This Week in Neuroscience and Psychedelics

China announces major milestone for their brain-computer interface medical device program

September 19, 2025

This Week...

A team of scientists from Lund University announced a proof-of-concept study indicating that a self-administered digital cognitive test – dubbed BioCog – can detect cognitive impairment and, when combined with a blood test, accurately identify clinical Alzheimer’s disease in primary care.

According to Lund University’s Professor Oskar Hansson, the BioCog digital test, which patients perform on their own with minimal involvement from healthcare personnel, improves the primary care physician’s ability to determine who should be further examined by blood tests for Alzheimer’s pathology early in the investigation phase. Check it out: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-025-03965-4

China’s State Food and Drug Administration announced the approval of a brain-computer interface medical device standard for a new brain-computer interface technology. This is China's first brain-computer interface medical device standard, laying the foundation for the development of the country’s brain-computer interface medical device industry. The standard will be formally implemented on January 1, 2026.  

Worth noting, this news comes just weeks after China's state media described plans for “significant progress in the development of BCI chips” and high-performance communications silicon designed to filter and transmit neural signals in real time. Here’s more: https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/china-bci-blueprint

A new study was released showing that there is no evidence to suggest that prescribed opioid pain medications during pregnancy cause autism or ADHD in children. While earlier data suggested a potential link, those associations largely disappeared in this latest study after accounting for genetics, parental mental health, and shared family environment.

Comparisons between siblings, as well as children of parents prescribed opioids before, but not during pregnancy, supported this conclusion. These findings provide reassurance to pregnant individuals and clinicians that opioid use, when medically necessary, does not substantially increase neurodevelopmental risk. Check it out: https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1004721

Did You Know?

Did you know that a green-Mediterranean diet can slow brain aging by altering key blood proteins linked to neurodegeneration?

Using MRI scans and proteomic profiling, researchers tracked nearly 300 participants over 18 months and found that diet significantly shaped the brain age gap. Two proteins, Galectin-9 and Decorin, emerged as strong indicators of accelerated brain aging but were reduced by the polyphenol-rich green-Mediterranean diet. These findings highlight the potential of diet-based strategies to modulate biological pathways tied to Alzheimer’s and age-related cognitive decline.  Here’s more: https://www.clinicalnutritionjournal.com/article/S0261-5614(25)00235-3/fulltext