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Reflexes help us maintain a default posture and direction of locomotion. But what if we deliberately want to move differently? In Drosophila, the brain modifies a visually driven stabilization reflex to enable voluntary movements.
A study finds that pain hypersensitivity in male and female mice is differentially dependent on microglia and T cells, and describes a sex-specific response to microglia-targeted pain treatments. This sex difference will be important to consider when developing treatments for pain and other neurological disorders involving microglia and immune cells.
How do neurons combine distinct information streams and form long-lasting associations? Dendritic plateau potentials may allow the integration and storage of coincident location and contextual information in hippocampal neurons.
The confidence that we place in our decisions can affect the judgments themselves. The BOLD signal in ventromedial prefrontal cortex automatically reflects the relationship between confidence and judgments on a range of tasks.
Schizophrenia-linked single nucleotide polymorphisms in MIR137 alter expression of miR-137 in neurons. Abnormal expression of miR-137 affects vesicle release at presynaptic terminals and in turn alters hippocampal functioning.
Epidemiological studies and anecdotal evidence show overlap between psychiatric disorders and creativity, but why? A new study uses genome-wide association data from schizophrenia and bipolar disorder to show that genetics are part of the explanation.
Discovering the environmental factors that control microglia is key to understanding and managing brain health. A new study finds that microbiota in the gut are essential to the regulation of microglial maturation and activation.
In a bidirectional relationship, the sleep/wake cycle regulates amyloid-β (Aβ) levels and Aβ accumulation then disrupts sleep. A quantitative three-way model now suggests that Aβ impairs memory via its effect on sleep.
A study finds the transcription factor Lmx1b to be necessary in adults for preventing degeneration of midbrain dopamine neurons and implicates it in lysosomal function and regulation in these neurons.
Observing the choices of others adds utility to the chosen option. The additional utility conferred by others' choices is encoded by the ventromedial prefrontal cortex and explains the idiosyncratic effects of social influence.
The prefrontal cortex is known to influence dopamine release in the striatum–but how? New data in mice suggest that cortical spine density affects striatal dopamine release via monosynaptic control of dopamine neurons, tracing a chain of events from spine loss to antipsychotic-responsive psychomotor agitation.
Theory suggests that cerebellar granule cells combine sensory and motor signals originating from different sources. An unexpected logic governing how granule cells process different input sources may enhance computational power.
Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a complex and as yet untreatable neurodegenerative disorder. We discuss two examples of exome sequencing in large international collections of familial and sporadic ALS cases that are revealing new and potentially treatable pathways, such as those involving autophagy and neuroinflammation.
Strategic decisions can prove difficult to study. The board game shogi is used to investigate the functional neuroanatomy of strategic decisions, revealing different brain areas from those engaged by other forms of choice.
Insight into the mechanism by which deep brain stimulation exerts its therapeutic effects comes from recording in motor cortical regions of neurosurgical subjects undergoing subthalamic nucleus deep brain stimulation.
How are quiescent adult neural stem cells (NSCs) generated during development? A study now identifies a reserve population of p57-expressing, slowly dividing embryonic neural progenitors that later give rise to adult NSCs.
