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By using genetic admixture in the multi-omic analysis of postmortem brains from Black Americans, we show that genetic ancestry influences gene expression in the brain. Notably, we find enrichment of ancestry-associated genes for immune response and vascular function, but not neuronal function. Our findings have potential implications for stroke, Parkinson’s disease and Alzheimer’s disease.

The increased inclusion of samples from individuals from minoritized communities in biomedical research will help to mitigate health disparities that stem from a medical enterprise founded in racism and exclusion. In this issue of Nature Neuroscience, Benjamin et al. investigate how genetic ancestry influences the expression of genes in the brain, an effort supported by community leaders who raised funding, partnered in shaping research questions and had a central role in the interpretation and communication of the study’s findings. Here, we outline the public and social context that motivated these efforts towards ensuring equitable access to the benefits of science for all.

Studying gene expression in admixed Black Americans, Benjamin et al. reveal genetic ancestry-linked differences impacting immune and vascular genes and potentially influencing neurological disease risk. These findings highlight the importance of considering ancestry in brain research.

The circuit mechanisms underlying emotion recognition are unclear. Here, Dautan et al. show a role for a long-range feedback loop comprising somatostatin inhibitory projections from the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) to the retrosplenial cortex (RSC) and excitatory feedback projections from the RSC to the mPFC.

Christenson et al. describe hue-selective neurons in the fruit fly optic lobe. Using a connectomics-constrained model combined with genetic manipulations of the circuit, they show that recurrent connections are critical for hue selectivity.

It has been widely believed that a key function of sleep is to actively clear metabolites and toxins from the brain. Miao, Luo et al. show in mice that brain clearance is markedly reduced—not increased—during sleep and anesthesia.

Physiologically relevant stimulation of dopamine neurons does not function as a reward and does not endow cues with a reward representation. However, high-frequency stimulation is represented as a sensory-specific goal that motivates behavior.

The subcommissural organ (SCO) is a gland in the brain, and relatively little is known about its function. Zhang et al. genetically ablated SCO cells and observed severe hydrocephalus and neuronal defects. The reintroduction of SCO-derived peptides into SCO-ablated brain substantially rescued developmental defects.

Brain tissue from patients with focal cortical dysplasia type II (FCDII) exhibits dysmorphic neurons bearing hallmarks of senescence. Treatment with a senolytic drug reduces seizures in an FCDII preclinical mouse model.

Neural activity does not always lie in a low-dimensional subspace. The authors extend this classic view to show that task-relevant information is distributed across multiple covariability classes and propose a new method, sliceTCA, to disentangle them.

This paper shows that compulsive-like grooming in Sapap3-knockout mice can be reduced by closed-loop optogenetic stimulation of striatal interneurons based on grooming onset prediction, suggesting that adaptive stimulation may have therapeutic potential in obsessive–compulsive disorder.

The layout of cortical systems varies across people, which is assumed to be largely due to border shifts between nearby systems. Dworetsky et al. reveal a qualitatively different variation in systems that occurs at a distance from expected locations.

Xiao et al. show that, in monkeys freely viewing natural images, visual neurons from V1 to the inferior temporal cortex encode feature information in the gaze-centered space with limited predictive remapping and develop a neural network model to map the receptive fields.

Nongenetic factors contribute to the onset, progression and severity of neurodegenerative diseases. Here, the authors describe how exposomics, the systematic analysis of environmental factors, can help neuroscientists understand these diseases.

Charlton and Goris developed a new perceptual decision-making task for macaque monkeys and found that prefrontal circuits involved in action selection are also used for the deliberation of abstract propositions divorced from a specific motor plan.

What mechanisms enable brains to maintain behaviors after neuron loss? Based on behavioral, neuronal and modeling data, Wang et al. find that unsupervised cellular and systems-level restorative mechanisms can ensure behavioral resilience.