Reviews & Analysis

Early-life stress can contribute to predispositions to antisocial behaviour in adulthood. Similarly, acute or chronic stress during adulthood can alter our social behaviour. Sandi and Haller emphasize the importance of timing of stress for its effects on social behaviour and describe current understanding of the underlying mechanisms.

Astrocytes form borders that separate neural from non-neural tissue in both normal brain tissue and CNS lesions. In this Review, Michael Sofroniew discusses evidence that astrocytes along such borders have crucial roles in both attracting and restricting CNS inflammation, with important implications for diverse CNS disorders.

Ageing affects multiple aspects of brain structure and function, and therefore is likely to influence complex behaviours such as decision making. Samanez-Larkin and Knutson describe age-related changes in the affective and motivational circuits that drive choice, and consider how these influence decision making.

In this Opinion article, Nutt and colleagues examine the history of and current evidence for the dopamine theory of addiction. They argue that dopamine's role in addiction is more complicated than the role that is put forward in this theory.

Several psychiatric disorders have been linked to changes in microRNA levels in the circulation and brain. In this Review, Issler and Chen discuss approaches for studying the role of these non-coding RNAs in disease and highlight examples of their potential pathophysiological contributions to psychiatric disorders.

In this Review, Egeland, Zunszain and Pariante examine the complicated relationship between the stress response and adult neurogenesis, which can regulate each other. They discuss the molecular pathways that may underlie this interaction in the dentate gyrus.

Positive effects of mindfulness-based practices on health and cognitive performance have been reported; however, we know little about the underlying mechanisms. Tang and colleagues outline the challenges of meditation research and consider emerging information about the effects of mindfulness meditation on brain structure and function.

Reading enables language to be perceived through vision. In this Opinion article, Dehaene and colleagues discuss the changes in brain function, brain structures and behaviour that occur when learning how to read, and how these changes may reflect more-efficient connections among visual and language-processing centres.

How fast and precise is astrocytic Ca²⁺ signalling? In this Opinion article, Dmitri Rusakov discusses how overcoming difficulties in monitoring and interpreting astrocyte Ca²⁺signalling — and the acquisition of a fuller understanding — requires a leap in our experimental and analytical strategies.

Exposure to drugs of abuse — for example, cocaine — leads to plastic changes in the activity of ion channels that control neuronal firing. In this Opinion article, Kourrich, Calu and Bonci discuss how accumulating evidence suggests that these changes may contribute to the shaping of addiction phenotype.

The subplate is a transient cortical zone that forms during mammalian brain development and has a crucial role in the formation of intracortical and extracortical circuits. Here, Hoerder-Suabedissen and Molnár review the changing architecture and cellular diversity of this zone in developing mouse and primate brains.

Although often thought of as a disease of the white matter, multiple sclerosis is also characterized by prominent demyelination and degeneration in the grey matter. Calabrese and colleagues discuss current hypotheses regarding the inflammatory and non-inflammatory mechanisms of grey matter damage in multiple sclerosis and its relationship to white matter damage.

Pathological perturbations of the brain can be described and modelled using network science. In this Review, Fornito, Zalesky and Breakspear discuss adaptive and maladaptive neural responses to such insults and consider how connectomics can be used to map, track and predict disease progression.

Retromer is a protein assembly that has a crucial role in endosomal sorting and trafficking. In this Progress article, Small and Petsko discuss the role of retromer dysfunction in various neurological diseases, including Alzheimer disease and Parkinson disease.

The cerebellar cortex drives smooth goal-directed movement as well as a range of other functions. Apps and colleagues describe studies that have revealed variations in the cytoarchitecture, molecular composition, physiological properties and vulnerability to cell death of different cerebellar cortical regions, and discuss the idea that these underlie different forms of information processing.

Although we understand much about mechanisms of spatial navigation in the mammalian brain in the context of laboratory investigations, our knowledge of the neural bases of 'real-world' navigation is more limited. Ulanovsky and colleagues here describe how we can approach this problem through experimental research and theoretical models of large-scale navigation in bats and rats.

Various neurodegenerative diseases are characterized by aggregates of pathological proteins, and increasing evidence suggests these disease-associated proteins may 'spread' via neuronal connections. Trojanowski and colleagues describe the molecular mechanisms of such spreading, and present the findings from neuropathological and imaging studies in humans that support this process.

Chemokine receptors and opioid receptors in nociceptive pathways interact in ways that can alter opioid function. In this Progress article, Réaux-Le Goazigo and colleagues discuss how crosstalk between chemokine and opioid receptors offers a new framework for the development of novel analgesic therapies to alleviate pain.