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Neurons in the ventral hippocampus project to parvalbumin inhibitory interneurons in the infralimbic (IL) region of medial prefrontal cortex. Activation of this projection produces feed-forward inhibition of IL and causes relapse of extinguished fear.
Using longitudinal multimodal imaging data collected in healthy older individuals, Jacobs et al. provide in vivo evidence in humans that amyloid deposition facilitates tau spread along connected pathways and memory decline.
Direct neuronal conversion of skin fibroblasts from individuals with Huntington’s disease (HD) generates a population of medium spiny neurons that recapitulate hallmarks of HD, including aggregation of mutant huntingtin protein, DNA damage and spontaneous cell death.
This study finds the key neurons that respond to 3D objects in the medial preoptic area (MPA). Their photostimulation induces hunting-like behaviors towards toys and prey, showing how the brain organizes behaviors to acquire useful resources.
Determining how to respond to others in distress is central to social cognition. In a new model, male rats approach stressed juveniles but avoid stressed adults; these behaviors require excitatory action of oxytocin within the insular cortex.
The authors show that inhibitory interneurons in cortical layer 1 integrate topographically organized thalamic and neuromodulatory inputs to sculpt sound frequency maps in primary auditory cortex during a developmental critical period.
How entorhinal grid cells control hippocampal coding and behavior remains elusive. The authors report that increasing the spatial scale of grid cells expands the scale and reduces the stability of place fields, impairing spatial memory in mice.
A salt-rich diet promotes cerebrovascular diseases and dementia. This study shows that high dietary salt in mice induces a TH17 response in the gut leading to cerebral endothelial dysfunction and cognitive impairment via circulating IL-17.
Sasaki et al. reveal that the dentate gyrus not only performs pattern separation but also has a direct role in organizing memory-guided behavior by coordinating the planning of future actions.
Using a genetic approach, Wang et al. demonstrate an essential function for m6A mRNA modification in promoting neural stem cell proliferation and reveal interactions between m6A and histone modification as a novel gene regulatory mechanism.
In the Drosophila visual system, T4 is the first cell type in the ON pathway to exhibit directionally selective signals. This directional selectivity originates from simple integration of spatially offset fast excitatory and slow inhibitory inputs.
The brain is a complex biological machine that results from the birth, migration and differentiation of neurons. This paper reports that Vps15 enables the migration and survival of neurons, and implicates the gene in neurodevelopmental disease.
In mice, stress-induced priming of glutamate synapses in the PVN can be transmitted through social interactions. This requires PVN CRH neuron activation in both of the interacting mice and release of an alarm pheromone from the stressed mouse.
Pathological TDP-43 protein aggregates are a hallmark of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and frontotemporal dementia. TDP-43 pathology alters the morphology of nuclear pore complexes and cause deficits in nucleocytoplasmic transport.
Assessing person-level human brain maps across 18 fMRI studies, the authors identify separable representations of pain, cognitive control, and negative emotion in the medial frontal cortex that generalize across different studies and tasks.