: Neuroscience Articles
Brief Communication: Pubertal hormones modulate the addition of new cells to sexually dimorphic brain regionsStructural sexual dimorphism in the developing nervous system can lead to functional differences in physiology and behavior. Postnatal, gender-based differences in cell number were presumed to be passively maintained, but here, Ahmed et al. reveal an active mechanism modulated by sex hormones that maintains different numbers of cells in sexually dimorphic brain areas. Nature Neuroscience, vol. 11 #9, pp995-997 |
Brief Communication: Serotonergic transcriptional programming determines maternal behavior and offspring survivalThe central serotonergic system is an important modulator of neural circuitry that regulates behavior and emotion state of an animal. Current study from Lerch-Haner et al. shows that mutant female mice with defective serotonergic neurons exhibit gross maternal neglect resulting in offspring death, and that this defect can be rescued by expression of a homologous gene from human. Nature Neuroscience, vol. 11 #9, pp1001-1003 |
Brief Communication: Neural repetition suppression reflects fulfilled perceptual expectationsRepetition suppression, the reduction in neural activity with repeated stimuli, is usually thought to be a result of automatic sensory processes. This study instead finds that this reduction results from high stimulus predictability, a more 'top-down' process. Nature Neuroscience, vol. 11 #9, pp1004-1006 |
Brief Communication: Synaptic release of GABA by AgRP neurons is required for normal regulation of energy balanceNeurons expressing Agouti-related protein (AgRP) and neuropeptide Y (NPY) in the hypothalamus are involved in regulation of feeding and body weight, but genetic disruption of AgRP and NPY have little effect on energy homeostasis. A new study from Tong et al. shows that the energy homeostasis function is mediated through their GABAergic transmission. Nature Neuroscience, vol. 11 #9, pp998-1000 |
News and Views: Finding coherence in spontaneous oscillationsSpontaneous ultra-slow oscillations in brain signals are ubiquitous, although their source and function remain unknown. A new study now reports that this activity is correlated between functionally related areas across hemispheres in humans. Nature Neuroscience, vol. 11 #9, pp991-993 |
News and Views: Epigenetic control of myelin repairAlthough the CNS has a robust innate ability to repair demyelinated axons, this capacity appears to dissipate with age. A study in this issue suggests that epigenetic processes participate in myelin repair and that the epigenetic response is less dynamic in older individuals. Nature Neuroscience, vol. 11 #9, pp987-988 |
News and Views: Octopamine fuels fighting fliesThe neural basis of aggression is poorly understood. A study in this issue used genetic scalpels to dissect the circuitry of the fly brain and identified a small cluster of octopaminergic neurons that can make a fly fighting mad. Nature Neuroscience, vol. 11 #9, pp989-990 |
News and Views: Rhythms of memoryMitogen-activated Protein Kinases (MAPKs) are critical for the formation of stable long-term memories. New work shows that circadian MAPK activity cycling is important in the formation of new hippocampus-dependent memories. Nature Neuroscience, vol. 11 #9, pp993-994 |