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On- and off-center afferents from the lateral geniculate nucleus form two separate channels of visual processing, which are thought to converge in the primary visual cortex. Jin and colleagues now report that this may not be the case. In a given cortical territory, most of the converging afferents were likely to be of the same contrast polarity, and off-center afferents dominated the cortical representation. The cover illustrates the parallel on and off channels as well as the off pathway dominance in central vision, as the small black dots on the white background are easier to see than the reverse contrast. (p 88)
Neuroscience has reached critical mass in Shanghai and Beijing, attracting substantial financial support and enticing Western-trained scientists to return to China. Now it is time for the bounty to spread to the provinces.
Efficiency variations in the filtering of relevant from irrelevant information could contribute to individual differences in working memory. A new functional imaging study suggests that the basal ganglia act as this filter because activity in this region before stimulus presentation was inversely correlated with unnecessary storage.
A new study proposes that synaptic vesicle endocytosis at a large synaptic terminal is partly independent of dynamin and GTP hydrolysis, suggesting a new mechanism leading to vesicle fission and maintenance of neurotransmission.
Drosophila courtship is a complex behavior. A new study shows that glia modulate neurotransmission to influence male preference, but the authors should have resisted the temptation to describe their results in tabloid language.
Changes in neuronal firing underlie sensation, but how many neurons are needed to perceive these activity shifts? Two new studies in Nature suggest that the experimental modulation of only a few neurons can influence perception.