Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain
the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in
Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles
and JavaScript.
The authors report that impaired hippocampal synchrony in a mouse model of schizophrenia is due to parvalbumin interneuron hypoexcitability. Rescuing interneuron excitability during adulthood restores wild-type-like network dynamics and behavior.
The BRAINcode consortium found that tens of thousands of transcribed noncoding elements (TNEs) from the ‘dark matter’ of our genome are active in dopamine neurons. They may be linked to schizophrenia, Parkinson’s disease, and addiction.
Applying a social Pavlovian conditioning procedure for macaques, this study shows that medial prefrontal neurons selectively monitor self-reward or other-reward information and that dopamine neurons integrate this information into subjective value.
Louveau et al. demonstrate that meningeal lymphatics drain CSF-derived macromolecules and immune cells and play a key role in regulating neuroinflammation. Meningeal lymphatics may represent a new therapeutic target for multiple sclerosis.
Mongillo et al. use theoretical modeling to link structure & activity in a cortical network. They find that activity patterns are predominantly controlled by inhibitory connections, making the network robust to ongoing changes in excitatory synapses.
Behavior is the result of a Bayesian computation that weights past experience and current sensory information by their reliabilities. Here single-neuron activity in eye movement cortex exemplifies how the brain implements a Bayesian computation.
Cerebellar climbing fibers provide predictive, context-specific instructional signals that do not rely exclusively on motor errors to support learning of arbitrary sensorimotor associations.
Menegas et al. show that dopamine neurons projecting to the posterior striatum reinforce avoidance of threatening stimuli. Their results indicate that there are two axes of reinforcement learning using dopamine, the value axis and the threat axis.
The authors use integrative deconvolution of gene expression data to reveal core transcriptional features of CNS cell classes in humans, and identify cell-class-specific transcriptional differences in disease, among CNS regions, and between species.
The authors use single-nucleus RNA-seq to identify 10 GABAergic interneuron subtypes in human cortex layer 1. Molecular, morphological, and physiological evidence points to an emerging human cell type, the rosehip cell, not found in other species.
A GWAS of lifetime cannabis use reveals new risk loci, shows that cannabis use has genetic overlap with smoking and alcohol use, and indicates that the likelihood of initiating cannabis use is causally influenced by schizophrenia.
The authors describe microscopic channels that directly connect the skull marrow cavities with the meninges. Neutrophils originating from the skull marrow have a higher propensity to travel to the ischemic mouse brain than cells in the tibia.
Using a deep learning approach to track user-defined body parts during various behaviors across multiple species, the authors show that their toolbox, called DeepLabCut, can achieve human accuracy with only a few hundred frames of training data.
The authors introduce a variant GCaMP that is targeted to axons. Due to its strong brightness, signal-to-noise ratio, and photostability, this tool, named axon-GCaMP, enables robust Ca2+ imaging in individual axons, including in vivo in awake mice.
Phagocytes drive formation & resolution of neuroinflammatory lesions. The authors use in vivo imaging to track expression of proinflammatory & resolution enzymes & follow temporal changes in individual phagocytes polarization states in inflamed CNS.
Controlling urination is a fundamental social need. Keller et al. develop a voluntary urination assay and uncover a subset of brainstem neurons that relax the urethral sphincter, providing insight into urinary control and its dysfunction.
This study shows that excitatory neurons in the ventral hippocampus that express the serotonin receptor 2c gene control attention through direct innervation of the mouse equivalent of the Edinger–Westphal nucleus.
Poulin et al. developed intersectional genetic approaches to target dopamine neuron subtypes defined by combinatorial gene expression. They demonstrate that dopamine neuron subtypes display distinctive projection patterns to forebrain regions.
Autism is ~4 times more common in males. Jung et al. reveal male-preponderant abnormal behaviors in mice lacking CHD8, a chromatin remodeler, accompanying sexually dimorphic changes in neuronal firing, synaptic transmission, and gene expression.
Burt et al. analyze patterns of gene expression across human cortex and show expression primarily varies along a sensory-association hierarchy captured by noninvasive neuroimaging, suggesting an organizing principle for microcircuit specialization.