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Neurodegenerative disease: Preventing 'SIRTain' death by mutant huntingtin

Nature Reviews Neuroscience 13, 71 (2012). doi:10.1038/nrn3182

Author: Monica Hoyos Flight

Two independent studies link mutant huntingtin to inactivation of the deacetylase enzyme SIRT1 and highlight a neuroprotective role for SIRT1 in mouse models of Huntington's disease.

Neural development: Epigenetic regulation of asymmetry

Nature Reviews Neuroscience 13, 72 (2012). doi:10.1038/nrn3183

Author: Katherine Whalley

The brains of many species demonstrate structural and functional bilateral asymmetry, yet the underlying molecular mechanisms are mostly unknown. In the Caenorhabditis elegans nervous system, the lineages arising from the two daughter cells of a particular blastomere known as ABarap produce a different cell

Learning and memory: Becoming a habit: a role for NMDA receptors

Nature Reviews Neuroscience 13, 72 (2012). doi:10.1038/nrn3184

Author: Katherine Whalley

The actions of dopamine in the basal ganglia are important for the transformation of a repeated action into an automated habit; however, the precise mechanisms by which dopamine is modulated during habit learning are unclear. Here, the authors show that mice in which NMDAR1 is

Social neuroscience: Oxytocin boosts social awareness

Nature Reviews Neuroscience 13, 72 (2012). doi:10.1038/nrn3185

Author: Katherine Whalley

Sensitivity to the experiences of others contributes to many social behaviours including empathy and cooperation. Here, the authors show that oxytocin influences social behaviour in rhesus macaques in a context-dependent manner. When the monkeys had to choose whether to deliver a reward to another monkey

Neural development: Emergence of patterned activity in the motor system

Nature Reviews Neuroscience 13, 72 (2012). doi:10.1038/nrn3186

Author: Katherine Whalley

Spontaneous activity bursts contribute to network formation in many parts of the developing nervous system. Warp et al. used time-lapse imaging and optical manipulation of activity to investigate the emergence of spontaneous patterned activity in the developing zebrafish motor system. They found that the

Psychiatric disorders: Why two is better than one

Nature Reviews Neuroscience 13, 73 (2012). doi:10.1038/nrn3181

Author: Leonie Welberg

The antidepressant fluoxetine increases synaptic plasticity in the amygdala and thereby facilitates fear erasure through extinction.

Neural development: Clustering connections

Nature Reviews Neuroscience 13, 74 (2012). doi:10.1038/nrn3187

Author: Darran Yates

Repetitive spontaneous activity in developing neural networks causes spatiotemporal clustering of functional synapses on dendrites.

Brain evolution: MicroRNAs: big influence in brain evolution

Nature Reviews Neuroscience 13, 75 (2012). doi:10.1038/nrn3178

Author: Sian Lewis

It has been suggested that the rapid evolution of brain gene expression might partly account for the emergence of human cognition. Using microarrays and computational analysis, Somel et al. found that the rate of divergence of developmentally expressed genes in humans was 3–5 times

Ion channels: Optogenetics gets selective!

Nature Reviews Neuroscience 13, 75 (2012). doi:10.1038/nrn3179

Author: Sian Lewis

Optogenetic targeting of specific cell populations in rats has not been possible until now. A new study demonstrates a method for creating genetically restricted, recombinase-driven rat lines in which opsins can be expressed in specific populations of neurons. Witten et al. generated tyrosine hydroxylase–Cre

Neuronal circuits: Mapping the local field potential

Nature Reviews Neuroscience 13, 75 (2012). doi:10.1038/nrn3180

Author: Sian Lewis

The local field potential (LFP) is the low-frequency component of the extracellular voltage detected in the cortex, and changes in the LFP have been linked to many important processes, such as memory and motor function. Several recent reports have suggested that the LFP arises from

Activity-dependent neurotransmitter respecification

Nature Reviews Neuroscience 13, 94 (2012). doi:10.1038/nrn3154

Author: Nicholas C. Spitzer

For many years it has been assumed that the identity of the transmitters expressed by neurons is stable and unchanging. Recent work, however, shows that electrical activity can respecify neurotransmitter expression during development and in the mature nervous system, and an understanding is emerging of

Interneuron dysfunction in psychiatric disorders

Nature Reviews Neuroscience 13, 107 (2012). doi:10.1038/nrn3155

Author: Oscar Marín

Schizophrenia, autism and intellectual disabilities are best understood as spectrums of diseases that have broad sets of causes. However, it is becoming evident that these conditions also have overlapping phenotypes and genetics, which is suggestive of common deficits. In this context, the idea that the

Neuroimmunology: Interferon-γ tunes the rhythm

Nature Reviews Neuroscience 13, 74 (2012). doi:10.1038/nrn3177

Author: Leonie Welberg

Two immune-related molecules regulate network rhythmicity by controlling GABA transmission.

Spectral fingerprints of large-scale neuronal interactions

Nature Reviews Neuroscience 13, 121 (2012). doi:10.1038/nrn3137

Authors: Markus Siegel, Tobias H. Donner & Andreas K. Engel

Cognition results from interactions among functionally specialized but widely distributed brain regions; however, neuroscience has so far largely focused on characterizing the function of individual brain regions and neurons therein. Here we discuss recent studies that have instead investigated the interactions between brain regions during

Synaptic plasticity: Ubiquitin activates synaptic plasticity

Nature Reviews Neuroscience 13, 73 (2012). doi:10.1038/nrn3175

Author: Katherine Whalley

NEURL1A-mediated ubiquitylation of CPEB3 alters its activity and regulates hippocampal synaptic plasticity and memory formation.

Mitochondrial transport in neurons: impact on synaptic homeostasis and neurodegeneration

Nature Reviews Neuroscience 13, 77 (2012). doi:10.1038/nrn3156

Authors: Zu-Hang Sheng & Qian Cai

Mitochondria have a number of essential roles in neuronal function. Their complex mobility patterns within neurons are characterized by frequent changes in direction. Mobile mitochondria can become stationary or pause in regions that have a high metabolic demand and can move again rapidly in response

Computational neuroanatomy of speech production

Nature Reviews Neuroscience 13, 135 (2012). doi:10.1038/nrn3158

Author: Gregory Hickok

Speech production has been studied predominantly from within two traditions, psycholinguistics and motor control. These traditions have rarely interacted, and the resulting chasm between these approaches seems to reflect a level of analysis difference: whereas motor control is concerned with lower-level articulatory control, psycholinguistics focuses

Neuronal circuits: The sound of fear

Nature Reviews Neuroscience 13, 72 (2012). doi:10.1038/nrn3172

Author: Monica Hoyos Flight

A disinhibitory circuit in the mouse auditory cortex mediates fear conditioning to sounds.

Sensory transduction: How TRPs discriminate between different stimuli

Nature Reviews Neuroscience 13, 74 (2012). doi:10.1038/nrn3173

Author: Sian Lewis

Localized expression of different TRP channel isoforms determines behavioural outcomes to different stimuli.

Neurodevelopmental disorders: Getting with the reprogram

Nature Reviews Neuroscience 13, 1 (2012). doi:10.1038/nrn3167

Author: Darran Yates

A cellular reprogramming approach reveals that Timothy syndrome, which may be associated with symptoms of autism, is linked to impaired cortical neuron differentiation and abnormal catecholamine signalling.