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Reward can both update values and convey information about the state of the world. Dopamine recordings and manipulations in highly trained mice making decisions, alongside modeling, show that dopamine supports the former but not the latter process.
de Jong et al. identify two dopamine cell subtypes with sustained or transient activity patterns in both cell bodies and axon terminals. They propose that these subtypes represent the parallel encoding of a behavioral state and its temporal dynamics.
Rabies-virus-based tracing is a widely used technique for mapping neural circuitry, but its cytotoxicity has limited its applications. Here Jin et al. present a second-generation system with minimal toxicity, using double-deletion-mutant rabies viruses.
Muller et al. show that some neurons in the cortex learn faster from better-than-expected outcomes compared to worse-than-expected ones; others do the converse, resulting in simultaneous optimism and pessimism, as predicted by distributional reinforcement learning.
Wang et al. found that catecholaminergic neurons in the ventrolateral medulla regulate fasting-induced T cell redistribution. Similar to fasting, these neurons suppressed autoimmune inflammation in mouse models of multiple sclerosis and psoriasis.
Xu et al. show that waking progressively disrupts neural dynamics criticality in the visual cortex and that sleep restores it. Deviations from criticality predict future sleep/wake behavior better than prior behavior and slow-wave activity.
This longitudinal study tracked the brains of 139 first-time mothers. Mothers showed lower cortical volume before childbirth that attenuated during the postpartum, with a distinct recovery rate as a function of the brain network and birth type.
Bush and Ramirez show that the activity of neuronal populations implicated in generating breathing evolves along a rotational low-dimensional trajectory that is stably maintained even when challenged with opioids but collapses during gasping.
In this study the authors show that in the mouse anterior thalamus, the activity of head-direction cells is selectively modulated by sensory stimuli and by the animal’s behavioral state.
Han and Helmchen demonstrate that the dynamic interactions between a higher association area and a primary sensory area in the neocortex can shape sensory representation and govern behavioral choices.
Panic disorder is characterized by uncontrollable fear accompanied with unique somatic symptoms. Kang, Kim et al. identify a pontomesencephalic PACAP pathway that plays a crucial role in panic-like behavioral and physiological alterations in mice.
Using in vivo two-photon imaging and electron microscopy, Haruwaka, Ying et al. show that microglia transiently boost post-anesthesia neuronal activity in somatosensory cortex by physically shielding inhibitory inputs during emergence from anesthesia.
Bromberg-Martin, Feng and colleagues uncover conserved value computations underlying human and monkey information-seeking behavior and show that the lateral habenula sends value signals integrating information with reward and guides online decisions.
Using two-photon (2P) optogenetics and computational modeling, the authors find that neither space-based nor feature-based rules are sufficient to describe cell–cell interactions within the primary visual cortex (V1). Instead, models must include interactions between these cardinal axes.
This paper introduces ‘prospective configuration’, a new principle for learning in neural networks, which differs from backpropagation and is more efficient in learning and more consistent with data on neural activity and behavior.
This study identifies a positive-feedback loop between the ACC and the VTA that mediates the mutual exacerbation between hyperalgesia and comorbid anxiodepressive-like behaviors and, thereby, the chronicity of neuropathic pain.
In the CNS, glutamatergic neurons directly control functional hyperemia via synaptic-like transmission onto arteriolar smooth muscle cells. Inhibiting this process reduces brain atrophy following cerebral ischemia.
The authors show that functionally paired visual and memory brain areas share a common neural code, which structures their communication. This code is visual in nature and uses a push–pull dynamic to translate information between vision and memory.