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Many brain areas support complex language processing behaviours. In this Review, Fedorenko et al. disentangle the ‘core’ language system as functionally distinct from the perceptual and motor brain areas and knowledge and reasoning systems it closely interacts with during language comprehension and production.
Parkinson disease (PD) has been linked to dysfunction in a number of key intracellular signalling pathways that contribute to disease pathology. Coukos and Krainc describe the physiological functions of a selection of PD-linked proteins and their convergent effects on mitochondrial, lysosomal and synaptic dysfunction in PD.
Pathological compulsive behaviour is a potential transdiagnostic symptom of several neuropsychiatric disorders. In this Review, Robbins et al. examine the psychological basis of compulsions and compulsivity and their underlying neural circuitry, focused on fronto-striatal systems implicated in goal-directed behaviour and habits.
A new study captures nearly the full repertoire of primate natural behaviour and reveals that highly distributed cortical activity maintains multifaceted dynamic social relationships.
Selective vulnerability of particular neuronal cell types is a characteristic of neurodegenerative diseases. Martin Kampmann explores our current understanding of the cellular and molecular mechanisms that lead to selective vulnerability in different diseases.
There is a pressing need for drugs that effectively control pharmaco-resistant seizures and prevent their generation. In this Review, Vezzani and co-workers discuss the interconnected roles of mTOR signalling and neuroinflammatory processes in epileptogenesis, and how targeting these pathways might prove useful therapeutically.
One of the long-term sequelae associated with SARS-CoV-2 infection is ‘brain fog’, which is shown in this study to be linked to systemic inflammation and leakiness of the blood–brain barrier.
Innate fear-like responses are thought to involve the amygdala, but here a tetra-synaptic pathway is identified that mediates odour-evoked innate fear in mice.
How does motor-cortex activity well before movement not drive motor outputs? In this Review, Churchland and Shenoy detail how searching for answers transitioned the understanding of neural activity during movement from single-neuron tuning towards population-level factors and revealed an essential computational role of output-null factors.
Sleep is an active state during which the synaptic connections that form memories are remodelled. In this Perspective, Wassing and colleagues discuss how failures in sleep-dependent adaptation to emotionally distressing experiences might be a key contributor to post-traumatic stress disorder and related conditions.
Increased levels of matrix metalloproteinase 8, expressed by circulating myeloid cells, may have a role in stress-induced changes in social behaviour in mice.
Altered network activity during sleep is observed in some individuals with Alzheimer disease and in mouse models of the disorder. In this Perspective, Inna Slutsky proposes that hyperexcitability and sleep disturbances in Alzheimer disease result from disruption of the mechanisms that maintain activity homeostasis in the brain.
Sub-additive responses to simultaneously presented stimuli and quenching of variability in responses to repeated presentations of a stimulus are characteristics of neurons in the primary visual cortex. In this Perspective, Goris et al. argue that these phenomena often co-occur and may have common mechanistic and computational origins.
