Neurophysiology articles within Nature Communications

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  • Article
    | Open Access

    Acute stress transiently disrupts reward-seeking behaviour and repeated stress exposure produces lasting anhedonia-like behaviour in rodents. Here, the authors show that stress triggers GABAergic activity in the ventral tegmental area which blunts reward-seeking behaviour in mice.

    • Daniel C. Lowes
    • , Linda A. Chamberlin
    •  & Alexander Z. Harris

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Pupariation in Drosophila is triggered by the steroid-hormone ecdysone and requires coordination between associated behavioral and body-reshaping motor subprograms. The authors show that coordination requires ecdysone-dependent Dilp8-Lgr3 signaling between the cuticle epidermis and interneurons.

    • Fabiana Heredia
    • , Yanel Volonté
    •  & Alisson M. Gontijo

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The unique biophysical properties of human cortical neurons that may underlie interlaminar communication are explored. With a focus on Ih and layers 2&3, 3c, and 5, the authors show that L5 pyramidal neurons are better adapted than their superficial layer counterparts to track delta and theta frequency inputs.

    • Homeira Moradi Chameh
    • , Scott Rich
    •  & Taufik A. Valiante

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The ventromedial hypothalamus regulates systemic glucose metabolism. Here the authors show that cytosolic phospholipase A2 mediated phospholipid metabolism contributes to this regulation in healthy animals but exert deteriorating effects on glucose homeostasis under high-fat-diet feeding.

    • Ming-Liang Lee
    • , Hirokazu Matsunaga
    •  & Chitoku Toda

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The analysis of AMPA-type glutamate receptor (AMPAR) trafficking is essential for understanding molecular mechanisms of learning and memory, but the analytical tools are currently limited. Here, the authors report a method that combines affinity-based receptor labeling and bioorthogonal click chemistry to quantify AMPAR distribution and trafficking under physiological conditions.

    • Kento Ojima
    • , Kazuki Shiraiwa
    •  & Shigeki Kiyonaka

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Hypothalamic melanocortin neurons regulate systemic glucose homeostasis through incompletely understood pathways. Here, the authors show that a subset of pro-opiomelanocortin neurons innervate the liver via preganglionic parasympathetic cholinergic neurons in the dorsal motor nucleus of the vagus and that stimulation of this pathway elevates blood glucose levels

    • Eunjin Kwon
    • , Hye-Young Joung
    •  & Young-Hwan Jo

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The in vivo firing patterns of ventral midbrain dopamine neurons are controlled by afferent and intrinsic activity. The authors identified biophysical membrane potential signatures associated with distinct in vivo firing patterns in whole-cell recordings of spontaneously active midbrain dopamine neurons.

    • Kanako Otomo
    • , Jessica Perkins
    •  & Carlos A. Paladini

  • Article
    | Open Access

    To be successful, selective neuromodulation requires a non-invasive method of imaging the fascicular anatomy of peripheral nerves. Here, the authors show the applicability and reliability of fast neural electrical impedance tomography for this purpose and provide its validation against the gold standards of invasive imaging.

    • Enrico Ravagli
    • , Svetlana Mastitskaya
    •  & David Holder

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Current media for neuronal cell and organoid cultures are suboptimal for functional imaging and optogenetics experiments, owing to phototoxicity and unphysiological performance. Here the authors formulate an optimised neuronal medium to support live cell imaging and electrophysiological activity.

    • Michael Zabolocki
    • , Kasandra McCormack
    •  & Cedric Bardy

  • Article
    | Open Access

    GABAA receptors mediate most inhibitory synaptic transmission in the brain. Here authors used concatemeric α1β2γ2 GABAA receptors to introduce gain-of-desensitization mutations one subunit at a time, revealing non-concerted rearrangements with a key contribution of the γ2 subunit during desensitization.

    • Marc Gielen
    • , Nathalie Barilone
    •  & Pierre-Jean Corringer

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Social interactions require monitoring others’ actions to optimally organise one’s own actions. Here, the authors show that the pathway from the ventral premotor cortex (PMv) to the medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC) is causally involved in monitoring observed, but not executed, actions.

