At the 2025 European College of Neuropsychopharmacology (ECNP) Congress in Amsterdam this week, researchers presented new findings on the role of endocannabinoids in stress, addiction … and the integrity of the blood-brain-barrier.

Who knew? In addition to adopting a new name, Kneu Health Ltd. recently raised $5.6 million in a seed funding round for its smart-phone-based platform which helps to monitor neurological disorders to enable timely intervention. The funds secured will be used to expand commercial operations in the U.S., scale deployments for Parkinson's disease and advance the monitoring capabilities of the platform for dementia.

Japan is reimagining how mental health care can be delivered digitally and proactively, with local governments investing in digital technology to create data-driven safety nets that aim to detect distress and deliver help, presenters said during the Bio Japan 2025 conference in Yokohama, Oct. 8 to 10.

Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) are commonly used to treat inflammatory pain, but they can have severe side effects, including potentially life-threatening gastrointestinal, renal and cardiac toxicity. Their analgesic effect is driven by inhibition of prostaglandin (PG) biosynthesis and subsequent inflammation, but this inhibitory effect on inflammation could delay pain resolution. An optimal approach to managing PG-mediated pain would selectively relieve pain while preserving the PGs’ essential inflammatory and protective functions.

Researchers at the Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia (IBEC) and collaborators have introduced a novel therapeutic strategy for Alzheimer’s disease (AD) that leverages the multivalency of supramolecular nanomedicines to reprogram blood-brain barrier (BBB) function, facilitating efficient amyloid-β (Aβ) clearance and restoring cognitive function in animal models.

Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a progressive disease characterized by loss of dopaminergic neurons in the substantia nigra, which lead to motor symptoms. Aromatic-L-amino-acid decarboxylase (AADC) converts levodopa into dopamine and glial cell line-derived neurotrophic factor (GDNF) promotes the survival, growth and regeneration of dopaminergic neurons. VGN-R09b is an adeno-associated viral vector (AAV)-based AADC and GDNF combination gene therapy that is delivered to the striatum for the treatment of PD.