The main neurological manifestation of COVID-19 is loss of smell or taste. The high incidence of smell loss without significant rhinorrhea or nasal congestion suggests that SARS-CoV-2 targets the chemical senses through mechanisms distinct from those used by endemic coronaviruses or other common cold-causing agents. Here we review recently developed hypotheses about how SARS-CoV-2 might alter the cells

Exaggerations of the detrimental impact of recreational drug use on the human brain have bolstered support for draconian drug policies and have been used to justify police brutality against Black people. This situation has led to disproportionately high Black incarceration rates and countless Black deaths. Here, I offer solutions to remedy this multi-century maltreatment of Black people.

A major obstacle to treating Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is our lack of understanding of the molecular mechanisms underlying selective neuronal vulnerability, a key characteristic of the disease. Here, we present a framework integrating high-quality neuron-type-specific molecular profiles across the lifetime of the healthy mouse, which we generated using bacTRAP, with postmortem human functional genomics

Methods for one-photon fluorescent imaging of calcium dynamics can capture the activity of hundreds of neurons across large fields of view at a low equipment complexity and cost. In contrast to two-photon methods, however, one-photon methods suffer from higher levels of crosstalk from neuropil, resulting in a decreased signal-to-noise ratio and artifactual correlations of neural activity. We address

The maturation of the mammalian brain occurs after birth, and this stage of neuronal development is frequently impaired in neurological disorders, such as autism and schizophrenia. However, the mechanisms that regulate postnatal brain maturation are poorly defined. By purifying neuronal subpopulations across brain development in mice, we identify a postnatal switch in the transcriptional regulatory

Identifying effective treatments for Alzheimer’s disease (AD) has proven challenging and has instigated a shift in AD research focus toward the earliest disease-initiating cellular mechanisms. A key insight has been an increase in soluble Aβ oligomers in early AD that is causally linked to neuronal and circuit hyperexcitability. However, other accumulating AD-related peptides and proteins, including

Neuroscience relies on techniques for imaging the structure and dynamics of neural circuits, but the cell bodies of individual neurons are often obscured by overlapping fluorescence from axons and dendrites in surrounding neuropil. Here, we describe two strategies for using the ribosome to restrict the expression of fluorescent proteins to the neuronal soma. We show first that a ribosome-tethered nanobody

Although pain is defined as a sensory and emotional experience, it is traditionally researched and clinically treated separately from emotion. Conceptual and mechanistic relationships between these constructs highlight the need for better understanding of their bi-directional influences and the value of bridging the pain and emotion research and clinical communities.

Neuronal SNAREs and their key regulators together drive synaptic vesicle exocytosis and synaptic transmission as a single integrated membrane fusion machine. Human pathogenic mutations have now been reported for all eight core components, but patients are diagnosed with very different neurodevelopmental syndromes. We propose to unify these syndromes, based on etiology and mechanism, as “SNAREopathies

In this issue of Neuron, Issler et al. (2020) have identified the neuronal, long intergenic noncoding RNA LINC00473 as a potential molecular risk factor for the increased susceptibility for depression in females.

Noxious stimuli evoke a range of acute and long-lasting sensations, emotions, and behaviors. In this issue of Neuron, Chiang et al. (2020) demonstrate that parallel outputs from the lateral parabrachial nucleus arise from specific cell types with distinct functions in pain.

Animals associate different odors with good and bad memories. This memory formation requires high neuronal plasticity. In this issue of Neuron, Bilz et al. (2020) demonstrate that associative learning modulates individual synaptic boutons of the intrinsic neurons of the memory center of Drosophila.

Astrocytes are heterogeneous controlling numerous aspects of brain function. In this issue of Neuron, Huang et al. (2020) uncover a novel role of NFIA, which regulates unique properties of adult hippocampal astrocytes via region-specific DNA binding, thereby modulating the plasticity of local circuits.

Currently available biomarkers for Alzheimer’s disease are of limited availability due to high costs and perceived invasiveness. New studies reveal that Alzheimer’s pathologies now can be reliably quantified in vivo using regular blood tests.

In a candid interview with Neuron, Nikos K. Logothetis shares memories about his rich scientific past and argues about the importance of animal research and the role of science in society. He also talks about his new job and future plans as co-director of the International Center for Primate Brain Research in Shanghai.

Reference lists of neuroscience articles show marked gender imbalances. To mitigate this disparity, we discuss relevant ethical considerations and offer practical recommendations to scientists of all ages. We envision an equitable future by all scientists for all scientists.

With social distancing and uncertainty about the complete re-opening of laboratories and campuses, there is a pressing need for a more flexible educational experience. Seizing this opportunity to integrate active learning into adaptive curricula can fast-forward neuroscience education at every level.

