Recent studies of transient receptor potential (TRP) channel structure have provided unique insight into the function of TRP channels in our normal sensations and in pain. In this Review, Rosenbaum et al. examine recent advances in the field of TRP ion channel structure–function relationships and their role in pain.

Social valence — the valence assigned to a social agent or social stimulus — is complex to compute. In this Review, Padilla-Coreano et al. explain how social attributes, social history, social memory, social rank and social isolation states are integrated to modulate social valence assignment.

When anticipating a threat, many animals ‘freeze’, becoming temporarily immobile. Roelofs and Dayan argue that this response enables the coordination of cognitive and somatic processes that prepare the animal for action and describe how CNS, autonomic and sensorimotor activity must be integrated to regulate freezing.

What’s the point of public engagement? Why can’t we just be neuroscience researchers? In this Comment I will argue that communicating our science is a key aspect of being a neuroscientist and that our science can be enriched by this.

Dynamin mediates vesicle scission during endocytosis, and here is shown to exist with syndapin 1 in biomolecular condensates at the endocytic zone that enable its participation in ultrafast endocytosis.

A study in mice finds that different dopamine neuron subsystems in the midbrain track food and fluid ingestion at different stages of this process, and that animals can use this information to learn about the results of ingestion.

Core features of the language network in the brain are consistent across languages and language families.

A subpopulation of GABAergic neurons in the mouse VTA drives restorative sleep in response to social defeat stress.

Dendritic arbors are shaped by adhesion-molecule interactions between developing dendrites and the extracellular environment that are transduced by dendritic mechanosensitive channels into local calcium transients.

Brain lesions in individuals who subsequently show remission of smoking addiction share a common connectivity profile.