccine. The protective effect held steady across multiple analyses and was ...
Dec. 2, 2025 Researchers have solved the decades-old mystery behind how a common pregnancy drug lowers blood pressure. It turns out the medication blocks a fast-acting “oxygen alarm” inside cells. That same ...
Dec. 2, 2025 Scientists have discovered that a single gene, GRIN2A, can directly cause mental illness—something previously thought to stem only from many genes acting together. People with certain variants of this gene often develop psychiatric symptoms much ...
Latest Headlines
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Dec. 2, 2025 Nitrous oxide may offer quick, short-term relief for people with major depression, especially those who haven’t responded to standard medications. The meta-analysis found rapid improvements after a ...
Dec. 1, 2025 A high-speed “zap-and-freeze” method is giving scientists their clearest view yet of how brain cells send messages. By freezing tissue at the instant a signal fires, researchers revealed how ...
Dec. 1, 2025 A large study of brain scans shows that our neural wiring evolves through five major stages from birth to late old age. These phases are separated by sudden turning points that mark big shifts in how ...
Nov. 30, 2025 MIT scientists found that what we see is strongly influenced by how alert or active we are. Parts of the brain responsible for planning and control send specialized signals that either boost or quiet ...
Nov. 30, 2025 Scientists have uncovered a stepwise system that guides how the brain sorts and stabilizes lasting memories. By tracking brain activity during virtual reality learning tasks, researchers identified ...
Nov. 28, 2025 Researchers found that repeated head impacts can disrupt a key system that helps the brain wash away waste. In professional fighters, this system initially seems to work harder after trauma, then ...
Nov. 28, 2025 Princeton researchers found that the brain excels at learning because it reuses modular “cognitive blocks” across many tasks. Monkeys switching between visual categorization challenges revealed ...
Nov. 28, 2025 Researchers identified a new, sticky form of mitochondrial DNA damage that builds up at dramatically higher levels than in nuclear DNA. These lesions disrupt energy production and activate ...
Nov. 27, 2025 Spermine, a small but powerful molecule in the body, helps neutralize harmful protein accumulations linked to Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. It encourages these misfolded proteins to gather into ...
Nov. 27, 2025 Scientists studying young adults with obesity discovered early indicators of brain stress that resemble patterns seen in cognitive impairment. The group showed higher inflammation, signs of liver ...