Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain
the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in
Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles
and JavaScript.
The authors show that decreased synaptic efficacy onto raphe-projecting lateral habenula neurons supports opiate withdrawal-induced sociability deficits, and they demonstrate a role for TNF-α signaling in this process.
Norman-Haignere et al. report that humans but not macaque monkeys possess cortical regions with a strong preference for harmonic tones compared to noise. This species difference may be driven by the demands of speech and music perception in humans.
Lloyd et al. find that regeneration of CNS myelin requires death of proinflammatory microglia followed by repopulation to a pro-regenerative state, revealing new therapeutic targets for neurodegenerative disease.
Park et al. demonstrate in vivo the efficacy of Cas9 nanocomplexes as therapeutic agents in mouse models of Alzheimer’s disease. This strategy may be applicable to the treatment of a broad range of neurological diseases.
Weiler et al demonstrate that the fastest spinal feedback pathway can integrate information from the elbow and wrist, and take into account the arm’s orientation to produce corrective responses that help to maintain the hand’s position in space.
Previous studies have suggested that cortical input can drive spatially tuned responses in hippocampal CA1 neurons. Here we use acute inactivation to demonstrate that CA3 is the predominant driver of CA1 responses under normal conditions.
Herman et al. exploit the reliable effects of perturbing superior colliculus (SC) neuronal activity on perceptual choice behavior to demonstrate a plausible mechanism by which SC may contribute to perceptual judgments during covert attention tasks.
Using genetic tools of neural circuit tracing and manipulation, we identify a novel projection from the amygdala to the zona incerta—a nucleus not previously implicated in fear memory—that is essential for recent and remote fear memories.
Whether MeCP2 competes with linker histone H1 for DNA binding has never been tested in vivo. Ito-Ishida et al. performed ChIP-seq on MeCP2 and Flag-H1.0 in mouse forebrain neurons and reveal that their genomic distributions are largely independent.
mTORC1 was posited as required for hippocampal mGluR-LTD at CA1 synapses based on its pharmacological inhibition with rapamycin. Using molecular genetics, the authors show that mTORC2 but not mTORC1 is required for mGluR-LTD and associated behaviors.
The neuropeptide CRH is believed to induce aversive, stress-like behavioral responses. Here the authors describe a distinct population of CRH neurons in the extended amygdala that act to suppress anxiety by positively modulating dopamine release.
Wittig et al. show that attention in the service of verbal memory triggers a preparatory suppression of neural activity in the human anterior temporal lobe, suggesting that this region is a novel and unexpected source of attentional control.
Prelimbic (PL) and infralimbic (IL) mPFC are thought to mediate fear expression and fear extinction, respectively. The authors show that PL projects to IL and innervates projections to amygdala and that this connection is engaged in fear extinction.
Whether we currently pay attention to memory items matters for their neural representation. Unattended items are stored exclusively in activity of higher-level brain areas, whereas attended items are also represented in low-level sensory regions.
The authors show that Mrgprs, vagal sensory neuron-expressing GPCRs, mediate bronchoconstriction and hyperresponsiveness, both of which are hallmark features of asthma. The results reveal novel potential neural mechanisms underlying asthma.
fMRI activity in human entorhinal cortex is modulated by eye-movement direction with 60° periodicity, implicating a grid cell-like code in mapping visual space. This suggests a role for entorhinal grid coding in cognition beyond spatial navigation.
The authors show that human entorhinal cortex supports a grid cell-like representation of visual space. This visual grid pattern is stably anchored to the external visual world in a fashion analogous to rodent grid representations of navigable space.
The authors live-image zebrafish myelin sheath Ca2+ activity in vivo and find that high-amplitude long-duration Ca2+ transients precede calpain-dependent sheath retractions while frequent low-amplitude short-duration transients drive sheath growth.
Myelin formed by oligodendrocytes enables rapid, energy-efficient information transmission in CNS, but its development is unclear. The authors show that the rate of intracellular calcium transients regulates elongation of developing myelin sheaths.
A genome-wide association study of delay discounting (DD) on 23,127 subjects found that genotype accounted for 12% of variance in DD; the DD genetic signature overlapped with ADHD, schizophrenia, depression, smoking, personality, cognition and weight.