Volume 7 Issue 1, January 2004

Our ability to attribute mental states such as beliefs and desires to other people has been proposed to involve simulating their mental processes in our own brains. A new imaging study shows that predicting the actions of others does involve areas in the human action control system, but not the same areas that are activated when we plan to perform the same actions ourselves.

During development, the auditory system shifts from one amino acid transmitter to another, a process that may be critical for sound localization. A new study suggests this shift can occur at single synaptic terminals—possibly even at single vesicles.

Attention improves perception, presumably by influencing neural responses. In this issue, an fMRI study shows that paying attention to an object might enhance perception by increasing the selectivity of neuronal subpopulations in higher visual areas.

Studies of nonhuman animals have taught us a great deal about how the brain changes during learning. An imaging study in this issue investigates how behavioral strategies interact with brain activation in humans during learning of a working memory task.