MDMA for PTSD - AI & Comas - "Lie" Detection - Parkinson's & Tango

[Breedlove, S]

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/24/health/mdma-therapy-ptsd-psychedelic-australia.html

MDMA Therapy in Australia Shows Results, but the Cost Is Limiting Access

By Andrew Jacobs

Over the past two years, Australia, a country long known for its strict drug laws, has been allowing psychiatrists to treat post-traumatic stress disorder with MDMA, the chemical compound better known as Ecstasy or molly.

The early results have been striking, researchers say, with more than half of patients who received MDMA along with psychotherapy reporting significant relief from PTSD.

Just as notably, Australian drug regulators have not recorded any serious adverse events among the nearly 200 patients who have been through the program, which includes up to three dosing sessions with MDMA, a synthetic stimulant that promotes empathy, emotional connection and feelings of euphoria.

That data point is especially relevant given the contentious debate in the United States over the safety of MDMA — one that in 2024 helped sink the prospects for MDMA therapy at the Food and Drug Administration.

“Compared to conventional treatments, the outcomes we’re seeing to date with MDMA-assisted therapy have been extraordinary,” said Dr. Ranil Gunewardene, a psychiatrist in Sydney who has treated more than 40 patients since the Australian regulators created a legal pathway for the drug.

But Australia’s experiment with psychedelic medicine also highlights the limitations and constraints that the nascent field is likely to face as it gains wider attention from regulators and practitioners. Because Australia is the first country to legalize and regulate MDMA therapy, researchers have been especially eager for real-world data about a drug that has been pejoratively associated with rave culture.

    © 2026 The New York Times Company


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https://www.science.org/content/article/dueling-ai-agents-could-reveal-keys-restoring-consciousness

Dueling AI agents could reveal keys to restoring consciousness

 By Jennie Erin Smith 

Can a “friendly” rivalry between two artificial intelligence (AI) agents help reveal how the brain supports consciousness? That’s the suggestion coma researcher Martin Monti and his colleagues at the University of California, Los Angeles make in a paper published today in Nature Neuroscience. One of their two AI models generated realistic imitations of electrical patterns seen in conscious and unconscious brain states, from wakefulness to deep comas. Its counterpart had to identify these states.

The results largely support established ideas about how the brain behaves during comas, vegetative states, and other disorders of consciousness. But they also suggest roles for a brain structure and a pattern of cell signaling not previously known to be involved in such disorders—predictions the scientists were able to test. Monti spoke with Science about how the paper’s two models, which he calls the “black box” and the “glass brain,” could reveal new ways to restore consciousness after brain injury.

This interview has been edited for clarity and lengt
Q: You built two AI models, with one designed to interrogate the other. Can you explain how they talk to each other?

A: So here’s the game: We have two friends. One—let’s call it the black box—knows how to tell consciousness from unconsciousness. It’s been trained on 680,000 snippets of EEG [electroencephalography] data from animals and people in different states of consciousness. The other—think of it as a glass brain—is a real, biologically plausible simulation of the human brain. We tell it, “Your job is to move all of your knobs, every single parameter you’ve got, to trick the other guy—the black box—to think that you’re creating a real EEG of a conscious or unconscious state.” Now, we ask the glass brain, “Which brain parameters made the box think the EEG was unconscious?”

© 2026 American Association for the Advancement of Science.
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https://undark.org/2026/03/25/lie-detection-polygraph-accuracy/

 Polygraphs Aren’t Very Accurate. Are There Better Options?

By Sarah Scoles

When George W. Maschke applied to work for the FBI in 1994, he had already held a security clearance for over 11 years. The government had deemed him trustworthy through his career in the Army. But soon, a machine and a man would not come to the same conclusion.

His application to be a special agent had passed initial muster. And so, in the spring of 1995, according to his account, he found himself sitting across from an FBI polygraph examiner, answering questions about his life and loyalties.

He told the truth, he said in an interview with Undark. But in a blog post on his website, he recalled the examiner told him that the polygraph machine — which measured some of Maschke’s physiological responses — indicated that he was being deceptive about keeping classified information secret, and about his contacts with foreign intelligence agencies.

After a failed polygraph exam in which he says he told the truth, George Maschke eventually co-founded the advocacy website AntiPolygraph.org.

“My entire career prospects were basically shattered,” said Maschke. “How could I have told the truth and failed the polygraph?”

He wanted an answer. And so soon after his failed exam, he said he went to the research library to try to learn more about what had transpired between his body, that machine, and the measuring man.

Further spurred by another negative polygraph experience, the resulting deep dive on polygraphs and examination methods eventually led him to co-found the advocacy website AntiPolygraph.org. “When I had my polygraph experience, I had no one to talk to,” said Maschke, who went on to work as a legal translator in the Netherlands. He hoped his public-facing website meant others wouldn’t have that experience.

