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Voltage-gated ion channels are traditionally considered to solely mediate ion flux. New evidence is emerging that these channels also have important roles in various biological processes that are independent of ion conduction, including neuronal signalling, cell adhesion and gene transcription.
The role of sonic hedgehog as a morphogen involved in establishing ventral cell identity in the CNS is well known. Fishell and colleagues outline the current understanding of the molecular pathways involved in patterning and describe several recently identified and unrelated roles for hedgehog signalling.
An important pathological feature of polyglutamine repeat diseases involves abnormal interactions between the mutant protein and histone-modifying enzymes, leading to transcriptional dysregulation. Inhibition of these enzymes is therefore a promising therapeutic strategy for Huntington's disease and other polyglutamine repeat disorders.
Cancer induces pain, which often leads to the diagnosis of disease. Mantyh discusses how understanding the mechanisms involved in cancer pain and chemotherapy-induced sensory neuropathy, also associated with pain, might improve the survival and quality of life of cancer patients.
It is 100 years since Cajal shared, with Golgi, the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine. Despite the recognition Cajal received for his pioneering studies on the functional organization of the CNS, his fundamental observations on plasticity are less well-known.
Using schizophrenia as an example, Meyer-Lindenberg and Weinberger review the effectiveness of the intermediate phenotype concept for characterizing the neural systems affected by risk gene variants, with a view to elucidating mechanistic aspects of brain function implicated in psychiatric disease.