People with dementia, mild cognitive impairment, alcohol addiction, or psychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia show increased brain aging, each in specific patterns within the brain, according to a study published July 21^st in the open access journal PLOS Medicine by Shile Qi from the Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, China, and colleagues.

A new mathematical and computational model developed by researchers at Politecnico di Milano studies the link between the accumulation of toxic proteins and damage to the brain’s blood vessels

Protein aggregates are associated with the development of diseases like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. These are found more often in certain areas of cells known as membraneless organelles. Do these organelles promote this protein clumping, or do they protect the cell by temporarily absorbing the aggregates? Professor Simon Ebbinghaus and Mailin Becker from Ruhr University Bochum, Germany, set out to answer this question with their new, self-developed method “confocal Fast Relaxation Imaging,” or cFReI. They report their findings in the journal PRX Life from July 16, 2026.

Alzheimer’s disease and many other forms of neurodegeneration share a common culprit. In these diseases, tau proteins that normally stabilize neuronal microtubule filaments within our nervous system networks instead form noxious knots and gradually disrupt the circuits they would otherwise preserve. 

Scientists at Sanford Burnham Prebys published findings July 17, 2026, in Science Advances showing that a different protein called SORLA offers protection against the effects of these lethal loops. The results suggest that future research may yield new treatments capable of boosting SORLA’s ability to defend the brain.