Dr. Deanna M. Kaplan at Emory University has developed Fabla, a groundbreaking smartphone app that captures voice narratives in participants' daily environments. This innovation addresses critical gaps in understanding how clinical interventions, from psychedelic therapies to meditation practices, affect people's real-world experiences beyond laboratory settings.

A comprehensive review in Brain Medicine examines how ECT session numbers impact treatment outcomes in depression. Researchers found early rapid improvement followed by diminishing returns, proposing a response-guided sequential strategy that could revolutionize treatment approaches by balancing efficacy with cognitive preservation.

Dr. Erin Mauney at Tufts University leads the first psychedelic study in gastroenterology, investigating how psilocybin modulates interoception in patients with treatment-resistant IBS. Her groundbreaking research examines the gut-brain connection through a trauma-informed lens, offering hope for the 60% of IBS patients who don't respond to conventional therapies.

A new study in Genome Biology and Evolution finds that the African Swine Fever virus, currently circulating in Europe, is not the result of a recent introduction. Instead, the virus has been present in the region since 2007. Its current dramatic spread appears to be driven largely by people within Europe traveling longer distances.

B lymphocytes exhibit dual roles in tumorigenesis, acting as both allies and adversaries in the tumor microenvironment (TME). Their anti-tumor functions include recognizing tumor-associated antigens, producing antibodies, activating cytotoxic immune responses, and forming tertiary lymphoid structures (TLS) that enhance immune cell coordination. Tumor-infiltrating B cells (TIL-Bs) within TLS contribute to improved patient survival and immunotherapy responses by facilitating antibody class switching, somatic hypermutation, and cytokine secretion that recruit and activate T cells, natural killer (NK) cells, and dendritic cells (DCs). Antibodies from B cells mediate complement-dependent cytotoxicity (CDC), antibody-dependent cellular phagocytosis (ADCP), and antibody-dependent cell-mediated cytotoxicity (ADCC), directly eliminating tumor cells. Additionally, B cells present antigens to T cells and secrete cytokines like IFN-γ and CXCL13, amplifying anti-tumor immunity. However, regulatory B cells (Bregs) and other subsets suppress immune responses by secreting IL-10, TGF-β, and VEGF, promoting angiogenesis, recruiting immunosuppressive cells like myeloid-derived suppressor cells (MDSCs) and regulatory T cells (Tregs), and expressing immune checkpoints like PD-L1. This duality underscores the complexity of targeting B cells in cancer therapy.