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The hypothesis that dopamine reports reward prediction errors has been both influential and controversial. This Perspective characterizes the present state of evidence, indicating where it succeeds and where it falls short. A complete account of dopamine will probably need to move beyond the reward prediction error hypothesis while retaining its core explanatory power.
Liu et al. unraveled several hippocampal neural ensemble coding schemes that efficiently represent numerous daily experiences during sleep by prioritizing the most recent and earliest events, multiplexing co-representations and compressing day-long sequences.
Coordinated neuronal activity may mediate memory in hippocampal CA1. Here, the authors use an array of machine-learning classifiers to reveal how higher-order population dynamics and learning-induced spine plasticity are disrupted in amnestic mice.
Perineuronal nets stabilize synapses inhibiting synaptic plasticity. Here, the authors show that perineuronal nets act as a diffusion barrier facilitating astrocytic clearance of synaptically released ions and neurotransmitters.
Parks, Schneider et al. show that brain states like sleep and wake can be reliably detected from milliseconds of neural activity in local regions in mice. Regions can briefly switch states independently, coinciding with fleeting behavioral changes.
Dong et al. developed and validated κLight, δLight and µLight, a suite of genetically encoded opioid peptide sensors for probing opioid drugs and brain-region/circuit-specific opioid release in behaving animals.
Independent of its appetite- and body weight-modulating effects, the hormone asprosin activates its receptor PTPRD at cerebellar Purkinje neurons to enhance thirst and maintain fluid homeostasis. Surprisingly, this has no effect whatsoever on Purkinje neuron-mediated motor coordination and learning.
Chopra and colleagues show that the hormone asprosin, independent of its effects on hypothalamic AgRP neurons, activates its cell surface receptor Ptprd on cerebellar Purkinje neurons to enhance thirst for maintenance of fluid homeostasis.
The authors identify reusable ‘dynamical motifs’ in artificial neural networks. These motifs enable flexible recombination of previously learned capabilities, promoting modular, compositional computation and rapid transfer learning. This discovery sheds light on the fundamental building blocks of intelligent behavior.
Gannot et al. show that Tac1 neurons in the NTS mediate an airway–vagal–brain pathway that is crucial for coughing in mice. These neurons receive direct vagal sensory inputs and coordinate downstream circuits to control coughing.
The authors test the model that microglia are crucial for the developmental refinement of neural circuitry by depleting them with PLX5622. Microglia prove dispensable for the experience-dependent maturation of visual circuitry during development.
In nature, female mice, like males, display aggression and dominant hierarchy. This study in wild mice identifies oxytocin-expressing neurons as a hub governing these behaviors, influencing the degree of sexual dimorphism in social conflicts.
Bonnavion, Varin and colleagues show that striatal projection neurons that coexpress dopamine D1 and D2 receptors have unique physiological properties and serve as a crucial third output in the striatum for motor control and dopaminergic signal integration.
How aging influences peripheral immune cell infiltration and the role of these cells following traumatic injury of the CNS is unclear. Here, the authors show that aging transforms CNS-associated macrophages into regulators of immune cell trafficking after ischemic stroke, modulating neurological outcomes.
The authors present a feature-specific prediction error model that explains heterogeneity in dopaminergic signals within and across projection-defined populations. Model-derived predictions of dopamine activity align with empirical recordings.
The role of dopaminergic neurons in modulating striatal dynamics on subsecond timescales remains unclear. Long, Lee et al. show that only potentially supra-physiological dopamine levels are capable of strongly and rapidly altering striatal spiking activity.