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The signals ensuring maintenance of the myelin sheath on peripheral nerves are distinct from those instructing myelination and are largely unknown. Here, the authors report that neuronal expression and regulated proteolysis of the prion protein are essential for myelin maintenance.
It is hard to dissociate the time taken for purely perceptual processes from motor reaction times when making responses to stimuli. Using a combination of a novel task design and computational modeling, this study dissociates these two processes and finds that monkeys can discriminate perceptual color information in as little time as 30 ms.
During refinement of inhibitory inputs to the lateral superior olive (LSO), terminals in the medial nucleus of the trapezoid body express VGLUT3 and co-release glutamate with glycine or GABA. Using mice lacking VGLUT3, the authors show impaired refinement of inhibitory inputs to the LSO and degraded tonotopic precision.
Hägglund et al. have generated a transgenic mouse line that expresses channelrhodopsin2 selectively in cells expressing vesicular glutamate transporter 2. Using these mice, they find that activation of glutamatergic neurons in spinal cord is critical for initiating or maintaining locomotor-like activity.
Glutamate-induced kainate receptor activation can inhibit or facilitate inhibitory synaptic transmission. This study demonstrates that it is the concerted activity of presynaptic CB1 receptors and kainate receptors that together mediate short-term depression of inhibitory synaptic transmission.
Light makes migraines worse. The authors show that this effect can be mediated by intrinsically photosensitive retinal ganglion cells projecting onto thalamic neurons that also receive nociceptive input from the dura mater.
Loss of function of the tuberous sclerosis complex, which leads to overactive mTOR signaling, disrupts EphA-dependent repulsive guidance of retinal axons. Growth cone collapse and repulsion by ephrin-A correlates with and requires the downregulation of mTOR signaling.
