ヒトの脳のシミュレーションを目指すヨーロッパの大規模計画は、神経科学に狙い以上の成果をもたらすだろう。
Head start p.5
Europe’s mega-project to simulate the human brain has much to offer neuroscience research — whether or not it delivers on its central promise.
doi: 10.1038/503005a
Europe’s mega-project to simulate the human brain has much to offer neuroscience research — whether or not it delivers on its central promise.
doi: 10.1038/503005a
Governments need to strengthen support for scientists who preserve our cultural heritage.
doi: 10.1038/503006a
The behaviour of millions of minuscule beads reveals some secrets of collective motion.
doi: 10.1038/503006b
European agency selects mission themes, with X-ray telescope the biggest winner.
doi: 10.1038/503013a
Despite political challenges, engineered primates could be better disease models than mice.
doi: 10.1038/503014a
Moveable sensor grid will begin monitoring Alaska next summer.
doi: 10.1038/503016a
Proteomic technique proves that 300-year-old Linnaean elephant was wrongly classified.
doi: 10.1038/503018a
Scientists fear EU biosafety rules could complicate publication of work on infectious diseases.
doi: 10.1038/503019a
神経回路を調べるさまざまな技術によって、ヒトの認知の研究は大きく進歩しつつある。
doi: 10.1038/503021a
ヒトのニューロンが、省エネ高性能の新しいコンピューターチップのヒントになる。
doi: 10.1038/503022a
オバマ政権の打ち出したBRAIN計画がどのようなものになるか、神経科学者たちの取り組みが進んでいる。
doi: 10.1038/503026a
ニューロンでは、転写プログラムが抑制性の入力に対して、ニューロン内の領域ごとに異なる調節を行っていることが分かってきた。これは、神経回路では経験依存性の「可塑性」を獲得するための意外なスイッチが協調的に働いていることを示している。
doi: 10.1038/503042a
転がる粒子の集団は、走路の中では一方向性のまとまった動きを示すことが分かっている。理論的モデル作製によって流体力学的効果と静電気的効果がこうしたふるまいを促進していることが示唆された。
doi: 10.1038/503043a
グッピーについての研究で「希少雄効果」、すなわち強い配偶者選択を受ける形質で変異が維持されるという謎を説明するためにずっと以前に考えられた仮説に対して、これまでで最も明確な証拠が得られた。
doi: 10.1038/nature12701
意思決定は周囲の環境によって変わると考えられる。サル脳の前前頭皮質の解析から、ニューロン集団レベルでの動的な過程がこうした挙動を制御していることが示された。
doi: 10.1038/503045a
気候へのエアロゾルの影響の推定値の不確実性は、過去の汚染されていない大気についての知識が不十分であることに由来する。そのため、このような影響の解明がさらに進んでも、現在の気候の理解には考えられているほど役に立たない可能性が出てきた。
doi: 10.1038/503047a
リスクについての悪い知らせを聞くと、人は有害な事象に対する自己の脆弱性の評価を変えるものだが、未熟な若者は年長者に比べてその評価の正確性が低い。この知見は、若者がとる危険な行動への対応に関係してくると考えられる。
doi: 10.1038/nature12704
The connectivity of cortical neurons relates to the way in which they encode sensory features, and integrate them with behavioural context; these factors are discussed in relation to recent research, the major questions still to be addressed, and emerging techniques that may help to answer these.
doi: 10.1038/nature12654
An alternative view of diabetes is presented in which blood glucose homeostasis is achieved via collective actions of two regulatory systems: a brain-centred glucoregulatory system (BCGS), which works together with the pancreatic islets; defects in both systems may be required for diabetes to occur, and interventions targeting both systems may have greater therapeutic potential.
doi: 10.1038/nature12709
It has been assumed that a better understanding of the effects of anthropogenic aerosols will greatly reduce the large uncertainties associated with our predictions of the radiative forcing effects of aerosols on climate; however, this study shows that nearly half of the uncertainty in the radiative effect of aerosols on clouds derives from uncertainties in pre-industrial natural aerosols.
