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Advances in cellular imaging have been crucial for improving our understanding of many aspects of neuroscience. Kerr and Denk describe how sophisticated optical imaging techniques allow us to image activity in single neurons or neuron populations in living animals.
Bird and Burgess review the hippocampus's role in memory in light of a model of neuronal processing in which hippocampal activity constrains neocortical information to be perceivable from a single location. This enables spatially coherent mental imagery, explaining several recent findings and theoretical conflicts.
Dystonia is characterized by involuntary movements and postures. Breakefield and colleagues provide insight into the underlying neuronal dysfunction through a comprehensive review of the genes that are responsible for primary dystonias, animal models of dystonia and brain imaging of dystonia patients.
Many human neurological traits are linked to variations in the gene that encodes the serotonin transporter. Murphy and Lesch describe the phenotypes of mice with altered serotonin-transporter function, emphasizing how this might inform our understanding of the transporter's roles in humans.
Growth-cone migration during neuronal development is guided by dynamic networks of actin filaments. Bamburg and colleagues review how actin-binding proteins influence the formation of these networks and discuss their role in growth-cone pathfinding and potential implications for axonal regeneration.
Neurons might encode information in the timing of action potentials, but evidence for this processingin vivohas been elusive. Sejnowski and colleagues describe how to uncover precise and reliable spike timing and discuss its contribution to cortical computation.
In 1970 the Boulder Committee met to standardize the nomenclature used to describe the developing human cortex. Bystron and colleagues describe how new insights since that time have led to the need to revise this nomenclature, and provide their recommendations.
The ventral visual pathway contains both category-selective graded maps and distinct modules. The authors discuss the properties that define maps and modules, consider whether modules are parts of maps, and propose that different graded maps might combine to form discrete selective modules.
Glucose uptake in neurons depends on the extracellular concentration of glucose. In this Review, Tomlinson and Gardiner discuss the functional consequences of persistent episodes of hyperglycaemia, such as occur in diabetes, and potential pharmacological targets for alleviating the signs and symptoms associated with diabetic neuropathy.
The functional roles of polysialic acid (PSA) stem from its ability to regulate cell–cell interactions. Urs Rutishauser describes the properties of PSA that underlie this activity and outlines its contribution to the development, function and repair of the nervous system.
Cytokines, produced in response to peripheral infections, act in the brain to cause sickness behaviour. Dantzer and colleagues consider the intriguing hypothesis that prolonged immune signalling in the brain can cause symptoms of depression and discuss the mechanisms that might underlie this phenomenon.
The pregnant female's brain undergoes multiple adaptations that ensure a successful pregnancy, birth and lactation. Brunton and Russell review the mechanisms that regulate these adaptations, focusing on allopregnanolone and opioids, and discuss how these changes might predispose the mother to post-partum mood disorders.
