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  • The biological meaning of eye pupil size is a subject of intense research. This study shows that pupil fluctuations reveal information about hypothalamic orexin cells, which control pupil size via a noradrenaline neural circuit.

    • Nikola Grujic
    • Alexander Tesmer
    • Denis Burdakov
    Brief CommunicationOpen Access
  • Froudist-Walsh et al. reveal organizational principles of receptor densities in macaque cortex. Densities of multiple receptor types align with changes in dendritic properties, myelin and functional networks. Data are openly released to the community.

    • Sean Froudist-Walsh
    • Ting Xu
    • Nicola Palomero-Gallagher
    ResourceOpen Access
  • This Review provides a comprehensive overview of the neuronal heterogeneity, circuit architecture and functional roles of the external globus pallidus, with emphasis on how the latest data deviate from traditional views of the basal ganglia.

    • Connor D. Courtney
    • Arin Pamukcu
    • C. Savio Chan
    Review Article
  • Vasek et al. show that microglia perform protein translation in their processes and that this translation is important for the number of processes and formation of phagocytic cups. These findings may provide insight into how microglia respond rapidly to a wide variety of local signals in defined cellular compartments.

    • Haley A. Vecchiarelli
    • Marie-Ève Tremblay
    News & Views
  • Neuroscience research is affected by a substantial racial bias, but there are major challenges involved in minimizing this bias. Here we discuss these challenges and call for a global discussion that develops answers to these challenges and defines best practices for how researchers can better represent human diversity and work against medical racism. This global discussion should involve researchers from medicine, life sciences, social sciences, and humanities, as well as people with lived experience and health equity activists, to improve racial and ethnic equity in neuroscience research and beyond.

    • Ruth Müller
    • Anja Kathrin Ruess
    • Markus Ploner
    Comment
  • Oxycodone withdrawal triggered distinct transcriptomic changes in the ventral tegmental area, nucleus accumbens and medial prefrontal cortex in mice with and without chronic pain, with histone deacetylase 1 (HDAC1) as a common upstream regulator. A novel HDAC1/HDAC2 inhibitor reduced behavioral manifestations of oxycodone withdrawal.

    • Kerri D. Pryce
    • Randal A. Serafini
    • Venetia Zachariou
    Article
  • Psychedelics induce fast and long-lasting antidepressant effects and neuronal plasticity, but their hallucinogenic effects limit their use. We show that, in mice, psychedelics bind directly to TrkB (the brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) receptor) with high affinity and promote BDNF-mediated plasticity and antidepressant-like effects, whereas their hallucinogenic-like effects are independent of TrkB binding.

    Research Briefing
  • Vasek et al. demonstrate that distal processes of microglia locally translate specific mRNAs including those related to immunity and phagocytosis. They then show that local protein synthesis is necessary for microglial process-initiated phagocytosis.

    • Michael J. Vasek
    • Shayna M. Mueller
    • Joseph D. Dougherty
    Article
  • Moliner et al. show that psychedelics directly bind to the BDNF receptor TrkB with high affinity and promote BDNF-mediated plasticity and antidepressant-like effects, whereas their hallucinogenic-like effects are independent of TrkB binding.

    • Rafael Moliner
    • Mykhailo Girych
    • Eero Castrén
    ArticleOpen Access
  • As Nature Neuroscience celebrates its 25th anniversary, we are having conversations with both established leaders in the field and those earlier in their careers to discuss how the field has evolved and where it is heading. This month we are talking to Carla Shatz, who is the Sapp Family Provostial Professor, Catherine Holman Johnson Director of Stanford Bio-X, and Professor of Biology and Neurobiology at Stanford University. Her work has illuminated mechanisms of visual system development and plasticity and has focused more recently on synaptic pruning mechanisms.

    • Shari Wiseman
    Q&A
  • A study by Holstein-Rønsbo, Gan et al. published in this issue of Nature Neuroscience adds another dimension to the ‘glymphatic’ story — the role of functional hyperemia facilitating perivascular flow of cerebrospinal fluid along pial arteries.

    • Kıvılcım Kılıç
    • Anna Devor
    News & Views
  • Sleep helps to stabilize long-term memories, possibly through the temporal synchronization of neuronal activity in different brain regions. Intracranial stimulation during sleep using prefrontal electric pulses, precisely timed with slow-wave activities in the medial temporal lobe, enhanced the coupling of neuronal oscillations across regions of the human brain and improved memory performance.

    Research Briefing