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Jaffe et al. profile the granule cell layer of the human hippocampus and find unique molecular associations for aging and genetic variation, as well as diagnosis with schizophrenia and its genetic risk, that were previously undiscovered in homogenate tissue.
A new spatial transcriptomic approach reveals astrocyte heterogeneity across layers of the mammalian cerebral cortex. Astrocytes diversify into superficial-, mid- and deep-layer subtypes distinct from neuronal laminae, yet instructed by neuronal cues.
Mohammad et al. show that prenatal alcohol exposure increases Kcnn2 activity in the mouse cerebral cortex. Blockade of Kcnn2 improves learning deficits in a mouse model of fetal alcohol spectrum disorders.
Sey et al. report a computational tool, H-MAGMA, that extracts neurobiological insights from brain-disorder GWAS by linking risk variants to their cognate genes using chromatin interaction profiles from human brain tissue.
Chen, Deister et al. show that Shank3B-knockout mice display hypersensitivity to tactile sensory stimulation and that dysfunction of interneurons in somatosensory cortex contributes to the sensory hyper-reactivity in this mouse model of autism.
Motor learning is composed of explicit ‘strategic’ components and implicit ‘automatic’ components. Miyamoto and colleagues reveal how these components work together during visuomotor adaptation, providing evidence that an implicit component corrects for a noisy explicit process.
Zhou et al. unveil a novel role for activated microglia and macrophages during wound healing after CNS injury. Microglia promote corralling and form a protective barrier at the injury penumbra via the axon guidance receptor Plexin-B2.
Implicit learning increases the fidelity of performance during motor learning by acting to adaptively clean up the noise resulting from a low-fidelity explicit strategy.
Three new studies show that activity-dependent formation of myelin contributes to memory consolidation and recall, possibly by increasing functional coupling between neuronal ensembles encoding experience.
Dal Monte et al. investigate neuronal synchrony between the primate amygdala and the anterior cingulate gyrus during social decision-making. Highly specialized coordination between these areas promotes prosocial, compared to antisocial, decisions.
Postmortem studies have previously suggested that adult olfactory neurogenesis occurs in humans. In new research, Durante and colleagues obtained fresh tissue from healthy adult humans via endoscopic nasal surgery and used single-cell RNA sequencing (RNA-seq) to identify the entire neurogenic trajectory in the olfactory epithelium, confirming the existence of human olfactory neurogenesis.
Prior stressful experience affects subsequent behavior even in different situations. Daviu et al. demonstrate that CRHPVN neurons encode stress controllability and contribute to shifts between active and passive innate defensive strategies.
Alpha-synuclein fibrils can disrupt the enteric nervous system, which is mitigated by peripheral GBA1 gene transfer via systemic AAVs. Aging increases susceptibility to α-synuclein pathology progression from the gut to the brain.
Rodriguez et al. define a native role for RAN translation and CGG repeats in regulating mGluR-dependent fragile X protein (FMRP) synthesis. RAN-blocking antisense oligonucleotides increase FMRP and improve survival of neurons from patients with repeat expansions.
Durante et al. report the presence of active neurogenic niches in adult humans using single-cell RNA sequencing of the human olfactory neuroepithelium. Data from the olfactory neuroepithelium niche provide evidence that neuron production may continue for decades in humans.
Wen et al. combined single-cell RNA-seq and spatiotemporal analysis techniques to characterize the basic cell types in the mouse SCN, identifying their spatial distributions and circadian and light-induced gene expression patterns.