News & Views in 2000

Environmental factors are thought to be an important cause of Parkinson's disease. A new study shows that rats chronically treated with the mitochondrial inhibitor rotenone, a common pesticide, develop neuropathological and behavioral symptoms of Parkinsonism.

AMPA, NMDA or insulin can cause endocytosis of AMPA receptors. Two papers now show that these stimuli act via distinct signaling pathways, some of which also induce LTD.

Llano and colleagues show that calcium released from presynaptic stores can drive simultaneous release of multiple vesicles at fast inhibitory synapses in the cerebellum.

A recent Nature paper on mice lacking the Na⁺ channel BNC1 shows that this channel is essential for neuronal touch receptor function and may be part of a mechanosensory complex.

Practicing a procedural memory task does not improve performance until hours later. Two new studies show that sleep is absolutely necessary for this memory consolidation.

The interaction of two untranslated sequences in the mRNA for calcium/calmodulin-dependent protein kinase II could regulate its activity-dependent transport into dendrites.

Erickson and colleagues suggest that nearby neurons in the perirhinal cortex share similar object preferences, and that these groups may develop based on visual experience.

Neural development seems normal in mice lacking single TGF-βs, but blocking function of all TGF-βs is now shown to rescue neurons from programmed apoptosis, suggesting that TGF-βs might determine the timing of vulnerability to trophic factor deprivation in development.

Zhu and colleagues show that delivery of AMPA receptors to synapses early in development is activity dependent and that it shares some, but not all, features with LTP.

An imaging study shows that recognition associated with a specific time and setting (episodic memory) activates the hippocampus—whereas other forms of recognition do not.

A recent study suggests that functional brain imaging combined with behavioral tests can identify preclinical changes that may predict Alzheimer's disease.

The diffusible signal Sonic Hedgehog (Shh) controls cell type specification in the ventral spinal cord. Litingtung and Chiang now show that some defects due to the lack of Shh are rescued by deleting the transcription factor Gli3, suggesting that Shh works by inactivating Gli3.

A new study demonstrates a link between neurotransmitter secretion and reuptake by showing that syntaxin 1A also interacts with—and regulates—GAT1 GABA transporters.

Overexpression of an activity-dependent protein, CPG15, in Xenopus tectal cells promotes growth of tectal dendrites and retinal axons, and may coordinate their development.

Multielectrode recording arrays in the moth antennal lobe indicate that the relative timing of action potentials may convey information about odor concentration and mixture.

Single-neuron recordings in the human hippocampus, entorhinal cortex and amygdala demonstrate that cells in these areas can respond selectively to particular categories of visual stimuli.

By showing that synaptic strength increases as a function of distance from the soma, Magee and Cook have solved the long-standing puzzle of how synapses on distal dendrites can influence action potential initiation.

Elson and colleagues report the identification of a new, secreted ligand for the ciliary neurotrophic factor receptor, which is likely to be important during development.