: Neuroscience Articles
Brief Communication: Population imaging of ongoing neuronal activity in the visual cortex of awake ratsGreenberg and colleagues directly compare the activity of cortical neurons in awake and subsequently anesthetized rats, finding that anesthesia modulates the relationship between firing rate and correlation, and suggesting that brain activity during wakefulness cannot be inferred from data gathered under anesthesia. Nature Neuroscience, vol. 11 #7, pp749-751 |
Brief Communication: The orexigenic hormone ghrelin defends against depressive symptoms of chronic stressThe peptide hormone ghrelin has previously been linked to the regulation of metabolism. This study in mice finds that increasing levels of ghrelin, either through subcutaneous injections or calorie restriction, has an anxiolytic and antidepressive effect. This reveals a previously unknown function for ghrelin. Nature Neuroscience, vol. 11 #7, pp752-753 |
Brief Communication: Outer hair cell somatic, not hair bundle, motility is the basis of the cochlear amplifierSound detection in mammalian cochlear involves a mechanoelectrical sensory transduction whose signal can be amplified by the outer hair cells in the organ of Corti. By recording the mechanical responses of cochlear taken from genetically modified mice, the current study provides evidence for hair-cell somatic motility as the underlying mechanism of cochlear amplification. Nature Neuroscience, vol. 11 #7, pp746-748 |
Brief Communication: Spike timing–dependent long-term depression requires presynaptic NMDA receptorsIn synaptically connected layer 4 and 2/3 cells, NMDA receptors are required postsynaptically for the expression of LTP and presynaptically for the expression of LTD. Nature Neuroscience, vol. 11 #7, pp744-745 |
Brief Communication: Critical role of TRPC6 channels in the formation of excitatory synapsesTRPC6 promotes the formation of synapses in a CaMKIV-CREB–dependent manner. TRPC6-expressing transgenic animals showed increased numbers of spines and demonstrated enhanced learning on behavioral tasks. Nature Neuroscience, vol. 11 #7, pp741-743 |
News and Views: Catecholaminergic neuron survival: getting hooked on GDNFPascual et al. conditionally delete glial cell line-derived neurotrophic factor (GDNF) expression in adult mice. They report that GDNF is indispensable for the survival of adult catecholaminergic neurons. Nature Neuroscience, vol. 11 #7, pp735-736 |
News and Views: Cocaine-evoked synaptic plasticity: a key to addiction?Drugs of abuse are known to induce changes in synaptic strength in the reward neurons of the brain. Two recent studies shed some light on how drug-induced plasticity might mediate addictive behavior long after drug use. Nature Neuroscience, vol. 11 #7, pp737-738 |
News and Views: Out of control in the dendritesAlthough voltage-clamp recordings remain a favorite method for studying synaptic transmission, the space-clamp problems that are associated with somatic voltage-clamp recordings have never been directly measured. A study by Williams and Mitchell in this issue now measures the experimental errors associated with this technique. Nature Neuroscience, vol. 11 #7, pp733-734 |
News and Views: The shape of faces (to come)Have facial expressions evolved randomly or do their different shapes support some adaptive purpose? New work offers evidence of a selection pressure that may have shaped fearful and disgusted expressions. Nature Neuroscience, vol. 11 #7, pp739-740 |