Reviews & Analysis

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.

The understanding of spoken language is mediated by bottom-up and top-down processing in the brain. In this Opinion article, Skeide and Friederici propose how changes in the structure and function of children's brains are associated with the development of language-processing skills.

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.

There has been a surge in the number of papers discussing the idea that inter-neuronal spread of 'pathogenic' proteins contributes to neurodegenerative disease progression. Walsh and Selkoe provide a critical overview of the evidence for this mechanism, identify gaps in our knowledge and suggest experimental approaches to test the hypothesis.

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.

A series of genetic studies has implicated the microglial immune receptor TREM2 in the pathogenesis of Alzheimer disease (AD). Here, Colonna and Wang describe recent studies that have begun to unpick the mechanisms by which TREM2 is involved in AD and discuss unanswered questions in the field.

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.

The long-held doctrine that an individual neuron releases only one type of small molecule neurotransmitter has been challenged in recent years. In this Progress article, Sabatini and colleagues discuss recent evidence suggesting that co-release of GABA occurs in several neuronal populations in the adult mammalian CNS and the implications of such co-release for neuronal signalling.

The anterior hippocampus is thought to be involved in a wide range of cognitive functions, including memory, navigation and perception. In this Opinion article, Zeidman and Maguire show how improved functional imaging techniques are shedding light on the precise anatomy of this region and the contribution of different parts of the anterior hippocampus to specific cognitive functions.

Phasic signalling by midbrain dopamine neurons is thought to contribute to reward processing by encoding a reward prediction error. Schultz describes recent work suggesting that there are two distinct components of the phasic dopamine response and considers the probable functional role of each response component.

Autoantibodies against neuromuscular junction targets are a well-established cause of myasthenic syndromes, and autoantibodies against CNS targets have also been associated with disease. In this Review, Vincent and colleagues discuss key examples of such autoantibodies, and the mechanisms by which they lead to neurological dysfunction.

Synaptic vesicle exocytosis is tightly regulated by a number of synaptic proteins, including complexin; however, several alternative models of complexin function have been presented. Trimbuch and Rosenmund propose that a better understanding of the properties of different domains of complexin may help to shed light on its function.

Training involving repeated long inter-trial intervals — spaced training — leads to more robust memory formation for many types of learning than does training involving short or no intervals. This Review examines the learning theories and the molecular and cellular mechanisms that may account for the effectiveness of spaced training.

CA2 has several characteristics that distinguishes it from CA1 and CA3. In this Review, Dudek and colleagues discuss an updated definition of the CA2 boundaries, and provide an overview of the unique synaptic properties and behavioural functions of this region.

Impaired interneuron function is widely believed to contribute to schizophrenia pathophysiology. Hardingham and Do describe converging evidence suggesting that NMDA receptor (NMDAR) hypofunction and oxidative stress during development contribute to interneuron dysfunction and schizophrenia pathophysiology.