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A study reporting spatiotemporal stimulation and inhibition of synaptic activity is made possible by the development of synaptically targeted, light-controlled G protein–coupled receptors.
A study recording directly from the human brain shows that connectivity between the prefrontal cortex, parietal cortex and the medial temporal lobe across different frequency bands underlies successful memory retrieval.
The onset of puberty in mammals is determined by a poorly understood mix of genetics and environment. A survey of the epigenetic methylation landscape provides insight into a potential mechanism for the onset of puberty in females involving emancipation from a repressive gene complex in hypothalamic neurons.
Two studies show that local inhibitory connectivity and hippocampal excitatory input support the spatial firing patterns of entorhinal grid cells, providing support for continuous attractor model of grid cell firing.
Microglia have been regarded as the tissue macrophages of the brain. A study now finds that microglia are quite distinct from blood-borne macrophages and derive from an erythromyeloid precursor cell of the embryonic hematopoiesis.
In this Perspective, the author examines how reading and writing the neural code may be linked. He reviews evidence defining the nature of neural coding of sensory input and asks how these constraints, particularly precise timing, might be critical for approaches that seek to ‘write the neural code’ through the artificial control of microcircuits to activate downstream structures.
A study optogenetically generating or suppressing activity in excitatory neocortical neurons in vivo finds that layer 5 pyramidal cells initiate and maintain widespread UP states, whereas layer 2/3 cells are subsidiary.
Matthew Larkum discusses the results of a large-scale patch-clamp study revealing the existence of two new cortical microcircuits. These circuits both originate in layer I and either inhibit or disinhibit layer V pyramidal cells.
Work reported in this issue has derived the long-sought analytical link between neural readout weights and choice signals in the standard model of perceptual decision making. This fresh perspective opens the door to experimental assessments of percept formation from the activity of sensory neurons.
Nociceptors respond to both painful and itchy stimuli. MrgprA3-expressing neurons have now been found that are sparsely distributed in the skin and sense a wide variety of pruritogens.
In their Perspective article, Lattal and Wood discuss the latest progresses on behavioral features of persistent memory formation, and how epigenetics is forcing a re-evaluation of behavioral and molecular distinctions between memory extinction and memory reconsolidation.
In this review, György Buzsáki and Edvard Moser discuss the most recent evidence suggesting that the navigation and memory functions of the hippocampus and entorhinal cortex are supported by the same neuronal algorithms. They propose that the mechanisms fueling the memory and mental travel engines in the hippocampal-entorhinal system evolved from the mechanisms supporting navigation in the physical world.
In this review, the authors highlight recent progress made in fear learning and memory, differential susceptibility to disorders of fear, and how these findings are being applied to understanding, treatment, and possible prevention of fear disorders in the clinic.
This Review article discusses in the context of learning and memory the function of sleep to earmark which daily event or information should be consolidated and which mundane information should be discarded, and how this 'memory triage' process is a selective and yet generalization process that can also bind features together in a non-congruous manner when they are recalled.
