Volume 7 Issue 5, May 2006

The sympathetic nervous system is an important regulator of blood pressure. Guyenet describes the central control regions that influence the activity of sympathetic efferent neurons and their potential contribution to neurogenic hypertension.

Birdsong learning in avian species has strong similarities with speech acquisition in human infants. Recent research on the song system has shed fresh light on the neural substrate of song memory and sensorimotor learning in both male and female songbirds.

Sensory and motor information in the brain is represented as activity in populations of neurons. But how does correlated noise affect population coding? These authors evaluate empirical and theoretical evidence on the interactions between correlations, population codes and neural computations.

Attention represents the crucial links between the brain and behaviour, and has attracted increasing interest from neuroscience and psychology alike. Raz and Buhle review the recent evidence for the existence of several anatomically and functionally distinct attentional networks.

Williams syndrome is a rare neurodevelopmental disorder with a distinct behavioural and neuropsychological profile. Meyer-Lindenberget al. describe new research relating structural and functional differences to the underlying genetics of this disorder and their influence on cognition and behaviour.

Transplantation of neural stem cells holds great promise for treating neurological disorders. Martino and Pluchino argue that neural stem cells achieve their therapeutic efficacy exculsively by a cell-replacement mechanism, rather than by the recently proposed alternative mechanism of bystander neuroprotection.

The gap between neuroscience and education is being filled by packages aimed at helping teachers enhance learning in the classroom. Goswami considers the myths versus the science that is genuinely relevant for education and how we might bridge this gap.