Volume 13 Issue 10, October 2012

β-amyloid, known as the bad guy in Alzheimer's disease, seems to have a good side — it can reduce the symptoms in a mouse model of multiple sclerosis.

Selective attention-induced synchronous activity in cortical regions seems to depend on pulvinar–cortical interactions.

Hippocampal pyramidal cell synapses have NMDA receptors located synaptically and extrasynaptically. Papouinet al. now show that these two populations of receptors have different subunit compositions, are gated by different co-agonists and have different functional and pathological roles.

Chronic stress in mice causes ryanodine receptors in the brain to become leaky, and this leads to neuronal damage and cognitive dysfunction.

Theta waves travel along the entire long axis of the hippocampus, resulting in a phase difference of 180° between the dorsal and ventral poles.

A study inDrosophila melanogastershows that the mechanism responsible for axon regrowth during development is distinct to that underlying initial axon growth.

Interviews with this year's winners of the Kavli prize in neuroscience, Cornelia Bargmann, Winfried Denk and Ann Graybiel.

The neuropilin and tolloid-like (NETO) proteins were recently identified as auxiliary subunits of kainate-type glutamate receptors, which mainly have a modulatory role in synaptic transmission. In this Review, Copits and Swanson discuss how NETO proteins influence the biophysical properties and the synaptic localization of these receptors.

Our understanding of neuronal circuit function has benefitted from methods that allow the activity of individual cells and populations of neurons to be monitored. Thomas Knöpfel reviews recent advances in the technology of genetically encoded indicators of neural activity, which are enabling circuits to be examined in an increasingly sophisticated manner.

Gut microbiota are increasingly being recognized as influencing many aspects of human health. In this Review, Cryan and Dinan discuss rapidly emerging evidence that the gut microbiota also influence brain and behaviour and may have a role in anxiety, mood, cognition and pain.

The roles of the perirhinal, parahippocampal and retrosplenial cortices in memory are not well understood. Reviewing studies in rodents, monkeys and humans, Ranganath and Ritchey suggest that these areas are core components of two cortical networks that support different types of memory and different aspects of cognition.

Adult neurogenesis is often considered an archaic trait that has undergone 'phylogenetic reduction'. Gerd Kempermann proposes that adult neurogenesis in the hippocampus is in fact a late-evolved trait that may provide the cognitive adaptability that is needed to conquer new ecological niches.