Inhibition–excitation balance articles from across Nature Portfolio

Current approaches possibly cannot unambiguously distinguish the unique contributions of feedback inhibition versus feedforward inhibition to oscillatory events. Here authors show that a loss of CA1 pyramidal cell transmission, resulting in feedback inhibition reduction, leads to spatially triggered high-frequency oscillatory events; these events were like place cells in their spatial extent and localized to small regions in CA1.

Ionic levels in neurons provide the potential energy for all neuronal communication. Here the. authors show a very large modulation of [Cl^-]_i neocortical pyramidal cells, from day to night, with marked effects on cortical excitability and processing.

The emerging field of genetically targeted chemical assembly (GTCA) uses cell-specific genetic information to instruct chemical synthesis in situ. This Perspective discusses recent progress in GTCA and outlines opportunities for expanding the GTCA toolbox and diversifying applications.

A single cell type in the Drosophila visual system implements motion-opponent inhibition at multiple consecutive circuit levels. This neural architecture enables high stimulus selectivity without compromising sensitivity under noisy conditions.

Cortical–subcortical fusion organoids replicate complex features of human brain activity and are used to explore altered network function in Rett syndrome.

Two studies show that the claustrum delivers inhibition to different parts of the cortex — the prefrontal cortex and auditory cortex.

Oxytocin tunes the responses of neurons in the left auditory cortex to pup calls and may thus promote pup retrieval by virgin female mice.

Austism-linked mutations in neuroligin 3 promote repetitive behaviour in mice by targeting a striatal circuit.

The development of effective antiepilepsy drugs is moving on from trial-and-error approaches to sophisticated molecular solutions.

Two studies show that local inhibitory connectivity and hippocampal excitatory input support the spatial firing patterns of entorhinal grid cells, providing support for continuous attractor model of grid cell firing.