Volume 6 Issue 8, August 2003

Heynen and colleagues provide direct evidence for the molecular cascade underlying monocular deprivation, also providing a critical link between changes in sensory experience and a well studied form of synaptic plasticity, long-term depression.

A powerful combination of X-ray crystallography and single-channel current measurements provides new insights into the mechanism by which the binding of agonists opens the AMPA-type glutamate receptor in the central nervous system.

In fish and amphibians, auditory cells use a rapid channel reclosure mechanism to amplify and discriminate sound stimuli. New evidence from Kennedy et. al. suggests that mammalian outer hair cells also use a similar form of fast adaptation.

A new study suggests that the brain makes decisions about the direction of movement of a stimulus by a subtraction operation between neurons tuned to opposite directions. The winner of this computational battle determines the final perceived direction.