Author: dispatchtimes news

A study published in Science Advances has shown that automated analysis of brief voice recordings can yield a “speech age” score that tends to be older in people with dementia than in cognitively healthy adults. The research drew on almost 3,000 native Spanish speakers across five Latin American countries and found that the gap between speech age and actual age correlates with brain-imaging measures, DNA-based aging markers, a blood biomarker for Alzheimer’s disease and lifetime social hardship. Biological aging clocks aim to estimate a person’s biological age from data such as MRI brain measurements or patterns of DNA methylation. The…

A new study linking the brain’s glutamatergic signaling system, specifically NMDA receptors, with the structural brain patterns that underpin children’s mathematics and reading abilities has been published in Nature Communications. Led by Yuan Zhang of Stanford University, the research analysed data from 991 typically developing children aged 7 to 14 across two groups, one drawn from the Healthy Brain Network and the other from Stanford-led studies. The initial sample included 760 children with an average age of 9.7 years, 275 of whom were girls; the replication sample comprised 231 children, average age 9.2, with 98 girls. The researchers argued that…

A series of experiments published in a leading psychology journal challenges the assumption that punishing an algorithm delivers a different or lesser sense of justice than punishing a human. Led by Alexander Eng of the Asia School of Business in Kuala Lumpur and Kai Chi Yam of the National University of Singapore, the work explores how people respond when AI systems cause harm and whether penalties can repair a sense of fairness asAI plays a growing role in decision‑making. The research sits at the crossroads of “mind perception”—how we judge what kind of mental life others possess—and the real‑world consequences…

A UK study published in Neurology finds that limiting exposure to added sugar in the womb and during the first two years of life is associated with a lower risk of dementia decades later. The researchers examined adults born around the end of wartime sugar rationing in Britain and linked early‑life sugar restriction with delayed dementia onset, healthier brain structure and better cognitive test performance in their 60s. Early-life sugar restriction and dementia risk The study explored whether nutritional conditions in the earliest stages of development could influence how the brain ages, beyond what is already known about middle‑ and…

A new study analysing data from nearly 28,000 users of a health-tracking app finds that partnered orgasms are more closely linked to overall sexual satisfaction than those achieved during solo sex, even though women tend to reach orgasm more frequently when they are alone. The Flo Health UK Limited study, published in the Archives of Sexual Behavior, used responses from 27,931 participants to compare solo and partnered sex across a six‑month window. Sexual satisfaction describes a person’s overall sense of fulfilment and pleasure in their sex life, a factor closely tied to general health and quality of life. Previous research…

More than a third of 11- to 18-year-olds in England reported coming across self-harm content online in the past month, according to an analysis of the 2025 OxWell Student Survey. The study drew on data from 32,102 students in school years 7 to 13 at 49 secondary schools and further education colleges, largely in Liverpool and Oxfordshire, who completed the survey between February and May 2025. Most exposures were unintentional. Among those who reported encountering self-harm content, 66% said it had appeared in their feed or had been suggested while they were browsing, and 24% said it was embedded within…

A new study suggests that regular cannabis users may report more signs of sleep-disordered breathing, such as loud snoring and pauses in breathing at night, even after accounting for factors like weight and tobacco use. The research appears in Sleep Health: Journal of the National Sleep Foundation and was led by Tyler J. Gallagher of the Keck School of Medicine, with co-author Matthew E. Lin of the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. Sleep-disordered breathing encompasses conditions characterised by abnormal breathing patterns or insufficient ventilation during rest, with obstructive sleep apnoea being the commonest form. In this condition the…

A Polish neuroimaging study suggests that when confronted with arguments that challenge political beliefs, people show marked activity in brain networks tied to self-reflection, reinforcing the view that political convictions are closely linked to personal identity. The research, conducted in Kraków and published in Scientific Reports, largely mirrors findings from an earlier American study. In psychology, such resistance to changing one’s mind is often described as motivated reasoning: people filter or reinterpret new information to protect prior conclusions. The study’s authors emphasise that while political beliefs are normative and tied to social belonging, reactions to counterarguments are not merely about…

A study published in Computers in Human Behavior suggests that playing video games with a trusted, familiar group can boost loyalty to a game while reducing the risk of addiction. The research, led by Shih-I Tai of Chang Gung University in Taiwan, involved an online survey of 884 video game players in Taiwan who reported on their habits over the previous month. Researchers anchored their analysis in two established psychological frameworks: the pleasure-arousal theory, which separates emotional experience into how pleasant and how arousing it is, and brain reward circuitry theory, which posits separate neural pathways for pleasure and arousal.…

An international team of researchers has found that people with elevated psychopathic traits are more likely to interpret frightening scenes as enjoyable rather than distressing, with a belief in personal invincibility helping to explain the diminished fear. The findings come from two new studies examining why fear can be experienced as a source of excitement for some individuals. Psychopathy is typically described as a two‑dimensional personality profile. One dimension covers interpersonal and emotional features such as superficial charm, manipulation, and a lack of empathy or guilt. The other encompasses an impulsive lifestyle, sensation‑seeking and antisocial behaviour. While early theories posited…