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How the firing of neurons in a population generates cortical representations has not been fully elucidated, but a new study shows that population activity can be understood in terms of the degree of coupling of the spiking of a single neuron to the spiking of the overall population.
Reelin induces transcriptional changes in neurons by increasing the formation of an intracellular fragment of its target receptor that interacts with specific enhancer regions in the nucleus.
Recent methodological progress has greatly facilitated the determination of the connectivity and functional characterization of complex neural circuits. In this Review, Tovote, Fadok and Lüthi examine studies that have adopted circuit-based approaches to gain insight into how the brain governs fear and anxiety.
Exposure to environmental insults such as maternal stress during prenatal and postnatal development or paternal stress experience can have long-term effects on offspring brain function and behaviour. In this Review, Bale describes the mechanisms through which diverse insults reprogramme the epigenome and can even lead to transmission of the phenotype to subsequent generations.
Dysfunction of autophagy — an intracellular degradation pathway for cytosolic material — has been implicated in the pathogenesis of various neurodegenerative diseases. Rubinsztein and colleagues review recent progress in this area, focusing on macroautophagy, and discuss how this process may be manipulated to protect against neurodegeneration.
It is now emerging that the neuroinflammation that is associated with Alzheimer disease may have a key role in driving this disease. In this Review, Heppner, Ransohoff and Becher examine the contribution of the immune system to the pathogenesis of this disorder.
