Alix Popham played in two rugby World Cups and won a Six Nations Grand Slam before retiring in 2011 as a professional in the rough-and-tumble game. By 2020, he had already been diagnosed with early onset dementia and probable chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a disabling brain disease long linked to repeated head trauma. Emboldened to…  read on >  read on >

“Magic” mushrooms achieve their psychedelic effects by temporarily scrambling a brain network involved in introspective thinking like daydreaming and remembering, a new study reports. Brain scans of people who took psilocybin — the psychedelic drug in ‘shrooms — revealed that the substance causes profound and widespread temporary changes to the brain’s default mode network. These…  read on >  read on >

Autopsies of deceased boxers and pro football players have long confirmed that repeat head injuries can lead to a devastating brain condition known as chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE). Now, research supports the notion that contact sports can also raise the odds for a Parkinson’s-like disease, called parkinsonism, in athletes already affected by CTE. In the…  read on >  read on >