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Conclusive evidence for defective neurodevelopment in schizophrenia is lacking. Two DNA methylation studies now draw a link between fetal brain epigenomes, epigenetic alterations in the adult diseased brain and genetic risk for the disease.
Two studies invite us to reconsider the nature of striatal dopamine signals. Accumbens dopamine appears to signal the value of overt action and prediction errors arise from deviations in these signals.
Predicting an individual's behavior is a formidable challenge for neuroimaging. A study now finds a strong link between an individual's ability to sustain attention and an extended, but specific, set of brain connections.
Aberrant epigenomes define many childhood and adult brain cancers, as demonstrated by widespread changes to DNA methylation patterns, redistribution of histone marks and disruption of chromatin structure. In this Review, the authors describe the convergence of genetic, metabolic and microenvironmental factors on mechanisms of epigenetic deregulation in brain cancer.
Tumor-associated macrophages (TAMs) establish a permissive microenvironment that positively influences glioma formation, progression and response to treatment. TAMs elaborate growth factors and cytokines that collectively facilitate tumor proliferation, survival and migration. Defining the distinct roles of these stromal cells in the glioma ecosystem may yield new opportunities for therapeutic targeting.
Reactive astrocytes have been proposed to become incompetent bystanders in epilepsy as a result of cellular changes rendering them incapable of performing housekeeping tasks. This review discusses new research that suggests that reactive astrocytes may drive the disease process by impairing the inhibitory action of neuronal GABA receptors.
The authors measured the orientation tuning of ∼28,000 thalamic boutons and ∼4,000 neurons in layers 1–5 of awake mouse V1. With adaptive optics allowing accurate measurement of deep tissue activity, around half of the boutons in layer 4 were found to carry orientation and direction information.
GABAB receptors are the most abundant inhibitory G protein–coupled receptors in the mammalian brain. Using high-resolution proteomics, the authors show that native GABAB receptors are macromolecular complexes with previously unknown complexity in subunit composition. This molecular diversity in structure and assembly encodes the diversity of GABAB physiology in the CNS.
Impairment of cognitive function is a common feature of many neurodevelopmental disorders. Systems genetics analysis in the brain uncovered a convergent gene network for both cognition and neurodevelopmental disorders. As the network does not recapitulate known pathways, this finding represents a new basis for understanding factors influencing normal and disordered cognition.
The authors identify a new arousal circuit in the mammalian brain. They provide correlative and optogenetic evidence indicating that a subset of hypothalamic cells drive awakening from non-rapid eye movement (slow-wave) sleep and emergence from anesthesia by exerting a strong inhibitory tone onto reticular thalamic neurons.
The authors used two-photon imaging to measure the orientation tuning of thalamic boutons and neurons in mouse V1. They found that a smaller fraction of thalamic boutons in layer 4 than in superficial cortical layers carried orientation and direction information.
Current models of active vision emphasize the role of intracortical feedback projections. The authors report that thalamocortical projections, in particular from the higher order lateral posterior nucleus, provide an alternative pathway by which contextual sensory and motor information, as well as putative visuomotor error signals, are conveyed to primary visual cortex.
Neuropathic pain poses a major healthcare burden. The authors show that a specific set of neurons in the nucleus accumbens, a region long associated with affect, were changed in a mouse model of neuropathic pain. A pharmacotherapy that is well tolerated in man reversed these adaptations and alleviated pain.
The authors used a reversible inactivation technique that has not been used before in Old World monkeys, inhibitory chemogenetic receptors (DREADDs), to demonstrate that disconnecting a large region of monkey prefrontal cortex (orbitofrontal cortex) from a region in the temporal lobe (rhinal cortex) reduces sensitivity to differences in reward size.
Learning and memory processes require experience-dependent changes in chromatin modifications. Here the authors provide a detailed view of the gene regulatory roles of DNA methylation and histone modifications during the acquisition and maintenance of memory across different cell types and brain regions.
Oligodendrocyte death in the DTA mouse model leads to a fatal, secondary demyelinating disease associated with CNS T cell infiltration and myelin antigen-specific T cells in lymphoid organs, which can transfer a mild neurological disease to naive mice, indicating that oligodendrocyte death is sufficient to trigger an adaptive autoimmune response against myelin. These results suggest that the disease-initiating event in the autoimmune disorder multiple sclerosis may occur within the CNS.
This study found that both the anterolateral (AL) and middle-lateral (ML) belt regions of the primate auditory cortex encoded acoustic stimulus features used to solve an auditory decision task. However, only AL activity was modulated by behavior and causally contributed sensory evidence to form the decision.