<![CDATA[AI analyzes wearable data to reveal objective biomarkers for ADHD and anxiety, enabling passive tracking and earlier psychiatric detection.]]>
The Download: AI hacking beyond Mythos, and chatbots’ impact on our brains
This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology.
The Meta hack shows there’s more to AI security than Mythos
On Monday, reports emerged that attackers had used Meta’s AI customer support agent to steal Instagram accounts. Their approach was simple: they asked the agent to link the accounts to email addresses they controlled, and it complied.
Since Anthropic announced that its Mythos model was too good at hacking for a general release, cybersecurity concerns have focused on the risk of superpowered AI systems overwhelming computer infrastructure. But the Instagram hack shows that far simpler exploits can still cause damage.
As companies offload more work to AI, these comparatively unsophisticated attacks are becoming harder to ignore. Read the full story to understand why.
—Grace Huckins
Are AI chatbots making us lose control of our brains?
Gloria Mark, a psychologist at the University of California, Irvine, fears that digital technologies are weakening our cognitive abilities.
Her research suggests attention spans have fallen sharply over time, leading to higher stress and lower performance. She now believes AI tools like ChatGPT and Claude may accelerate this shift. “You’re deferring your cognitive work to AI,” she said. “And it’s not good for us.”
Mark argues this could weaken critical thinking and emotional intelligence. Luckily, she thinks we can course-correct by changing our relationship with these technologies.
Find out how AI could reshape attention and thinking.
—Jessica Hamzelou
This story is from The Checkup, our weekly newsletter giving you the inside track on all things biotech. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Thursday.
The must-reads
I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.
1 Anthropic has called for a global slowdown in AI development
It flagged the risk of models “self-improving.” (WSJ $)
+ And wants a coordinated plan to stop them. (Reuters $)
+ Skeptics note that the timing is awfully convenient. (The Register)
2 In a first, scientists have precisely edited human embryo genes
They relied on a newer gene-editing technique. (NYT $)
+ Genetically-modified babies could be on their way. (Guardian)
+ Companies have big plans for the technology. (MIT Technology Review)
3 US officials have discussed taking financial stakes in the AI firms
They’ve held talks about the government acquiring shares. (Reuters $)
+ Sam Altman pitched the idea to the White House last year. (WSJ $)
4 Bot web traffic has overtaken human web traffic
Cloudflare said 57.4% of traffic now comes from bots. (NBC News)
+ Its CEO expected the milestone at the end of 2027. (CNET)
5 The White House plans to bring AI doctors into American medicine
It wants chatbots to diagnose illness and prescribe medicine. (WSJ $)
+ But we don’t even know if healthcare AI actually helps patients. (MIT Technology Review)
6 Meta quietly added facial recognition code for smart glasses to its app
The exploratory feature would identify people via biometric data. (Wired $)
+ Smart glasses are also entering warfare. (MIT Technology Review)
7 South Korea’s labour minister wants tech firms to share AI profits
Kim Young wants staff and suppliers to get a share. (Reuters $)
+ He helped avert a huge strike over AI profit-sharing at Samsung. (NYT $)
8 Canada’s highly-anticipated AI strategy has launched
It promises over $2 billion in funding and aims to create 250,000 jobs. (BBC)
+ AI could strengthen democracy. (MIT Technology Review)
9 Investment in agricultural tech is booming
That’s good news at a time when we’re facing unprecedented levels of food market volatility. (The Economist $)
10 Bumblebees can use tools to solve problems, new research shows
Not just busy—they’re clever too! (Guardian)
Quote of the day
“Welp, that happened faster than I predicted.”
—Matthew Prince, co-founder and CEO of Cloudflare, one of the largest internet hosting services, reacts on X to reports that bots have overtaken humans in driving web traffic.
One More Thing
CHRISTOPHER PAYNE
Inside the machine that saved Moore’s Law
In a Connecticut clean room, the Dutch company ASML is developing the world’s most advanced machine for extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography, a crucial process for manufacturing microchips.
The system has become vital to Moore’s Law—the observation that the number of transistors on a chip roughly doubles every two years as components shrink, driving gains in performance and efficiency. “Without this machine, it’s gone,” says Wayne Lam, a director of research at CCS Insight. “You can’t really make any leading-edge processors without EUV.”
Discover how ASML’s EUV technology saved Moore’s Law.
