Volume 25 Issue 6, June 2022

How and where negative affect is represented in the brain is a central neuroscientific question. A new study identifies neural correlates of both general negative affect and those specific to stimulus type by conducting multimodal functional MRI experiments.

The solutions found by neural networks to solve a task are often inscrutable. We have little insight into why a particular structure emerges in a network. By reverse engineering neural networks from dynamical principles, Dubreuil, Valente et al. show how neural population structure enables computational flexibility.

A new ‘meta-matching’ algorithm developed by He et al., published in this issue of Nature Neuroscience, enables small MRI datasets to piggyback on larger datasets to boost prediction accuracy. This innovation may aid in efforts toward personalized psychiatry.

The extent to which neurogenesis occurs in adult primates is still controversial. Single-cell RNA sequencing, immunofluorescence staining, and ex vivo neurosphere culture experiments were performed using the adult macaque hippocampus. The results reveal robust adult neurogenesis in the dentate gyrus of the primate hippocampus.

Myelin, iron, and calcium are major constituents of brain tissue with magnetic properties that can be detected non-invasively using MRI. Using quantitative susceptibility mapping, we estimated the magnetic susceptibility of brain structures in 35,273 participants, creating a new resource to identify novel, non-invasive markers of brain health.

Interrogation of neuronal autophagy in vivo in Alzheimerʼs disease mouse models identified deficient autolysosome acidification as the basis for extreme autophagic stress, yielding β-amyloid accumulation within intact neurons, which are the main source of senile plaques.

Candelabrum cells have remained an obscure cerebellar cell type. The authors show that candelabrum cells are the most abundant Purkinje layer interneuron, are molecularly distinct and have a connectivity that allows them to control cerebellar output.

Benoit et al. show that inhibition of the thalamus during adolescence leads to long-lasting changes in prefrontal cortex function and behavior, demonstrating the importance of adolescent thalamic activity for prefrontal circuit maturation.

Learning induces formation of dendritic spines, but their functional properties are unknown. The authors show that new spines bind new presynaptic inputs into preexisting spine clusters, generating locally coherent inputs representing learned behaviors.

Sensory systems compress representations while preserving information. Modeling of dopamine neuron responses and behavior during decision-making indicates that cognitive systems also compress representations as long as overall rewards are preserved.

Pain experience is highly individual, but its individual-specific brain features remain unclear. The authors identify brain regions with consistent versus variable representations of pain across a large sample of individuals.

Using multiple types of negative affect stimuli, functional magnetic resonance imaging and predictive modeling, Čeko et al. show that the brain integrates generalized and stimulus-type-specific representations of aversive events to jointly predict subjective experience.

Decomposing neural information into synergistic and redundant components, Luppi et al. show how core brain regions support higher cognition in virtue of their synergy, revealing that human brains leverage synergistic information more than macaques.

Neural computations are envisioned as arising from either distinct function subpopulations or distributed collective dynamics. Dubreuil and Valente et al. examined recurrent neural networks trained on various cognitive tasks and found that a mixed-selective yet non-random subpopulation structure enabled flexible responding through gain-modulated latent dynamics.

Individual-level prediction is critical for precision medicine, but many neuroimaging prediction studies are underpowered. Here the authors present a simple yet powerful approach that effectively translates predictive models from big to small data.

The existence of adult neurogenesis in primates is controversial. Hao et al. performed single-cell RNA sequencing with immunostaining and neurosphere cultures on adult macaques and revealed robust neurogenesis in the adult macaque hippocampus.

Wang et al. present a new open resource from the UK Biobank using quantitative susceptibility mapping, a neuroimaging marker sensitive to iron and myelin. They demonstrate a broad range of phenotypic and genetic associations in 35,885 participants.