doi: 10.1038/nature12674
Mouse and human studies reveal that incorrect gene dosage of SHANK3 (a gene linked to some human neuropsychiatric disorders, including autism spectrum disorder) is associated with behavioural abnormalities including mania, possibly because of actin regulation problems in excitatory/inhibitory synapses.
doi: 10.1038/nature12630
This study shows that in monkeys making context-dependent decisions, task-relevant and task-irrelevant signals are confusingly intermixed in single units of the prefrontal cortex, but are readily understood in the framework of a dynamical process unfolding at the level of the population; a recurrently connected neural network model reproduces key features of the data and suggests a novel mechanism for selection and integration of task-relevant evidence towards a decision.
doi: 10.1038/nature12742
The X-ray crystal structure of the Drosophila dopamine transporter bound to the antidepressant drug nortriptyline is presented, providing the first crystal structure of a eukaryotic neurotransmitter sodium symporter.
doi: 10.1038/nature12533
Acceleration of relativistic electrons in a dielectric laser accelerator at high electric field gradients is reported, setting the stage for the development of future multi-staged accelerators of this type.
doi: 10.1038/nature12664
Populations of millions of colloidal rolling particles are shown to self-organize to achieve coherent motion; comparison between experiment and theory based on the microscopic interactions between these ‘rollers’ suggests that hydrodynamic interactions promote the emergence of the collective motion.
doi: 10.1038/nature12673
Magnetic fields micropatterned within a paramagnetic fluid can simultaneously trap and position both magnetic and non-magnetic microparticles, the latter including live bacteria.
doi: 10.1038/nature12591
The structure of molten basalt up to 60 GPa by means of in situ X-ray diffraction is described, with the coordination of silicon increasing from four under ambient conditions to six at 35 GPa, and subsequent reduced melt compressibility, which seems to affect siderophile-element partitioning.
doi: 10.1038/nature12668
Manipulation of the frequency of naturally occurring colour patterns within replicate pools of fish at three sites shows that males with rare colour patterns have higher reproductive fitness, demonstrating negative frequency-dependent selection mediated by sexual selection.
doi: 10.1038/nature12717
A neural circuit from the parabrachial nucleus to the central nucleus of the amygdala mediates appetite suppression.
doi: 10.1038/nature12596
Neuronal dendrites are not passive cables, but whether their excitability contributes to computation at the cell’s soma has been uncertain; by observing and interfering with dendritic ‘spikes’ during sensory stimulation, it is now shown that active dendritic processing enhances somatic orientation selectivity, a fundamental brain computation.
doi: 10.1038/nature12600
The transcription factor NPAS4 enables neurons to distinguish synaptic inputs received at their soma or dendrites; sensory stimulation increases NPAS4 which promotes inhibitory synapses on the soma and destabilizes inhibitory synapses on the dendrites.
doi: 10.1038/nature12743
Failure of integrin-mediated cell-matrix attachment is sufficient to initiate dermal fibrosis and autoimmunity in mouse models of scleroderma; integrin-modulating therapies prevent the recruitment and activation of plasmacytoid dendritic cells that appear central to immunological dysregulation and maintenance of the pro-fibrotic synthetic programme.
doi: 10.1038/nature12614
The direction of integrin signalling is found to be determined by the coordinated and opposing binding waves of talin and Gα13 to the same region of the integrin β3 cytoplasmic domain at mutually exclusive but distinct sites, and a potent new anti-thrombotic drug that does not cause bleeding is designed on the basis of these findings.
doi: 10.1038/nature12613
This study finds a direct correlation between LARGE-glycan extension on dystroglycan and the protein’s capacity for extracellular matrix ligands; in regenerating mouse muscle, short LARGE-glycan polysaccharides cause various defects, including muscle dysfunction and a predisposition to dystrophy, and in muscular dystrophy patients, increased clinical severity of disease corresponds to shorter LARGE-glycans.
doi: 10.1038/nature12605
LeuT, a bacterial homologue of eukaryotic biogenic amine transporters (BATs), is engineered to harbour human BAT-like pharmacology by the mutation of key residues around the primary binding pocket; this mutant is able to bind several classes of antidepressant drug with high affinity, helping to define their common mechanisms of action.
doi: 10.1038/nature12648
