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Understanding the molecular basis of a cell's differentiation capacity will greatly aid attempts to use stem cells for therapeutic purposes. In this Review, Hirabayashi and Gotoh discuss the mounting evidence implicating epigenetic mechanisms in the regulation of cell fate during neural development.
Nicotine addiction is notoriously difficult to overcome. In this article, Changeux reviews studies in transgenic mice that have started to reveal which nicotine receptor subunits mediate the effects of nicotine on behaviour, cognition and addiction and so might form therapeutic targets for nicotine addiction.
Microdeletions in chromosome 22q11.2 cause substantial impairments in several areas of attention and increase the risk of developing schizophrenia. Karayiorgou and colleagues discuss the complex genetic and neural substrates that are altered by these microdeletions, drawing on data obtained from human patients and animal models.
Keysers and colleagues review evidence that perceiving the sensations, actions and somatic pain of others induces activation in the somatosensory cortex. Perhaps similar to the mirror system for action understanding, this capacity might contribute to our understanding of other individuals' experiences.
Sir Charles Sherrington's work forms the basis of our current understanding of numerous aspects of nervous system physiology. Inspired by the recent rediscovery of a collection of Sherrington's histology slides, Molnár and Brown revisit his lifetime's achievements in neuroscience.
Two main features make budding yeast a key model organism for eukaryotic biology: its amenability to analysis and its conserved genome and cellular biology. Here, the authors highlight the valuable mechanistic insights into the cell-autonomous mechanisms of neurodegeneration that are emerging from studies inSaccharomyces cerevisiae.