Study provides new evidence that sensory stimulation of gamma-frequency brain rhythm may promote broad-based restorative neurological health response.

For years, Florida Tech’s Catherine Talbot, an assistant professor of psychology, has worked to understand the sociality of male rhesus monkeys and how low-social monkeys can serve as a model for humans with autism. Her most recent findings show that replenishing a deficient hormone, vasopressin, helped the monkeys become more social without increasing their aggression—a discovery that could change autism treatment.
Currently, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that one in 36 children in the United States is affected by autism spectrum disorder (ASD). That’s an increase from one in 44 children reported in 2018. Two FDA-approved treatments currently exist, Talbot said, but they only address associated symptoms, not the root of ASD. The boost in both prevalence and awareness of the disorder prompts the following question: What is the cause?
Some rhesus monkeys are naturally low-social, meaning they demonstrate poor social cognitive skills, while others are highly social. Their individual variation in sociality is comparable to how human sociality varies, ranging from people we consider social butterflies to those who are not interested in social interactions, similar to some people diagnosed with ASD, Talbot said. Her goal has been to understand how variations in biology and behavior influence social cognition.
In a demographically diverse sample of healthy people, Cornell researchers found dramatic changes over the human lifespan in the brain’s “blue spot”—a tiny region involved in cognition and believed to be the first affected by neurodegenerative conditions including Alzheimer’s disease.
Using specialized MRI scans to measure the intensity of neuromelanin, a pigment that gives the locus coeruleus (LC) its blue color, the research team observed an inverted U-shaped curve that peaked in later middle age before dropping off sharply, a finding that helps characterize healthy aging patterns.
Maintaining a stronger blue signal after age 60 was associated with better cognitive performance, according to the study involving 134 participants aged 19 to 86. Because of the participants’ diversity, including about 40% who were non-white, the researchers also discovered higher peaks among Black participants and women, groups known to be more susceptible to Alzheimer’s.
As humans age, particularly after middle age, their brain functions, cognitive abilities and memory can deteriorate to varying degrees. Aging-related disorders marked by cognitive decline, particularly dementia, have become increasingly widespread over the past decades.
Estimates suggest that the number of individuals diagnosed with dementia could increase from 55 million in 2019 to around 139 million by 2050. Understanding the factors contributing to cognitive decline and devising methods to detect the first signs of dementia is thus of the utmost importance, as it could help to reliably pick up its emergence and plan therapeutic interventions accordingly.
In recent years, some studies have found a link between people’s ability to perceive and identify odors (i.e., olfactory function) and their cognitive abilities as older adults. While the relationship between olfactory dysfunction and cognitive decline is now well-documented, whether one causes the other or they are the result of similar aging-related or neurodegenerative mechanisms remains unclear.