Dynamin mediates vesicle scission during endocytosis, and here is shown to exist with syndapin 1 in biomolecular condensates at the endocytic zone that enable its participation in ultrafast endocytosis.

A study in mice finds that different dopamine neuron subsystems in the midbrain track food and fluid ingestion at different stages of this process, and that animals can use this information to learn about the results of ingestion.

Core features of the language network in the brain are consistent across languages and language families.

A subpopulation of GABAergic neurons in the mouse VTA drives restorative sleep in response to social defeat stress.

Dendritic arbors are shaped by adhesion-molecule interactions between developing dendrites and the extracellular environment that are transduced by dendritic mechanosensitive channels into local calcium transients.

Brain lesions in individuals who subsequently show remission of smoking addiction share a common connectivity profile.

A new study shows that α-synuclein can interact with protein components of membraneless organelles involved in mRNA metabolism, and that such interactions may have relevance in Parkinson disease.

What’s the point of public engagement? Why can’t we just be neuroscience researchers? In this Comment I will argue that communicating our science is a key aspect of being a neuroscientist and that our science can be enriched by this.

A population of fever-generating neurons in the hypothalamus coordinates diverse sickness behaviours in mice.

In mice, infusions of young cerebrospinal fluid into the brains of aged animals promote oligodendrogenesis and improve memory.

Recent advances in imaging and tracing technology provide increasingly detailed reconstructions of brain connectomes. Concomitant analytic advances enable rigorous identification and quantification of functionally important features of brain network architecture. Null models are a flexible tool to statistically benchmark the presence or magnitude of features of interest, by selectively preserving specific

GABAergic inhibitory circuits play an essential role in coordinating various hippocampal functions. Several decades of work dedicated to a thorough characterization of hippocampal inhibitory populations have highlighted how specific types of interneuron can contribute to network activity. Recent studies have used genetically targeted recordings and peturbations of activity during memory-related behaviours

Amyloid proteins, which are considered ‘villains’ in many neurodegenerative diseases, form enigmatic pathological strains that underlie disease pathogenesis and progression. Recent technical advances in cryogenic electron microscopy and solid-state NMR spectroscopy have enabled the high-resolution structures of full-length amyloid fibrils to be determined, initiating an era in which we have the opportunity

A population of spinal interneurons that express prokineticin receptor 2 is needed in mice for the rewarding, antistress and prosocial effects of pleasant touch.

Neuronal activity in a key region of the mouse hypothalamus modulates adult hippocampal neurogenesis, promoting the formation of adult-born neurons that support cognition and affective function.

In rodents, absence seizures — a prominent manifestation of generalized epilepsy — drive activity-dependent myelination in the corpus callosum, increase interhemispheric synchrony and drive increases in seizure burden over time.

Neuroscience is not meeting its full potential. We suggest that an important contributor to this problem is a legacy of unchecked white Western individualist bias. We offer a relational rubric of principles with illustrative cases that scientists can use to enhance scientific imagination and rigour while fostering inclusive scientific communities to mitigate bias. In this Comment, Linzie Taylor and

Invasive and non-invasive brain stimulation methods are widely used in neuroscience to establish causal relationships between distinct brain regions and the sensory, cognitive and motor functions they subserve. When combined with concurrent brain imaging, such stimulation methods can reveal patterns of neuronal activity responsible for regulating simple and complex behaviours at the level of local

Mice show degradation of their hippocampal place code when they disengage from a virtual goal-directed navigation task.

Recent years have seen a blossoming of theories about the biological and physical basis of consciousness. Good theories guide empirical research, allowing us to interpret data, develop new experimental techniques and expand our capacity to manipulate the phenomenon of interest. Indeed, it is only when couched in terms of a theory that empirical discoveries can ultimately deliver a satisfying understanding

Macroautophagy is an evolutionarily conserved process that delivers diverse cellular contents to lysosomes for degradation. As our understanding of this pathway grows, so does our appreciation for its importance in disorders of the CNS. Once implicated primarily in neurodegenerative events owing to acute injury and ageing, macroautophagy is now also linked to disorders of neurodevelopment, indicating

Standard models of episodic memory focus on hippocampal–parahippocampal interactions, with the neocortex supplying sensory information and providing a final repository of mnemonic representations. However, recent advances have shown that other regions make distinct and equally critical contributions to memory. In particular, there is growing evidence that the anterior thalamic nuclei have a number

People with damage to the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) have specific problems making decisions, whereas their other cognitive functions are spared. Neurophysiological studies have shown that OFC neurons fire in proportion to the value of anticipated outcomes. Thus, a central role of the OFC is to guide optimal decision-making by signalling values associated with different choices. Until recently, this

Food craving-like behaviours in pregnant mice are associated with changes in dopamine signalling.

Mapping human brain function is a long-standing goal of neuroscience that promises to inform the development of new treatments for brain disorders. Early maps of human brain function were based on locations of brain damage or brain stimulation that caused a functional change. Over time, this approach was largely replaced by technologies such as functional neuroimaging, which identify brain regions

Two papers explore cortical contributions to the evaluation of social rank in mice.

