Volume 9 Issue 4, April 2006

Antidepressants take a few weeks to act, and their effects can extend for months after the drugs are discontinued. Tsankova et al. suggest a possible molecular basis for these effects, by showing that stress and the antidepressant imipramine induce modifications of chromatin to produce more or less repressive states for gene expression.

Both menthol and cool temperatures activate the cation channel TRPM8, but whether they do so via distinct domains was unclear. A new paper shows that activation of TRPM8 by these two stimuli can be separated.

A Bayesian model of visual motion perception describes how the brain combines assumptions with evidence. A new study in this issue tests and expands the model, building connections between perception, the environment and neural responses.*

Neurons born in the adult subventricular zone migrate a long way to their destination. A new study suggests that signals from the corticospinal fluid, in particular the chemorepellent Slit2, guide adult neuroblast migration.

Traditional learning theory suggests that animals do not understand that actions cause their consequences. A new paper uses sophisticated behavioral experiments to conclude that rats are capable of causal reasoning.