Featured
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Letter |
A dimorphic pheromone circuit in Drosophila from sensory input to descending output
Innate differences between male and female behaviours must be inscribed in their respective genomes, but how these encode distinct neuronal circuits remains largely unclear. Focusing on sex specific responses to the cVA pheromone in fruitflies, a chain of four successive neurons carrying olfactory signals down to motor centres has been identified, with all male to female anatomical differences lying downstream of a conserved sensory cell. The techniques developed should help others in the task of neuronal circuit mapping, which remains daunting even for the relatively simple fly brain.
- Vanessa Ruta
- , Sandeep Robert Datta
- & Richard Axel
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News & Views |
The split view of motion
In both fruitflies and vertebrates, signals from photoreceptor cells are immediately split into two opposing channels in the downstream neurons. This might facilitate the computation of visual motion. See Letter p.300
- Chi -Hon Lee
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Letter |
ON and OFF pathways in Drosophila motion vision
Ramón y Cajal, the founding father of neuroscience, observed similarities between the vertebrate retina and the insect eye, but that was based purely on anatomy. Using state-of-the-art genetics and electrophysiology in the fruitfly, these authors distinguish motion-sensitive neurons responding to abrupt increases in light from those specific to light decrements, thus bringing the similarity with vertebrate circuitry to the functional level.
- Maximilian Joesch
- , Bettina Schnell
- & Alexander Borst
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Article |
Encoding of conditioned fear in central amygdala inhibitory circuits
The central amygdala relies on inhibitory circuitry to encode fear memories, but how this information is acquired and expressed in these connections is unknown. Two new papers use a combination of cutting-edge technologies to reveal two distinct microcircuits within the central amygdala, one required for fear acquisition and the other critical for conditioned fear responses. Understanding this architecture provides a strong link between activity in a specific circuit and particular behavioural consequences.
- Stephane Ciocchi
- , Cyril Herry
- & Andreas Lüthi
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Research Highlights |
Neuroscience: Movement decoded
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Letter |
Catastrophic cascade of failures in interdependent networks
Modern networks are rarely independent, instead being coupled together with many others. Thus the failure of a small fraction of nodes in one network may lead to the complete fragmentation of a system of several interdependent networks. Here, a framework is developed for understanding the robustness of interacting networks subject to such 'cascading' failures. Surprisingly, a broader degree distribution increases the vulnerability of interdependent networks to random failure.
- Sergey V. Buldyrev
- , Roni Parshani
- & Shlomo Havlin
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Letter |
Evidence for grid cells in a human memory network
Rodents have an orientation map of their surroundings, produced and updated by a network of neurons in the entorhinal cortex known as 'grid cells'. However, it is currently unknown whether humans encode their location in a similar manner. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging in humans, a macroscopic signal representing a subject's position in a virtual reality environment is now detected that meets the criteria for defining grid-cell encoding.
- Christian F. Doeller
- , Caswell Barry
- & Neil Burgess
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News |
Robotic roach creates order from chaos
Chaos theory eases the path of autonomous robots.
- Zeeya Merali