—Clive Thompson
We can still have nice things
A place for comfort, fun, and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line.)
+ Tech bosses love Tolkien. Here’s what the writer might think of them.
+ Rare footage captures an underwater volcano erupting beneath the Pacific Ocean.
+ Watch a tiny rescued cub grow into adulthood in this heartwarming tiger compilation.
+ This medieval version of “Take On Me” is like stepping into a tavern of synth-pop bards.
Metabolic syndrome and perioperative neurocognitive disorders: epidemiology, mechanisms, and interventions
Perioperative neurocognitive disorders, an umbrella term encompassing preoperative cognitive impairment, acute postoperative delirium, and longer term postoperative neurocognitive disorders, represent significant complications for the growing population of older surgical patients. The rising prevalence of metabolic syndrome, defined by the clustering of abdominal obesity, insulin resistance, hypertension, and dyslipidemia, necessitates a deeper understanding of its impact on the perioperative brain. This comprehensive review elucidates the intricate epidemiological and mechanistic links between metabolic syndrome and the spectrum of cognitive decline. Epidemiologically, we disaggregate the risk profiles of individual components, demonstrating that distinct metabolic phenotypes serve as specific predictors for different phases of impairment. Mechanistically, we propose a sequential pathophysiological cascade where chronic systemic inflammation primes the brain for injury. Surgical stress triggers the failure of a compromised blood brain barrier, leading to the activation of the TLR4/NLRP3 inflammasome and the induction of central insulin resistance. These processes ultimately culminate in mitochondrial energy crises and synaptic degradation. To address these vulnerabilities, we evaluate an integrated perioperative strategy spanning preoperative metabolic optimization, intraoperative management, and emerging pharmacological interventions such as SGLT2 inhibitors and mitochondria targeted antioxidants. Critically, this review identifies a major knowledge gap regarding the absence of dedicated randomized controlled trials targeting the surgical metabolic syndrome population. Ultimately, our findings advocate for a clinical paradigm shift toward phenotype specific metabolic optimization to improve neurocognitive outcomes in these high risk patients.
Enhancing seizure prediction using a DC-SA-EBiLSTM framework with self-attention mechanism
BackgroundAccurately predicting seizures remains challenging. With advances in smart medical technology, EEG-based monitoring has become essential. This study aims to improve prediction accuracy using a hybrid framework that models multiscale EEG characteristics.MethodsEEG signals are decomposed into multiple sub-bands using the Discrete Wavelet Transform, and representative time-frequency and nonlinear features are extracted. These features are fed into a channel-centric model integrating depthwise separable convolution, self-attention, and an enhanced bidirectional long short-term memory network (DC-SA-EBiLSTM). The architecture integrates depthwise separable convolution for local spatial feature extraction, multi-head self-attention for global inter-channel dependencies, and an enhanced BiLSTM for channel-wise sequence modeling. The proposed method was evaluated on the CHB-MIT dataset using a 10-fold cross-validation protocol. An event-level leave-one-seizure-event-out validation was also conducted to assess alarm-based prediction performance.ResultsThe proposed approach achieved an average accuracy of 95.89%, sensitivity of 96.70%, specificity of 95.48%, and AUC of 99.02%. In the event-level validation, the model achieved an event sensitivity of 95.96%, an average false alarm rate of 0.316 FPR/h, and a mean early warning time of 30.52 min.ConclusionThe DC-SA-EBiLSTM framework effectively captures local and global inter-channel dependencies and provides a feature-driven approach for patient-specific preictal state prediction, showing potential for EEG-based seizure prediction.
Mirrored structural symmetry index (VMSSI): a novel approach for diagnosing MR-negative focal cortical dysplasia using structural MRI
BackgroundFocal cortical dysplasia (FCD) is a common cause of drug-resistant epilepsy, yet its diagnosis remains challenging, particularly for magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)-negative FCD. In this study, we propose a novel metric, the Voxel-Mirrored Structural Symmetry Index (VMSSI), to quantify hemispheric structural symmetry using T1-weighted MRI.MethodsA total of 104 patients with suspected FCD and 104 age and sex matched healthy controls from two centers were enrolled, and their brain images were mirrored along the longitudinal axis to create a dataset. The diagnostic discriminatory ability of magnetic resonance signal intensity value symmetry, cortical thickness symmetry and VMSSI was further verified by subject receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis. The sensitivity and specificity were used to assess the performance of VMSSI at different diagnostic thresholds.ResultsThe cortical thickness symmetry index (MeanThicknessDiff) was significantly different between the two groups (p < 0.001). The values of the combined symmetry index were significantly higher in the MR-negative FCD patient group than in the healthy control group (p < 0.001). The area under the curve (AUC) of VMSSI was 0.80 (95% CI: 0.72–0.88).VMSSI exhibited 77% sensitivity and 85% specificity at the optimal thresholds of 3.4.ConclusionThese results demonstrate that VMSSI is a reliable and effective tool for detecting MR- negative FCD, providing a quantitative structural biomarker that may aid in improving diagnostic accuracy in clinical practice.
