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Spiny mice (Acomys cahirinus) are revealed to recover motor co-ordination following complete spinal cord transection, owing to regrowth of axonal motor pathways across the lesion site.
Neuropod cells in the gut epithelium of mice are sensory transducers for sweet stimuli and mediate the preference for sugar over artificial sweeteners.
A group of thalamic neurons in mice promote arousal and defensive behaviours in response to threat and enable sleep adaptations in the face of long-term predatory stress.
Ingestive and digestive processes are initiated and regulated by mechanosensory signals along the digestive tract. In this Review, Kim, Heo and Kim discuss recent discoveries of specific mechanoreceptors, contributing ion channels and well-defined circuits underlying gut mechanosensation, focusing on the oral and pharyngeal cavities, oesophagus, stomach and intestines.
Crosstalk between the peripheral nervous system and the immune system coordinates responses to external and internal threats, including pathogens and tissue damage. Chiu and colleagues review our current understanding of the mechanisms by which sensory, sympathetic, parasympathetic and enteric neurons modulate immune cell function.
Deciphering the mechanisms that cause encoded memories to be forgotten may help us to understand both adaptive forgetting and pathological memory loss. In this Perspective, Tomás Ryan and Paul Frankland propose that forgetting involves neuroplasticity that alters engram cells accessibility and is governed by changes in environmental predictability.