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Nature Neuroscience
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News, commentary and research coverage from the international monthly journal publishing the highest quality of work in all areas of neuroscience.
Nature Neuroscience’s posts
When an artificial neural network was trained to solve 20 cognitive tasks, functionally specialized modules and compositional representations emerged go.nature.com/2FyAIFO
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In this scenario, the cost of publication is covered by an Article Processing Charge (APC) paid at the time of publication. The APC for Nature Neuroscience in 2022 is €9,500/US $11,390/£8,290.
Functional boundaries in the human #cerebellum revealed by having participants perform 26 tasks spanning motor, cognitive, social, and affective domains during #fMRI go.nature.com/2G0pFEO
New theory from showing how learning-to-learn may arise from interactions between prefrontal cortex and the #dopamine system go.nature.com/2Io9Qqk
A method to decode unknown variables by finding shapes in neural data shows the existence of a low-dimensional #manifold that forms a continuous ring of stable states in mouse head direction neurons go.nature.com/2MYHvfm
A review on the roles of #astrocytes, #microglia, and #tanycytes in brain control of systemic metabolism go.nature.com/2rt8ST5
Single-cell and spatial transcriptomics of #dopamine neurons from human substantia nigra pars compacta (SNpc) reveals 10 subtypes, one of which is selectively lost in #Parkinson's disease
New from and colleagues
A neural network formalization of systems-level #memory consolidation that postulates that memories only consolidate when it aids generalization
A method to generate new neurons in the cortex and dentate gyrus of aged mice with a single injection of an antisense oligonucleotide (ASO), opening prospects for replacing neurons lost to neurodegenerative disease
Three genetic #dopamine subtypes within the substantia nigra pars compacta each have a unique set of responses to rewards, aversive stimuli, and accelerations and decelerations
While Bayesian models provide good accounts of perceptual decisions, it is unclear how their components are represented in the brain. Here, the authors show that uncertainty decoded from visual cortex helps predict behavior. go.nature.com/2EOvPGO
#Microglia and #astrocytes propagate #neurodegeneration by releasing fragmented and dysfunctional #mitochondria into the neuronal milieu. Inhibiting pathological fragmentation of glial mitochondria blunts neuroinflammation and increases neuroprotection. go.nature.com/2kSWJqZ
Diazepam, a widely prescribed #benzodiazepine, impairs the structural plasticity of dendritic spines and increases microglial phagocytosis of synaptic material, causing cognitive impairment in mice
Structural MRI data from >45,000 individuals aged 3 to 96 years reveals distinct patterns of apparent brain #aging in several disorders go.nature.com/2lq3BMC
A toolbox called #DeepLabCut that uses deep learning to track body parts during various behaviors across multiple species can achieve human accuracy go.nature.com/2OR9E62
The brains of #COVID-19 patients have damaged blood vessels (more so-called string vessels representing remnants of lost capillaries); SARS-CoV-2 infects brain endothelial cells and leads to microvascular pathology via RIPK signaling
Our December issue, featuring our Focus on neuroscience methods, is now live!
go.nature.com/336vNqo
Total social isolation for 10 hours evokes similar midbrain craving responses in human participants as 10 hours of fasting does; new from , ,
Our May issue, commemorating our 25th anniversary, is now live!
Cover art by
nature.com/neuro/volumes/
Our focus issue on human brain mapping is online now: go.nature.com/2lv00dt
Cell-type-specific retrograde and anterograde tracing of neurotransmitter-specific projections to the ventral tegmental area (#VTA) reveals diversity of GABAergic inputs go.nature.com/2NcMKax
A whole-brain atlas of direct long range inputs to GABAergic #interneurons in the medial #prefrontal cortex (mPFC) of male mice go.nature.com/2YGl4Pl
We are deeply saddened to hear of Ben Barres's passing. He will be remembered as a brilliant scientist, a beloved mentor, and a passionate advocate for diversity.
