**The mental budgets we keep for money held up across 21 countries**
More than 5,000 people in 21 countries worked through classic spending scenarios in a large replication effort led from the University of Padova and published in the Journal of Consumer Research. The core patterns held up: people treated the same sum differently depending on context, such as valuing a small saving more on a cheap item than on a pricey one, or being readier to pay more for the same drink at an upscale spot. The strength of these effects varied somewhat with local economic conditions, but the overall picture was consistent across countries. Source: Cambridge Judge Business School — https://www.jbs.cam.ac.uk/2026/landmark-21-country-study-confirms-mental-accounting-shapes-how-we-spend/
**A shift in dreaming-sleep brain waves tracked with weaker overnight memory in older adults**
Researchers at UC Berkeley examined sleep recordings from two separate groups and found that, with advancing age, dream-stage sleep contained more slow, deep-sleep-like waves and fewer fast, sawtooth-shaped ones, especially in the most active phases of dreaming sleep. That shift went along with higher levels of Alzheimer's-related proteins and with weaker retention of memories overnight, even after accounting for deep-sleep quality. A well-known Alzheimer's risk gene variant was also tied to fewer of the fast waves, though the work links patterns rather than proving a cause. Source: Nature Communications — https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-026-78425-9
**Movement conditions showed up more often in older autistic adults' health records**
In a study of linked US Medicare and Medicaid records covering nearly 57 million adults aged 45 and older from 2017 to 2019, researchers compared recorded movement-related diagnoses across groups. About 3.8% of autistic adults without intellectual disability had a Parkinson-like diagnosis on record, versus about 1.6% of the comparison group, and the gap remained after excluding people prescribed antipsychotic medicines. Because the work relies on billing records rather than uniform neurological exams, it shows an association that needs follow-up, not a proven cause. Source: Knowridge (reporting George Washington University research) — https://knowridge.com/2026/10/study-finds-more-parkinson-like-conditions-among-older-autistic-adults/