03/09/2026
research article
Medical research depends on access to patient data, but legitimate privacy concerns often mean access is restricted. SynthCraft aims to address this challenge; it is an AI partner designed to help researchers generate synthetic versions of medical datasets entirely through natural language, without requiring programming skills
Image credit: Logan Voss
Current Issue February 2026
03/09/2026
research article
We set out to understand how a night of drinking changes heart rate, sleep, and next-day physical activity in everyday life, and whether these changes might differ by age and biological sex. Using data from nearly 21,000 adults who wore a wearable sensor, we compared each person’s nights with alcohol to their own nights without alcohol
Image credit: Timothy Dykes
03/05/2026
research Article
This study examined the association of a mobile health-based disease management program for uncontrolled hypertension and assessed treatment effect heterogeneity using a target trial emulation framework.
Image credit: CDC
02/12/2026
research article
Given the growing concerns about their effectiveness and ethical implications, as well as the demand to optimise their potential in facilitating health outcomes, this study conducts a systematic review of existing research on AI-based chatbots, focusing on their applications and evaluation.
Image credit: Sanket Mishra
01/21/2026
research article
Acute appendicitis is a common but diagnostically challenging surgical emergency in children. Existing linear scoring systems lack sufficient accuracy for standalone...
Image credit: Buddha Elemental 3D
01/07/2026
research article
This study aimed to evaluate the utility of a general-purpose multimodal LLM, GPT-4o, for lung sound classification from mel-spectrograms and assess whether a few-shot prompt approach improves performance over zero-shot prompting.
Image credit: Robert Clark
01/12/2026
research article
Developments in digital technology has enabled devices, such as cardiotocography to be used in the home setting, which may alleviate the burden on the outpatient department.
Image credit: Joshua Chehov
11/11/2025
research article
Wearable technology can use gesture detection to identify smoking behavior and provide real-time feedback. Receiving notifications when smoking occurs may help increase awareness of smoking...
Image credit: Andres Siimon
11/06/2025
OPinion
Driven by the urgent need to address a high burden of disease with limited resources, many African nations are increasingly turning to digital solutions to bridge gaps in access, improve diagnostic accuracy, and enhance...
Image credit: Daniele Levis Pelusi
11/06/2025
research Article
Data for healthcare applications are typically customized for specific purposes but are often difficult to access due to high costs and privacy concerns.
Image credit: Alina Grubnyak
A collection of free training and resources for peer reviewers of PLOS journals—and for the peer review community more broadly—drawn from research and interviews with staff editors, editorial board members, and experienced reviewers.
A collection of free, practical guides and hands-on resources for authors looking to improve their scientific publishing skillset.
Connect with Us