Volume 9 Issue 1, January 2006

Prairie voles form lasting pair bonds with their mating partners after a single experience of sexual activity, and this reward-related learning depends on dopamine. A new paper reports that two dopamine receptor subtypes contribute differently to the initial formation of pair bonds and to their maintenance by the promotion of selective aggression toward alternative mates.

The opioid receptor–like receptor inhibits the Ca_v2.2 calcium channel even without the receptor ligand, nociceptin. A new study finds that long-term exposure to nociceptin causes internalization of the receptor-channel complex.

Our understanding of the complexity of the mammalian brain is limited by our inability to identify and classify its many different cell types. A new study in this issue uses a functional genomics approach to uncover the molecular basis of neuronal identity.

A familial form of ALS is caused by mutations in the superoxide dismutase (SOD1) gene. A new paper shows that mutant SOD1 binds chromogranins in secretory vesicles and that its release promotes microgliosis and motor neuron death.

Food intake and energy expenditure were thought to be simultaneously controlled by the same group of neurons, but now new evidence shows that they are independently regulated by an anatomically distinct set of melanocortin neurons.