RNA alternative splicing is involved in determining cell identity, but a comprehensive molecular map is missing. Here, the authors provide a human and mouse brain atlas of transcript isoforms linking them to cellular identity, brain regions and development stages.

Precise profiling of dendritic RNA regulation reveals how neuronal depolarization leads to ribosome switching onto short upstream open reading frames and new coding sequences to acutely modulate local protein synthesis.

How astrocytes can integrate information is incompletely understood. Here the authors show that locus coeruleus-controlled calcium signals in hippocampal astrocytes propagating from their processes to their soma are involved in the information integration upon salient events.

Silva et al. definitively establish climbing fiber-driven complex spike events as essential instructive signals for associative cerebellar learning while also revealing unexpected features of optogenetic manipulation.

Using human iPSC-derived and mouse neurons, this study demonstrates that mRNA transport on lysosome-related vesicles is critical for the maintenance of axonal homeostasis and that its failure causes axonal degeneration.

RNA alternative splicing is involved in determining cell identity, but a comprehensive molecular map is missing. Here, the authors provide a human and mouse brain atlas of transcript isoforms linking them to cellular identity, brain regions and development stages.

Precise profiling of dendritic RNA regulation reveals how neuronal depolarization leads to ribosome switching onto short upstream open reading frames and new coding sequences to acutely modulate local protein synthesis.

How astrocytes can integrate information is incompletely understood. Here the authors show that locus coeruleus-controlled calcium signals in hippocampal astrocytes propagating from their processes to their soma are involved in the information integration upon salient events.

Silva et al. definitively establish climbing fiber-driven complex spike events as essential instructive signals for associative cerebellar learning while also revealing unexpected features of optogenetic manipulation.

Human microglia transplanted in the mouse brain mount a multipronged response to amyloid-β pathology, displaying unique transcriptional states. Alzheimer’s disease risk genes are differentially regulated across cell states and profoundly alter microglial function.

The study of the female brain during pregnancy and motherhood is gaining traction, and holds the potential to address the unmet needs of millions of women worldwide. Here we highlight the most pressing gaps in this field. Filling these knowledge gaps will require two paths forward: focused longitudinal studies that deeply characterize individuals, and collaborative initiatives that build large-scale international databases.

As Nature Neuroscience celebrates its 25th anniversary, we are having conversations with both established leaders in the field and those earlier in their careers to discuss how the field has evolved, and where it is heading. This month, we are talking to Igor Adameyko (Department Chair at the Center for Brain Research of the Medical University of Vienna, Austria, and a group leader at the Karolinska Institutet, Sweden), a developmental biologist by training with research interests ranging from neural crest cell fate to aquatic life and a champion of a positive research culture.