neuroscience papers | Gist.Science

Neuroscience explores the intricate machinery of the brain and nervous system, seeking to understand how we think, feel, and move. From the microscopic dance of individual neurons to the complex networks that shape our memories and behaviors, this field peels back the layers of our biological selves to reveal the origins of consciousness and disease.

At Gist.Science, we bring these discoveries directly from bioRxiv, the leading preprint server for biological sciences, to a broader audience. We process every new neuroscience preprint as it is uploaded, transforming dense academic manuscripts into clear, plain-language explanations alongside detailed technical summaries. This ensures that both curious readers and specialists can stay current with the latest breakthroughs before they are formally published.

Below are the latest neuroscience papers we have processed from bioRxiv, offering fresh insights into the workings of the mind.

🧠 neuroscience

Individualized Gray Matter Deviations in Children with ADHD: Insights from Structural MRI Modeling

This study utilizes normative structural MRI modeling to reveal that children with ADHD exhibit heterogeneous, region-specific gray matter volume deviations—particularly in the lateral and orbital prefrontal cortex and striatum—that are obscured by conventional group-level analyses, thereby supporting the value of individualized neuroanatomical profiling for personalized assessment and treatment.

Farid, A., Muhammad, M.2026-03-18

🧠 neuroscience

Neuronal overexpression of Nrf2 reduces dystrophic neurites in 5XFAD Alzheimer's disease model mice

Although neuronal overexpression of Nrf2 in 5XFAD Alzheimer's disease model mice failed to prevent neuronal loss, reduce amyloid plaques, or alleviate neuroinflammation, it successfully decreased BACE1 levels and reduced the accumulation of dystrophic neurites around plaques, likely through mechanisms involving lipid metabolism and microtubule stability.

Sadleir, K. R., Gomez, K. P., Chandra, S., Ley, M. L., Khatri, A. W., Guo, J., Xue, Y., Cepko, C. L., Vassar, R.2026-03-18

🧠 neuroscience

Protocol for calcium imaging of acute brain slices from Octopus vulgaris hatchlings during application of neurotransmitters

This paper presents a protocol for performing calcium imaging on acute brain slices from *Octopus vulgaris* hatchlings to characterize single-cell responses to neurotransmitters, a method adaptable to other small invertebrate species.

Courtney, A., Van Dijck, M., Styfhals, R., Almansa, E., Obenhaus, H. A., Schafer, W. R., Seuntjens, E.2026-03-18

🧠 neuroscience

A High-Throughput Automated Pipeline to Analyze Synapse Function by Calcium Imaging

This paper presents a high-throughput automated pipeline combining Suite2p and Python scripts to analyze tens of thousands of synapses via calcium imaging, enabling sensitive detection of synaptic dysfunction and facilitating drug discovery for cognitive disorders.

Begley, J., Pruss, H., Turko, P., Dean, C.2026-03-18

🧠 neuroscience

Neighborhood-Level Disadvantage Impacts Multiple Measures of Brain Health: An Imaging Epidemiology Study

This imaging epidemiology study of 2,826 individuals reveals that residing in neighborhoods with high socioeconomic disadvantage is significantly associated with adverse brain morphometry, including accelerated brain aging, reduced total brain volume, and amplified vascular-related regional volume loss.

Willbrand, E. H., Stoeckl, E. M., Belden, D., Chu, S. Y., Melcher, E. M., Zhitnitskii, D., Bonke, E., Mattila, J., Iftik (…)2026-03-18

🧠 neuroscience

Visual crowding in albinism: Evidence for a cortical sensory deficit with oculomotor influences

This study demonstrates that elevated foveal crowding in individuals with albinism results from a combination of abnormal retinal development and nystagmus-induced image motion, evidenced by a distinct spatial anisotropy and a lack of featural selectivity compared to controls and those with nystagmus alone.

Tailor-Hamblin, V. K., Theodorou, M., Dahlmann-Noor, A., Dekker, T. M., Greenwood, J. A.2026-03-18

🧠 neuroscience

Spontaneous emergence of context-dependent statistical learning in humans and neural networks

This study demonstrates that both humans and recurrent neural networks can spontaneously learn and flexibly adapt to conflicting visual associations across unsignaled, shifting contexts, with the neural networks' success attributed to distributed internal representations that prevent catastrophic interference.

Peck, F., Lu, H., Rissman, J.2026-03-18

🧠 neuroscience

Prediction Is Preserved but Long-Timescale Benefits Are Reduced in ADHD

This study reveals that while individuals with ADHD retain the ability to learn spatiotemporal regularities in dynamic environments, they exhibit a specific deficit in progressively optimizing their behavior based on these predictions over longer timescales compared to neurotypical controls.

Tzionit, N., Filmon, D. G., Maeir, T., Boettcher, S. E. P., Nobre, A. C., Shalev, N., Landau, A. N.2026-03-18

🧠 neuroscience

The motive cocktail in childrens altruistic behaviors

This study of 229 children aged 8–12 reveals that third-party altruistic behavior is driven by a complex "motive cocktail" of multiple dissociable prosocial motives, where children balance fairness concerns against self-interest in ways that vary by gender, intervention cost, and impact on outcomes.

WU, X. N., Ren, X., Dreher, J.-c., Liu, C.2026-03-18

🧠 neuroscience

Loss of neuronal population organization links pathology to behavior in a model of Alzheimer's disease

This study demonstrates that in a macaque model of early-stage Alzheimer's disease, progressive tau pathology disrupts the coordinated organization of neuronal populations across visual and parietal cortices, leading to disorganized behavior despite preserved single-neuron function and task performance, a deficit that can be transiently improved with methylphenidate.

Ruff, D. A., Sheets, D. E. G., Srinath, R., Diniz, G. B., Griggs, D. J., Beckman, D., Ott, S. P., Schwartz, K., Erices (…)2026-03-18

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