Neuroscience articles within Nature Communications

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  • Article
    | Open Access

    Astrocyte in the brain regulates synaptic transmission by releasing gliotransmitters. Here, Tan and colleagues use optogenetic stimulation of astrocytes to show differential neuronal subtype-specific purinoceptor responses to astrocytic ATP release to affect network excitability.

    • Zhibing Tan
    • , Yu Liu
    •  & Shumin Duan

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Cholesterol is important for axonal myelination during development. Here the authors show that cholesterol levels are reduced in a cuprizone mouse model of multiple sclerosis and that dietary cholesterol supplementation enhances remyelination and recovery.

    • Stefan A. Berghoff
    • , Nina Gerndt
    •  & Gesine Saher

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Saliency maps have been proposed to guide visual attention, yet the underlying neural correlates remain undetermined. Here, the authors record from monkeys as they watch videos of natural scenes, and find superior colliculus superficial visual-layer neurons exhibit activity patterns consistent with a visual saliency map.

    • Brian J. White
    • , David J. Berg
    •  & Douglas P. Munoz

  • Article
    | Open Access

    PrPC protein plays a key role in prion transmission across species. Here, the authors compare transmission of a representative scrapie isolate to transgenic mice expressing variable levels of the same Prnp allele as the donor sheep, and find divergent strain propagation regulated by PrPCgene dosage.

    • Annick Le Dur
    • , Thanh Lan Laï
    •  & Hubert Laude

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Glut1-deficiency syndrome is a severe neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by low brain glucose and epileptic seizures. Tanget al. show that in model mice, low Glut1 leads to defects of the brain vasculature, and that AAV9-based gene therapy at pre- or early-symptomatic stages prevents the defects and mitigates disease.

    • Maoxue Tang
    • , Guangping Gao
    •  & Umrao R. Monani

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Protein feeding is known to induce strong inhibition on further food intake, though the underlying mechanisms remain poorly understood. Here, the authors identify a protein-specific satiety hormone inDrosophila, and show that it suppresses feeding via promoting DILP2 release in the central nervous system.

    • Jinghan Sun
    • , Chang Liu
    •  & Yan Li

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Transplantation of cells into the central nervous system has developed into a major avenue for replacing neurons lost to neurodegenerative disease. Here the authors develop an approach combining viral-based transynaptic tracing labeling and whole brain imaging to trace synaptic innervation of human neurons transplanted into a mouse background.

    • Jonas Doerr
    • , Martin Karl Schwarz
    •  & Oliver Brüstle

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The human serotonin transporter (SERT) mediates the uptake of neurotransmitters to terminate neuronal signalling. Here the authors use single-molecule imaging to get insight into the molecular origin of SERT oligomerization and their pre-set stoichiometry at the plasma membrane.

    • Andreas Anderluh
    • , Tina Hofmaier
    •  & Gerhard J. Schütz

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Rett syndrome is associated with impaired synaptic connectivity beginning in early development. Here the authors show in female mice heterozygous forMecp2, a model of Rett syndrome, that during adulthood, auditory cortex plasticity associated with a learned maternal behaviour is also impaired.

    • Keerthi Krishnan
    • , Billy Y. B. Lau
    •  & Stephen D. Shea

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Tools to label single neurons and track their development inC. elegans have been lacking. Singhal et al. optimized a method, which applies infrared laser to induce heat-dependent gene expression at cellular resolution in developing C. elegansembryos, and show that it can uncover new aspects of embryo morphogenesis.

    • Anupriya Singhal
    •  & Shai Shaham

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Black individuals are racially stereotyped as threatening but how bodily signals may affect these misperceptions is not known. Here Azevedo and colleagues show that these race-driven responses are affected by the cardiac cycle, being more biased when arterial baroreceptor activation is maximal.

    • Ruben T. Azevedo
    • , Sarah N. Garfinkel
    •  & Manos Tsakiris

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The development of mature vocal patterns is shaped by parental influence in many animals. Here, Gultekin and Hage show that parental feedback not only influences vocal development, but is indeed necessary for juvenile marmosets to acquire normal vocal behaviour.

    • Yasemin B. Gultekin
    •  & Steffen R. Hage

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Sex differences in reward processing are at present poorly understood. Calipari and Juarezet al. report oestrous cycle-dependent fluctuations in firing of VTA dopamine neurons that drive alterations in DAT function expressed in terminals in the NAc. These differences underlie enhanced cocaine reward processing during oestrus.

    • Erin S. Calipari
    • , Barbara Juarez
    •  & Eric J Nestler

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Adult visual cortex is organized into regions that respond to categories such as faces and scenes, but it is unclear if this depends on experience. Here, authors measured brain activity in 4–6 month old infants looking at faces and scenes and find that their visual cortex is organized similarly to adults.