More than a hundred genes have been identified that, when disrupted, impart large risk for autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Current knowledge about the encoded proteins — although incomplete — points to a very wide range of developmentally dynamic and diverse biological processes. Moreover, the core symptoms of ASD involve distinctly human characteristics, presenting challenges to interpreting evolutionarily

The execution and learning of diverse movements involve neuronal networks distributed throughout the nervous system. The brainstem and basal ganglia are key for processing motor information. Both harbour functionally specialized populations stratified on the basis of axonal projections, synaptic inputs and gene expression, revealing a correspondence between circuit anatomy and function at a high level

It is often thought that the construction of cortical circuits occurs as the result of an elegantly designed process that unfolds sequentially as an animal develops until adult functional networks emerge. In reality, cortical circuits are shaped by evolutionary mechanisms, changes in developmental programmes driven by neuronal activity or epigenetic mechanisms and the need to adapt to the external

Although we are continuously bombarded with visual input, only a fraction of incoming visual events is perceived, remembered or acted on. The neural underpinnings of various forms of visual priority coding, including perceptual expertise, goal-directed attention, visual salience, image memorability and preferential looking, have been studied. Here, we synthesize information from these different examples

What are the brain structural correlates of interindividual differences in behaviour? More than a decade ago, advances in structural MRI opened promising new avenues to address this question. The initial wave of research then progressively led to substantial conceptual and methodological shifts, and a replication crisis unveiled the limitations of traditional approaches, which involved searching for

Bright light exerts antinociceptive effects in mice by activating a visual circuit involving the periaqueductal grey.

Neurotransmitters and neuromodulators have a wide range of key roles throughout the nervous system. However, their dynamics in both health and disease have been challenging to assess, owing to the lack of in vivo tools to track them with high spatiotemporal resolution. Thus, developing a platform that enables minimally invasive, large-scale and long-term monitoring of neurotransmitters and neuromodulators

Music is ubiquitous across human cultures — as a source of affective and pleasurable experience, moving us both physically and emotionally — and learning to play music shapes both brain structure and brain function. Music processing in the brain — namely, the perception of melody, harmony and rhythm — has traditionally been studied as an auditory phenomenon using passive listening paradigms. However

The rapid switch from movement planning to execution is mediated by midbrain neurons that transmit information to cortex via the thalamus.

Genetic mosaicism is the result of the accumulation of somatic mutations in the human genome starting from the first postzygotic cell generation and continuing throughout the whole life of an individual. The rapid development of next-generation and single-cell sequencing technologies is now allowing the study of genetic mosaicism in normal tissues, revealing unprecedented insights into their clonal

Two studies identify a mechanism linking TDP-43 pathology with genetic variants associated with increased risk of neurodegenerative disorders.

Hyperexcitability of a population of arousal-promoting neurons in the hypothalamus drives sleep instability in aged mice.

In human neuroscience, studies of cognition are rarely grounded in non-task-evoked, ‘spontaneous’ neural activity. Indeed, studies of spontaneous activity tend to focus predominantly on intrinsic neural patterns (for example, resting-state networks). Taking a ‘representation-rich’ approach bridges the gap between cognition and resting-state communities: this approach relies on decoding task-related

The efficient study of human disease requires the proper tools, one of the most crucial of which is an accurate animal model that faithfully recapitulates the human condition. The study of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is no exception. Although the majority of ALS cases are considered sporadic, most animal models of this disease rely on genetic mutations identified in familial cases. Over the

The discovery of insulin in 1921 revolutionized the treatment of diabetes and paved the way for numerous studies on hormone signalling networks and actions in peripheral tissues and in the central nervous system. Impaired insulin signalling, a hallmark of diabetes, is now established as a key component of Alzheimer disease (AD) pathology. Here, we review evidence showing that brain inflammation and

Central nervous system neurons communicate via fast synaptic transmission mediated by ligand-gated ion channel (LGIC) receptors and slower neuromodulation mediated by G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs). These receptors influence many neuronal functions, including presynaptic neurotransmitter release. Presynaptic LGIC and GPCR activation by locally released neurotransmitters influences neuronal communication

A small population of neurons coordinates spontaneous activity and regulates synapse formation in the developing fly brain.

Immune genes implicated in multiple sclerosis pathology are shown to be primed but not expressed in oligodendrocyte precursor cells in both mouse and human.

Androgen signalling during development may represent the mechanism underpinning some observed sex-differences in adult human brain size.

Neuropeptide Y released in the rat spleen by neurons of the suprarenal and coeliac ganglia can regulate immune-cell activation.

A new study identifies a neuronal cluster in the brainstem that coordinates rhythmic crying with breathing in neonatal mice.

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.

Neuropod cells in the gut epithelium of mice are sensory transducers for sweet stimuli and mediate the preference for sugar over artificial sweeteners.

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.

Reproductive state-dependent social behaviours in female mice are governed by the responsiveness of a hypothalamic neuron subtype to male cues

Temporarily reducing inhibition in CA1 of the mouse hippocampus enables stimulation-induced over-representation of rewarded locations.