Nature Neuroscience Contents: February 2015 Volume 18 Number 2, pp 163 - 315

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TABLE OF CONTENTS February 2015 Volume 18, Issue 2 News and Views Review Brief Communications Articles Technical Report Subscribe   Facebook   RSS   Recommend to library   Twitter   Advertisement The Challenge of Chronic Pain (11-13 March 2015)  Wellcome Trust Genome Campus, Hinxton, Cambridge, UK This meeting will discuss recent discoveries in pain research, highlighting peripheral and central pain mechanisms, pathways and processes, with a focus on translating basic research insights into new therapies. Abstract/Bursary Deadline: 30 Jan. Registration Deadline: 16 Feb.   News and Views Top Imagine a journey through time and space   pp163 - 164 Lisa M Giocomo doi:10.1038/nn.3926 The hippocampus, a structure critical for memory and navigation, contains both place and episodic cell assemblies. Synchronous input from the medial septum is crucial for inducing spatial and temporal neural sequences. These sequences are, in turn, necessary for constructing episodic cells and, in the absence of sensory input, place cells. See also: Article by Wang et al. Neddylation is needed for synapse maturation   pp164 - 166 Amy K Fu and Nancy Y Ip doi:10.1038/nn.3929 A study reports for the first time on the importance of post-translational modification by neddylation in postnatal brain development. In particular, it is critical to synapse maturation and stability, and thus to cognition. See also: Article by Vogl et al. Mobile binding sites regulate glutamate clearance   pp166 - 168 Robert H Edwards doi:10.1038/nn.3931 Glutamate transporters influence the kinetics of synaptic transmission by acutely buffering synaptically released glutamate. In addition to high synaptic density of EAAT2, the transporter's high mobility contributes to function. See also: Article by Murphy-Royal et al. A convergent tale of two species   pp168 - 169 Shihab A Shamma doi:10.1038/nn.3928 Spatial hearing in birds and mammals is more alike than previously thought in its patterns of developmental plasticity, physiological responses, and the computations employed to interpret binaural cues and map the environment. See also: Brief Communication by Keating et al. Neuroscience JOBS of the week Postdoctoral fellow in neuroscience of obesity University of Gothenburg (GU) Two Postdoctoral Positions in Neuroscience and Neurobiology at Duke University Duke University School of Medicine Cogntive Neuroscience Postdoc Position at the University of Missouri - Kansas City University of Missouri - Kansas City Neuroscience Research Assistant / Associate Professor, Term Tenure Track University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center More Science jobs from Neuroscience EVENT Francis Crick Symposium: Advances in Neuroscience 29.06.15 Suzhou, China More science events from Review Top The neocortical circuit: themes and variations   pp170 - 181 Kenneth D Harris and Gordon M G Shepherd doi:10.1038/nn.3917 Harris and Shepherd review our knowledge of input and output patterns for different classes of cortical cells. They propose that cortex, like other parts of the body, has a serially homologous organization, featuring area- and species-specific variations on a basic theme, that allows different types of function to emerge. Brief Communications Top Contribution of mGluR5 to pathophysiology in a mouse model of human chromosome 16p11.2 microdeletion   pp182 - 184 Di Tian, Laura J Stoppel, Arnold J Heynen, Lothar Lindemann, Georg Jaeschke et al. doi:10.1038/nn.3911 Microdeletions of chromosome 16p11.2 can cause autism, but the pathogenic mechanisms remain unclear. Here the authors show that in a 16p11.2 mouse model, mGluR5 synaptic plasticity and protein synthesis are altered and that a modulator of mGluR5 reverses the cognitive deficits. Complementary adaptive processes contribute to the developmental plasticity of spatial hearing   pp185 - 187 Peter Keating, Johannes C Dahmen and Andrew J King doi:10.1038/nn.3914 This study shows that auditory development is guided by multiple adaptive processes. This flexibility can help maintain accurate perception in different environments and provides a more unified account of developmental plasticity across species. The adaptive plasticity observed also provides insight into the nature of distributed neural