Neuronal development articles within Nature

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  • Article
    | Open Access

    A stream of young neurons migrating into the entorhinal cortex (EC) continues postnatally in humans, but not in macaques; these young neurons, which belong to a unique class of local circuit cells, continue to be recruited in the EC during infancy and early childhood.

    • Marcos Assis Nascimento
    • , Sean Biagiotti
    •  & Shawn F. Sorrells

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Evolutionary modelling shows that an initial set of inhibitory neurons serving olfactory bulbs may have been repurposed to diversify the taxonomy of interneurons found in the expanded striata and cortices in primates.

    • Matthew T. Schmitz
    • , Kadellyn Sandoval
    •  & Alex A. Pollen

  • Article |

    The neuronal diversity of the Drosophila optic lobe is described throughout pupal development by single-cell sequencing, leading to the discovery of transient extrinsic neurons and a dorsoventral asymmetry of the visual circuits.

    • Mehmet Neset Özel
    • , Félix Simon
    •  & Claude Desplan

  • Article |

    Single-cell RNA sequencing reveals molecular determinants of the developmental programs that orchestrate the intermingling of neuronal subtypes in the hypothalamus.

    • Roman A. Romanov
    • , Evgenii O. Tretiakov
    •  & Tibor Harkany

  • Article |

    In the brains of embryonic mice, some types of progenitor (apical progenitors) can revert to earlier molecular, electrophysiological and neurogenic states when transplanted into younger hosts, whereas others cannot, highlighting progenitor-type-specific differences in fate plasticity.

    • Polina Oberst
    • , Sabine Fièvre
    •  & Denis Jabaudon

  • Brief Communications Arising |

    • A. Sentürk
    • , S. Pfennig
    •  & A. Acker-Palmer

  • Article |

    How sex-specific neuronal circuits are generated during development is poorly understood; here, sensory neurons are identified in the round worm Caenorhabditis elegans, which initially connect in both male- and hermaphrodite-specific patterns, but a specific subset of these connections is pruned by each sex upon sexual maturation to produce sex-specific connectivity patterns and dimorphic behaviours.

    • Meital Oren-Suissa
    • , Emily A. Bayer
    •  & Oliver Hobert

  • Article |

    In the worm C. elegans, a previously unidentified pair of bilateral neurons in the male (termed MCMs) are shown to arise from differentiated glial cells upon sexual maturation; these neurons are essential for a male-specific form of associative learning which balances chemotactic responses with reproductive priorities.

    • Michele Sammut
    • , Steven J. Cook
    •  & Arantza Barrios

  • Article |

    Recordings from rat grid cells, cells that are active at periodically spaced locations in the environment, show that they are organized into discrete modules that maintain distinct scale and orientation, and may respond independently to environmental changes.

    • Hanne Stensola
    • , Tor Stensola
    •  & Edvard I. Moser

  • News & Views |

    The discovery of different classes of neuronal progenitor cell, destined to give rise to neurons in specific layers of the cerebral cortex, could presage the revision of a 50-year-old model of brain development.

    • Oscar Marín

  • Letter |

    The cell death of inhibitory neurons, which originate far from the cortical areas to which they migrate during embryonic development, is determined autonomously rather than by competition for trophic signals from other cell types.

    • Derek G. Southwell
    • , Mercedes F. Paredes
    •  & Arturo Alvarez-Buylla

  • News & Views |

    Two studies show how electrical coupling between sister neurons in the developing cerebral cortex might help them to link up into columnar microcircuits that process related sensory information. See Letters p.113 & p.118

    • Thomas D. Mrsic-Flogel
    •  & Tobias Bonhoeffer

  • News & Views |

    An ingenious technique allows the monitoring of brain-wide patterns of neuronal activity in a vertebrate at the cellular level, while the animal interacts with a virtual environment. See Article p.471

    • Joseph R. Fetcho

  • News |

    Neurons derived from human embryonic stem cells can control native neurons in mice.

    • Charlotte Schubert

  • News & Views |

    Grid cells confer a spatial impression of an animal's environment on the brain. Their firing patterns in a cave-dwelling bat reopen old questions about how they do this, and pose some compelling new ones. See Letter p.103

    • Laura Lee Colgin

  • News |

    Researchers have worked out how to reprogram cells from human skin into functioning nerve cells.

    • Ewen Callaway

  • News & Views |

    A study in rats suggests that individual neurons take a nap when the brain is forced to stay awake, and that the basic unit of sleep is the electrical activity of single cortical neurons. See Article p.443

    • Christopher S. Colwell

  • News & Views |

    How is light perceived? The answer that might immediately come to mind is, through the eyes. Fly larvae, however, can 'feel' light using specialized neurons embedded under the cuticle encasing their bodies. See Article p.921

    • Paul A. Garrity

  • News & Views |

    As in humans, the actions and reactions of male and female fruitflies during courtship are quite distinct. The differences seem to lie in gender-specific neural interpretations of the same sensory signals. See Letter p.686

    • Richard Benton

  • News & Views |

    Mobile DNA sequences called L1 contribute to the brain's genetic heterogeneity and may affect neuron function. The protein MeCP2, which is mutated in Rett syndrome, seems to regulate the activity of these genomic elements. See Letter p.443

    • Lorenz Studer

  • Letter |

    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

  • Article |

    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.

    • Wulf Haubensak
    • , Prabhat S. Kunwar
    •  & David J. Anderson

  • News & Views |

    How do we tell red from green? Work on the primate retina shows how neural circuitry combines signals from individual cone photoreceptor cells to provide the basic building blocks for colour vision. See Article p.673

    • Jonathan B. Demb
    •  & David H. Brainard

  • News & Views |

    Neurons generate their output signal — the action potential — in a distinct region of the axon called the initial segment. The location and extent of this trigger zone can be modified by neural activity to control excitability.

    • Jan Gründemann
    •  & Michael Häusser

  • News & Views |

    Analysis of a selected class of neuron in the brains of live animals using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) opens the door to mapping genetically specified neural circuits.

    • David A. Leopold

  • News & Views |

    The neocortex of the mammalian brain mediates functions such as sensory perception and ultimately consciousness and language. The spread of local signals across large distances in this brain region has now been clarified.

    • Dirk Feldmeyer

  • News & Views |

    A neuron can receive thousands of inputs that, together, tell it when to fire. New techniques can image the activity of many inputs, and shed light on how single neurons perform computations in response.

    • Nicholas J. Priebe
    •  & David Ferster

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