Ella Maru Studio

Review: Phase separation at the synapse

Latest Research

  • Review Article |

    Phase separation is emerging as a versatile means for cellular sub-compartment formation. Chen et al. review recent advances of dense synaptic assembly formation via phase separation and discuss implications of phase separation in synaptic physiology.

    • Xudong Chen
    • , Xiandeng Wu
    • , Haowei Wu
    •  & Mingjie Zhang
  • Article |

    The authors identify an impaired myelination signature from the brains of mouse models of Pitt–Hopkins syndrome and show that it is shared in the postmortem brains of people with autism.

    • BaDoi N. Phan
    • , Joseph F. Bohlen
    • , Brittany A. Davis
    • , Zengyou Ye
    • , Huei-Ying Chen
    • , Brent Mayfield
    • , Srinidhi Rao Sripathy
    • , Stephanie Cerceo Page
    • , Morganne N. Campbell
    • , Hannah L. Smith
    • , Danisha Gallop
    • , Hyojin Kim
    • , Courtney L. Thaxton
    • , Jeremy M. Simon
    • , Emily E. Burke
    • , Joo Heon Shin
    • , Andrew J. Kennedy
    • , J. David Sweatt
    • , Benjamin D. Philpot
    • , Andrew E. Jaffe
    •  & Brady J. Maher
  • Article |

    The authors measure evoked activity and perform dense reconstruction of the olfactory bulb wiring diagram in a zebrafish larva, uncovering a mechanism for whitening, a computation that decorrelates activity for pattern classification by memory networks.

    • Adrian A. Wanner
    •  & Rainer W. Friedrich
  • Brief Communication |

    Maes et al. use second-order conditioning, blocking and optogenetic inhibition to show that cue-evoked dopamine transients function as temporal-difference prediction errors rather than reward predictions.

    • Etienne J. P Maes
    • , Melissa J. Sharpe
    • , Alexandra A. Usypchuk
    • , Megan Lozzi
    • , Chun Yun Chang
    • , Matthew P. H. Gardner
    • , Geoffrey Schoenbaum
    •  & Mihaela D. Iordanova
  • Technical Report |

    A chemogenetic approach was developed for cell-type-specific drug-inducible protein synthesis inhibition in mice. It was used to show that consolidation of long-term aversive memories requires rapid neuronal protein synthesis in the amygdala.

    • Prerana Shrestha
    • , Pinar Ayata
    • , Pedro Herrero-Vidal
    • , Francesco Longo
    • , Alexandra Gastone
    • , Joseph E. LeDoux
    • , Nathaniel Heintz
    •  & Eric Klann
  • Article |

    Microglia in the aging hippocampus accumulate lipid droplets, and are functionally impaired and inflamed. Lipid droplet formation in microglia is regulated by genes linked to neurodegeneration such as progranulin.

    • Julia Marschallinger
    • , Tal Iram
    • , Macy Zardeneta
    • , Song E. Lee
    • , Benoit Lehallier
    • , Michael S. Haney
    • , John V. Pluvinage
    • , Vidhu Mathur
    • , Oliver Hahn
    • , David W. Morgens
    • , Justin Kim
    • , Julia Tevini
    • , Thomas K. Felder
    • , Heimo Wolinski
    • , Carolyn R. Bertozzi
    • , Michael C. Bassik
    • , Ludwig Aigner
    •  & Tony Wyss-Coray

News & Comment

  • News & Views |

    Recent findings unveil a viral-like mechanism for the transmission of synaptic plasticity signals involving the activity-regulated cytoskeleton-associated protein (Arc). Arc forms capsid-like particles that package RNA and are transported across synapses. Here Erlendsson et al. present a high-resolution structural representation of Arc capsids, enabling deeper analysis of their function.

    • Vivian Budnik
    •  & Travis Thomson
  • News & Views |

    Rewards direct behavioral adaptation through midbrain dopamine signaling, though the timing of those effects is often ambiguous. Lee and colleagues find that different subpopulations of dopamine neurons obey similar constraints, indirectly regulating reward-related behavior through learning mechanisms restricted to a brief time window following reward.

    • Luke T. Coddington
  • News & Views |

    A new study shows that the enzyme monoamine oxidase funnels a byproduct of dopamine metabolism, H2O2, directly into the mitochondrial electron transport chain, stimulating ATP production. This alternative energy pathway may protect dopaminergic neurons from the toxicity induced by dopamine metabolism while supporting phasic firing.

    • Rongmin Chen
    •  & Elizabeth A. Jonas
  • News & Views |

    Humans and animals are drawn to others in an altered affective state, whether sad or happy. A study published in this issue of Nature Neuroscience shows that a specific population of interneurons in the brain is critical for discrimination of affective states.

    • Toni-Lee Sterley
    •  & Jaideep S. Bains
  • News & Views |

    Reitich-Stolero and Paz examined multineuron correlates of Pavlovian learning in the primate amygdala. They found repeating patterns of activity across neurons that may mediate synaptic-level plasticity mechanisms. This extends the notion of replay, often examined relative to navigation in the hippocampus, to aversive learning in the amygdala.

    • Bruno B. Averbeck
  • News & Views |

    Behavior is more than the motor outputs that we can directly measure. Here Calhoun and colleagues devise a novel method for inferring the internal states that affect how fruit flies process sensory information during courtship, providing a new framework for understanding the neural encoding of behavior.

    • Kanishk Jain
    •  & Gordon J. Berman

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