Reviews & Analysis

Cortical inhibitory interneurons undergo diverse forms of long-term synaptic plasticity. In this Review, Sjöström and colleagues describe the diversity of this interneuron plasticity and highlight that the plasticitome, a comprehensive database of plasticity rules, is needed to understand circuit plasticity complexity.

Neural oscillations are thought to have an important role in syntactic structure building but views differ on their exact function in this context. In this Perspective, Kazanina and Tavano explore two proposed functions for neural oscillations in this process, namely chunking and multiscale information integration.

In this Perspective article, Foster and colleagues describe converging evidence supporting an anatomical and functional division of the posterior cingulate cortex into three subregions that contribute to different cognitive tasks.

Bogdan and colleagues consider how the findings of recent genome-wide association studies of substance use and addiction risk can be integrated with our current understanding of the neurobiological contributions to substance use disorders, and propose a new genetically informed model of addiction.

Schemas are structured bodies of prior knowledge that reflect common patterns of information from related experiences. In this Review, Farzanfar et al. discuss evidence for spatial schemas, how they form and how they differ from cognitive maps.

The molecular organization of the synapse is both highly organized and dynamic. Triller and colleagues outline advances in single-particle tracking technologies that have enabled us to gain quantitative insights into the mechanisms that regulate postsynaptic receptor dynamics.

When humans attempt two tasks at once, there are costs to task performance. In this Perspective, Garner and Dux discuss neurophysiological evidence for whether these multitasking costs are linked to the human capability for rapid knowledge generalization to perform novel tasks.

Attractor network dynamics can support several computations performed by the brain. In their Review, Khona and Fiete introduce different attractor dynamics and their computational utility, describe evidence of attractor networks across the brain and explain how such networks could be recombined to increase their flexibility and versatility.

There is increasing evidence that neurons are not the only cells affected by and contributing to neurodegenerative disorders. In this Review, Brandebura and colleagues discuss the role astrocytes play in neurodegenerative disorders as initiators of and contributors to disease progression.

Understanding how brain circuits have been altered by evolution can provide insight into their development and function. Prieto-Godino and colleagues provide an overview of our current understanding of the principles of central circuit evolution, drawing on numerous examples from across the animal kingdom.

Modern approaches for multiregion investigation provide new opportunities and considerations for exploring brainwide neural dynamics. In this Review, Machado, Kauvar and Deisseroth discuss advances in the simultaneous measurement and analysis of neuronal activity across many brain regions.

The progenitor cell populations that establish the developing human cortex exhibit distinct forms of apical–basal polarity. Kriegstein and colleagues review the mechanisms that regulate human cortical progenitor polarity, its importance for cortical development and the consequences of its disruption in neurological disorders.

One major form of timing is the estimation of duration. In this Review, Tsao et al. describe the neural bases for estimating ongoing durations and those for estimating durations between past events within memory.

Calcium–calmodulin (CaM)-dependent protein kinase II (CaMKII) has a central role in synaptic plasticity, learning and memory. In this Review, Yasuda, Hayashi and Hell provide an overview of the postsynaptic regulation and function of CaMKII.

Battaglia and colleagues discuss evidence for functional interactions between memory replay and default mode network (DMN) activity and propose an updated model of memory consolidation and retrieval in which the DMN acts as a hub for cascaded replay across the brain.

High-resolution transcriptomic studies have enabled detailed dissection of the diverse cell types of the hypothalamus in adulthood and at different stages of development. In this Review, Benevento, Hökfelt and Harkany describe the processes that govern the generation and specification of cell types in the developing hypothalamus.

In this Review, Liu and Bohórquez explore the neural basis for sugar preference in mammals. The authors discuss the role of the gut in recognizing glucose and its consequence for sugar preference.

Recent studies of transient receptor potential (TRP) channel structure have provided unique insight into the function of TRP channels in our normal sensations and in pain. In this Review, Rosenbaum et al. examine recent advances in the field of TRP ion channel structure–function relationships and their role in pain.

Social valence — the valence assigned to a social agent or social stimulus — is complex to compute. In this Review, Padilla-Coreano et al. explain how social attributes, social history, social memory, social rank and social isolation states are integrated to modulate social valence assignment.

When anticipating a threat, many animals ‘freeze’, becoming temporarily immobile. Roelofs and Dayan argue that this response enables the coordination of cognitive and somatic processes that prepare the animal for action and describe how CNS, autonomic and sensorimotor activity must be integrated to regulate freezing.