News & Comment

Dopamine receptor subtypes 1 and 2 in the prefrontal cortex contribute to rule-based executive function via differential but complementary effects.

Obesity arising from a poor diet often leads to hypertension, and a new study shows that apdipose-derived leptin, acting on neurons in the dorsomedial hypothalams is necessary and sufficient to induce hypertension.

Neurons in cortical area MT have a crucial role in representing motion in depth.

Mouse and human fibroblasts can be reprogrammed to become peripheral sensory neuronsin vitrothrough overexpression of certain combinations of transcription factors.

Events that cause circadian arrhythmia such as travel across time zones or shift work impair memory formation and in hamsters this is shown to require intact circuitry in the suprachiasmatic nucleus.

Reduced sociability in frontotemporal dementia may be due, at least in part, to a reduction in miR-124 levels resulting in altered AMPA receptor composition and function in the frontal cortex.

The majority of neurons in the geniculate ganglion — which receives inputs from taste receptor cells on the tongue — are singly tuned to a particular taste quality.

Age-related memory impairment is thought to result from cumulative oxidative damage in neurons, but this study shows that in Drosophila melanogaster, these memory impairments are as a result of reduced D-serine production by glia.

Study usesin vivogene-specific chromatin remodelling to elucidate the role of Fosb in addiction- and depression-related changes in the brain.

Place-cell firing in mice can be accompanied by regenerative dendritic events, which predict some of the properties of place fields.

New oligodendrocytes that are derived from oligodendrocyte-precursor cells and express myelin regulatory factor are important for the learning of novel motor skills.

A three-dimensional human cell culture model of Alzheimer's disease recapitulates both amyloid-β and tau pathology.

A subpopulation of cortical neurons that express oxytocin receptors mediates female sociosexual behaviour in mice.

During memory retrieval the hippocampus is required for the reactivation of cortical activity patterns that occurred during encoding, but artificial reactivation of the cortical representation of a memory alone is sufficient to drive recall.

Dopamine regulates reinforcement-based plasticity at the single-spine level on medium spiny neurons in the striatum by increasing the gain of Hebbian plasticity.

Two studies in rodents show that lateral habenula activity is regulated by neurons that co-release glutamate and GABA.

Two new studies show that the nematodeCaenorhabditis elegansdisplays a sleep-like state in response to heat shock and suggest that this state is necessary for recovery from cellular stress.

A new gene therapy approach can be used to increase size and efficiency of neuromuscular junctions with corresponding inceases in muscle strength.

Distinct populations of neurons in the posterior dorsal part of the medial amygdala antagonistically regulate social behaviour and self-grooming, a non-social behaviour.

The regulation of Schwann cell metabolism by LKB1 is essential for the preservation of axonal integrity.