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Volume 26 Issue 5, May 2023

Looking back on 25 years

The cover image is a depiction of connections of past neuroscience research coming together to create forward momentum in the form of a lion. The lion represents a Sanskrit phrase for retrospection — सिंहावलोकन or sinhavalokan — which translates to “as a lion looks back.” It originates from the behavior of a lion pausing momentarily to look back at the path traversed and forward to what lies ahead. As Nature Neuroscience completes 25 years, we pause and reflect on how we have worked with the neuroscience community in communicating the most impactful research. Cover concept: Marina Corral Spence and Sachin Ranade.

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Image: Marina Corral Spence. Cover Design: Marina Corral Spence.

Editorial

  • This month, Nature Neuroscience celebrates the 25th anniversary of our first issue. To mark the occasion, we reflect on the past quarter of a century of the journal and the field, and look to the future.

    Editorial

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Q&A

  • To mark the 25th anniversary of Nature Neuroscience, Shari Wiseman spoke with each of the past Chief Editors of the journal: Charles Jennings (1998–2003), Sandra Aamodt (2003–2008), Kalyani Narasimhan (2008–2014), Meredith LeMasurier (2014–2016), and Kevin Da Silva (2016–2021). They shared their memories and insights about the journal’s early days, scientific publishing, and the field of neuroscience.

    • Shari Wiseman
    Q&A
  • As Nature Neuroscience celebrates its 25th anniversary, we are having conversations with both established leaders in the field and those earlier in their careers to discuss how the field has evolved and where it is heading. This month we are talking to Michal Schwartz at the Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel, a neuroimmunologist and pioneer in the study of the role of the immune system in physiology and in diseases of the central nervous system. She is the winner of the 2023 Israel Prize in Life Sciences.

    • Elisa Floriddia
    Q&A
  • As Nature Neuroscience celebrates its 25th anniversary, we are having conversations with both established leaders in the field and those earlier in their careers to discuss how neuroscience has evolved, and where it is heading. This month, we are talking to Nii Addy, the Albert E. Kent Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Associate Professor of Cellular and Molecular Physiology, and the inaugural Director of Scientist Diversity and Inclusion at Yale School of Medicine. Dr Addy studies dopamine, motivation, and addiction, and spoke with me about promoting diversity, how to be a good mentor, and communicating with the public via his popular podcast.

    • Shari Wiseman
    Q&A
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Obituary

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Research Highlights

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News & Views

  • Zhu et al. show that basal forebrain cholinergic neurons send fast, specific information about a broad range of sensory stimuli to the auditory cortex, modulated by slower fluctuations in cholinergic activity. These findings help us to understand how the cholinergic system multiplexes diverse representations to fulfil its multifaceted roles in attention, learning and memory.

    • Dániel Schlingloff
    • Balázs Hangya
    • Lucas Pinto
    News & Views
  • Stegemann et al. have unraveled a long-lasting role for fear engrams in future pain perception. Prefrontal pain and fear representations become entangled following a fearful event. As subsequent painful experiences also reactivate the fear network, silencing the fear engram alone can alleviate both tonic pain and hypersensitivity in chronic pain.

    • Clément Pouget
    • Gisella Vetere
    News & Views
  • In this issue, Shinn et al. demonstrate a close relationship between complex brain network topology and lower-level statistical properties of neuroimaging data. They also highlight the potential of these statistical measures, which capture similarity in space and time, to provide imaging-based markers of aging and pharmacological states.

    • Shiyu Wang
    • Catie Chang
    News & Views
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Research Briefings

  • Two monkeys solved combinatorial optimization problems for rewards. They deliberated for extended durations, approximated efficient computational algorithms for managing complexity, and even selected algorithms according to the computational complexity of the trial. These findings reveal evidence for algorithm-based reasoning and establish a paradigm for studying the neurophysiological basis of deliberative thought.

    Research Briefing
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