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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.

Effective science communication is necessary for engaging the public in scientific discourse and ensuring equitable access to knowledge. Training doctoral students in science communication will instill principles of accessibility, accountability, and adaptability in the next generation of scientific leaders, who are poised to expand science’s reach, generate public support for research funding, and counter misinformation. To this aim, we provide a guide for implementing formal science communication training for doctoral students.

Gene expression in the human cortex is shown to exhibit a generalizable three-component architecture that reflects neuronal, metabolic, and immune programmes of healthy brain development. The three components have distinct associations with autism spectrum disorder and schizophrenia, revealing connections between previously unrelated results from studies of case–control neuroimaging, differential gene expression, and genetic risk.

Gene expression in the human cortex is shown to involve three general components, which reflect metabolic and immune programs of healthy development, and link case–control imaging and transcriptomics to genetic risk for autism and schizophrenia.

As Nature Neuroscience celebrates its 25th anniversary, we are having conversations with both established leaders in the field and those earlier in their careers to discuss how the field has evolved and where it is heading. This month we are talking to Fernando de Castro Soubriet, principal investigator at the Instituto Cajal (Spain). He is a neurodevelopmental biologist who is actively involved in championing the history of neuroscience. He is among the group of Spanish scientists who ensured that the Archives of Santiago Ramón y Cajal and the Spanish Neurohistological School are registered as World Heritage with UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization). Here, we discuss science and the legacy of the Spanish Neurohistological School.

Neuroinflammation and microglia significantly contribute to Alzheimer’s disease pathology, depending on their activation state. We found that TREM2-expressing microglia are a heterogenous population spanning activated to senescent cells.