Nitrous oxide is a dissociative hallucinogen that is increasingly used recreationally, in part due to its widespread availability. Its use is known to cause subacute combined degeneration via inactivation of vitamin B12; it may also result in acute delirium and chronic progressive encephalopathy. Though current practice guidelines call for treatment of neurological sequelae of nitrous oxide use with vitamin B12 supplementation, a paucity of long-term outcome data limits our ability to guide extended courses of treatment. In this report, we discuss a case of protracted encephalopathy associated with nitrous oxide use. We track the response to vitamin B12 supplementation in the hospital setting using the Mini-Mental Status Exam to assess the severity and improvement of cognitive impairment. We also review the patient’s comorbid medical and psychiatric conditions, which complicate diagnosis and treatment planning in this patient population.
DNA-guided CRISPR–Cas12 for cellular RNA targeting
Nature Biotechnology, Published online: 15 May 2026; doi:10.1038/s41587-026-03129-w
ΨDNA guides are used with Cas12 for precise, programmable targeting of cellular RNA.
Guide DNA — not RNA — expands the CRISPR toolkit
Nature Biotechnology, Published online: 15 May 2026; doi:10.1038/s41587-026-03138-9
Cas12 nucleases can use guide DNA instead of guide RNA, which switches their targets from DNA to RNA.
Widespread DNA off-targeting confounds RNA chromatin occupancy studies
Nature Biotechnology, Published online: 15 May 2026; doi:10.1038/s41587-026-03130-3
Many long noncoding RNA–DNA binding peaks detected using common assays arise from technical artifacts.
What Galen’s dissections reveal about tacit learning in modern medical education
Nature Medicine, Published online: 15 May 2026; doi:10.1038/s41591-026-04412-8
What Galen’s dissections reveal about tacit learning in modern medical education
Population-scale genomic medicine with the Hong Kong Genome Project
Nature Medicine, Published online: 15 May 2026; doi:10.1038/s41591-026-04410-w
Part of the Hong Kong Genome Project, genomic analyses of more than 20,000 participants provide information on clinically relevant variants for the Chinese population and offer insights on the implementation of genomic medicine initiatives.
Favipiravir for Lassa fever: an open-label, randomized controlled phase 2 trial
Nature Medicine, Published online: 15 May 2026; doi:10.1038/s41591-026-04402-w
An open-label, randomized controlled phase 2 trial comparing favipiravir with ribavirin for the treatment of mild-to-moderate Lassa fever in Nigeria found that favipiravir was safe and well tolerated and supports its further optimization as a treatment alternative.
Parsing autism spectrum heterogeneity through fMRI
Nature Neuroscience, Published online: 15 May 2026; doi:10.1038/s41593-026-02269-1
Autism is remarkably heterogeneous, posing a long-standing challenge for linking genetics to brain dynamics. A cross-species study identifies two principal dysconnectivity signatures across 20 mouse models of autism risk, each associated with distinct molecular pathways, and shows analogous connectivity patterns in autistic humans. These results establish a translational framework for biologically grounded fMRI phenotyping.
Excitatory synapses onto axonic spines jump-start action potentials and route information flow
Nature Neuroscience, Published online: 15 May 2026; doi:10.1038/s41593-026-02282-4
The axon initial segment was known to receive GABAergic synaptic inputs. Yang et al. show that it can be excited directly via specialized ‘axonic spines’. These spines thus boost neuronal firing and act as a fast track to route circuit information.
Autism subtypes identified using cross-species functional connectivity analyses
Nature Neuroscience, Published online: 15 May 2026; doi:10.1038/s41593-026-02287-z
Pagani et al. used cross-species fMRI to reveal two autism subtypes, characterized by lower and higher brain connectivity and linked to synaptic and immune-related pathways, respectively.