The brain, a biological engineering wonder, depends on a delicately balanced system of cells, signals, and defense barriers to work in harmony. For decades, researchers have studied neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s disease, Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), and Frontotemporal Dementia (FTD) with a near-exclusive focus on neurons, the brain’s information processors. However, what if the earliest signs of damage occur not within neurons, but in the blood vessels that support and protect them?

Researchers from Jadavpur University have developed classification-based machine-learning models for toxicity assessment of plastic packaging associated chemicals. These models can efficiently predict the toxicity of chemicals thereby providing a valuable tool for researchers as well as regulatory bodies, overcoming health concerns.

A recent study from the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore, has identified a new key player among brain regions, the superior colliculus (SC), in guiding skilled forelimb movements.

A collaborative research by scientists from the National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS), Bangalore, and the Institute of Functional Genomics, University of Montpellier, INSERM, CNRS, France, has recently solved the structures of the complex brain receptor—metabotropic glutamate receptor 5 (mGlu5). They describe the binding mode of small molecules known to increase receptor activity, paving the way for new avenues in drug design.

Researchers, led by Vivek Tiwari from the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER), Berhampur, recently established ‘Brain age,’ a measure of neuroanatomic health. As we grow older, our brain's age alters, and the researchers have shown that quantifying these alterations would help us understand ageing and its associated cognitive disorders.

Researchers at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) Mumbai, have recently elucidated the neurocircuit mechanism of DOI (2,5‑dimethoxy-4-iodoamphetamine), a serotonergic psychedelic known to reduce anxiety. Their findings pave the way for emerging clinical research and potential therapeutic interventions targeting mental distress caused by anxiety.

A recent collaborative study led by researchers from Project Prakash in India and the United States suggests that early visual development in infants starts with poor colour vision, with the brain initially learning to recognise objects based on light intensity (greyscale). The findings from this study have significant implications for understanding both visual development in children and machine vision systems.