Research involving a Rutgers professor sheds new light on the biological basis of schizophrenia by directly measuring synaptic connections in the human brain using specialized positron emission tomography (PET) imaging.

The study, published in Molecular Psychiatry, was led by senior authors Avram Holmes, associate professor of psychiatry at Robert Wood Johnson Medical School and core faculty member of the Center for Advanced Human Brain Imaging Research within the Rutgers Brain Health Institute, and Rajiv Radhakrishnan, associate professor of psychiatry and radiology and biomedical imaging at Yale University. First author Sidhant Chopra, formerly a postdoctoral fellow in the Holmes Lab, is a McKenzie Research Fellow at Orygen, Australia’s Centre of Excellence in Youth Mental Health, and the University of Melbourne in Australia.

A new study shows that a smoking cessation treatment program delivered at community oncology care settings can nearly double quit rates for cancer patients who currently smoke. Investigators from Mass General Brigham Cancer Institute and Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center led a randomized clinical trial for the ECOG-ACRIN Cancer Research Group (ECOG-ACRIN), testing a treatment program that includes virtual therapy and nicotine replacement medications. Results, published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, show that the intervention was well utilized and nearly doubled the quit rate at 6 months’ post-treatment.

Researchers have demonstrated a novel AI model that can predict which DNA molecules bind with which other DNA molecules. Providing a more thorough understanding of these hypercomplex binding relationships has utility in applications ranging from biomedical diagnostic tools to DNA computing.

A new study in the journal Drug and Alcohol Dependence Reports found that adults with disabilities received AUD diagnoses at more than three times the rate of adults without disabilities between 2016-2023. Adults with serious mental illness, such as severe depression, schizophrenia, and bipolar disorder, had the highest rates of AUD at more than 10 times the rate of non-disabled adults. Adults with acquired brain injuries, such as traumatic brain injury and stroke, had the second-highest rates of AUD, at over 5 times the rate of non-disabled adults. Importantly, adults with all types of disabilities had higher rates of AUD than adults without disabilities.