A new look at how the brain works reveals that wiring isn't everything

US president Donald Trump has claimed that paracetamol (acetaminophen or Tylenol) use in pregnancy is linked to autism in children, urging pregnant women to avoid the painkiller. This announcement has sparked alarm, confusion and a flurry of responses from health experts worldwide. Trump's comments come in a long line of unsubstantiated claims about the causes of autism, with paracetamol now the latest target.

It's well known that learning to play an instrument can offer benefits beyond just musical ability. Indeed, research shows it's a great activity for the brain—it can enhance our fine motor skills, language acquisition, speech, and memory—and it can even help to keep our brains younger.

More than 4 million people worldwide have end-stage kidney disease that requires hemodialysis, a treatment in which a machine filters waste from the blood. Hemodialysis is a precursor to kidney transplant. To prepare for it, patients typically undergo surgery to connect an artery and a vein in the arm, creating an arteriovenous fistula (AVF) that allows blood to flow through the vein for treatment. However, AVF fails about 60% of the time due to vein narrowing. This is a major barrier to effective treatment.

CAR T cells are patient-derived, genetically engineered immune cells. They are "living drugs" and constitute a milestone in modern medicine. Equipping T cells, a key cell type of the immune system, with a "chimeric antigen receptor" (CAR) enables them to specifically recognize and attack cancer cells.

With an estimated 1.14 million deaths worldwide annually caused by bacteria becoming resistant to antibiotics, a University of Leicester-led study shows that in hospital settings antimicrobial resistance is common and independently associated with a higher risk of death.

Odds are that when you go to the supermarket, you check each product you pick up for its "best by" date, ensuring that you have the freshest, healthiest food to bring home for you and your family. An MUSC study published in the Journal of Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition has found that those little best by dates for a particularly precious resource—donor human milk—have huge implications for the gastrointestinal health of very premature infants.

University of Kansas researcher Folashade Agusto trained as an applied mathematician, though today she's an associate professor of ecology & evolutionary biology. She uses that mathematical training and computers to model infectious diseases. Her goal is "to identify ways in which we can mitigate the risk they pose to humans," she said. "But I also do models involving animals as needed—and in recent times, I've started looking at plants as well."

UK researchers said Wednesday they had slowed the progression of the fatal neural condition Huntington's disease for the first time with a groundbreaking new gene therapy.

Researchers at Karolinska Institutet, together with international colleagues, have identified a protein on the surface of cells that is crucial to allowing the tick-borne encephalitis (TBE) virus to enter the body. The discovery, published in the journal Nature, could pave the way for new treatments for TBE.

Heavy drinkers are more likely to buy alcohol-free and low-alcohol drinks, a new report from the University of Sheffield has revealed.

A Cornell-led study has revealed how a deadly form of pancreatic cancer enters the bloodstream, solving a long-standing mystery of how the disease spreads and identifying a promising target for therapy.

From the moment they're born, newborns—or, specifically, their immune systems—must learn to fight germs without harming their own tissues.

In fatal genetic diseases like Huntington's and spinocerebellar ataxia, proteins develop long stretches of repeating letters that are prone to sticking together like Velcro.

In a recent study, researchers at the University of California San Diego School of Medicine found that a UC San Diego Health telemedicine clinic for high-risk patients to be seen immediately after leaving the hospital resulted in fewer readmissions.

Since their discovery in 2004, the grid cells in the brain, which are important for our orientation, have been regarded as a kind of "GPS in the head." However, scientists at the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) and Heidelberg University Hospital have now shown that grid cells work much more flexibly than previously assumed.

A new study from Finland shows that low labor market participation for non-retirement related reasons may be an early indicator of dementia already years before the first evident symptoms occur. The study also identified other social markers that may be indicative of dementia up to 10 years before a diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease, frontotemporal dementia or vascular dementia.

A new study shows that people with higher levels of the protein albumin in their urine are at increased risk of developing dementia. The study, led by researchers at Karolinska Institutet, is published in the Journal of Internal Medicine.

For many people, a routine dentist appointment can evoke feelings of distress, fear and nervousness.