Neuroscience articles within Nature

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  • 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 |

    Neuronal networks in the brain that develop early in life underlie our ability to learn, remember and communicate. Genetic defects that perturb the fine-tuning of such neuronal connectivity can cause disease.

    • Peter Scheiffele
    •  & Asim A. Beg

  • Article |

    Humans and animals readily learn to associate neutral cues paired with rewards, but the exact role that dopamine release has in this learning is controversial. Using previously established rat strains selectively bred for many generations to have greater or lesser propensity to assign value to learned cues, this study uses cyclic voltammetry to measure dopamine signals in the different strains and also examines the effect of blocking dopamine. It is concluded that dopamine selectively mediates motivational, rather than predictive, aspects of the cues.

    • Shelly B. Flagel
    • , Jeremy J. Clark
    •  & Huda Akil

  • Letter |

    In the retina, highly selective wiring from inhibitory cells contributes to determine the direction-selection characteristics of an individual ganglion cell, yet how the asymmetric wiring inherent to these connections is established was unknown. Here, two independent studies using complementary techniques, including pharmacology, electrophysiology and optogenetics, find that although inhibitory inputs to both sides of the direction-selective cell are uniform early in development, by the second postnatal week, inhibitory synapses on the null side strengthen whereas those on the preferred side remain constant. These plasticity changes occur independent of neural activity, indicating that a specific developmental program is executed to produce the direction-selective circuitry in the retina.

    • Wei Wei
    • , Aaron M. Hamby
    •  & Marla B. Feller

  • Letter |

    This study introduces a novel recording technique for simultaneously measuring excitatory and inhibitory conductances of retinal ganglion cells to show that excitatory and inhibitory inputs are strongly correlated, thereby cancelling each other. Furthermore, dynamic clamp is used to introduce these conductance changes into the cell with or without correlations, and it is found that, as predicted by theoretical work, correlations significantly increase reliability of the spiking response.

    • Jon Cafaro
    •  & Fred Rieke

  • 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

  • Books & Arts |

    Instructions for the afterlife from Ancient Egypt reveal a step change in moral psychology, discovers Andrew Robinson.

    • Andrew Robinson

  • Letter |

    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

  • Letter |

    Here, single nucleotide variants within the LMO1 locus are shown to be associated with inherited susceptibility to neuroblastoma, a childhood cancer of the sympathetic nervous system. Acquired structural variation in the same locus was also frequently found in neuroblastoma patients, leading to the suggestion that loci identified through genome-wide association studies might be also prone to somatic alterations and therefore identify potential therapy targets and/or biomarkers of tumour aggressiveness.

    • Kai Wang
    • , Sharon J. Diskin
    •  & John M. Maris

  • Editorial |

    Caffeinated alcoholic drinks, popular with students, are now being targeted by US regulators. But if government is serious about addressing alcohol abuse, it must confront more powerful foes.

  • Comment |

    A critical mass of female voices changes the tenor of political and corporate decisions — and should be used to galvanize climate policy, says Susan Buckingham.

    • Susan Buckingham

  • Article |

    In cells, WAVE protein, a central regulator of actin dynamics during cell motility, is constitutively incorporated into WAVE regulatory complex (WRC), is normally present in an inactive state and can be activated by a number of inputs. These authors present the structure and mechanistic analysis of WRC. The combined data reveal how the WAVE protein is inhibited within the WRC complex and provide mechanisms for WRC activation at the plasma membrane.

    • Zhucheng Chen
    • , Dominika Borek
    •  & Michael K. Rosen

  • Letter |

    This is one of two papers showing that glioblastoma cells can differentiate into functional endothelial cells as part of the tumour vasculature. These endothelial cells are characterized by the same genetic alterations as the glioblastoma cells. The tumour-derived endothelial cells originate in putative glioblastoma-initiating cells and are functionally important for tumorigenesis.

