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James Parkinson first flagged a link between changes in breathing patterns and the debilitating disease that now bears his name. But since his work in the early 19th century, only minimal progress has been made in treating a condition that has become alarmingly prevalent. (Ross, 8/22)

It was a shot in the dark — or at best, a dimly lit room: injecting a mouse with a little bit of spinal cord fluid from someone with the most common form of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS. (Cueto, 8/22)

Sending weak electrical current into the brain for 20 minutes a day for four days in a row reversed declines in working and long-term memory that come with aging, scientists reported Monday in Nature Neuroscience. (Molteni, 8/22)

For four consecutive days, 150 senior citizens pulled on a swim-like cap and allowed parts of their brain to be bathed with low-dose electrical pulses. During 20-minute sessions, they were given five lists of 20 words each and asked to recall them. In some, the oscillations were directed to an area of the brain known to be involved in short-term memory, where a just-learned phone number would be stored. They were tested to see how many recently-mentioned words they remembered. (Weintraub, 8/22)

Recent years have seen a surge of research into rarer forms of kidney disease, with drug companies, regulators, and researchers alike hunting for ways to help patients who have few options. (Cueto, 8/23)

After having her son, Judy Akin got sick much more often than before, and her blood pressure was on the rise, but she led a busy, active life. The ailments were a consequence of stress, she imagined. Doctors told her she just had to shed some pounds to feel better. (Cueto, 8/23)