    • Taihei Ninomiya
    • , Atsushi Noritake
    •  & Masaki Isoda

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Clinical neuroprotective strategies for acute spinal cord injury (SCI) have largely overlooked the heart. Here the authors show cardiac contractility is immediately impaired in a porcine model of T2 SCI, and cardio-centric treatment with dobutamine optimizes cord oxygenation and mitigates haemorrhage.

    • Alexandra M. Williams
    • , Neda Manouchehri
    •  & Christopher R. West

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Modulation of peripheral nervous system signalling has many applications in medicine, neurobiology and machine-man interfaces. Here the authors develop a microscale implantable device for chronic interfacing with a small diameter nerve, and show multi-week in vivo recording and control of activity.

    • Timothy M. Otchy
    • , Christos Michas
    •  & Timothy J. Gardner

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Learning skilled movements requires evolution in neural population dynamics both within and across cortical regions. Here, the authors combine simultaneous recordings of motor and premotor cortex with computational methods to show that single-trial cross-area dynamics correlate with single-trial behavior performance and skill acquisition.

    • T. L. Veuthey
    • , K. Derosier
    •  & K. Ganguly

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Although everyday life unfolds continuously, we tend to remember past experiences as discrete events. Here, the authors show that dynamic, pupil-linked arousal states track the encoding of such episodes, as revealed by changes in memory for the temporal order and duration of recent event sequences.

    • David Clewett
    • , Camille Gasser
    •  & Lila Davachi

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Changes in EEG delta-activity are widely used as proxy of sleep propensity. Here the authors demonstrate in mice and humans the presence of two types of delta-waves, only one of which reports on prior sleep-wake history with dynamics denoting a wake-inertia process accompanying deepest non-rapid-eye-movement sleep (NREM) sleep.

    • Jeffrey Hubbard
    • , Thomas C. Gent
    •  & Paul Franken

  • Article
    | Open Access

    PIEZO2 is a critical component of the mechanism by which innocuous touch causes pain (tactile allodynia). Here, authors find that the dietary fatty acid margaric acid decreases PIEZO2 function in a dose-dependent manner and counteracts neuronal mechanical sensitization by a proalgesic agent.

    • Luis O. Romero
    • , Rebeca Caires
    •  & Valeria Vásquez

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Calcium imaging has been used to visualize the activity of individual synapses, but cannot be scaled up to monitor thousands of synapses in tissue. Here, the authors present genetic tools that can be photoconverted from green to red to create a map of active synapses.

    • Alberto Perez-Alvarez
    • , Brenna C. Fearey
    •  & Thomas G. Oertner

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The roots of psychopathology take shape during adverse parent-infant interactions, shown through infant attachment quality. Using rodents, the authors show that blunted infant cortical processing of the mother determines attachment quality through a stress hormone-dependent mechanism.

    • Maya Opendak
    • , Emma Theisen
    •  & Regina M. Sullivan

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Understanding mechanisms of cerebral oxygen regulation is critical for healthy brain function. Here the authors show that respiration is a key modulator of cerebral oxygenation, which will be helpful in better resolving neurally-generated functional brain imaging signals, such as BOLD fMRI.

    • Qingguang Zhang
    • , Morgane Roche
    •  & Patrick J. Drew

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Electrical stimulation of the brain can have variable effects, perhaps because of individual differences in brain structure which produce differences in the electric fields. Here, the authors show that using functional and structural brain imaging along with electric field modeling can predict the effectiveness of stimulation.

    • Florian H. Kasten
    • , Katharina Duecker
    •  & Christoph S. Herrmann

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Vocal development in humans and primate model systems is typically attributed to changing neural circuits. Here the authors show in marmoset monkeys that biomechanical changes in the vocal organ underlie the transition from infant cries to adult contact calls, demonstrating that vocal development is not solely due to neural control.

    • Yisi S. Zhang
    • , Daniel Y. Takahashi
    •  & Coen P. H. Elemans

  • Article
    | Open Access

    AMPA receptors mediate excitatory synaptic transmission and are involved in synaptic plasticity. The authors show that p97 interacts with the GluA1 subunit of AMPA receptors, promotes the formation of GluA1 homomeric AMPA receptors, and regulates AMPA receptor trafficking during synaptic plasticity.

