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The anatomical complexity and location of the human subcortex render it difficult to study by MRIin vivo. Here, Forstmann et al. argue that understanding subcortex function may be facilitated by combining in vivoand post-mortem ultra-high field MRI, post-mortem histology and modelling approaches.
Research on the neural substrates of drug addiction has yet to be translated into a treatment of addiction. Heiliget al. propose that finding neural links between social factors, such as exclusion, and drug addiction would help to make addiction neuroscience research more clinically relevant.
The dopamine system has been implicated in a number of psychiatric disorders, including depression and schizophrenia. Here, Grace describes evidence for disrupted afferent regulation of dopamine neuron firing in these disorders and considers the role of stress in driving this pathology.
Recent studies have attributed surprisingly similar functional roles to the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) and hippocampus. Evidence is presented that both the OFC and hippocampus contribute to 'cognitive mapping', and it is suggested that future work should focus on understanding the functional interactions between these structures.
Uncovering the neural basis of consciousness is a major challenge to neuroscience. In this Perspective, Tononi and colleagues describe the integrated information theory of consciousness and how it might be used to answer outstanding questions about the nature of consciousness.
The understanding of spoken language is mediated by bottom-up and top-down processing in the brain. In this Opinion article, Skeide and Friederici propose how changes in the structure and function of children's brains are associated with the development of language-processing skills.
There has been a surge in the number of papers discussing the idea that inter-neuronal spread of 'pathogenic' proteins contributes to neurodegenerative disease progression. Walsh and Selkoe provide a critical overview of the evidence for this mechanism, identify gaps in our knowledge and suggest experimental approaches to test the hypothesis.
The anterior hippocampus is thought to be involved in a wide range of cognitive functions, including memory, navigation and perception. In this Opinion article, Zeidman and Maguire show how improved functional imaging techniques are shedding light on the precise anatomy of this region and the contribution of different parts of the anterior hippocampus to specific cognitive functions.
Phasic signalling by midbrain dopamine neurons is thought to contribute to reward processing by encoding a reward prediction error. Schultz describes recent work suggesting that there are two distinct components of the phasic dopamine response and considers the probable functional role of each response component.
Synaptic vesicle exocytosis is tightly regulated by a number of synaptic proteins, including complexin; however, several alternative models of complexin function have been presented. Trimbuch and Rosenmund propose that a better understanding of the properties of different domains of complexin may help to shed light on its function.
Impaired interneuron function is widely believed to contribute to schizophrenia pathophysiology. Hardingham and Do describe converging evidence suggesting that NMDA receptor (NMDAR) hypofunction and oxidative stress during development contribute to interneuron dysfunction and schizophrenia pathophysiology.
