Reviews & Analysis

Local mRNA translation is essential for the function of polarized cells, such as neurons. Twiss and colleagues provide an overview of the cellular mechanisms that coordinate the transport and translation of axonal mRNAs, allowing the axon to respond to changing physiological demands.

The formation of the nodes of Ranvier in myelinated axons involves a specific clustering of ion channels. In this Review, Rasband and Peles describe two independent, glia-directed mechanisms that converge on the axonal cytoskeleton to cluster and maintain nodal ion channels.

The cerebellum has an established role in procedural learning; however, the mechanisms through which it mediates learning are less well understood. De Zeeuw describes evidence for the existence of ‘upbound’ and ‘downbound’ microzones of cerebellar Purkinje cells and considers how they contribute to different forms of cerebellar learning.

Deep neural networks may offer theories of perception, cognition and action for biological brains. Here, Saxe, Nelli and Summerfield offer a road map of how neuroscientists can use deep networks to model and understand biological brains.

Stroke initially causes cell injury and death. After these acute events, there is a period of increased plasticity in the brain. Joy and Carmichael review changes in neuronal excitability systems during this period that lead to neural circuit reformation after stroke and how they may be targeted to promote functional recovery.

Inhibitory stabilization is a network mechanism that can enable high-gain excitatory networks to operate without leading to runaway activity. Here Sadeh and Clopath review the evidence for inhibition-stabilized networks in the brain and discuss their implications for cortical computation.

Faces represent important objects to primates. In this Review, Janis Hesse and Doris Tsao provide a comprehensive overview of the face patch system in macaques. They also argue that understanding this system may provide more general insights into high-level object representation.

Viral vectors are important tools for neuroscientists. In this Review, Nectow and Nestler discuss state-of-the-art recombinant viral tools, the key principles governing their selection, development and use, and how they could answer some of the most important questions in neuroscience today.

Mounting evidence suggests that the gut microbiome impacts brain function, and mechanistic connections between specific microbial by-products and the brain have begun to emerge. In this Perspective, Mazmanian and colleagues discuss the assortment of microbial molecules currently thought to mediate these gut–brain connections.

Oligodendrocyte lineage cells have recently been shown to exhibit plasticity in response to sensory experience and learning. In this Review, Xin and Chan outline the evidence for and the possible mechanisms underlying the contribution of oligodendrocyte and myelin plasticity to memory acquisition and maintenance.

Recent advances in animal addiction models have emphasized translational challenges. In this Review, Venniro and colleagues introduce a reverse translational approach that may provide an ecologically relevant platform from which to discover new circuits, test new medications and improve translation.

Major compelling questions about the functional role of the locus coeruleus nucleus that had been difficult to answer, given its remote location and diminutive size, have now become accessible via new neuroscience tools. In this Perspective, 14 investigators provide a historical context for recent discoveries and outline new vistas for investigation.

Goal-directed primate behaviour is guided by abstract rules that group events and experiences into meaningful concepts. Here, Mansouri and colleagues discuss the distributed cortical and subcortical brain regions thought to underlie the formation, maintenance and implementation of abstract rules and propose a unified framework describing the neural architecture of rule-guided primate behaviour.

A resurgence in interest in the therapeutic potential of psychedelic drugs has boosted research into their neurobiological and cognitive effects. Vollenweider and Preller review recent advances in the field and consider the implications of recent discoveries for the therapeutic use of psychedelics.

Sex steroid hormones such as the potent oestrogen 17β-oestradiol have only recently started to be acknowledged as important neuromodulators. Taxier, Gross and Frick review 17β-oestradiol signalling in the brain and its effects on different types of memory.

To mark the 20th anniversary of Nature Reviews Neuroscience, in this Viewpoint article we asked some of the researchers who have authored pieces published in the journal in recent years for their views on how the field, and their areas within it, have developed over the past two decades.

Reinforcement learning has been suggested to come in two flavours: model-free and model-based. In this Perspective, Collins and Cockburn explain why viewing reinforcement learning through this dichotomous lens is not always accurate or helpful, and suggest paths forward.

Although not electrically excitable, astrocytes display a complex repertoire of intracellular Ca²⁺ signalling. Semyanov, Henneberger and Agarwal describe experimental preparations and methods for studying Ca²⁺ activity in astrocytes, their limitations and the ongoing technical and conceptual challenges in the interpretation of astrocytic Ca²⁺ events and their spatio-temporal patterns.

Although inputs and outputs that carry social signals are anatomically restricted to distinct subnuclear regions of the amygdala, social behaviours are not. This fact may be explained by the operation of multidimensional processing in parallel with subcircuits of genetically identical neurons that serve specialized and functionally dissociable functions.

A number of spatially selective neurons that encode an animal’s distance and direction from environmental features have been proposed by theoretical studies and experimentally identified. Andrej Bicanski and Neil Burgess summarize our current understanding of vector coding cells and describe their contribution to spatial cognition.