Using dimensionality reduction techniques , , and disentangle the contributions of different task variables to neural population activity. rdcu.be/b79ji
🎉Please join us in congratulating Shari Wiseman (), who starts as our new Chief Editor today! And, learn more about our full team of outstanding editors here:
go.nature.com/3tZviJd
A human #Alzheimer's disease (AD) culture model using neurons, astrocytes, and microglia in a 3D microfluidic platform recapitulates key AD features, including beta-amyloid aggregation, phosphorylated tau accumulation, and neuroinflammatory activity go.nature.com/2IyTdrk
A normative theory predicting which memories should be accessed at each moment to optimize future decisions go.nature.com/2Jansqs
Mouse and human #decision-making relies on an interplay among multiple interleaved strategies, which often switch multiple times within a session
New from , , , , , and
go.nature.com/3J7kXmA
Watch our animation on #Parkinsons disease. It focuses on mechanisms whereby neurons become dysfunctional, how pathology develops, and touches on therapeutic strategies. Made with and produced with support from . go.nature.com/2M1eYVo
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Our June issue, featuring some adorable macrophages, is now live! go.nature.com/2HA2thw
MRI data from 11,354 individuals in the establishes a link between white matter microstructure and functional connectivity; #GWAS identified genetic associations of these microstructure–function relationships. go.nature.com/2DgRgjt
. and used optogenetic stimulation to engineer a fully artificial olfactory fear memory in mice go.nature.com/2vqjwMp
Transplanting wild-type neurons into the brains of #Alzheimer's disease model mice shows that #microglia contribute to the infiltration of amyloid beta (#Aβ) into the grafts
go.nature.com/3lkxcD5
Humans (but not macaques) have cortical regions with a strong preference for harmonic tones compared to noise, perhaps due to the human brain's needs for processing speech and music 🎶 go.nature.com/2K5z95j
The #psychedelics LSD and psilocin directly bind to the BDNF receptor, TrkB, and this is required for effects on #antidepressant-like behavior in mice
New from
We are saddened to hear of the passing of Bruce McEwen, a pioneer in stress research. Please enjoy his comprehensive 2015 review on this topic
#Dopamine neurons projecting to the posterior #striatum reinforce avoidance of threatening stimuli, suggesting there are at least 2 axes of dopaminergic reinforcement learning in the striatum: one based on value and one based on external threat go.nature.com/2Q4bAcM
"The Brain ‘Rotates’ Memories to Save Them From New Sensations", coverage of our recent paper in
Neurons in the CA1 region of the #hippocampus encode events as discrete and transferable units of experience go.nature.com/2xVWtgF
Trans-Seq combines a fluorescent anterograde trans-synaptic tracer with scRNAseq for post-synaptic circuit discovery from defined pre-synaptic neurons; used here to to map retinal ganglion cell (RGC) types to superior collicular (SC) circuits
. and colleagues show that lateral OFC→BLA projections encode the positive value of a reward, whereas medial OFC→BLA projections retrieve this value from memory: go.nature.com/2D3uz2h. Also, check out the N&V from Shannon Gourley: go.nature.com/2Z0okWq.
#Dopamine signals shift gradually from time of reward to time of cue, similarly to the progression of temporal difference error in machine learning
New from Mitsuko Watabe-Uchida, , and colleagues
nature.com/articles/s4159
A review from and Harang Ju on dynamic representations in networked neural systems go.nature.com/3d5UJk7
Congratulations to David Julius and Ardem Patapoutian for winning the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their work on pain and touch!
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BREAKING NEWS:
The 2021 #NobelPrize in Physiology or Medicine has been awarded jointly to David Julius and Ardem Patapoutian “for their discoveries of receptors for temperature and touch.”
Culturing cerebral #organoids in an adapted air-liquid interface system improves neuronal survival and axon outgrowth. These cultures exhibit extracortical projecting tracts that can innervate mouse spinal cord and evoke muscle contraction. go.nature.com/2Fix5TC
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Gray matter volume changes in psychiatric illness occur in highly variable locations across individuals, but these differences often aggregate within common brain systems
New from et al.
Hippocampal place codes degraded extensively when mice voluntarily disengaged from a virtual navigation task, suggesting that internal states can gate spatial maps and reorganize hippocampal activity even without sensory and self-motion changes
The ability to choose a social reward instead keeps rats from taking drugs go.nature.com/2PzguO5
Experts share their views on the roles of the #hippocampus in memory, navigation, and cognition go.nature.com/2h3Osyi
If synaptic #plasticity is regulated by high-frequency bursts of spikes, then neurons higher in a hierarchical circuit can coordinate the plasticity of lower-level connections to enable learning complex tasks
Human stem cell-derived #microglia engrafted into mouse brain recapitulate human primary microglia gene expression, and provide a model to study #Alzheimer’s and other brain diseases go.nature.com/34cHF8C
PFC and hippocampus play complementary roles in knowledge generalization: PFC abstracts the common structure among related problems; hippocampus maps this structure onto the current situation
New from et al.
#Ketamine-triggered rapid antidepressant-like responses in mice, but not psychomimetic effects, are mediated by the GluN2A NMDAR subunit, not GluN2B.
