TABLE OF CONTENTS
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July 2015 Volume 18, Issue 7 |
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 | Editorial News and Views Reviews Brief Communications Articles | |
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Nature Communications is now fully open access
All new submissions if accepted, will be published open access and an article processing charge will apply. For more information visit the website.
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Editorial | Top |
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Welcome aboard! p927 doi:10.1038/nn.4059 Nature Neuroscience editors share useful tips on the initial submission process. |
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News and Views | Top |
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Reviews | Top |
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Molecular mechanisms governing Ca2+ regulation of evoked and spontaneous release pp935 - 941 Ralf Schneggenburger and Christian Rosenmund doi:10.1038/nn.4044 In this Review, Schneggenburger and Rosenmund discuss the molecular mechanisms that control the Ca2+ dependence of synaptic vesicle fusion during spontaneous and evoked modes of release at mammalian brain synapses. They argue that the same pool of vesicles is recruited during spontaneous and evoked release but at drastically different rates. |
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Diversity of astrocyte functions and phenotypes in neural circuits pp942 - 952 Baljit S Khakh and Michael V Sofroniew doi:10.1038/nn.4043 This Review article by Baljit Khakh and Michael Sofroniew discusses the latest progress in demonstration of molecular, cellular and functional heterogeneity of astrocytes in the central nervous system. The article highlights the way in which this diversity within and across astrocytes can affect normal function of the brain differently, and discusses pathological conditions where astrocyte heterogeneity is instrumental in manifesting various aspects of CNS dysfunction. |
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Brief Communications | Top |
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Polygenic risk scores for schizophrenia and bipolar disorder predict creativity pp953 - 955 Robert A Power, Stacy Steinberg, Gyda Bjornsdottir, Cornelius A Rietveld, Abdel Abdellaoui et al. doi:10.1038/nn.4040 Genetic risk scores derived from GWAS of psychotic disorders are greater in creative professionals unaffected by psychosis. This association cannot be explained by shared environment or education. Thus, a shared genetic architecture underlies the propensity for creativity and psychosis.
See also: News and Views by Keller & Visscher |
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Experience-dependent DNA methylation regulates plasticity in the developing visual cortex pp956 - 958 Paola Tognini, Debora Napoli, Jonida Tola, Davide Silingardi, Floriana Della Ragione et al. doi:10.1038/nn.4026 This study shows that ocular dominance plasticity (ODP) is accompanied by changes to DNA methylation at specific genes in the mouse visual cortex. The authors also show that pharmacological inhibition of the DNA methylation process can alter the functional consequence of ODP. |
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Activin receptor signaling regulates cocaine-primed behavioral and morphological plasticity pp959 - 961 Amy M Gancarz, Zi-Jun Wang, Gabrielle L Schroeder, Diane Damez-Werno, Kevin M Braunscheidel et al. doi:10.1038/nn.4036 Gancarz et al. identify Activin-receptor signaling—including the downstream transcription factor Smad3—as an intracellular signaling pathway that is regulated in the nucleus accumbens following abstinence from cocaine. The authors demonstrate that altering Activin-receptor signaling bi-directionally regulates relapse behavior and dendritic spine plasticity. |
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Excitatory transmission at thalamo-striatal synapses mediates susceptibility to social stress pp962 - 964 Daniel J Christoffel, Sam A Golden, Jessica J Walsh, Kevin G Guise, Mitra Heshmati et al. doi:10.1038/nn.4034 Chronic social stress has adverse behavioral consequences and can result in the development of depression in humans. Using a rodent social stress model, we report increased synaptic connectivity between the thalamus and striatum in susceptible mice that controls behavioral coping mechanisms relevant to depression. |
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Articles | Top |
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Host microbiota constantly control maturation and function of microglia in the CNS pp965 - 977 Daniel Erny, Anna Lena Hrabe de Angelis, Diego Jaitin, Peter Wieghofer, Ori Staszewski et al. doi:10.1038/nn.4030 In this study, the authors show that host microbiota play a key role in modulating microglia homeostasis. Germ-free mice or mice with only limited microbiota complexity displayed defects in microglial cell proportions and maturation, leading to impaired innate immune responses. The authors find that short-chain fatty acid signaling regulates these effects in vivo.
