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Activity-driven changes in gene transcription regulate synaptic development and function. Bading and colleagues describe recent evidence of lineage-specific changes in the gene regulatory regions that govern excitation–transcription coupling and consider how such changes may have contributed to the evolution of human cognitive abilities.
The dopamine motive system, which integrates reinforcement and motivation, is influenced by obesogenic foods and addictive drugs. In this Review, Volkow and colleagues highlight how these stimuli sensitize the subject's motivation towards them while desensitizing the subject's motivation towards alternative reinforcers.
Promoting remyelination may be an effective therapeutic strategy for various disorders that are characterized by a loss of myelin, including multiple sclerosis. In this Review, Franklin and ffrench-Constant discuss recent developments in our understanding of remyelination and the efforts that are underway to enhance this process.
In fear conditioning in mice, neurons in the lateral central amygdala that express protein kinase Cδ convey the unconditioned stimulus to the lateral amygdala to enable the encoding of aversive memory.
Methylation of neuronal genes at CA sequences is modulated by neuronal activity during early postnatal periods and fine tunes gene expression in adult neurons.
Chemical communication between axons and their myelin sheath is an emerging concept in neurobiology. In this review, Stys and colleagues discuss how this 'axo-myelinic synapse' may play a role in metabolic control of the myelinating unit, modulate myelin dynamics and be a future therapeutic target.
In a working memory task, the neural code for the target stimulus in the lateral prefrontal cortex transforms when a distractor is presented, without loss of target-related information.
In recent years, several funding agencies have introduced requirements for researchers to consider sex as a biological variable in preclinical research. In this Comment article, McCarthy and colleagues discuss the potential impact of these policies for neuroscience research.
An axon's function is dictated by its morphology and, thus, by the properties and organization of the axonal cytoskeleton. Leterrieret al. describe how advances in super-resolution and live-cell imaging are transforming our understanding of the molecular architecture of the axonal shaft.
A causal explanation for the pathogenesis of schizophrenia is lacking. In this Review, Birnbaum and Weinberger explore recent genetic studies of schizophrenia and discuss how genetic and epigenetic risk of the disorder may converge to perturb key neurodevelopmental trajectories.