    • Ben Deen
    • , Hilary Richardson
    •  & Rebecca Saxe

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The generation of vasculature in organs is regulated by cross-talk between the developing tissue and specialized endothelial cells. Here, the authors show that vessel growth feeding the zebrafish spinal cord is coordinated by balancing neuron-derived pro-angiogenic ligand Vegfaa and its receptor, sFlt1.

    • Raphael Wild
    • , Alina Klems
    •  & Ferdinand le Noble

  • Article
    | Open Access

    It is well known that alcohol consumption leads to overeating however the neural mechanisms are unclear. Here the authors demonstrate that hunger promoting Agrp neurons in hypothalamus are also activated by ethanol and are necessary for ethanol-induced overeating.

    • Sarah Cains
    • , Craig Blomeley
    •  & Denis Burdakov

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Ependymal cells lining the adult brain ventricles are comprised of multiciliated cells and a rare subpopulation with two cilia (E2 cells) whose origin and function remain unknown. Here the authors find E2 cells in the 3rd ventricle of mice and humans, along with a third ependymal cell type with only a primary cilium, and provide details of their marker profile and developmental origins.

    • Zaman Mirzadeh
    • , Yael Kusne
    •  & Arturo Alvarez-Buylla

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Brain machine interfaces (BMI) enable sensorimotor control of movement yet the parameters that may affect these pathways are not known. Here the authors show systematically that increasing the rate of control from brain as well as feedback rates to the subject results in better performance on a BMI task in monkeys.

    • Maryam M. Shanechi
    • , Amy L. Orsborn
    •  & Jose M. Carmena

  • Article
    | Open Access

    One can easily identify if multiple sounds are originating from a single source yet the neural mechanisms underlying this process are unknown. Here the authors show that temporally coherent sounds elicit changes in receptive field dynamics of auditory cortical neurons in ferrets only when paying attention.

    • Kai Lu
    • , Yanbo Xu
    •  & Shihab A. Shamma

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The anterior olfactory nucleus pars medialis (mAON) provides cortical feedback to the olfactory bulb, but the behavioural relevance of these projections is unknown. Here, using opto- and chemogenetic approaches, the authors find the mAON bidirectionally modulates olfactory sensitivity and olfaction-dependent behaviours.

    • Afif J. Aqrabawi
    • , Caleb J. Browne
    •  & Jun Chul Kim

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The molecular mechanisms underlying retrograde transport in axons are only partially understood. Villarinet al. show that in cultured DRG neurons, extracellular trophic cues such as NGF dynamically regulate local protein synthesis of dynein cofactors, thus controlling retrograde trafficking in neurons.

    • Joseph M. Villarin
    • , Ethan P. McCurdy
    •  & Ulrich Hengst

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Longevity of antibody responses has been attributed to persistence of plasma cells in mice. Here the authors provide human data in support of this model by immunoglobulin sequencing bone marrow sections from two human donors over 6.5 years to show temporal stability of plasma cell clonotypes, but not other B cells.

    • Gabriel C. Wu
    • , Nai-Kong V. Cheung
    •  & Gregory C. Ippolito

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Astrocytes regulate synaptic signalling via EAAT glutamate uptake, though whether they play a role in Hebbian plasticity is unknown. Here, the authors find targeting EAAT2 disrupts the emergence of spike timing-dependent plasticity, which highlights the role of astrocytes as gatekeepers for Hebbian plasticity.

    • Silvana Valtcheva
    •  & Laurent Venance

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Experience constantly shapes perception, but the neural mechanisms of this rapid plasticity are unclear. Here, Holdgraf et al. record neural activity in the human auditory cortex and show that listening to normal speech elicits rapid plasticity that increases the neural gain for features of sound that are key for speech intelligibility.

    • Christopher R. Holdgraf
    • , Wendy de Heer
    •  & Frédéric E. Theunissen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    We can often ‘fill in’ missing or occluded sounds from a speech signal—an effect known as phoneme restoration. Leonard et al. found a real-time restoration of the missing sounds in the superior temporal auditory cortex in humans. Interestingly, neural activity in frontal regions prior to the stimulus can predict the word that the participant would later hear.

    • Matthew K. Leonard
    • , Maxime O. Baud
    •  & Edward F. Chang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Spike-frequency adaptation in thalamocortical (TC) neurons is important for sensory transmission though the underlying mechanisms are not fully understood. Here, the authors identify a role for the calcium-activated chloride channel, ANO2, in mediating TC spiking adaptations and visceral pain response.

    • Go Eun Ha
    • , Jaekwang Lee
    •  & Eunji Cheong

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Oligodendrocyte progenitor cell (OPC) proliferation is crucial for regeneration after hypoxic lesions in mice, a model of diffuse white matter injury of premature infants. Here, the authors show that the histone deacetylase Sirt1 is a Cdk2-dependent mediator of OPC proliferation and OPC response to hypoxia.

