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Brain banking has supported many important advances in neuroscience research. Kretzschmar describes the advantages and opportunities offered by brain banking and provides insight into the challenges facing brain banks in the future.
Many psychiatric disorders emerge in adolescence, when profound changes take place in the brain. Paus and colleagues provide an overview of the neurobiological changes that occur during adolescence and discuss their possible relationship to the emergence of psychopathology.
Cognitive therapy and antidepressant medication are both effective treatments for depression. Derubeis and colleagues propose common and divergent neural changes that might underlie the antidepressant effects of both types of treatment and that could explain the enduring, relapse-preventing effects of cognitive therapy. An interview with Rob DeRubeis for Neuropod is available for download.
High-content analysis (HCA), the combination of automated microscopy and automated image analysis, has the potential to be a powerful tool for neuroscience research. Mike Dragunow outlines the factors to consider when adopting HCA in an academic setting, and the benefits that researchers can expect.
The development of real-time fMRI has enabled us to watch our own brain in action 'live'. Christopher deCharms provides an overview of current and potential applications of this technique, including its use as a brain–machine interface and in learned control over brain activation.
Brain activity has been used as an intermediate phenotype that links genetic polymorphisms with cognitive (dys)function. Gray and colleagues discuss how this approach can be refined to ultimately reveal how variations in DNA can lead to changes in cognitive function.
Psychologists have long known that human cognition and behaviour vary across cultures. Han and Northoff review recent neuroimaging studies which show that one's cultural background also influences the neural activity that underlies cognitive functions.
Antidepressant treatments are often selected on a trial-and-error basis, resulting in limited average treatment efficacy. Florian Holsboer argues that combining pharmacogenetic data with biomarkers identified using genomics, proteomics, metabolomics, neuroimaging and neuroendocrinological studies might lead to personalized antidepressant medications with superior efficacy and fewer adverse effects.
A growing field of neuroscience aims to understand how immune responses can promote CNS repair. Popovich and Longbrake discuss current approaches to manipulate neuroimmune interactions and give their opinion on the challenges ahead.
In recent years the role of the cerebellum in the control of non-motor functions has been acknowledged. Here, Ito elaborates on his hypothesis of internal-model control of mental functions and describes recent findings that provide supporting evidence for the theory.
Neuroscientists often refer to brain areas as being 'affective' or 'cognitive'. In this Opinion article, Luiz Pessoa argues that complex behaviours are based on dynamic coalitions of brain networks and that there are no specifically 'affective' or 'cognitive' brain areas.
The hippocampus has an undisputed role in memory and has been key in discovering synaptic plasticity as the basis for learning. Bliss and colleagues provide an update on unresolved problems that surround LTP and memory, and propose strategies for finding answers that centre on new technologies.