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A new study reveals that maternal immune activation promotes sex-biased activation of the integrated stress response in the developing mouse brain and that this mechanistically contributes to the onset of autism-related behaviors uniquely in male offspring.
This paper shows that maternal immune activation in mice induces changes in the mRNA translation machinery in the fetal brain and activates the integrated stress response in male fetuses, which mediates neurobehavioral abnormalities.
Overexpression of complement C4A is associated with schizophrenia risk. Using a novel mouse model, Yilmaz et al. find that increased expression of C4A leads to abnormal synaptic pruning and behavior, suggesting its importance as a therapeutic target.
Neurons are generated throughout life in the mammalian hippocampus. Bottes et al. used intravital imaging and comparative single-cell transcriptomics to identify long-term self-renewing neural stem cells in the adult mouse hippocampus.
Poulter et al. report on vector trace cells (VTCs) in the hippocampal subiculum. VTCs support vector coding for previously encountered, now absent, objects and boundaries, potentially facilitating navigation to remembered goals.
Efficient repair of demyelinated CNS lesions involves the resolution of inflammation and induction of remyelination. Berghoff et al. show that sterol synthesis in microglia is key to both processes, which can be supported by squalene therapy.
A transcriptome-wide characterization of the molecular pathology of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) postmortem brains provides a comprehensive resource for mechanistic insight and therapeutic development.
Rhea at al. show that intravenously injected, radiolabeled SARS-CoV-2 spike 1 protein crosses the mouse blood–brain barrier, likely through the mechanism of adsorptive transcytosis and is also taken up by peripheral tissues.
Merlini, Rafalski et al. show that dynamic microglial brain surveillance prevents hyperexcitability and seizures by Gi-dependent microglia–neuron interactions in response to evoked neuronal activity to maintain physiological network synchronization.
A new study proposes an exciting new model of neuronal diversification in the developing enteric nervous system (ENS) and establishes a detailed molecular taxonomy for enteric neurons. Their findings open new horizons for ENS research and for developing cell-based therapies for ENS disorders.
Recent research has discovered new connections between cerebellar neurons, revealed abundant inputs related to reward, demonstrated a cellular solution for the temporal credit assignment problem and restructured theories of cerebellar learning.
Mederos et al. show that GABAB receptor signaling in astrocytes regulates prefrontal cortex activity to impact goal-directed behaviors. Thus, the coordinated activity of GABAergic neurons and astrocytes helps decision-making.
Imaging and transcriptomic approaches to investigate mouse enteric nervous system diversity and development reveal a new classification of intestinal myenteric neurons and a novel principle of neuronal diversification by postmitotic transitions.
By analyzing computational models and neural data from the primate prefrontal cortex, the authors show that inhibitory-to-inhibitory signaling is critical for the stable temporal dynamics required for performing working memory tasks.
Schwaller et al. show that the USH2A protein, present in Meissner’s corpuscles, is necessary in humans and mice to perceive tiny vibrations. USH2A may facilitate force transfer to mechanoreceptors as the fingertip probes rough surfaces.
One of the mechanisms driving aging and neurodegenerative diseases is the accumulation of senescent cells, while their elimination mitigates age-related decline. A new report details how, with aging, changes in the dentate gyrus microenvironment lead to natural-killer-cell-mediated clearance of neurogenic senescent cells, resulting in cognitive decline.
Jin et al. discover the accumulation of natural killer (NK) cells in the aged brains of humans and mice. Neuroblast senescence in the dentate gyrus augments NK cell cytotoxicity that impairs neurogenesis and cognition during normal brain aging.
The authors demonstrate the presence of SARS-CoV-2 in the nasopharynx and brain, suggesting that the virus is present in the CNS and may enter through the olfactory mucosa, exploiting the close vicinity of olfactory mucosal, endothelial and nervous tissue.