A novel fixel-based approach for resolving neonatal white matter microstructure from clinical diffusion MRI
IntroductionPreterm birth is a major risk factor for disrupted brain development and subsequent neurodevelopmental disorders, yet the underlying mechanisms remain poorly understood. Further, typical neuroimaging analyses are particularly challenging in the neonatal brain: data is frequently low quality, and a lack of cellular development violates the assumptions relied on by many commonly-used techniques. In this study, we develop and present an advanced diffusion magnetic resonance imaging method to examine the microstructural organization of white matter in a clinically-acquired cohort of premature neonates.MethodsUsing a novel approach that resolves multiple tissue compartments within the brain, we provide highly detailed orientation and quantification of white matter fibers and tissue signal fraction. We also utilize a series of automated segmentation algorithms to identify and measure these metrics across key tracts and subcortical regions. We investigate how these measures relate to postmenstrual age, as well as to clinical factors reflecting neonatal illness severity.ResultsWe report successful segmentation and reconstruction of numerous white matter tracts throughout the neonatal brain. We further demonstrate the utility and functionality of microstructural analysis in a variety of pathologies commonly encountered in the neonatal clinical environment. Our results demonstrate tract-specific developmental trajectories, with early-maturing pathways showing higher microstructural organization. Exploratory analyses suggest that neonatal illness severity has modest, tissue-specific associations with microstructural properties.DiscussionThis work demonstrates that advanced microstructural imaging methods can extract meaningful white matter measurements from clinically-acquired scans, providing a practical framework for studying neonatal brain development in real-world hospital settings. These metrics are able to be calculated at extremely young ages, potentially allowing non-invasive study of vulnerable populations before detailed behavioral or neurological assessments are feasible.
Exploring ceramide as a novel biomarker and therapeutic target for Alzheimer’s disease
Metabolic dysregulation is increasingly being recognized as a hallmark across various neurodegenerative diseases. While Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is well-established as a dual proteinopathy characterized by amyloid-beta (Aβ) deposition and tau protein tangles, the specific mechanisms mediating lipid homeostasis imbalance have garnered increasing attention. However, translating these findings into safe clinical therapeutic targets remains a formidable challenge, primarily hindered by the pleiotropic roles of ceramides in maintaining neural and immune homeostasis, as well as the blood–brain barrier (BBB) penetration issues and systemic safety limitations of current sphingolipid-targeting strategies. We conducted a comprehensive search of electronic databases, including PubMed, Web of Science, and Google Scholar, to identify relevant studies published from database inception through March 2026. The search term combinations included: “Alzheimer’s disease,” “AD,” “ceramide,” “sphingolipid metabolism,” “biomarker,” “therapeutic target,” “neuroinflammation,” and “mitochondrial dysfunction.” To ensure the depth and rigor of this review, priority was given to peer-reviewed original research, systematic reviews, and meta-analyses. The search was restricted to English-language literature. Additionally, the reference lists of retrieved articles were manually screened to identify further relevant studies. This narrative review aims to comprehensively elucidate the potential roles of ceramides in AD pathogenesis, exploring their associations with triggering inflammatory responses, mediating apoptosis, interfering with signal transduction, and inducing mitochondrial dysfunction.
