Sensory processing articles within Nature Communications

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  • Article
    | Open Access

    Working memory is known to improve through adolescence into adulthood, yet the associated changes in neuronal activity are not well understood. Zhou and colleagues report increased delay period activity correlated with changes in performance on working memory tasks in monkeys as they transition into adulthood.

    • Xin Zhou
    • , Dantong Zhu
    •  & Christos Constantinidis

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Sensory cortices represent stimuli through joint activity of competing neuronal assemblies. Here the authors show that a model of visual cortex with plastic feedforward and recurrent synapses, exposed to natural images, spontaneously develops attractor dynamics between groups of similarly tuned neurons.

    • Thomas Miconi
    • , Jeffrey L. McKinstry
    •  & Gerald M. Edelman

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Early vestibular pathways are thought to code sensory inputs regarding self-motion via changes in firing rate. Here, the authors record from both regular and irregular afferents in macaques, and find both irregular afferents and central neurons also represent self-motion via temporally precise spike timing.

    • Mohsen Jamali
    • , Maurice J. Chacron
    •  & Kathleen E. Cullen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Primary visual cortical neurons display mostly a salt and pepper arrangement of orientation preferences along the horizontal cortical axis. Here the authors show that a significant subset of minicolumns, one-cell wide arrays of cells arranged along the vertical axis, show similar orientation tuning preferences.

    • Satoru Kondo
    • , Takashi Yoshida
    •  & Kenichi Ohki

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Sensory cortices receive input from cortical cells and the thalamus, yet it is unknown how these inputs interact to generate synchronous activity. Here authors show that unlike cortical inputs, thalamic inputs are asynchronous, suggesting that cortical synchronization is due to intracortical coupling.

    • Katayun Cohen-Kashi Malina
    • , Boaz Mohar
    •  & Ilan Lampl

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Efficient coding suggests that adapting gain to match the varying stimulus statistics should help in optimizing behaviour. Here the authors show that adaptation in motion sensitive neurons maximizes information and improves movement accuracy in pursuit eye movements.

    • Bing Liu
    • , Matthew V. Macellaio
    •  & Leslie C. Osborne

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Humans as well as many other species have the ability to perceive the number of items, numerosity, but the mechanism by which this is achieved is unclear. Here the authors provide strong evidence in support of a spontaneous perception of numerosity without reliance on density and area estimation.

    • Guido Marco Cicchini
    • , Giovanni Anobile
    •  & David C. Burr

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Synaptic inhibition in the olfactory bulb (OB) is believed to play a role in odour processing. Here, the authors use a Pcdh21-driven Cre-line to disrupt KCC2 expression in OB mitral cells and find altered synaptic connectivity along with disrupted separation of odour-induced activity patterns.

    • Kathrin Gödde
    • , Olivier Gschwend
    •  & Thomas J. Jentsch

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The CD36-related Sensory Neuron Membrane Protein 1 (SNMP1) facilitates pheromone detection by insect odorant receptors. Here Gomez-Diaz et al.show that the SNMP1 ectodomain is essential for function and propose that it forms a tunnel that transports pheromones from the extracellular fluid to their cognate receptors.

    • Carolina Gomez-Diaz
    • , Benoîte Bargeton
    •  & Richard Benton

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Fruit flies gain valuable information about their environment by sensing chemicals. Here, Arguello et al. show strong signals of recent selection on the chemosensory system of the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster, consistent with the adaptation of populations to their local chemical environment.

    • J. Roman Arguello
    • , Margarida Cardoso-Moreira
    •  & Richard Benton

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Imaging cellular activity in mouse spinal cord has been historically difficult. Here the authors develop cellular resolution fluorescence imaging approaches in the spinal cord of behaving mice, and report distinct activity patterns of neurons and astrocytes in response to different sensory inputs.

    • Kohei J. Sekiguchi
    • , Pavel Shekhtmeyster
    •  & Axel Nimmerjahn

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The neural mechanisms underlying efficient coding of natural sensory stimuli have yet to be fully determined. Here, monitoring sensory pyramidal cells in weakly electric fish, the authors find SK channels are necessary for matching the responsiveness of neurons to natural stimuli and subsequent behavioural responses.

    • Chengjie G. Huang
    • , Zhubo D. Zhang
    •  & Maurice J. Chacron

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Visual and auditory systems influence each other during development. Here, the authors show that the onset of eyelid opening regulates critical points during which the auditory cortex is sensitive to hearing loss or the restoration of hearing

    • Todd M. Mowery
    • , Vibhakar C. Kotak
    •  & Dan H. Sanes

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The auditory cortex Te2 represents a key node for the assignment of the affective value to sensory stimuli in rodents. Using pharmacogenetic manipulations, this study shows that in Te2 there are neurons which respond to the emotional valence of sounds and their inactivation impairs emotional memories retrieval.

