Table of contents
November 2006 Vol 7 No 11
From the editors
p829 | doi:10.1038/nrn2025
Research Highlights
Sleep: Sweet dreams for sleepy flies
p830 | doi:10.1038/nrn2033
Development: Neuroligin knockouts: form but no function
p831 | doi:10.1038/nrn2029
In the news
Antipsychotic use for AD questioned
p831 | doi:10.1038/nrn2036
Cognitive neuroscience: Pay attention now
p832 | doi:10.1038/nrn2030
Neurodegenerative disorders: Folding away the bad guys
p832 | doi:10.1038/nrn2034
In brief
Development | Neurotransmitter receptors | Synaptic physiology | Cognitive neuroscience
p833 | doi:10.1038/nrn2035
Glia: Keeping neurons under wraps
p834 | doi:10.1038/nrn2028
Synaptic plasticity: Fatherhood changes the brain
p834 | doi:10.1038/nrn2031
Psychiatric disorders: Depression gene in action
p835 | doi:10.1038/nrn2032
Reviews
Regulation of cell fate in the sensory epithelia of the inner ear
Matthew W. Kelley
p837 | doi:10.1038/nrn1987
Development of sensory epithelia in the inner ear involves the progressive restriction of epithelial progenitors to give rise to specific types of hair or supporting cells. Kelley reviews current knowledge about the factors that regulate these cell fate decisions.
Reelin, lipoprotein receptors and synaptic plasticity
Joachim Herz and Ying Chen
p850 | doi:10.1038/nrn2009
A common apolipoprotein E (APOE) isoform confers risk for Alzheimer's disease. New evidence that APOE, cholesterol, reelin and APOE receptors are vital for synaptic plasticity in the adult brain might help to unravel some key pathological mechanisms in neurodegenerative disorders.
Macular degeneration: recent advances and therapeutic opportunities
Amir Rattner and Jeremy Nathans
p860 | doi:10.1038/nrn2007
Macular degeneration is a principal cause of visual loss in the Western world. Advances in imaging technologies, the identification of genes and the development of animal models are now paving the way for new therapeutic strategies for this disorder.
Phantom limb pain: a case of maladaptive CNS plasticity?
Herta Flor, Lone Nikolajsen and Troels Staehelin Jensen
p873 | doi:10.1038/nrn1991
Phantom limb pain frequently occurs following limb amputation or deafferentiation. Emerging evidence suggests that in addition to peripheral changes, plasticity in the CNS has an important role in the pathophysiological mechanisms of phantom pain, highlighting potential targets for therapeutic interventions.
Perspectives
Opinion
Patterns of neural stem and progenitor cell division may underlie evolutionary cortical expansion
Arnold Kriegstein, Stephen Noctor and Verónica Martínez-Cerdeño
p883 | doi:10.1038/nrn2008
An enormous expansion in cortical surface area was crucial for the evolution of the primate gyrencephalic cortex. Kriegstein and colleagues evaluate models of progenitor cell division that might underlie cortical expansion during development and provide an insight into this evolutionary step.
Opinion
The neural mechanisms of gustation: a distributed processing code
Sidney A. Simon, Ivan E. de Araujo, Ranier Gutierrez and Miguel A. L. Nicolelis
p890 | doi:10.1038/nrn2006
The gustatory system is crucial for detecting and discriminating between foods and selecting nutritious diets. Simon and colleagues now propose that this system achieves its complex tasks through distributed neural codes that represent the sensory and postingestive properties of tastants.
Corrigendum: Morphogen to mitogen: the multiple roles of hedgehog signalling in vertebrate neural development
Marc Fuccillo, Alexandra L. Joyner and Gord Fishell
p902 | doi:10.1038/nrn2026
Corrigendum: Therapeutic interventions for spinal cord injury
Sandrine Thuret, Lawrence D. F. Moon and Fred H. Gage
p902 | doi:10.1038/nrn2027
