Browse Articles

Evidence suggests that socio-economic status can affect not only the outcome of structural and functional development of the brain but also its rate. Tooley, Bassett and Mackey review this evidence and suggest that the valence and frequency of early experiences interact to influence brain development.

Neuroscience can explain cognition by considering single neurons and their connections (a ‘Sherringtonian’ view) or by considering neural spaces constructed by populations of neurons (a ‘Hopfieldian’ view). In this Perspective, Barack and Krakauer argue that the Hopfieldian view has the conceptual resources to explain cognition more fully the Sherringtonian view.

The impairment of brain fluid homeostasis is a feature of various conditions, highlighting the need to better understand brain water transport for drug development. Here, Nanna MacAulay reviews the molecular mechanisms underlying transmembrane water movement in neurons and glia and across brain barriers, emphasizing the part played by water cotransporters in this process.

Dopamine is often portrayed as a diffuse, slow neuromodulator, yet such signalling cannot explain its broad and sometimes rapid roles. Here, Liu, Goel and Kaeser review recent insights into dopamine release and receptors and present a new framework — the domain-overlap model — for dopamine signalling.

In humans, the anterior lateral prefrontal cortex is crucial for assessing the likelihood that a future decision will be correct.

Ion channel dysfunctions contribute significantly to fragile X pathophysiology. In this Review, Deng and Klyachko discuss the mechanisms underlying the effects of these channelopathies in fragile X syndrome, and the therapeutic potential of pharmacological interventions that target ion channels.

Analyses of recurrent neural networks and neural data show how the concept of magnitude is generalized across different contexts.

In this Perspective, Koban, Gianaros, Kober and Wager describe neural systems that construct models of the ‘self-in-context’. Such models endow events with personal meaning and enable predictive control over behaviour and peripheral physiology — with implications for health and disease.

TREM2 acts to limit the progression of amyloid-β-driven tau pathology in a mouse model of Alzheimer disease.

Different voltage-gated sodium channels contribute to the transmission of painful information. In this Review, Goodwin and McMahon ask which channels are involved in nociceptor transduction, transmission and transmitter release and why individuals with Nav1.7 null mutations have a painless phenotype.

Dysfunctional GABAergic signalling is common to various neurodevelopmental disorders (NDDs). Tang, Jaenisch and Sur give an overview of the contribution of GABA signalling dysfunction to NDD aetiology and examine how mechanistic insights into such disruption can be used to advance treatments for NDDs.

The development of advanced imaging methods such as super-resolution microscopy and tissue imaging has revolutionized our approach to explore the brain. In this Review, Choquet and colleagues review how the latest molecular tools are combined with imaging techniques to investigate neural function at a greater resolution than previously possible.

In this Comment, Riquelme and Gjorgjieva describe why and how individual researchers and the broader neuroscientific community should aim to improve code readability in the field.