representations underlying spatial hearing. See also: News and Views by Shamma Fear generalization in the primate amygdala   pp188 - 190 Jennifer Resnik and Rony Paz doi:10.1038/nn.3900 Anxiety symptoms may arise from an overgeneralization of negative memories to include more neutral ones. Here the authors show that the tuning of amygdala neurons for a conditioned stimulus broadens and matches the behavioral generalization to innocuous stimuli. Articles Top Genotype to phenotype relationships in autism spectrum disorders   pp191 - 198 Jonathan Chang, Sarah R Gilman, Andrew H Chiang, Stephan J Sanders and Dennis Vitkup doi:10.1038/nn.3907 Autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) are characterized by both phenotypic and genetic heterogeneity. Here the authors find that ASD functional genetic networks are enriched for genes expressed in deep layer cortical neurons, that mutations in females impact more highly expressed genes as compared to males and that intellectual scores reflect the severity of mutations. Psychiatric genome-wide association study analyses implicate neuronal, immune and histone pathways   pp199 - 209 The Network and Pathway Analysis Subgroup of the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium doi:10.1038/nn.3922 Better analytical methods are needed to extract biological meaning from genome-wide association studies (GWAS) of psychiatric disorders. Here the authors take GWAS data from over 60,000 subjects, including patients with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and major depression, and identify common etiological pathways shared amongst them. Calcium dynamics in astrocyte processes during neurovascular coupling   pp210 - 218 Yo Otsu, Kiri Couchman, Declan G Lyons, Mayeul Collot, Amit Agarwal et al. doi:10.1038/nn.3906 Here, the authors imaged calcium response in the mouse olfactory bulb in vivo to show that the calcium transients in astrocytic processes—but not cell bodies—are tightly coupled to neuronal activity and precede functional hyperemia. Surface diffusion of astrocytic glutamate transporters shapes synaptic transmission   pp219 - 226 Ciaran Murphy-Royal, Julien P Dupuis, Juan A Varela, Aude Panatier, Benoit Pinson et al. doi:10.1038/nn.3901 The authors find that glutamate release increases the diffusion of the astrocytic glutamate transporter GLT-1 in the plasma membrane. This activity-dependent increase in mobility facilitates glutamate clearance from the synaptic cleft, which influences the kinetics of excitatory post-synaptic events in rat hippocampal neurons. See also: News and Views by Edwards Marinesco-Sjögren syndrome protein SIL1 regulates motor neuron subtype-selective ER stress in ALS   pp227 - 238 Audrey Filézac de L'Etang, Niran Maharjan, Marisa Cordeiro Braña, Céline Ruegsegger, Ruth Rehmann et al. doi:10.1038/nn.3903 In amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), some motor neuron types are more vulnerable to disease pathology. Here the authors show that resistant subtypes express the ER chaperone SIL1. Disease-associated loss of SIL1 impairs ER homeostasis and worsens ALS pathology, whereas its expression improves pathology and survival in an ALS mouse model. Neddylation inhibition impairs spine development, destabilizes synapses and deteriorates cognition   pp239 - 251 Annette M Vogl, Marisa M Brockmann, Sebastian A Giusti, Giuseppina Maccarrone, Claudia A Vercelli et al. doi:10.1038/nn.3912 The authors report that neddylation is required for dendritic spine development and stability, and loss of neddylation in excitatory forebrain neurons leads to synaptic loss, impaired neurotransmission, and learning and memory deficits. The roles of neddylation in spine maturation and synaptic transmission could be attributed to neddylation of PSD-95. See also: News and Views by Fu & Ip The development of cortical circuits for motion discrimination   pp252 - 261 Gordon B Smith, Audrey Sederberg, Yishai M Elyada, Stephen D Van Hooser, Matthias Kaschube et al. doi:10.1038/nn.3921 Rapid developmental changes in the response properties of neurons in visual cortex enhance motion discriminability following eye opening. Here the authors show that increases in direction selectivity are accompanied by reductions in the density of active neurons and variability in their responses and levels of noise correlation, changes that depend on the nature