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https://www.thetransmitter.org/spectrum/astrocytes-in-mouse-amygdala-encode-emotional-state/

Astrocytes in mouse amygdala encode emotional state

By Holly Barker

Astrocytes—but not neurons—in the amygdala encode anxiety-like states in mice, according to a paper published today in Neuron. The findings suggest that the cells—which are altered in people with some neuropsychiatric conditions, including autism—contribute to mental health difficulties documented in such groups.

“In a very sophisticated way, the [study] shows that astrocytes are these core computational cells for highly complicated behaviors,” says Michael Wheeler, assistant professor of neurology at Harvard University, who did not contribute to the new work. “Astrocytes are understanding and signaling computations in these circuits.” 

Violent movies and other stressful stimuli activate the amygdala, human imaging studies have shown. And in mice, neurons in the basolateral amygdala are active when the animals are placed in exposed environments, which they find aversive, previous research has found. But that neuronal activity appears to mark shifts between defensive and exploratory behaviors rather than tracking anxiety-related ones, according to a later study. 

The new findings suggest that astrocytes not only help neurons to regulate anxiety—as previous studies have shown—but “instruct local neurons from the top down,” says study investigator Ciaran Murphy-Royal, associate professor of neuroscience at the University of Montreal. The cells’ activity appears to function as a “safety signal,” that relays danger to other brain regions, he says.

Murphy-Royal and his colleagues used calcium imaging to measure astrocytic activity in the mouse basolateral amygdala. Calcium release tracked with freezing, hesitancy and other behaviors reminiscent of anxiety as mice investigated various environments, the team found. In the elevated plus maze, for example, astrocyte activity rose when the rodents explored an open arm of the maze and surged whenever mice peeked over the edge of the suspended setup.

© 2026 Simons Foundation

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https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/24/health/tango-therapy-parkinsons.html

Tango Therapy: How the Dance of Passion Is Helping Parkinson’s Patients

 by Pam Belluck

Tango is the national dance of Argentina, known for its passion, precision and heart. In a hospital in Buenos Aires, it has another purpose: as a therapy for patients with Parkinson’s disease. Once a week, about a dozen patients come to Ramos Mejía Hospital to dance — a session that uses the movements of tango to help address issues of balance, stiffness and coordination. The goal is to give them approaches to movement that they can use in their daily lives, as well as a social and emotional boost from moving to music.

The program began about 15 years ago, inspired by a patient who had danced tango since childhood and found it offered strategies that improved her mobility and gait problems, said Dr. Nélida Garretto, a neurologist who helped spearhead the sessions.

Dr. Tomoko Arakaki, another neurologist leading the program, said Parkinson’s patients can struggle with the stop-and-start motions of walking and can benefit from practicing the “slow, short steps” and pauses of tango. Dr. Garretto said that because tango involves “multitasking with motor stimuli, visual stimuli and auditory stimuli,” it can help patients execute the series of small movements in everyday activities.

First, warm-up exercises, usually in a circle, “try to tune everyone in, to prepare the body, to awaken the body,” said Manuel Firmani, a professional tango dancer leading the workshops. Some are done standing, some seated, depending on “the state people are in,” he said.

After exercises focusing on posture, balance and other skills, dancing begins. Each patient is paired with a partner who doesn’t have Parkinson’s, often friends, relatives or volunteers.
    © 2026 The New York Times Company


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https://www.theguardian.com/society/2026/mar/24/extra-sleep-each-night-reduce-heart-attack-risk-study-finds

Extra 11 minutes’ sleep each night can reduce heart attack risk

Sleeping for 11 minutes more each night, doing 4.5 additional minutes of brisk walking and eating an extra 50g or so of vegetables each day can significantly reduce a person’s risk of heart attack, a study has found.

Academics found these small changes could help people avoid major cardiovascular events, including heart attacks and strokes, by about 10%. Small behaviour changes were more “achievable and sustainable”, the research team said.

The study, published in the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology, was conducted by experts from Australia, Chile and Brazil who examined data on more than 53,000 middle-aged UK adults taking part in the Biobank study.

Researchers looked at sleep habits and levels of exercise through data from wearable technology such as smartwatches. People also self-reported on their dietary habits.

The researchers found that 2,034 major cardiovascular events occurred during an eight-year follow-up period. They were able to identify the “optimal” way people could avoid these incidents, including a good diet, eight to nine hours sleep each night and a minimum of 42 minutes of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity each day. Combining these measures leads to a 57% lower risk of heart attacks and strokes.

They also found the “clinically relevant” combination of behaviours that could reduce people’s risk, including more sleep, better diet and more moderate-to-vigorous activity. According to the NHS website, moderate activity can include brisk walking, dancing, pushing a lawn mower, water aerobics and riding a bike. Vigorous activity includes running, swimming, skipping and aerobics.

Dr Nicholas Koemel, the study’s lead author and a research fellow at the University of Sydney, said: “We show that combining small changes in a few areas of our lives can have a surprisingly large positive impact on our cardiovascular health.

“This is very encouraging news because making a few small, combined changes is likely more achievable and sustainable for most people when compared with attempting major changes in a single behaviour.
© 2026 Guardian News & Media Limited 
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