Reviews & Analysis

Microglial immune checkpoint mechanisms are signaling pathways that limit immune responsiveness and promote homeostatic activities of micrroglia throughout life, but can interfere with repair mechanisms in disease.

Recurring bursts of thalamocortical cells were thought to be indispensable in driving absence seizures. A new study demonstrates that bursts from inhibitory thalamic reticular neurons are crucial instead. Reticular bursts are driven by cortical inputs and govern precise timing of thalamocortical cell activity during seizures.

The behavioral state of a human or animal can dramatically alter how information is processed in its neural circuits. Albergaria et al. show that locomotion enhances the performance of a cerebellum-dependent behavior. The results provide new constraints on how information is represented there to support learning.

Epidemiology and animal research have shown that the offspring of mothers who experience inflammation during pregnancy are at increased risk for psychopathology. A human study links a mother’s inflammation during pregnancy to her newborn’s functional brain organization and the child’s working memory two years later.

When making decisions, new information sometimes calls for a change of mind. New results indicate that regions of the prefrontal cortex play distinct roles in evaluating new evidence in light of a previous choice and translating the result of this evaluation process into an explicit report of one’s subjective confidence.

The dogma that self-renewal is a defining characteristic of stem cells, which stemmed from studies of the hematopoietic hierarchy and quickly spread by analogy to all tissues, has been shattered by scientists pointing a microscope at the hematopoietic system itself. A microglial cell is clearly fully differentiated, and yet it self-renews.

In this Review the authors discuss recent findings supporting a framework in which the hippocampus comprises principal cell subpopulations forming nonuniform parallel circuits that are independently controlled and affect a variety of behaviors.

Spinal cord injury disrupts connectivity between the brain and the body. With electrochemical neuromodulation and intensive rehabilitation training, the cortex can functionally connect with spinal circuits below injury by relaying signals through the brainstem.

A key component of learning involves updating existing motor plans in response to altered sensory feedback. By using a brain–computer interface, Golub et al. show how such learning changes the activity of neural populations in primary motor cortex—and how it does not.

The authors argue that intracranial EEG recordings in humans add unique information beyond invasive recordings in animal models and noninvasive human research, including anatomically precise dynamics and network interactions of neuronal populations.

The human brain shows regional selective vulnerability to the pathology of Alzheimer’s disease. Jacobs et al. show that the protein amyloid-β promotes the spread of tau through specific components of a neural system underlying memory formation, thus leading to the prominent early symptom of amnesia.

Humans and animals can react to the affective state of others in distress. However, exposure to a stressed partner can trigger stress-related adaptations. Two studies shed light on the mechanisms underlying the behavioral responses toward stressed individuals and on the synaptic changes associated with social transmission of stress.

Direct conversion of adult Huntington’s disease patient fibroblasts into medium spiny neurons recapitulates hallmark phenotypes such as cell death, in contrast to models that lack epigenetic markers of aging. This successful ‘disease-in-a-dish’ highlights the benefits of capturing age in an adult-onset disorder model.

Using a series of functional manipulation and in vivo recording tools, Park et al. identify a pathway from medial preoptic CaMKIIα-expressing neurons to the ventral periaqueductal gray that mediates object craving and prey hunting.

The authors discuss newly emerging evidence for the role of the transcription factor CREB in memory, including its role in modulating changes in excitability that are critical for neural assembly formation and linking of memories across time.

Research in adolescent neurocognitive development has focussed largely on averages, but there is substantial individual variation in development. This Perspective proposes that the field should move towards studying individual differences.

The key driver of early-stage Alzheimer’s pathophysiology remains controversial. Styr and Slutsky propose that failures in firing homeostasis and imbalance between stability and plasticity represent the driving force of early disease progression.

Neuroimaging studies of human entorhinal cortex activity revealed 60-degree spatial periodicity, a hallmark of grid cells, as gaze movements were made throughout the visual field. This activity may serve as a framework for organizing visuospatial memory.

An extensive single-cell transcriptomic collection of over 30,000 cells of the developing hippocampus shows that adult hippocampal neurogenesis follows the same differentiation path as embryonic neurogenesis, but the cell of origin differs. This work provides an invaluable resource with important implications for neuronal regeneration.

Compromised compartmentalization of nucleus and cytoplasm has emerged as a central feature of aging and neurodegenerative diseases. Nucleocytoplasmic transport is disrupted, with widespread mislocalization of nuclear pore proteins, in TDP-43 proteinopathies such as, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and frontotemporal dementia.