Personality functioning in adolescents with depression: links with childhood maltreatment, psychopathology, self-harm and suicidal ideation
BackgroundAdolescence represents a critical developmental period marked by significant vulnerability to depression, a condition with heterogeneous presentations that complicate clinical management. The co-occurrence of personality dysfunction with depression is known to indicate greater severity and poorer prognosis, yet specific features of this comorbidity in adolescent clinical samples require further delineation. This study aimed to compare clinical and psychosocial correlates in depressed adolescents with and without impaired personality functioning.MethodsThe clinical sample comprised 73 adolescents (aged 12–17; 83.6% female) diagnosed with depression or reporting clinically significant depressive symptoms. Participants completed self-report measures assessing personality functioning (LoPF-Q 12–18), childhood maltreatment (CEQ), psychopathology (YSR 11-18), mentalizing capacity (RFQY-8), borderline traits (BPFS-C), and self-harm behavior. Based on LoPF-Q 12-18 T-scores, participants were categorized into two subgroups: depression without personality dysfunction (T ≤ 64; n=20) and depression with personality dysfunction (T ≥ 65; n=53).ResultsResults indicated that adolescents with co-occurring depression and personality dysfunction exhibited significantly lower functioning across all personality domains compared to those with depression alone. This subgroup also reported an earlier onset and higher frequency of self-harm, more severe suicidal ideation, elevated borderline traits, and greater impairments in mentalizing. Furthermore, they demonstrated higher levels of internalizing, affective, conduct, and PTSD symptoms, alongside greater exposure to emotional neglect.ConclusionImpaired personality functioning in depressed adolescents is associated with elevated and multifaceted patterns of symptoms, including subjective distress and risky behaviors. These findings underscore the necessity of routinely assessing personality functioning in adolescents with clinically significant depressive symptoms to enable early identification and the development of tailored, integrated interventions for this high-risk subgroup.
Additive impulsivity and emotion dysregulation in adolescents with comorbid bipolar and substance use disorder: a cross-sectional factorial study
IntroductionComorbid bipolar disorder (BD) and substance use disorder (SUD) in adolescence is associated with poor clinical outcomes, yet the independent and interactive contributions of impulsivity and emotion dysregulation remain poorly understood.MethodsThis cross-sectional study employed a 2 × 2 factorial design to examine impulsivity, measured with the Barratt Impulsiveness Scale-11, and emotion regulation difficulties, measured with the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale, across four groups of adolescents (N = 128; aged 12–18 years): BD+SUD (n = 32), BD-only (n = 32), SUD-only (n = 32), and healthy controls (n = 32). All clinical participants were assessed during euthymia. Factorial analyses of covariance controlled for age, sex, residence, family structure, and income.ResultsSignificant BD × SUD interactions were found for emotion regulation, F(1,120) = 35.89, p < .001, ηp2 = .230, and impulsivity, F(1,120) = 9.51, p = .002, ηp2 = .073. The BD+SUD group showed the highest scores on both measures, exceeding the SUD-only group by 38.90 points on emotion dysregulation and 26.72 points on impulsivity. In the substance-using subsample (n = 64), impulsivity was the strongest predictor of substance use severity (B = 0.61, p < .001; R2 = .48). The BD+SUD group also displayed earlier illness onset, mixed-feature predominance, greater polydrug use, and exclusive high-lethality suicide attempts. Low income was the strongest exploratory predictor of clinical group membership.DiscussionThese findings support an additive comorbidity model in which BD and SUD jointly amplify impulsivity and emotion dysregulation, and they highlight the need for integrated, impulsivity-focused interventions in adolescents with dual diagnoses.
Waiting between war and loss: a qualitative study on the experience of ambiguous loss among Syrian refugees
IntroductionAmbiguous loss refers to individuals’ lack of knowledge about the whereabouts or fate of loved ones due to traumatic events such as war or natural disasters. It is associated with significant economic, social, and psychological consequences, including grief, depression, and identity confusion.MethodsWe examined the psychological impact of ambiguous loss among 15 refugees displaced by the Syrian civil war. Participants (22 -53 years old; 9 women, 6 men) had experienced the disappearance or prolonged uncertainty regarding the fate of their spouse, child, sibling, or relative and had lived with uncertainty regarding the fate of their loved one for 4 to 13 years (in some cases, the uncertainty resolved after the interviews). We collected the data through semi-structured interviews and analyzed them using inductive thematic analysis.ResultsFindings revealed emotional oscillation between hope and hopelessness, social isolation, and difficulties adapting to changing roles. Although beliefs and collective rituals served as coping resources, inadequate support and stigma intensified distress.DiscussionThe results indicate that ambiguous loss is embedded in sociocultural contexts and underscore the need for culturally sensitive, family- and community-based psychosocial interventions and supportive national policies.