Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain
the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in
Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles
and JavaScript.
Zambusi, Novoselc et al. show that granulin-mediated clearance of cytoplasmic TDP-43+ condensates and lipid droplets in injury-activated microglia is required for their return to the homeostatic state and successful brain regeneration.
Liu and colleagues show that REM sleep in mice can be divided into two distinct substages and that the RSC dictates global cortical dynamics during sleep and plays a role in regulating transitions between REM sleep substages.
Motor planning can improve performance but can also lead to premature actions. The authors show that the anterior lateral motor cortex plays an important role in impulsive behavior by encoding and influencing premature motor output.
Using chronic neural recordings, the authors show that long-term stability in both skilled and natural behaviors is associated with stable single neuron activity patterns in relevant motor circuits.
Martinez et al. identified the protein interactome of the tau seed responsible for propagation. The authors found how the presynaptic protein Bassoon interacts with the tau seed enhancing its stability and subsequently tau toxicity and spreading.
Using new phagocytosis reporter mice and 3D ultrastructural characterization, Morizawa et al. show that motor learning induces synaptic engulfment by BG, which contributes to synaptic pruning during the improvement of motor adaptation.
Oh et al. modeled age-dependent onset of Huntington’s disease by comparing reprogrammed neurons from pre-symptomatic and symptomatic patients. They found that an age-associated miRNA led to autophagy impairment and neurodegeneration.
Aging is associated with the formation of focal white matter lesions and atrophy. The authors discovered a role for CD8+ T cells in driving white matter-specific interferon responses in microglia and oligodendrocytes, leading to oligodendrocyte loss.
Scheggia and colleagues present a social decision-making assay in which mice display altruistic or selfish choices. The authors show that projections between the prefrontal cortex and the basolateral amygdala are involved in the control of the two different choices.
Furlan et al. report that neurotensin-expressing neurons in the IPAC encode preference for unhealthy energy-dense foods and drive hedonic eating. Thus, inhibition of these neurons reduces hedonic eating, improves metabolic health and prevents obesity.
The authors generated stem cell-derived neurons from combat veterans with and without PTSD and found PTSD-dependent gene expression changes in response to glucocorticoids. This highlights how stress response may be altered in individuals with PTSD.
McHugh et al. combine triple-(DG-CA3-CA1) ensemble recordings and optogenetic manipulations in the mouse hippocampus to show that adult-born granule cells transiently support sparser population activity for effective mnemonic information processing.
Guo et al. use two-sample Mendelian randomization analyses to reveal causal relationships between neuroimaging phenotypes and psychiatric disorders. This insight may be helpful in predicting psychiatric disorder risk at the neuroimaging level.
Muscle fibers have diverse properties—for example, slow and fast twitch. Groups of fibers are activated by motoneurons. Marshall et al. found that motoneurons are used flexibly, presumably allowing us to intelligently employ fibers suited to each task.
The authors show how myelination is altered on learning-activated cortical neurons during motor learning in mice. They propose that learning-induced circuit-specific myelin plasticity may contribute to information encoding during learning.
Samborska et al. trained mice on a set of problems with the same structure but different physical layouts to study generalization. Neurons in prefrontal cortex generalized across problems, whereas those in hippocampus were more problem specific.
Filipchuk et al. show that when awake mice perceive sounds, the auditory cortex produces sound-specific neuronal assemblies distinct from its ongoing activity, whereas under anesthesia sound-evoked assemblies are indistinguishable from ongoing activity.
Frontal cortex contains a complex mixture of signals reflecting distinct behavioral and cognitive processes. An analysis of 20,000 neurons during decision-making revealed distinct functional clusters and their activities are driven by the thalamus.
This genome-wide association study identified 12 novel loci for opioid use disorder, a common, potentially fatal condition. Analyses implicated the CNS, with gene expression enriched in brain regions associated with addiction.