    • Rong Wang
    • , Kalyani Chadalavada
    •  & Viviane Tabar

  • Letter |

    This is one of two papers showing that glioblastoma cells can differentiate into functional endothelial cells as part of the tumour vasculature. These endothelial cells are characterized by the same genetic alterations as the glioblastoma cells. The tumour-derived endothelial cells originate in putative glioblastoma-initiating cells and are functionally important for tumorigenesis.

    • Lucia Ricci-Vitiani
    • , Roberto Pallini
    •  & Ruggero De Maria

  • 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

  • News Feature |

    Sleep researcher Sara Mednick has straddled the line between media darling and respected scientist. But why is there still a line at all?

    • Erik Vance

  • Letter |

    Acid sensing has so far been demonstrated in the gustatory system only. Now, fruitfly olfactory sensory neurons selectively activated by acidic compounds have been identified. Acid sensing also requires the transmembrane protein IR64a, expressed in those neurons as well as neurons involved in the detection of non acidic odorants. Although the IR64a protein isn't sufficient by itself to determine acid recognition, the requirement for IR64a in acid recognition is the first function for a member of this recently discovered family of putative odorant receptors — the ionotropic receptor family.

    • Minrong Ai
    • , Soohong Min
    •  & Greg S. B. Suh

  • Introduction |

    • Tanguy Chouard
    •  & Noah Gray

  • News & Views |

    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

  • 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

  • News & Views |

    Once a blood vessel supplying the brain has been blocked, the opportunity to prevent brain damage is fleeting. An alternative strategy might be to guide the damaged area onto the path to recovery. See Letter p.305

    • Kevin Staley

  • 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

  • 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.

    • Stephane Ciocchi
    • , Cyril Herry
    •  & Andreas Lüthi

  • Article |

    Light sensing outside the eyes is common in many animals but is usually confined to specialized organs. Here, the entire body wall of the fruitfly larva is found to be tiled with blue- and ultraviolet-light sensing neuronal dendrites, which are essential for the larva's innate light-avoidance behaviour. The phototransduction machinery used by these neurons is distinct from other Drosophila photoreceptor molecules but similar to a system recently identified in nematode neurons.

    • Yang Xiang
    • , Quan Yuan
    •  & Yuh Nung Jan

  • Article |

    Mutations in the methyl-CpG-binding protein 2 (MeCP2) gene cause Rett syndrome, a neurodevelopmental disorder with features of autism. Multiple mouse models of MeCP2 have been generated, but show only a subset of the symptoms of Rett syndrome. These authors find that mice with selective deletion of MeCP2 in GABA-mediated neurons show not only impaired GABA-mediated function, but capitulate multiple key features of Rett, further suggesting a role of inhibitory function in neuropsychiatric disease.

    • Hsiao-Tuan Chao
    • , Hongmei Chen
    •  & Huda Y. Zoghbi

  • Letter |

    Following a stroke, there is generally limited functional recovery, but plasticity in adjacent intact areas may be critical to rehabilitation. These authors report that tonic GABAA inhibition is elevated in cortex immediately surrounding the stroke site. Furthermore, genetically or pharmacologically reducing tonic GABAA receptor signalling leads to improved functional and motor recovery in a mouse model of stroke, suggesting that this could be a new pharmacological target for stroke therapy.

    • Andrew N. Clarkson
    • , Ben S. Huang
    •  & S. Thomas Carmichael

  • Letter |

    Neurons in the medial temporal lobe are selectively responsive to particular visual objects, but their activity is modulated by internal cognitive effects. Here it is shown that humans can regulate the activity of their MTL neurons to alter the outcome of the contest between external images and their internal representation. Using a brain–machine interface, subjects looked at a hybrid superposition of two images and had to enhance one image at the expense of the other, using cognitive strategies such as attention and imagery.

    • Moran Cerf
    • , Nikhil Thiruvengadam
    •  & Itzhak Fried

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