The World's Largest Brain-Scan Study Will Compare Eight Mental Illnesses Side by Side
Researchers at USC's Keck School of Medicine have launched a five-year, NIH-funded project to analyze more than 94,000 brain scans from 257 research sites across 27 countries, covering people ages 4 to 95. The study will map brain function in eight conditions — schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, major depression, PTSD, OCD, ADHD, autism, and anorexia — using one shared analysis method, the first global effort to standardize how functional brain scans are studied in psychiatry. Led by Paul M. Thompson of the Stevens Neuroimaging and Informatics Institute, the goal is to find which brain patterns are shared across diagnoses and which are unique, with the hope of eventually guiding diagnosis and treatment response.
Source: Keck School of Medicine of USC (NIH-funded press release, October 22, 2026)
How the Young Brain's Maturation Timeline May Foreshadow Teen Depression and Anxiety
Tracking nearly 12,000 children from around age nine with brain scans every two years, researchers found that the brain's outer layer thins on a clear schedule — sensory areas maturing first, around age 13, followed by frontal areas involved in planning and managing emotions, around age 16. Children whose sensory areas were still relatively thick at age nine were more likely to report anxiety or depression symptoms by age 13, and the brain regions linked to later symptoms overlapped with regions tied to gene activity before birth. The work, led by University of Iowa child psychiatrist Jacqueline Clauss and reported by Nature, was posted as a preprint ahead of peer review, and outside experts caution that these population-level patterns cannot yet predict any individual child's future.
Source: Nature (news coverage of a bioRxiv preprint, October 22, 2026)
Support Made the Difference for LGBTQ+ Youth as Anxiety and Depression Rose
The Trevor Project's two-year Project SPARK study followed 1,689 LGBTQ+ young people ages 13–24 across the United States, surveying them every six months from 2023 to 2026. Over that period, reports of anxiety rose from 54% to 63% and depression from 43% to 51%, while thoughts of suicide stayed persistently high at about 40% — yet self-harm and suicide attempts both declined slightly. Young people with strong family support, affirming home environments, and helpful mental health care experiences fared better over time, even as discrimination and exposure to conversion therapy increased.
Source: The Trevor Project (Project SPARK two-year findings, October 20, 2026)
Researchers at USC's Keck School of Medicine have launched a five-year, NIH-funded project to analyze more than 94,000 brain scans from 257 research sites across 27 countries, covering people ages 4 to 95. The study will map brain function in eight conditions — schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, major depression, PTSD, OCD, ADHD, autism, and anorexia — using one shared analysis method, the first global effort to standardize how functional brain scans are studied in psychiatry. Led by Paul M. Thompson of the Stevens Neuroimaging and Informatics Institute, the goal is to find which brain patterns are shared across diagnoses and which are unique, with the hope of eventually guiding diagnosis and treatment response.
Source: Keck School of Medicine of USC (NIH-funded press release, October 22, 2026)
How the Young Brain's Maturation Timeline May Foreshadow Teen Depression and Anxiety
Tracking nearly 12,000 children from around age nine with brain scans every two years, researchers found that the brain's outer layer thins on a clear schedule — sensory areas maturing first, around age 13, followed by frontal areas involved in planning and managing emotions, around age 16. Children whose sensory areas were still relatively thick at age nine were more likely to report anxiety or depression symptoms by age 13, and the brain regions linked to later symptoms overlapped with regions tied to gene activity before birth. The work, led by University of Iowa child psychiatrist Jacqueline Clauss and reported by Nature, was posted as a preprint ahead of peer review, and outside experts caution that these population-level patterns cannot yet predict any individual child's future.
Source: Nature (news coverage of a bioRxiv preprint, October 22, 2026)
Support Made the Difference for LGBTQ+ Youth as Anxiety and Depression Rose
The Trevor Project's two-year Project SPARK study followed 1,689 LGBTQ+ young people ages 13–24 across the United States, surveying them every six months from 2023 to 2026. Over that period, reports of anxiety rose from 54% to 63% and depression from 43% to 51%, while thoughts of suicide stayed persistently high at about 40% — yet self-harm and suicide attempts both declined slightly. Young people with strong family support, affirming home environments, and helpful mental health care experiences fared better over time, even as discrimination and exposure to conversion therapy increased.
Source: The Trevor Project (Project SPARK two-year findings, October 20, 2026)