Mind & Mood Archive

A 2025 study suggests that women who score highly on a brain health measurement incorporating physical, lifestyle, social, and emotional factors face lower stroke odds.

A quarter of American adults live with a mental health disorder such as anxiety, depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder, or post-traumatic stress disorder. But more than half don't seek help. Internal and external barriers may stop them from getting the care they need. Internal barriers are emotions or excuses people make to avoid treatment. External barriers include cost or difficulty finding a provider who can meet someone's individual needs. To push past obstacles, people can investigate less-expensive mental health programs or reframe guilt-inducing thoughts.

A 2025 study suggests that sleeping nine or more hours nightly is associated with worse cognitive performance, an effect that's stronger among people with symptoms of depression.

There are currently nine trials of vaccines for Alzheimer's disease under way. All of them are in people with mild Alzheimer's or with the pre-Alzheimer's condition called mild cognitive impairment. All of the vaccines are designed to encourage the immune system to remove protein deposits from the brain. Most experimental vaccines are given by injection; one being tested at Harvard Medical School uses a nasal spray. It will be several years before we know if any of them will work.

In a 2025 study, people with the healthiest diets and trimmest bellies at midlife had better brain connections and skills decades later, compared with people who ate the worst diets and had the most belly fat.

A 2025 study suggested that getting the shingles vaccine can significantly reduce the likelihood of developing dementia, especially among women.

A 2025 study found that the shingles vaccine reduced the risk of developing dementia by 20%. The study supports (but doesn't absolutely prove) the theory that infections may be one cause of Alzheimer's disease and possibly other forms of dementia.