Volume 10 Issue 4, April 2007

Neurosteroids generally reduce anxiety, but a new paper shows that they promote anxiety in female mice around puberty via the selective desensitization of extrasynaptic GABA_A receptors made up of α4β2δ subunits. This change increases input resistance and excitation of hippocampal pyramidal neurons, thus promoting anxiety.

Jordan and colleagues report that activity causes the shuttling of a synaptic protein AIDA-1d from dendritic spines to the nucleus. This work sheds light on how nuclear protein synthesis is regulated in response to synaptic activity.

The timing of thalamocortical excitation and inhibition is critical to local microcircuits. Two new papers shed light on the development and performance of a somatosensory microcircuit that regulates the integration of thalamic inputs.

Damage to the insula enables some smokers to quit easily and without relapse, reports a recent paper. The lesion may disrupt a a representation of internal bodily urges that is normally cued by learned drug associations.