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Higher levels of wellbeing may help reduce the risk of memory loss in middle age, suggests a study led by UCL researchers, which tracked more than 10,000 over 50-year-olds across a 16-year span. Findings that are published today, in the peer-reviewed journal Aging & Mental Health , found those who said they had higher wellbeing were more likely to subsequently have better scores on memory tests.

Brain networks responsible for sensing, understanding, and responding emotionally to pain develop at different rates in infants, with the conscious understanding of pain not fully developed until after birth, finds a new study led by UCL researchers. The authors of the study, published in the journal Pain , investigated how different types of pain processing develop very early on, by scanning the brains of infants born prematurely.

Gas in planet-forming discs, which provides fuel for giant planets to form, disperses in just a few million years, according to new research by an international team including UCL astronomers. The researchers looked at 30 discs of gas and dust around Sun-like stars to measure gas disc masses at different ages.

Regulator-approved AI models used in eye care vary widely in providing evidence for clinical performance and lack transparency about training data, including details of gender, age and ethnicity, according to a new review led by researchers at UCL and Moorfields Eye Hospital. The analysis, published in the journal npj Digital Medicine, examined 36 regulator-approved "artificial intelligence as a medical device" (AIaMD) tools in Europe, Australia and the US, and found concerning trends.

A series of digital tests, carried out via a smartphone app, could enhance the detection of disease progression in Huntington's disease and improve the efficiency of clinical trials, finds research led by scientists at UCL and Roche. The research, published in Brain , highlights how digitising tests designed to measure the progression of motor symptoms in people with Huntington's disease can provide a sensitive and reliable way to track changes in the function of patients.

Genetic factors that may make some people more or less sensitive to the environments they experience have been identified by a team involving UCL researchers. Published in Nature Human Behaviour , the study examined how individuals' varying sensitivity to environmental factors can influence levels of ADHD symptoms, autistic traits, anxiety and depression symptoms, psychotic experiences and neuroticism.

Stroke survivors with depression or anxiety who attend talking therapy sessions are more likely to recover from their psychological symptoms, finds a new study by UCL researchers. The first of its kind study, published in Nature Mental Health , analysed data from all 1.9 million patients who attended NHS Talking Therapies for Anxiety and Depression services in England between 2012 and 2019, including 7,597 stroke survivors.

A baby's makeup of gut bacteria - their microbiome - which starts to form as soon as they are born, helps protect against viral infections later in childhood finds a new study led by UCL researchers. As part of the largest study of UK baby microbiomes to date, researchers at UCL and the Wellcome Sanger Institute found that babies with a specific mix of gut bacteria at one week old were less likely to be hospitalised for viral lower respiratory tract infections (vLRTI) in the first two years of life.

Areas of the brain that help a person differentiate between what is real and what is imaginary have been uncovered in a new study led by UCL researchers. The research, published in Neuron , found that a region in the brain known as the fusiform gyrus - located behind one's temples, on the underside of the brain's temporal lobe - is involved in helping the brain to determine whether what we see is from the external world or generated by our imagination.

Scientists working on the Muon g-2 experiment, conducted at the US-based Fermilab and involving researchers from UCL, have issued their third and final measurement of the subatomic muon particle's magnetic anomaly, drawing on three years of data. The measurement is in perfect agreement with the experiment's previous results, but unlike with earlier results, is not seen as contradicting the Standard Model of physics, the best model of matter we have, because of new theoretical predictions that reduce the discrepancy between the experimental results and theory.

Efforts to reduce child mortality in Africa via mass treatment with the antibiotic azithromycin (AZM) may lead to increased drug resistance in bacteria that frequently cause pneumonia and meningitis, highlighting the need for careful monitoring, finds a new study led by UCL. The study, published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases , is a collaboration with researchers from the Malawi Liverpool Wellcome Programme, the University of Liverpool, the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, the Wellcome Sanger Institute and Yale University.

The combination of the two cancer drugs, rapamycin and trametinib, can extend the lifespan of mice by 30%, according to a study led by researchers at UCL and the Max Planck Institute for Biology of Ageing, Germany. The combination therapy shows greater effects than the individual drugs and offers not only a longer lifespan, but also health benefits in old age.

Chemists at UCL and the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology have demonstrated how RNA (ribonucleic acid) might have replicated itself on early Earth - a key process in the origin of life. Scientists believe that, in the earliest life forms, genetic material would have been carried and replicated by strands of RNA, before DNA and proteins later emerged and took over.

People who have been taking antidepressants for more than two years are substantially more likely to experience withdrawal symptoms compared to short-term users when they come off the medication, finds a new study led by UCL researchers. Long-term users also tend to experience worse withdrawal symptoms, and for a longer period of time, than short-term users, and are less likely to be able to stop taking the drug when they attempt to do so, according to the findings published in Psychiatry Research .

Middle-aged and older adults who experience pain are more likely to have had worsening symptoms of depression up to eight years before the pain began, according to a new study by UCL researchers. The study, published in the journal eClinicalMedicine , suggests that among this age group, treatment for depression might help to prevent or reduce later aches and pains.

Young people in the UK who lived in polluted areas during their early years are more likely to report worse general health than their peers at age 17, according to new UCL research. The study, published in  Scientific Reports ,  reveals that teens from ethnic minority backgrounds and deprived neighbourhoods were particularly at risk of being exposed to high levels of air pollution during childhood, with potential long-term impacts on their health.

The brain uses a dual system for learning through trial and error, according to a new study in mice led by UCL researchers. This is the first time a second learning system has been identified, which could help explain how habits are formed, and provide a scientific basis for new strategies to address conditions related to habitual learning, such as addictions and compulsions.

Writing in The Conversation, Professor Ravi Das and PhD Candidate Rebecca Harding (UCL Division of Psychology and Language Sciences) explores whether a fast-acting psychedelic can help people reduce alcohol consumption. Psychedelics like LSD  and psilocybin  (the active ingredient in magic mushrooms) are gaining  increasing attention in psychiatry.

Treatment with gabapentinoids, a class of epilepsy and anxiety drug, is not directly associated with an increased risk of self-harm, finds a study led by UCL researchers. However, rates of self-harm were higher before and shortly after treatment, highlighting the need for close monitoring of patients throughout their treatment journey, say the authors of the new study.

The intensification of existing farmland can sometimes be more harmful to local biodiversity than expanding the area covered by agricultural land, finds a new study led by UCL researchers. They showed that neither expansion nor intensification is consistently better for biodiversity, as it varies by factors including region, crop type and local vegetation.