Plot glasses: A genome-wide association study of alcohol dependence shows a strong signal on chromosome 4 at the ADH1B gene and identifies genetic correlations with other psychiatric disorders and indices of health and well-being.

See Walters et al.

The cover artwork depicts the moment when an animal reaches a crossroads and is presented with a mutually exclusive choice. The darker path leads to relapse and being trapped in the endless cycle of drug addiction. The lighter path leads to abstinence from drug use, supported by a waiting “friend rat” and eventual freedom from addiction. This graphic is a metaphor for social-based contingency management treatment, in which alternative social supports are used as incentive to choose abstinence rather than drug use. Venniro et al. highlight the need for incorporating social factors into neuroscience-based addiction research by demonstrating that volitional social interaction prevents drug addiction and incubation of craving in rat models.

See Venniro et al.

This month's special issue features a series of reviews describing recent advances in neurodegenerative disease research. One theme that emerges is the common molecular mechanisms or pathological phenomena shared across the diseases, as illustrated by the playing cards in the cover image.

Kelley et al. performed integrative deconvolution of gene expression data from intact tissue samples to reveal the core transcriptional features of human CNS cell classes, and they developed mathematical models of gene expression to identify cell class-specific transcriptional differences in disease, among CNS regions, and between species. The cover image depicts an artist’s perspective on cellular identities in the human brain emerging from distinct combinations of RNA sequences.

See Kelley et al.

Girdhar, Hoffman and colleagues mapped promoter- and enhancer-associated histone acetylation and methylation marks in neuronal and non-neuronal chromatin from the prefrontal and anterior cingulate cortex of the adult human brain, and draw a link between the neuronal epigenome and the genetic risk architecture of schizophrenia and psychiatric traits. The cover image depicts an artist’s perspective on the interaction between chromatin, including DNA and nucleosomal histones, and the brain’s neuronal and glial networks.

See Girdhar et al.

A localized transcriptome at the synapse enables synapse-, stimulus-, and transcript-specific local protein synthesis. Merkurjev et al. show that a chemical mark, N 6-methyladenosine, selectively decorates functionally related transcripts for synaptic regulation. A similar partitioning can be seen in a Japanese bento box, depicted here.

See Merkurjev et al.

Humans and other animals must ‘learn how to learn’, figuring out how to leverage past experiences to learn rapidly in new situations. Every instance of learning therefore reflects a previous history of related learning experiences, as playfully illustrated on the cover. In this issue, Wang and colleagues show how learning to learn may arise from an interplay between the dopaminergic system and prefrontal cortex.

See Wang et al.

Albergaria, Carey and colleagues show that locomotor activity improves associative learning in mice through mechanisms that act on the mossy fiber pathway within the cerebellum. The cover image incorporates references to Pavlov’s original classical conditioning experiments, within a cerebellar landscape.

See Albergaria et al.

In this issue, Ueda and colleagues use a new tissue clearing and expansion approach to build an editable, single-cell-resolution mouse brain atlas called CUBIC-Atlas. The cover image illustrates the pointillistic nature of this new atlas that is linked to its single-cell resolution.

See Murakami et al. 21, 625–637 (2018)

Kim and colleagues discovered a medial preoptic circuit involved in mediating behavioral responses toward nonsocial objects and prey.

See Park et al. 21, 364–372 (2018)

In this issue of Nature Neuroscience, Iadecola and colleagues report that salt overconsumption leads to endothelial dysfunction, a decrease in resting cerebral blood flow and cognitive deficits in mice. These effects are caused by increases in TH17 immune cells in the gut and in circulating levels of IL-17, unraveling a previously unsuspected gut–brain axis linked to dietary salt consumption.

See Faraco et al. 21, 245–254 (2018)

Fractured through a prism, the components of light travel at different speeds. Wang, Narain and colleagues identify an analogous principle for timing control in the brain.

See Wang et al. 21, 102–110 (2017)