See also: News and Views by Mosher & Wyss-Coray |
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Central role for PICALM in amyloid-β blood-brain barrier transcytosis and clearance pp978 - 987 Zhen Zhao, Abhay P Sagare, Qingyi Ma, Matthew R Halliday, Pan Kong et al. doi:10.1038/nn.4025 Zhao et al. report that brain vessels have a major role in clearing Alzheimer's disease-related toxin Aβ from brain and show that PICALM gene product and its variant associated with an increased risk for Alzheimer's disease inactivate an Aβ clearance system in blood vessels, leading to Aβ brain accumulation and cognitive impairment. |
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The human epilepsy mutation GABRG2(Q390X) causes chronic subunit accumulation and neurodegeneration pp988 - 996 Jing-Qiong Kang, Wangzhen Shen, Chengwen Zhou, Dong Xu and Robert L Macdonald doi:10.1038/nn.4024 The Q390X mutation in the GABAA receptor GABRG2 has been associated with Dravet syndrome in humans. In this study, the authors generated a new genetic epileptic encephalopathy animal model, the Gabrg2+/Q390X knock-in mouse, and show that expression of this mutant protein leads to seizures, chronic accumulation and aggregation of mutant subunit protein and age-dependent neurodegeneration. |
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Distinct circuit-dependent functions of presynaptic neurexin-3 at GABAergic and glutamatergic synapses pp997 - 1007 Jason Aoto, Csaba Földy, Silviana Maria Ciurea Ilcus, Katsuhiko Tabuchi and Thomas C Südhof doi:10.1038/nn.4037 Neurexins are essential presynaptic cell-adhesion molecules whose biological significance is poorly understood. Here, the authors interrogate Nrxn3 function in two brain regions, using two types of preparations and in three mutant mouse lines, and find that Nrxn3 plays mechanistically distinct, brain region-specific functions to regulate either presynaptic release or AMPA receptor stability. |
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The schizophrenia risk gene product miR-137 alters presynaptic plasticity pp1008 - 1016 Sandra Siegert, Jinsoo Seo, Ester J Kwon, Andrii Rudenko, Sukhee Cho et al. doi:10.1038/nn.4023 Neurodevelopmental disorders are frequently associated with synaptic dysfunction. Recent genome-wide association studies associate the gene encoding microRNA-137 with an increased risk for schizophrenia. Using mouse and human models, the authors show that dysregulation of this miRNA leads to presynaptic defects and, consequently, to impaired synaptic plasticity and cognitive dysfunction.
See also: News and Views by Han et al. |
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mGluR5 in the nucleus accumbens is critical for promoting resilience to chronic stress pp1017 - 1024 Sora Shin, Obin Kwon, Jee In Kang, Somin Kwon, Sora Oh et al. doi:10.1038/nn.4028 The authors showed that mGluR5 can upregulate the expression of ΔFosB, a resilience molecule, in the nucleus accumbens. In stress-induced animal models of depression, mGluR5-induced upregulation of ΔFosB in the nucleus accumbens enhances resilience to stress. |
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A neural network that finds a naturalistic solution for the production of muscle activity pp1025 - 1033 David Sussillo, Mark M Churchland, Matthew T Kaufman and Krishna V Shenoy doi:10.1038/nn.4042 How motor cortical activity relates to muscle movement is still unclear. Here the authors trained neural networks to reproduce muscle activity of reaching monkeys. The optimal solutions produced by these networks resembled the single-neuron and population level neural activity seen in the motor cortex of the same monkeys. |
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Hand use predicts the structure of representations in sensorimotor cortex pp1034 - 1040 Naveed Ejaz, Masashi Hamada and Jorn Diedrichsen doi:10.1038/nn.4038 The cortical activity patterns associated with individual finger movements are highly variable across participants, with each person showing a distinct "cortical fingerprint". The idiosyncratic representations are subject to an invariant organization principle: the overlap between activation patterns is tightly shaped by how frequently fingers move together in everyday life. |
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Representation of retrieval confidence by single neurons in the human medial temporal lobe pp1041 - 1050 Ueli Rutishauser, Shengxuan Ye, Matthieu Koroma, Oana Tudusciuc, Ian B Ross et al. doi:10.1038/nn.4041 The authors show that memory-selective neurons in the human medial temporal lobe signal memory retrieval confidence. Using a balance-of-evidence model, the authors demonstrate that the signals provided by these neurons are sufficient to determine the choice certainty of declarative memory-based decision in single trials. |
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β-amyloid disrupts human NREM slow waves and related hippocampus-dependent memory consolidation pp1051 - 1057 Bryce A Mander, Shawn M Marks, Jacob W Vogel, Vikram Rao, Brandon Lu et al. doi:10.1038/nn.4035 The mechanisms through which β-amyloid impairs human memory remain unclear. This study shows that regional-specific β-amyloid load in cognitively normal older adults impairs NREM slow wave oscillations, thereby compromising overnight hippocampus-dependent memory consolidation. NREM sleep disruption therefore represents a novel mechanistic pathway through which β-amyloid contributes to hippocampus-dependent memory dysfunction in later life.
See also: News and Views by Lucey & Holtzman |
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