Mind & body, in brief

The 2026 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine went to Karl Deisseroth of Stanford University in the US, Peter Hegemann of Humboldt University in Berlin and Georg Nagel of the University of Wurzburg in Germany. [1][3]

The prize is for optogenetics, a method that lets scientists switch chosen nerve cells on or off in a living brain, using light. [8][7]

It began with a single-celled green alga called Chlamydomonas, which swims towards light, and Hegemann's question about how it does that. [3][6]

Hegemann and Nagel found the answer in the alga's eyespot: a protein they called channelrhodopsin, which works as a gate in the cell's outer skin. [6][2]

When blue light hits the gate, it opens in about 0.2 milliseconds and lets charged particles flow into the cell. That makes a tiny electrical signal. [6]

Nerve cells pass messages with electrical signals of this kind. In 2005 Deisseroth's lab put the gene for the alga's protein into rat nerve cells, and blue light then made those cells fire. [7][1]

His team then shone light down thin optical fibres into the brains of living mice. Switching on the light could move a whisker or wake a sleeping mouse. [3][6]

Before this, scientists could mostly watch which brain cells were busy during a feeling or a memory. Now they can switch those cells on or off and see what changes, which shows cause and effect. [3][6][4]

Deisseroth told STAT that scientists usually use light to collect information. With optogenetics, he said, light is used to make things happen. [1]

In an early trial, a man blinded by retinitis pigmentosa, an inherited disease that kills the eye's light-sensing cells, partly regained his sight. [3][8] A harmless virus carried the alga's gene into his retina, and goggles turned the scene in front of him into pulses of light. [3]

Researchers also hope to use it in better cochlear implants, the devices that help deaf people hear, and against Parkinson's disease and epilepsy. [7][10]

Neuroscientists had expected this prize for years; one asked a Nature reporter what took the committee so long. [9] The same work won the Brain Prize in 2013, shared with three more researchers, and a Nobel can go to no more than three people. [11][1]

Why it matters. The prize rewards a research tool, and its use as a treatment in people only began in the past few years; the test to watch is whether the blindness trials give useful sight to more patients. [9][3]

A study in the journal Nature Medicine pooled answers from more than 6 million people in 118 countries, collected between 1990 and 2025. [12] Women reported more pain than men at all 11 body sites measured, most of all headache, face and stomach pain. [12] Back pain was the most common, at about 40% of people, and face pain the rarest, at 2%. [12] An earlier review found women in mid-life about 16% more likely than men to have long-lasting pain. [13]

Why it matters. Pain is the world's leading cause of disability, and the study linked 18% of it to smoking, obesity and low income. [12] Why women carry more of it is still open: a US-funded study in mice tied the gap to an immune signal that helps end pain, which has not been tested in people. [14]

The World Cancer Research Fund, a cancer-prevention charity, compared official cancer records from England, the US and the Netherlands. [15] In England, prostate cancer in men under 50 went from 1 to 3.6 cases per 100,000 people between 2001 and 2023. [15] Bowel cancer in under-50s went from 3.9 to 8.4. [15] In the US, kidney cancer in under-50s more than doubled after 2000. [15] Lung cancer fell in young adults in all three countries, as fewer people smoke. [15]

Why it matters. Cancer under 50 is still uncommon, and most people are over 60 when they are diagnosed. [15] The charity points to obesity, diet and alcohol, and to earlier checks, but an earlier English study found body weight explained only a small part of the rise. [16] Worldwide, the WHO expects new cancer cases to rise from 20.6 million a year to nearly 35 million by 2050. [38]

Pennsylvania's health department confirmed 1,004 measles cases this year on Monday, the largest outbreak in a US state in more than three decades. [17] Five people have died and 198 have been in hospital. [17] Lancaster County, home to large Amish and Mennonite communities, has 391 of the cases. [17] The same day, New York's governor, Kathy Hochul, declared a disaster emergency over 108 cases and let more health workers give the measles jab. [18]

Why it matters. Measles spreads again when fewer than about 95 in every 100 people are vaccinated, health experts say. [18] The national count is disputed: the CDC, overseen by health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr, lists two US measles deaths this year, while Pennsylvania alone counts five. [17]

Florida's health department has proposed dropping several school vaccine requirements and letting parents opt out on moral grounds. [19] Researchers used a computer model, published in the journal PNAS, to ask what would happen if the state also dropped its measles jab rule. [19] The model projected the largest US measles epidemic in nearly half a century. [19] It also found that vaccinating one child cut spread about three times as much as vaccinating one adult. [19]

