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Uchida and colleagues consider integration of information for perceptual decision making, focusing on olfactory and visual systems. They argue that there are neural mechanisms that construct discrete sensory samples from a continuous input stream to facilitate important computational functions.
Transplantation of neural stem cells holds great promise for treating neurological disorders. Martino and Pluchino argue that neural stem cells achieve their therapeutic efficacy exculsively by a cell-replacement mechanism, rather than by the recently proposed alternative mechanism of bystander neuroprotection.
Data sharing in neuroscience remains relatively rare. Ascoli describes the obstacles that need to be overcome, and highlights the great potential for sharing neuronal morphology data as a starting point to mobilize data sharing in the wider neuroscience community.
Emotional body language is a rapidly emerging research field in cognitive neuroscience. de Gelder reviews the body's role in our understanding of emotion, action and communication, and discusses similarities in the neuroanatomy and temporal dynamics between face and body perception.
Feldman and Del Negro consider recent evidence for two distinct respiratory rhythm generators – the preBötzinger Complex and the retrotrapezoid nucleus/parafacial respiratory group – and underscore the importance of intrinsically rhythmic pacemaker neurons that drive rhythm generation.
The left hemisphere is traditionally thought to be dominant for motor control. However, Serrien and colleagues highlight specialized functions for the right hemisphere and dynamic cross-hemispheric interactions in action processing, particularly emphasizing task- and performer-related demands and time scales.
Markram describes the impressive aims of the Blue Brain Project, in which the enormous computing power of IBM's Blue Gene supercomputer is being harnessed to build biologically accurate models of the neocortical column and, ultimately, the whole brain.
There has been considerable speculation about the possibilities of exploiting neural stem cells as delivery vehicles in gene therapy. Müller, Snyder and Loring discuss the potential applications of this approach and obstacles to the clinical development of such strategies.