It has been widely believed that a key function of sleep is to actively clear metabolites and toxins from the brain. Miao, Luo et al. show in mice that brain clearance is markedly reduced—not increased—during sleep and anesthesia.

Studying gene expression in admixed Black Americans, Benjamin et al. reveal genetic ancestry-linked differences impacting immune and vascular genes and potentially influencing neurological disease risk. These findings highlight the importance of considering ancestry in brain research.

This paper presents Simple Behavioral Analysis (SimBA), an open-source platform for automated, explainable machine learning analysis of behavior. SimBA comes with extensive documentation, a graphical interface and an active community and works with any organism tracked by pose estimation.

Mature myelin has been considered static, though recent evidence indicates it is in fact dynamic. Here, Osso and Hughes review the dynamics of mature myelin, a form of neuroplasticity, from myelin turnover to remodeling of myelin structure. The authors consider the mechanisms that regulate these dynamics and the functional implications of mature myelin remodeling.

The axon guidance receptor Plexin-B1 regulates the cellular interaction of peri-plaque astrocytes with microglia to affect the pathophysiology of Alzheimer’s disease.

Oligodendrocyte-lineage NG2 glia are shown to limit prion-induced neurodegeneration by quenching toxic microglial responses. Their depletion unleashes prostaglandin E2 secretion by microglia and contributes non-cell-autonomously to prion toxicity.

Intersectional adeno-associated viruses are important for neuroscience research but can be limited by complex and bulky design parameters. Hughes et al. present a unique and space-saving approach that simplifies toolkit development and provides expanded functionality.

This paper presents Simple Behavioral Analysis (SimBA), an open-source platform for automated, explainable machine learning analysis of behavior. SimBA comes with extensive documentation, a graphical interface and an active community and works with any organism tracked by pose estimation.

How the brain tracks blood glucose dynamics is unclear. Viskaitis et al. show that hypothalamic orexin/hypocretin cells track glucose concentration and rate of change and that their activity is important for glucose-evoked locomotor suppression.

LINE-1 retrotransposons are a type of mobile DNA element normally repressed in the body. Here the authors show that LINE-1 sequences can jump in mouse parvalbumin interneurons and also promote the transcription of key parvalbumin interneuron genes.

The increased inclusion of samples from individuals from minoritized communities in biomedical research will help to mitigate health disparities that stem from a medical enterprise founded in racism and exclusion. In this issue of Nature Neuroscience, Benjamin et al. investigate how genetic ancestry influences the expression of genes in the brain, an effort supported by community leaders who raised funding, partnered in shaping research questions and had a central role in the interpretation and communication of the study’s findings. Here, we outline the public and social context that motivated these efforts towards ensuring equitable access to the benefits of science for all.

Effective science communication is necessary for engaging the public in scientific discourse and ensuring equitable access to knowledge. Training doctoral students in science communication will instill principles of accessibility, accountability, and adaptability in the next generation of scientific leaders, who are poised to expand science’s reach, generate public support for research funding, and counter misinformation. To this aim, we provide a guide for implementing formal science communication training for doctoral students.