of visual experience. Visual recognition memory, manifested as long-term habituation, requires synaptic plasticity in V1   pp262 - 271 Sam F Cooke, Robert W Komorowski, Eitan S Kaplan, Jeffrey P Gavornik and Mark F Bear doi:10.1038/nn.3920 The authors find that behavioral habituation to the repeated presentation of visual stimuli, measured as reduced occurrence of a brief motor response called a 'vidget', depends on primary visual cortex in mice and is accompanied by a potentiation of layer 4 responses to visual stimuli. Local manipulations indicate that this form of recognition memory is stored in primary visual cortex. Olfactory bulb coding of odors, mixtures and sniffs is a linear sum of odor time profiles   pp272 - 281 Priyanka Gupta, Dinu F Albeanu and Upinder S Bhalla doi:10.1038/nn.3913 Due to their volatility, olfactory inputs are spatially and temporally dynamic. Here the authors find that, in contrast to previous studies, mitral/tufted cells of the olfactory bulb can sum inputs linearly across odors and time. Theta sequences are essential for internally generated hippocampal firing fields   pp282 - 288 Yingxue Wang, Sandro Romani, Brian Lustig, Anthony Leonardo and Eva Pastalkova doi:10.1038/nn.3904 Wang and colleagues find that weakening hippocampal theta in a familiar environment reduces the performance of rats in a spatial memory task, decreases the number of theta sequences and degrades internally generated hippocampal episode cell firing, while leaving place cell firing intact. The same weakening of theta also prevents the formation of a precise spatial representation in a novel environment unless proximal cues are present. Together these results suggest that the mechanisms underlying internally generated hippocampal sequences of activity are crucial for episodic memory. See also: News and Views by Giocomo Hippocampal theta sequences reflect current goals   pp289 - 294 Andrew M Wikenheiser and A David Redish doi:10.1038/nn.3909 During a single theta cycle, discrete groups of hippocampal place cells can produce a distributed series of spikes called a theta sequence. Such sequences represent the time-compressed trajectory of an animal running in its environment and usually extend ahead of the current position. Here, Wikenheiser and Redish find that the 'look-ahead' distance of rat theta sequences can predict the imminent choice of the animal in a value-guided decision making task. Dynamic routing of task-relevant signals for decision making in dorsolateral prefrontal cortex   pp295 - 301 Christopher H Donahue and Daeyeol Lee doi:10.1038/nn.3918 Donahue and Lee identify prefrontal neurons that integrate task-relevant information about past and current stimulus features and past action outcomes across trials during a probabilistic reversal task. The activity of these neurons is sensitive to past rewards and is predictive of imminent behavioral choices, suggesting that they dynamically contribute to the selection of actions that maximize reward during decision making under uncertainty. The idiosyncratic brain: distortion of spontaneous connectivity patterns in autism spectrum disorder   pp302 - 309 Avital Hahamy, Marlene Behrmann and Rafael Malach doi:10.1038/nn.3919 Previous studies have reported both increased and decreased functional brain connectivity in individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The authors find that instances of such over- and underconnectivity in adults with high-functioning ASD point to a deeper principle of increased individual variation (idiosyncrasy) of functional connectivity in individuals with ASD. Technical Report Top NeuroGrid: recording action potentials from the surface of the brain   pp310 - 315 Dion Khodagholy, Jennifer N Gelinas, Thomas Thesen, Werner Doyle, Orrin Devinsky et al. doi:10.1038/nn.3905 In this technical report, Khodagholy and colleagues find that NeuroGrid, a planar, scalable and highly conformable electrode array, allows recordings of local-field potentials and stable single-unit activity from the surface of the rat cortex or hippocampus. The authors also validate NeuroGrid across species by showing that that it can capture LFP-modulated spiking activity intraoperatively in surgical patients, thus demonstrating its utility as tool for fundamental research on the human brain and in the clinic. 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