Combining brain imaging, genetics, and behavioral data shows that distinct brainwide distributions of #serotonin receptors explain the known division of serotonin effects on human impulsivity and aversive processing
Single-cell RNA-sequencing (#scRNA-seq) across regions of the developing human brain, including the telencephalon, diencephalon, midbrain, hindbrain and cerebellum, reveals progenitor heterogeneity and degree of similarity to brain #organoids
Complete dendrite and axon morphology of nearly 2,000 neurons in mouse prefrontal cortex (PFC)
Norepinephrine as a modulator of microglial dynamics go.nature.com/2PcZv6O
Regeneration of #myelin requires death of proinflammatory #microglia followed by repopulation to a pro-regenerative state go.nature.com/31n23TM
Simultaneous recording from over 200 well-isolated cortical single units in human participants using silicon Neuropixels probes, providing a path for studying human cognitive processes and their dysfunction at unprecedented spatiotemporal resolution
go.nature.com/3Gn0lVS
An autopsy study in individuals with #COVID19 suggests #SARSCoV2 may enter the brain through the nose, providing insight into ports of entry and the distribution of the virus in the #CNS, from . go.nature.com/2KUjxmH
Mice can #stress each other out via release of an alarm pheromone and synaptic priming of PVN CRH neurons go.nature.com/2m8qU9W
Functional and topographical properties of the fronto-temporo-parietal #language network are robust across 45 languages
New from and colleagues
#Tau accumulates in dentate gyrus #astrocytes in individuals with #Alzheimer's disease; modeling this in mice causes reduced neurogenesis, inhibitory neuron and synapse numbers, fewer gamma oscillations, and impaired spatial memory
go.nature.com/2IlUYh2
Disease-associated #astrocytes revealed using single-nucleus RNA sequencing in an #Alzheimer’s disease mouse model; they increased with disease progression and could also bee seen in aged mouse and human brains go.nature.com/2zACd5j
Check out the Gut-Brain Axis Collection! Research, Reviews and News from across the Nature Research journals covering key aspects of the gut–brain axis, including immune, neuroendocrine and neural factors go.nature.com/2fsug5a
The CA2 region of the #hippocampus encodes social novelty in mice; this is disrupted in a mouse model of 22q11.2 microdeletion, which confers a 30-fold increased risk of #schizophrenia
Examining brain gene co-expression networks reveals that synaptic pathways—rather than the complement system—are the driving force conferring #schizophrenia risk
go.nature.com/2QPVqZP
Single-cell profiling of aging mouse white matter reveals a population of interferon (IFN)-responsive #oligodendrocytes, which localize in proximity to CD8+ T cells
New from Mikael Simons and colleagues
Rabies viral vectors are important tools in neuroscience, but their cytotoxicity usually limits their use. A new class of double-deletion-mutant rabies viral vectors are introduced that leave neurons alive and healthy indefinitely. go.nature.com/2J4fhLO
#Ketamine in mice causes spontaneously active neurons to become suppressed while previously silent neurons become spontaneously activated; this may help explain how ketamine induces a "dissociated" state
nature.com/articles/s4159
A group of researchers proposes a standardized classification and nomenclature of cell types in the cortex based on single-cell #transcriptomics
go.nature.com/3hx0jPg
A review on insights into #Alzheimer’s disease from single-cell genomic approaches from Mitchell H. Murdock & Li-Huei Tsai ()
Theoretical modeling shows cortical activity patterns are primarily determined by inhibitory connectivity, making the network robust to ongoing changes in excitatory synapses go.nature.com/2PHVEM2
A taxonomy of cell types in the mouse visual cortex via unsupervised clustering analysis of multiple morphological and electrophysiological features from go.nature.com/2XSWrhZ
A Perspective from and Yann Humeau about the next generation of tools for linking #synaptic plasticity and #learning go.nature.com/2zLSj8Q
Two new papers on prefrontal regulation of #sleep:
Excitatory medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) neurons promote REM sleep in mice through their projections to the lateral hypothalamus
A Review on how computational models link cellular mechanisms of neuromodulation to large-scale neural dynamics from and colleagues
go.nature.com/3o4ZFgg
Leveraging resting-state fMRI data from 1,033 youths (ages 8–23 years) reveals stereotyped refinement of intrinsic activity and provides evidence for a cortical gradient of neurodevelopmental change
New from et al.
nature.com/articles/s4159
Pathological tau accumulation takes place predominantly in excitatory neurons compared to inhibitory neurons in #Alzheimer's brains go.nature.com/2PJPtXx
. and colleagues show that #astrocytes contribute to remote memory formation by modulating hippocampal-cortical activity during learning
go.nature.com/2DyhalD
Just in time for , a Review on #Optogenetics at the Presynapse from , , Benjamin Rost, and Dietmar Schmitz #OptoGRC2022
An approach to automatically annotate, analyze, visualize, and easily share whole-brain datasets at cellular resolution go.nature.com/2AvumT4
Dorsomedial prefrontal cortical (dmPFC) #astrocytes modulate excitatory/inhibitory (E/I) balance and dominance behavior in adult male mice
. used #fMRI to examine the layer specificity of activity in #dlPFC during a working memory task. Superficial layers are active during the delay period; deeper layers are active during the response. go.nature.com/2mc2Ark
