Review Articles in 2016

The proliferation and differentiation of neural stem cells in the embryonic and adult brain are influenced by various processes, including epigenetic regulation. Song and colleagues review the epigenetic regulation of neurogenesis in health and in various brain disorders, placing their focus on DNA and histone modifications.

Evidence suggests that activity in the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) contributes to acute and chronic pain. In this article, Zhuo and colleagues review the different types of synaptic plasticity observed in the ACC and the implications of these forms of plasticity for pain processing.

Central and peripheral inflammation can be induced by psychological stress and is associated with depressive symptoms, suggesting a possible role for immune dysfunction in depression. Duman and colleagues examine the neuroimmune mechanisms influencing neuronal–microglial interactions, neuronal activity and synaptic plasticity in stress and depression.

Whether autophagy — an intracellular degradation pathway — contributes to or protects against damage following different types of acute brain injury is unclear. Here, Kroemer and colleagues review investigations into the effects of autophagy in excitotoxicity, acute exposure to neurotoxins, neonatal asphyxia, stroke and neurotrauma.

Working memory (WM) — the ability to maintain and manipulate information over a period of seconds — is a key cognitive skill. Constantinidis and Klingberg discuss non-human-primate, computational-modelling and human-neuroimaging studies that examine the neural bases of WM and training-induced enhancements of WM capacity.

Cultures of human neural cells can be generated from skin cells that have been reprogrammed to produce induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) or subjected to direct conversion. Gage and colleagues describe advances in differentiation protocols that allow specific subtypes of neural cell to be produced and consider the advantages and disadvantages of different approaches.

Primates have a functional network in frontal and parietal cortices that allows them to quantify the number of elements in a stimulus; that is, its numerosity or cardinality. In this Review, Andreas Nieder examines how neurons in this network process cardinal numbers.

A nucleotide repeat expansion (NRE) within the chromosome 9 open reading frame 72 (C9orf72) gene is linked to multiple neurological conditions. Rothstein and colleagues evaluate the evidence indicating that the NRE causes a loss of C9orf72 function or drives toxic gain-of-function mechanisms and consider the cellular defects through which the mutation drives disease pathology.

The aetiologies of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are complex and involve both genetic and environmental influences. In this Review, Annie Vogel Ciernia and Janine LaSalle discuss how genome-wide studies have revealed dynamic complexities in DNA-methylation patterns in the developing brain that might contribute to ASD.

One of the greatest challenges in treating addiction is preventing relapse during abstinence. In this Review, Marina Wolf discusses rodent models of cocaine craving that reveal the synaptic plasticity that occurs in reward-related brain regions during the abstinence phase.

Several brain regions and physiological processes have been proposed to constitute the neural correlates of consciousness. In this Review, Koch and colleagues discuss studies that distinguish the neural correlates of consciousness from other neural processes that precede, accompany or follow it, and suggest that the neural correlates of consciousness are localized to posterior cortical regions.

Alternative splicing is a key regulatory step in gene expression that affects all aspects of neuronal development and function. In this Review, Vuong and colleagues survey recent genetic studies of splicing regulators and the diverse parts they play in the mammalian nervous system.

AMPA receptor (AMPAR) subunit composition is thought to influence trafficking, but recent findings have challenged previously accepted models for how this might occur. In this Review, Henley and Wilkinson provide an overview of how different receptor subunits affect AMPAR assembly, trafficking and function under normal and pathological conditions.

There is accumulating evidence that some neurotrophic factors, particularly brain-derived neurotrophic factor and ciliary neurotrophic factor, could have a role in preventing obesity. In this Review, Xu and Xie discuss the neural mechanisms by which these molecules regulate energy intake and expenditure.

Cannabis is used widely as a recreational drug, and its legalization is an ongoing issue in several countries. Curranet al. review the cognitive effects of acute and chronic cannabis use, before discussing cannabis addiction and the psychiatric problems often comorbid with it.

Membrane-associated guanylate kinases (MAGUKs) are synaptic scaffold proteins involved in organizing protein complexes that are required for synaptic development and plasticity. Placing their focus on recent biochemical and structural data, Zhang and colleagues review the role of MAGUKs in synaptic protein complex formation and regulation.

Local field potential recordings of the hippocampus reveal three types of neural activity rhythms: theta, sharp wave–ripples and gamma. In this Review, Colgin discusses recent findings from rodent studies that provide insight into the origin of these rhythms and their roles in memory and other behaviours.

In vertebrates, assemblies of neurons in the spinal cord generate the precise timing and patterning of locomotor movements. In this Review, Ole Kiehn examines the organization and operation of these spinal locomotor networks in limbed and non-limbed animals.

Emerging evidence indicates that extracellular vesicles — including exosomes and microvesicles — may have an important role in intercellular communication in the nervous system. Budnik and colleagues provide an overview of this developing field, and discuss the involvement of such vesicles in neurological disorders.

Sometimes when rats come to a location where a choice has to be made, they pause and look around, a behaviour that has been termed 'vicarious trial and error' (VTE). Redish reviews this behaviour and its underlying neurophysiology, and argues that VTE is probably the behavioural phenotype of a deliberative process.