    • Anna Grosso
    • , Marco Cambiaghi
    •  & Benedetto Sacchetti

  • Article
    | Open Access

    This study uses functional magnetic resonance imaging in humans and monkeys to show similar ventral frontal and opercular cortical responses when processing sequences of auditory nonsense words. The study indicates that this frontal region is involved in evaluating the order of incoming sounds in a sequence, a process that may be conserved in primates.

    • Benjamin Wilson
    • , Yukiko Kikuchi
    •  & Christopher I. Petkov

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Animals tracking objects can adapt their movements to optimise sensory coding. Using fish that sense objects as perturbations to an electric field, Clarke et al. reveal that the optimal object distance maintained by the fish is encoded within the firing properties of electrosensory neurons.

    • Stephen E. Clarke
    • , André Longtin
    •  & Leonard Maler

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Potassium is necessary for the mechanical-electrical transduction needed for hearing. Here the authors study mice lacking the potassium channel KCNK5 and show that these channels are mostly expressed in the outer sulcus and are required for hearing, pointing to their essential role in potassium recycling.

    • Yves Cazals
    • , Michelle Bévengut
    •  & Christian Gestreau

  • Article
    | Open Access

    To maintain viability, cells must be able to sense and respond to mechanical stimuli. Here, Qi et al. show that the STOML3 protein acts in mechanosensation by binding cholesterol and regulating membrane stiffness which can in turn regulate ion flux through mechanosensitive channels.

    • Yanmei Qi
    • , Laura Andolfi
    •  & Jing Hu

  • Article |

    Failure to attend to visual cues is a common consequence of visual cortical injury. Here, the authors demonstrate that auditory–visual cross-modal behavioural training leads to neural plasticity and reinstatement of visuomotor competency in animals rendered unilaterally blind by visual cortical removal.

    • Huai Jiang
    • , Barry E. Stein
    •  & John G. McHaffie

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Specific peripheral sensory neurons respond to increases in extracellular osmolality but the mechanism responsible for the neuronal excitation is unknown. Here the authors show that the cold-activated ion channel, TRPM8, also acts as an osmosensor in vivo, in cultured mouse sensory neurons and when heterologously expressed in cells.

    • Talisia Quallo
    • , Nisha Vastani
    •  & Stuart Bevan

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The spatiotemporal pattern of synaptic inputs is critical for synaptic integration and plasticity in neurons but whether these inputs are structured or random is not clear. Here the authors use in vivocalcium imaging to monitor the presynaptic activity of cerebellar parallel fibre axons and find clustered patterns of axonal activity during sensory processing.

    • Christian D. Wilms
    •  & Michael Häusser

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The human visual cortex includes areas with preference for various object categories. Here, Abboud et al. demonstrate using visual-to-music substitution, that the congenitally blind show a similar preference for numerals in the right inferior temporal cortex as sighted individuals, despite having no visual experience.

    • Sami Abboud
    • , Shachar Maidenbaum
    •  & Amir Amedi

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Neural pathways to frontal cortex areas of the brain enable communication, but their connectivity is unclear. Petkov et al. use electrical microstimulation and brain imaging to describe different forms of hierarchical effective connectivity that exist between the primate frontal and temporal cortex.

    • Christopher I. Petkov
    • , Yukiko Kikuchi
    •  & Nikos K. Logothetis

  • Article |

    The mammalian neocortex is subdivided into functional areas whose identity is initially specified by gene expression gradients in progenitor cells. Here the authors show that altered postmitotic expression of the transcription factor COUP-TFIaffects sensory areal specification, revealing plastic features of postmitotic corticogenesis.

    • C. Alfano
    • , E. Magrinelli
    •  & M. Studer

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Encephalographic brain recordings are often used to characterize neuronal dynamics at the network level in relation to specific behaviours. Here, Dmochowski et al. show that neural activity from a few individuals viewing popular media can predict population-level neural activity in thousands of individuals.

    • Jacek P. Dmochowski
    • , Matthew A. Bezdek
    •  & Lucas C. Parra

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The stomatin domain protein STOML3 is required for the sensation of touch. Here, Poole et al.show that STOML3 enhances the activity of mechanosensitive Piezo1 and Piezo2 ion channels by reducing their activation thresholds, and that it achieves this through its stomatin domain.

    • Kate Poole
    • , Regina Herget
    •  & Gary R. Lewin

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