    • Yuan Ge
    • , Meng Tian
    •  & Yu Tian Wang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Spinal CPGs transmit movement commands through rhythmic synaptic drive onto the spinal premotor network. Here, the authors use paired recordings to demonstrate that spinal neurons have decorrelated synaptic activity suggesting a CPG network with sparse convergent connectivity.

    • Marija Radosevic
    • , Alex Willumsen
    •  & Rune W. Berg

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Hypothalamus is implicated in memory disorders but the neural mechanisms are unknown. Here, the authors report that MCH expressing hypothalamic neurons respond to novel object exposure, are inhibited by local GAD65 expressing neurons and these local circuit interactions are causally involved in object memory formation.

    • Christin Kosse
    •  & Denis Burdakov

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Episodic memory retrieval is hypothesized to rely on hippocampal reinstatement of item-context associations which drives reinstatement of item information in cortex. Here, the authors confirm this sequence of events, using iEEG recordings from the human hippocampus and lateral temporal cortex.

    • D. Pacheco Estefan
    • , M. Sánchez-Fibla
    •  & P. F. M. J. Verschure

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The red nucleus (RN) is a midbrain nucleus known to be involved in the fine control of limb movements, but its role in motor learning is unclear. Here, the authors identified a neuronal population within the red nucleus, co-expressing Vglut2, PV and C1Ql2, which undergoes training-dependent plasticity.

    • Giorgio Rizzi
    • , Mustafa Coban
    •  & Kelly R. Tan

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Galvanic vestibular stimulation (GVS) uses transmastoid electrical currents to activate the vestibular system in humans without head movement. Here, the authors apply GVS to monkeys and record the activity of vestibular afferents to both GVS and motion to reveal the neural substrate underlying GVS evoked perceptual, ocular and postural responses.

    • Annie Kwan
    • , Patrick A. Forbes
    •  & Kathleen E. Cullen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Sleep is essential for homeostasis and insufficient or excessive sleep are associated with adverse outcomes. Here, the authors perform GWAS for self-reported habitual sleep duration in adults, supported by accelerometer-derived measures, and identify genetic correlation with psychiatric and metabolic traits

    • Hassan S. Dashti
    • , Samuel E. Jones
    •  & Richa Saxena

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Magnetoencephalography (MEG) is a non-invasive method of measuring neural activity but the hippocampus and amygdala are difficult to measure with MEG because of their deep localization. Here, the authors show with simultaneous MEG and invasive recordings that hippocampus and amygdala activity can be retrieved from the surface.

    • Francesca Pizzo
    • , N. Roehri
    •  & C. G. Bénar

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Reduction in food intake elicits neuroendocrine adaptations to counterregulate the negative energy balance, e.g. via reduction in leptin levels. Here, the authors identify an additional starvation signal, growth hormone (GH). Blocking GH receptor attenuates the fall of whole body energy expenditure during food deprivation in mice.

    • Isadora C. Furigo
    • , Pryscila D. S. Teixeira
    •  & J. Donato Jr

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The mechanisms underlying the regenerative capacity of the liver are not fully understood. Here, the authors show that the acute regenerative response to liver injury in mice is regulated by the communication involving the vagus nerve, macrophages, and hepatocytes, leading to hepatic FoxM1 activation and promotion of overall survival.

    • Tomohito Izumi
    • , Junta Imai
    •  & Hideki Katagiri

  • Review Article
    | Open Access

    Transcranial electrical stimulation techniques, such as tDCS and tACS, are popular tools for neuroscience and clinical therapy, but how low-intensity current might modulate brain activity remains unclear. In this review, the authors review the evidence on mechanisms of transcranial electrical stimulation.

    • Anli Liu
    • , Mihály Vöröslakos
    •  & György Buzsáki

  • Article
    | Open Access

    While autapses are synapses made by a neuron onto itself, its functional significance in pyramidal cells are not clear. Here, the authors show that in the mammalian neocortex, autapses of pyramidal cells can enhance burst firing and coincidence detection from other inputs.

    • Luping Yin
    • , Rui Zheng
    •  & Yousheng Shu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Direct electrical brain stimulation can induce widespread changes in neural activity, offering a means to modulate network-wide activity and treat disease. Here, the authors show that the low-frequency functional connectivity profile of a stimulation target predicts where induced theta activity occurs.

    • E. A. Solomon
    • , J. E. Kragel
    •  & M. J. Kahana

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