    • Beata Jablonska
    • , Marcin Gierdalski
    •  & Vittorio Gallo

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Detection of electric fields, central to chemical and biological processes, has been limited to measurements of current (e.g., electrodes) and secondary reporters (e.g., fluorescent dyes). Here, the authors demonstrate an optical platform capable of imaging electric field dynamics with high spatio-temporal resolution.

    • Jason Horng
    • , Halleh B. Balch
    •  & Feng Wang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Syntaxin1A (Sx1A) is organized in nanoclusters in neurosecretory cells but how these nanoclusters are affected by neurotransmitter release in a living organism is unknown. Here the authors perform single molecule imaging analysis in live fly larvae and show that the lateral diffusion and trapping of Sx1A in nanoclusters are altered by synaptic activity.

    • Adekunle T. Bademosi
    • , Elsa Lauwers
    •  & Frédéric A. Meunier

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Here, the authors combinein vivopatch-clamp recordings and optogenetics to show that balanced dendritic excitation and inhibition provides a sensitive ‘push-pull’ mechanism that generates the bidirectional modulation of Purkinje cell SSp output necessary for normal locomotor behaviour.

    • Marta Jelitai
    • , Paolo Puggioni
    •  & Ian Duguid

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Ventral tegmental area (VTA) is involved in reward behaviours, but the precise contribution of VTA glutamatergic neurons to this process is not known. Here the authors show that phasic but not sustained optogenetic stimulation of VTA glutamatergic neurons is rewarding and involves co-release of GABA.

    • Ji Hoon Yoo
    • , Vivien Zell
    •  & Thomas S. Hnasko

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Neural oscillations have been proposed to process information by generating cyclic integration windows: specific portions of the oscillatory cycle when a post-synaptic neuron is especially sensitive to coincident inputs. Here, the authors demonstrate the existence and mechanism of integration windows in Kenyon cells in the locust olfactory system.

    • Nitin Gupta
    • , Swikriti Saran Singh
    •  & Mark Stopfer

  • Article
    | Open Access

    To understand the neural code it is important to determine what spiking features contain the relevant information. Here, the authors use mathematical approaches to show that two pair-wise correlation functions, the autocorrelation function within spike trains and cross-correlation function across stimulus presentations, fully determine the neural information content.

    • Amadeus Dettner
    • , Sabrina Münzberg
    •  & Tatjana Tchumatchenko

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The volume of subcortical brain structures is known to be heritable. Here, Roshchupkin and colleagues studied seven different subcortical brain structures in the general population and show that the genetic contributions go beyond these volumetric measurements, and also extend to their shapes.

    • Gennady V. Roshchupkin
    • , Boris A. Gutman
    •  & Hieab H. H. Adams

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Part of understanding ageing involves knowing how the brain’s connecting pathways change in healthy aging. Here, authors provide a detailed characterisation of data from 3513 UK Biobank participants, and show that the microstructure of these pathways becomes more similar with age.

    • Simon R. Cox
    • , Stuart J. Ritchie
    •  & Ian J. Deary

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Tolerance for risk decreases with age, but it is not known whether this shift can be accounted for by a neurobiological marker. Here, authors show that the age-related decrease in risk tolerance is better accounted for by grey matter decreases in right posterior parietal cortex than by age per se.

    • Michael A. Grubb
    • , Agnieszka Tymula
    •  & Ifat Levy

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Brain-machine interfaces (BMI) depend on algorithms to decode neural signals, but these decoders cope poorly with signal variability. Here, authors report a BMI decoder which circumvents these problems by using a large and perturbed training dataset to improve performance with variable neural signals.

    • David Sussillo
    • , Sergey D. Stavisky
    •  & Krishna V. Shenoy

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Whole-brain networks of long-range neuronal pathways are characterized by interdependencies between structural features. Here the author shows that module hierarchy and rich club features in these networks are structural byproducts (spandrels) of module and hub constraints, but not of wiring-cost constraints.

    • Mikail Rubinov

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Gap junctions have critical roles in maintaining homeostasis in multicellular organisms. Here the authors present cryo-EM structures of the C. elegansinnexin-6 gap junction channel, revealing high structural similarity to human connexin 26 despite a different oligomeric number and lack of sequence similarity.

    • Atsunori Oshima
    • , Kazutoshi Tani
    •  & Yoshinori Fujiyoshi

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Previous studies have used fluorescently labelled cells to demonstrate the incorporation of transplanted photoreceptor precursors into the mouse retina. Here, the authors show that fluorescent proteins are passed between the host and transplanted cells rather than migration of donor cells into the retina.

    • Mandeep S. Singh
    • , Jasmin Balmer
    •  & Robert E. MacLaren

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