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Comprehensive profiling of a circumventricular organ with leaky blood vessels, and comparison to cortex vasculature reveal that blood–brain barrier heterogeneity reflects differences in endothelial cells and their interactions with perivascular cells.

The authors find a newly evolved progenitor domain extends and expands spinal motor neurogenesis in humans.

Activation of nested, but not discrete, neural circuits drives alternative courtship songs in male Drosophila melanogaster, providing further insight into how the nervous system can drive the same motor systems to rapidly switch between different actions.

Using human cerebrospinal fluid proteomics, the authors found that proteins associated with Aβ pathology in Alzheimer disease were mainly expressed in glial cells, whereas those associated with tau tangle were linked to metabolism and mainly expressed in neurons.

Goodman et al. found that Tau is critical for ROS-induced lipid droplet formation in glia from flies and mammals. Too much or too little glial Tau disrupts lipid droplets, leaving the glia susceptible to neuronal ROS-induced damage and causing phenotypes in tau^−/− flies.

What follows is not a detailed biography of Jim Simons, whose diversity of talents and activities as a mathematician, educator, administrator, life scientist, philanthropist and visionary in this country and abroad would fill several volumes. It is simply a glance at this wonderful man as I knew him in connection with his growing interest in life sciences and as a friend.

Understanding brain development and systems linked to behavioral change is a key goal in population neuroscience. The authors show the ventral attention network is key for brain development and cognitive ability in cross-culture longitudinal cohorts.

The active zone primes synaptic vesicles and clusters voltage-gated Ca²⁺ channels fast neurotransmitter release. Here the authors dissect the underlying molecular architecture and show that distinct protein machineries execute these functions.

In Caenorhabditis elegans, loss of the transcription factors FOS-1 and EGL-43 — orthologs of human FOS and MECOM, respectively — severely reduces presynaptic gene expression in dopaminergic neurons. These transcription factors form an activity-regulated positive feedback loop, which modulates the expression of synaptic genes and genetic programs to promote synapse formation.

In this special issue of Nature Neuroscience, we shine a spotlight on glia. Research into glia has become one of the most exciting and dynamic subfields of neuroscience, yet there is still much to be discovered about the diverse forms and functions of these cells.

As part of our special issue focused on glia, Nature Neuroscience is 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. Here, we speak with Sonia Mayoral, the Robert J. and Nancy D. Carney Assistant Professor of Neuroscience at Brown University in Providence, RI, USA. We spoke about her work on oligodendrocytes and their interactions with neurons, the importance of exploring glia in brain health and function, and her own academic journey and advice for early-career researchers.

As part of our special issue focused on glia, 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. Here, we speak with Lucas Cheadle, assistant professor at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory and Freeman Hrabowski Scholar at Howard Hughes Medical Institute. We spoke about his passion for studying glia and synapses, and about his experiences as an Indigenous and transgender neuroscientist.

As part of our special issue focused on glia, 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. Here, we speak with Andrea Volterra (visiting faculty at the Wyss Center and honorary professor at the Department of Fundamental Neuroscience, University of Lausanne, Switzerland), an astrocyte biologist, who dedicated his research career to uncovering astrocyte–synapse communications in physiology and disease, and a strong advocate of the Socratic method.

As part of our special issue focused on glia, 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. Here, we speak with Beth Stevens, Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator and Associate Professor of Neurology at the F. M. Kirby Neurobiology Center at Boston Children’s Hospital and at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. We spoke about how she initially became fascinated with glia, her work to understand how glia interact with synapses, and the technologies that are needed to usher in the next era of discoveries in the field.

What makes the brain maintain voluntary exercise despite attractive alternative options such as eating? Tesmer et al. show that orexin/hypocretin neurons are crucial for implementing the underlying valuation of eating versus running in mice.