Skip to main content

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.

Volume 13 Issue 2, February 2010

Histone deacetylase 1 (HDAC1) is a nuclear enzyme involved in transcriptional repression. Here the authors report that HDAC1 mediates axonal damage by inhibiting mitochondrial transport. On the cover is a pseudo-colored composite micrograph of a mouse cerebellar slice culture stained for HDAC1 and for neurofilament medium and light chains.143180

Editorial

  • Although institutional review boards are important ethical gatekeepers of human patient research, there is little data to evaluate their effectiveness. More coordination and a more transparent decision-making process is critical if review boards are to make appropriate and consistent decisions.

    Editorial

    Advertisement

Top of page ⤴

News & Views

  • How does axonal loss, a hallmark of multiple sclerosis, occur? A study in this issue implicates histone deacetylase 1 (HDAC1), better known for regulating DNA transcription, in such axon degeneration. HDAC1 is exported from the nucleus and interacts with motor proteins, blocking axonal transport and leading to axon loss.

    • Robert H Miller
    News & Views
  • A study reveals that a largely ignored cell type in the dentate gyrus, semilunar granule cells, are persistently depolarized after a transient input and recruit interneurons to regulate the gating of information into the hippocampus.

    • Matthew C Walker
    • Ivan Pavlov
    • Dimitri M Kullmann
    News & Views
  • Many headaches are worsened by light exposure. A new study uses a combination of human and rat experiments to suggest that a previously unknown retinal input to the thalamus may be important in such photophobia.

    • Zoltán Molnár
    • Jeremy S H Taylor
    News & Views
Top of page ⤴

Brief Communication

  • The shell subregion of nucleus LMAN is an output for the basal ganglia in song birds. The authors report that lesions of the this region do not immediately disrupt vocal behavior but do prevent the development of stable vocal sequences and the ability to imitate vocal sounds.

    • Sarah W Bottjer
    • Brie Altenau
    Brief Communication
  • Visual resolution is best at the center of the retina, where the cones are packed together most closely, and decreases outside of this area, where cones are farther apart. Combining adaptive optics imaging and psychophysical testing, the authors reveal that resolution actually falls off much more quickly than cone spacing would predict.

    • Ethan A Rossi
    • Austin Roorda
    Brief Communication
Top of page ⤴

Article

  • Loss of function of the tuberous sclerosis complex, which leads to overactive mTOR signaling, disrupts EphA-dependent repulsive guidance of retinal axons. Growth cone collapse and repulsion by ephrin-A correlates with and requires the downregulation of mTOR signaling.

    • Duyu Nie
    • Alessia Di Nardo
    • Mustafa Sahin
    Article
  • It remains controversial whether the neocortex harbors progenitors that are capable of neurogenesis in vivo. Here the authors show that there is a population of mitotic cells in cortical layer I that are activated after ischemia to proliferate and generate GABAergic neurons.

    • Koji Ohira
    • Takahiro Furuta
    • Shun Nakamura
    Article
  • The authors detect cytosolic histone deacetylase-1 (HDAC1), a nuclear transcriptional repressor, in damaged axons in brains of humans with multiple sclerosis and of mice with cuprizone-induced demyelination. They show a cytotoxic mechanism in which the exported HDAC1 impairs mitochondrial transport, independent of its nuclear function.

    • Jin Young Kim
    • Siming Shen
    • Patrizia Casaccia
    Article
  • The amyloid beta (Aβ) peptide has been implicated in the pathogenesis of Alzheimer's disease. The authors report that overproduction of axonal or dendritic Aβ in rat organotypic slices reduces spine density and plasticity at nearby dendrites. Aβ production is dependent on action potentials and nicotinic receptors, whereas the effects of Aβ are dependent on NMDA receptors.

    • Wei Wei
    • Louis N Nguyen
    • Roberto Malinow
    Article
  • Recording from hippocampal slices, the authors find that brief stimulation triggers long-lasting synaptic barrages in mossy cells and hilar interneurons that arise from persistent firing in semilunar granule cells. Transient stimulation of different entorhinal cortex pathways activated distinct assemblies of hilar neurons, representing a previously unknown mechanism of short-term information storage that persisted for up to 10 seconds.

    • Phillip Larimer
    • Ben W Strowbridge
    Article
  • Light makes migraines worse. The authors show that this effect can be mediated by intrinsically photosensitive retinal ganglion cells projecting onto thalamic neurons that also receive nociceptive input from the dura mater.

    • Rodrigo Noseda
    • Vanessa Kainz
    • Rami Burstein
    Article
  • The authors use chromophore-targeted laser photolysis to selectively kill pyramidal neurons that project from auditory cortex to the inferior colliculus. They find that this eliminates the experience-dependent recalibration of sound localization, while leaving normal sound localization intact, implicating this pathway in learning-induced plasticity.

    • Victoria M Bajo
    • Fernando R Nodal
    • Andrew J King
    Article
  • Selecting relevant information to make perceptual judgements is usually thought to be a cortical function. By reversibly deactivating the superior colliculus in monkeys, this study demonstrates that activity in a subcortical structure can also inform perceptual judgements, even in the absence of orienting movements (a function previously attributed to the superior colliculus).

    • Lee P Lovejoy
    • Richard J Krauzlis
    Article
Top of page ⤴

Search

Quick links