Research Highlights

Our research highlights focus on behavioral and social sciences funded by the National Institutes of Health. These articles are for informational purposes only. They do not signify endorsement of specific studies or offer medical or treatment advice.

Subscribe to receive interesting findings from recently published, NIH-funded behavioral and social sciences research.

Research Highlights by Year

2025 | 2024 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019 | See All
Research Spotlights

Increased anxiety and worrying may lead to increase heart disease and diabetes risk factors in men at younger ages

Cash payments to low-income families impact infant brain activity

Access to ambulatory healthcare services decreased during the COVID-19 pandemic, especially for poorer Americans

Research Spotlights

The effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on sleep and mental health of health care workers

Education’s protective effect against midlife mental health challenges may be decreasing for Americans

AI may help improve doctor-patient communication

Research Spotlights

Homicide is a leading cause of maternal mortality in the U.S.

The biological impacts of social isolation among older adults

The COVID-19 pandemic altered food-related parenting practices of parents with young children

Research Spotlights

Development of brain’s emotion circuitry is altered by early-life abuse

Promoting physical exercise by applying engineering tools to personalize fitness tracker messages

Certain personality traits linked to Alzheimer’s disease risk

Research Spotlights

Reported domestic violence crimes decreased in Chicago during the 2020 COVID-19 stay-at-home order but may not reflect true levels of violence

Multiple studies suggest that social alcohol use decreased during the COVID-19 pandemic but non-social alcohol use in young adults and adolescences increased

Chronic social isolation signals starvation and reduces sleep in Drosophila

Research Spotlights

Trends in Consumption of Ultraprocessed Foods Among US Youths Aged 2-19 Years, 1999-2018

Social connections and maternal care in young wild hyenas modifies gene expression and stress resilience later in life

Examining unique substance-related risk profiles for neglectful behaviors among parents with and without clinical depression

Research Spotlights

High daily screen time linked to cognitive and behavioral problems in preterm children

Variable mental health of college students during the COVID-19 pandemic

Gut bacteria are associated with how infants experience fear

Research Spotlights

Response to chronic stress passed down from fathers’ sperm in mice

Barriers to opioid treatment for reproductive-age women decrease access to life-saving medications

Computational modeling – a potential tool to guide individually tailored language rehabilitation plans for bilingual stroke patients with aphasia

Research Spotlights

Imagining and evaluating future events activates two distinct brain networks

Disparities in COVID-19 testing and positivity rates found in rural Black communities and areas with food insecurity

Computational Methods to Measure Patterns of Gaze in Toddlers with Autism Spectrum Disorder

Research Spotlights

Long-term exposure to traffic-related noise or air pollution further increases risk for cognitive decline in people with metabolic dysfunction

In-person school visits has a marginal impact on COVID-19 transmission

Brain proteome-wide association study implicates novel proteins in depression pathogenesis