In recent years, the nuclear pore complex (NPC) has emerged as a key player in genome regulation and cellular homeostasis. New discoveries have revealed that the NPC has multiple cellular functions besides mediating the molecular exchange between the nucleus and the cytoplasm. In this review, we discuss non-transport aspects of the NPC focusing on the NPC-genome interaction, the extreme longevity of

Depression represents the number one cause of disability worldwide and is often fatal. Inflammatory processes have been implicated in the pathophysiology of depression. It is now well established that dysregulation of both the innate and adaptive immune systems occur in depressed patients and hinder favorable prognosis, including antidepressant responses. In this review, we describe how the immune

In humans, midget and parasol ganglion cells account for most of the input from the eyes to the brain. Yet, how they encode visual information is unknown. Here, we perform large-scale multi-electrode array recordings from retinas of treatment-naive patients who underwent enucleation surgery for choroidal malignant melanomas. We identify robust differences in the function of midget and parasol ganglion

Neurons are often considered specialized functional units that encode a single variable. However, many neurons are observed to respond to a mix of disparate sensory, cognitive, and behavioral variables. For such representations, information is distributed across multiple neurons. Here we find this distributed code in the dentate gyrus and CA1 subregions of the hippocampus. Using calcium imaging in

The supplementary motor area (SMA) is believed to contribute to higher order aspects of motor control. We considered a key higher order role: tracking progress throughout an action. We propose that doing so requires population activity to display low "trajectory divergence": situations with different future motor outputs should be distinct, even when present motor output is identical. We examined neural

Pain is a source of substantial discomfort. Abnormal activity in both the zona incerta (ZI) and posterior complex of the thalamus (Po) are implicated in neuropathic pain, but their exact roles remain unclear. In particular, the precise cell types and molecular mechanisms of the ZI-Po circuit that regulate nociception are largely uncharacterized. Here, we found that parvalbumin (PV)-positive neuronal

In this issue of Neuron, Fernandes et al. (2020) compare intra-gastric sugar and non-caloric sweetener to investigate how post-ingestive effects can be reinforcing, revealing a role for the hepatic vagus nerve in transforming sugar sensing by the gut into behavioral reinforcement via midbrain dopamine neuron responses.

Mutations in TANK-binding kinase 1 (TBK1) are linked to ALS-FTD. In this issue of Neuron, Gerbino et al. (2020) show how missense mutations in the kinase domain of TBK1 differentially affect disease onset and progression in an ALS mouse model.

Enrichment of sodium channels at nodes of Ranvier, a hallmark of myelinated axons, underlies effective saltatory conduction. In this issue of Neuron, Eshed-Eisenbach et al. (2020) demonstrate that proteolysis of gliomedin, which drives initial channel clustering, provides a novel mechanism to ensure fidelity of channel localization to nodes.

Detection of NaCl by the gustatory system is fundamental for salt intake and tissue homeostasis. Yet, signal transduction mechanisms for salty taste have remained obscure. In this issue of Neuron, Nomura et al. (2020) report that the epithelial sodium channel ENaC, which serves as the salty receptor, is co-expressed with the voltage-activated ATP release channel CALHM1/3 in a subset of taste cells

In this issue of Neuron, Paricio-Montesinos et al. (2020) unveil the essential cellular elements for warm temperature detection in mice. Surprisingly, the silencing of spontaneously firing, unmyelinated, polymodal sensory afferents harboring cold-activated TRPM8 channels is the key neural mechanism.

Ketamine exerts rapid antidepressant action in depressed and treatment-resistant depressed patients within hours. At the same time, ketamine elicits a unique form of functional synaptic plasticity that shares several attributes and molecular mechanisms with well-characterized forms of homeostatic synaptic scaling. Lithium is a widely used mood stabilizer also proposed to act via synaptic scaling for

At various stages of the visual system, visual responses are modulated by arousal. Here, we find that in mice this modulation operates as early as in the first synapse from the retina and even in retinal axons. To measure retinal activity in the awake, intact brain, we imaged the synaptic boutons of retinal axons in the superior colliculus. Their activity depended not only on vision but also on running

Chen et al present data describing millisecond interactions in a human hyperdirect pathway that connects the inferior frontal gyrus and the subthalamic nucleus. They study this circuit during a stop-signal task in the context of inhibitory control.

The loss of peroxisomal function has been implicated in many neurodegenerative diseases, yet the underlying molecular mechanisms are poorly understood. In this issue of Neuron, Chung et al. (2020) demonstrate that gain- and loss-of-function mutations in the peroxisomal acyl-CoA oxidase 1 (ACOX1) gene cause neurodegeneration via distinct molecular pathways in glia.

In this issue of Neuron, Kullmann et al. (2020) demonstrate that the hypoxic state of the developing cerebellum stimulates Hif1a expression to maintain cell proliferation until vascularization creates normoxic conditions, activating Pard polarity signaling complex genes and stimulating cells to cease proliferation and begin migration.

Hypothalamic stimulation can elicit complex behaviors such as aggression, but how discrete motor components of such behaviors are organized at the circuit level remains largely unknown. In this issue of Neuron, Falkner et al. (2020) find that complex neural representations get transformed into a simplified action signal along a hypothalamic-midbrain pathway.

How do we learn in the absence of direct experience? In this issue of Neuron, Charpentier et al. (2020) proposes a new computational account of observational learning, which arbitrates between choice imitation and goal emulation.

We construct our beliefs to meet two sometimes conflicting goals: forming accurate beliefs to inform our decisions and forming desirable beliefs that we value for their own sake. In this NeuroView, we consider emerging neuroscience evidence on how the brain motivates itself to form particular beliefs and why it does so.

To advance the measurement of distributed neuronal population representations of targeted motor actions on single trials, we developed an optical method (COSMOS) for tracking neural activity in a largely uncharacterized spatiotemporal regime. COSMOS allowed simultaneous recording of neural dynamics at ∼30 Hz from over a thousand near-cellular resolution neuronal sources spread across the entire dorsal

Across sensory areas, neural microcircuits consolidate streams of information into unified representations of the external world. In the carnivore visual cortex, where eye-specific inputs first converge, it has been posited that a single, binocularly aligned modular orientation representation develops independent of sensory experience. In this study of ferret visual cortex using in vivo calcium imaging