Why it matters. Children spend long hours in close contact at school, which is why the model puts the risk in classrooms. [19] A model is a forecast built from assumptions, not a count of real cases. [19]

The International Planned Parenthood Federation, a network of sexual-health groups in more than 170 countries, surveyed members in 40 countries. [20] More than half had run out of an HIV product in the past year, and HIV rapid tests were the hardest hit. [20] PrEP, a medicine that stops people catching HIV, was low or gone at 12 of them. [20] A separate survey of clinics in 38 countries in late 2025 found 81% had lost at least one HIV service after US aid was frozen. [21]

Why it matters. Aid spending fell by about 23% in 2025, and the UN warned that HIV could come back. [20] Treatment has held up better than feared: US figures show the number on US-supported treatment fell by only about 100,000, out of more than 20 million, in a year. [22]

The US supplied most of Tanzania's birth control until it stopped abruptly in 2025, when the Trump administration shut USAID, its aid agency. [23] Patrick Kinemo, who runs the health charity MSI Reproductive Choices in Tanzania, says rural clinics often run out of the most popular methods. [23] The US also ordered almost $10 million of contraceptives in a Belgian warehouse destroyed, many of them meant for Tanzania. [23]

Why it matters. New US health deals with Tanzania cover HIV, tuberculosis and mothers' health, but not family planning, Kinemo says. [23] One in five maternal deaths in Tanzania is linked to unsafe abortion, and about 8,000 girls a year leave school because they are pregnant. [23]

988 is the US phone, text and chat line for people thinking about suicide or in crisis. [24] Its special option for LGBTQ young people was shut in July 2025 and restored on 30 September 2026, after members of both parties in the US Congress pushed for it. [24] Before it closed, the option took more than 1.5 million contacts, about 10% of all 988 contacts, and its use was rising. [24] The US Congress had kept funding it at $33.1 million a year. [24]

Why it matters. LGBTQ high-school students report thinking about and attempting suicide more often than other students. [24] KFF, a US health research group, says the year-long closure may have cost young people's trust. [24] In June, STAT reported that the Trevor Project, the charity that helped build the line, might not be allowed to run it. [25]

Medicaid, the US public health plan for people on low incomes, pays for more than two-thirds of the long-term care given in people's homes and communities. [26] KFF estimates that more than 5 million people on Medicaid use home care. [26] Most of it is optional for states, which can cap the number of places and keep waiting lists. [26] A 2025 law is expected to cut federal money for Medicaid by a large amount. [26]

Why it matters. KFF says waiting lists could grow if states respond by cutting places. [26] Some states have already cut their programmes, while in others the proposed cuts did not pass. [26]

Doctors in Wales say ten-minute GP appointments leave too little time to check for cancers of the womb, ovaries and cervix. [27] Dr Amara Naseem says a careful history and an internal examination take about 20 minutes. [27] In a survey for the cancer charity Tenovus, about half of 100 GPs in Wales called short appointments a major concern. [27] The Welsh government says it is recruiting up to 100 extra GPs. [27]

Why it matters. Rates of these cancers in Wales, and deaths from them, are higher than the UK average, Tenovus says. [27] Early signs such as bloating are easy to confuse with harmless conditions, which takes time to sort out in a short visit. [27]

A 28-year-old woman who worked at an anti-plague institute near Irkutsk, in Siberia, died of pneumonia on 2 October. [28] Russia's disease-control agency says tests found no germ linked to her work, which contradicts earlier reports. [28] Two hospitals and a children's clinic were put under quarantine, and local reports said the institute's staff were isolated at work. [28] Plague is caused by a bacterium carried by rodents and their fleas. [28]

Why it matters. Pneumonic plague, the form that settles in the lungs, is the only one that passes easily between people, through coughing. [28] Without treatment it is always fatal, and symptoms can start within 24 hours, which is why the WHO says it can start severe epidemics. [28]

A Greek team led by Giorgos Skretas reports that a molecule called RSQ-020 restored learning and memory in animals with features of Alzheimer's disease. [29] It targets tau, a protein that folds into the wrong shape and clumps in the disease. [29] To find it, the team put the human protein into bacteria that glow green when a molecule puts the protein right. [29] Each bacterium made a different candidate molecule, so billions could be tested at once. [29]

Why it matters. Misshapen proteins are a common feature of Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and ALS, and the team first built the method for ALS. [29] The results are from animals only; the molecule has not been tested in people. [29]

Wellcome, a global health charity, surveyed 1,000 midwives, doctors and other maternal health workers in Australia, Brazil, India, the UK and Zimbabwe. [30] Nearly three in four said heat-related problems in pregnancy had increased over the past five years. [30] Wellcome links every 1C rise in temperature to about 5% more premature births and 7% more diabetes in pregnancy. [30] Simon Stiell, the UN's climate chief, cited the survey at a meeting in Fiji on 5 October. [30]

Why it matters. Women who work outdoors, or have no cool place at home, have the least protection, Stiell said. [30] A Wellcome project with 1,600 women in Zimbabwe and South Africa is testing cheap protections such as fans, water bottles and roofs painted white. [30]

Eva Hilland, a brain scientist at Oslo Metropolitan University, is recruiting 50 people for a trial that adds sauna sessions to simple mental-health habits. [31] When she searched the research, she found little strong evidence, and most human studies had no fair comparison group. [31] The best so far is a trial of 30 people with depression: about half were warmed to 38.5C in a heat machine and the rest got a fake treatment. [31] Within a week, most of the heated group had their symptoms halved. [31]

Why it matters. Sauna users report calmer moods and better sleep, but some of that may come from company and time away from screens rather than heat. [31] A trial that assigns sauna by chance is how those two get separated. [31]

Christian Rominger, a psychologist at the University of Graz in Austria, led a 2022 review of 115 studies that found a link between movement and creativity. [32] A 2024 study found that people who took more steps produced more creative work. [32] David Strayer at the University of Utah measured people before and after hiking trips and found a big rise in creativity afterwards. [32] Scientists do not yet know why. [32]

Why it matters. One idea is that movement lifts mood and a better mood helps ideas come, but Rominger says the two cannot yet be tied together. [32] Strayer says benefits seem to start at about three sessions a week of 30 to 60 minutes. [32]

On social media, 'fibre maxxing' means eating as much fibre as possible and paying close attention to bowel movements. [33] Bill Sullivan, a microbiologist at Indiana University, told Scientific American there is sound evidence for eating fibre up to the recommended level. [33] The US Department of Agriculture puts that level at 22 to 34 grams a day for adults, and Sullivan says there is no need to go beyond it. [33] Gut bacteria turn fibre into substances that calm inflammation. [33]

Why it matters. People who live long and healthy lives tend to have a wider variety of gut bacteria. [33] Scientists cannot yet say whether the gut causes the long life or comes with it, and trials that transplant gut bacteria are one way to find out. [33]

Researchers in China studied 2,235 pairs of mothers and daughters. [34] About 18% of the mothers and 14% of the daughters reported hard childhoods, such as abuse or neglect. [34] Daughters with a hard childhood had about twice the odds of serious stress in the year before pregnancy, such as conflict with a partner, abuse or money trouble. [34] Most of the link between a mother's childhood and her daughter's stress ran through the daughter's own childhood. [34]

Why it matters. The study shows things that go together, from what people remembered, rather than proving a cause. [34] Its authors want hard childhoods spotted before pregnancy, when support can still reach mother and baby. [34]

A small study called RBVD tested 24 vegans and 26 meat-eaters, aged 30 to 60, in 2017 and again in 2021. [35] The vegans ate more fibre and less saturated fat, and had lower total and 'bad' LDL cholesterol both times. [35] Their vitamin B12 levels matched the meat-eaters', but their selenium and zinc were lower each time. [35] Both groups ate about the same amount of energy. [35]

Why it matters. Fifty people followed for four years cannot show what a diet does to health over decades, and the authors say longer research is needed. [35]

Neurofibromatosis type 1, or NF1, is an inherited condition that can make it harder to read emotions and to learn. [36] In a trial, 15 people with NF1 took lovastatin, a cholesterol drug, and a dummy pill, in random order, without knowing which was which. [36] On lovastatin, one kind of brain wave linked to reading faces fell while they judged emotions, but not during a control task. [36] The drug acts on a chain of chemical signals inside cells that is disturbed in NF1. [36]

Why it matters. Because every person took both the drug and the dummy, the change can be put down to the drug rather than to differences between people. [36] It is a small, early study of brain signals, not of daily life. [36]

Researchers measured 118 healthy East Asian women past menopause, with an average age of 61. [37] Women who walked further in a six-minute test had less stiff arteries, measured by how fast a pulse travels from the neck to the thigh. [37] More fat packed around the organs went with stiffer arteries. [37] Heart and blood-vessel disease kills more women after menopause than any other illness. [37]

Why it matters. It is a single snapshot of 118 women, so it shows what goes together, not what causes what. [37] The authors still want programmes that cut belly fat and get women walking. [37]