Nature Neuroscience Contents: August 2015 Volume 18 Number 8, pp 1059 - 1189

If you are unable to see the message below, click here to view.

Advertisement Laserglow Technologies: Optogenetics Turns Red   Find out how red-shifted opsins provide potential advantages over current Optogenetics methods, including possible use in the development of visual therapeutics.  Click here to access the white-paper and see Laserglow's latest red wavelength offering. TABLE OF CONTENTS August 2015 Volume 18, Issue 8 News and Views Review Brief Communications Articles Resources Subscribe   Facebook   RSS   Recommend to library   Twitter   Advertisement Nature Insight: Origin and evolution of vertebrates Vertebrates have many special features - from large brains to unique tissues. But how they evolved from invertebrates is obscure. This Insight looks at the many theories to explain vertebrate origins, the fossil evidence, a new perspective on the origin of the head and a uniquely vertebrate feature called the neural crest. Access the Insight online   Advertisement An open access journal dedicated to highlighting the most important scientific advances in Parkinson's disease research, spanning the motor and non-motor disorders of Parkinson's disease. Part of the Nature Partner Journals series, npj Parkinson's Disease is published in partnership with the Parkinson's Disease Foundation. Open for submissions   News and Views Top Sex, drugs and pain control   pp1059 - 1060 Victoria E Brings and Mark J Zylka doi:10.1038/nn.4057 A study finds that pain hypersensitivity in male and female mice is differentially dependent on microglia and T cells, and describes a sex-specific response to microglia-targeted pain treatments. This sex difference will be important to consider when developing treatments for pain and other neurological disorders involving microglia and immune cells. See also: Brief Communication by Sorge et al. The binding solution?   pp1060 - 1062 Mark E J Sheffield and Daniel A Dombeck doi:10.1038/nn.4075 How do neurons combine distinct information streams and form long-lasting associations? Dendritic plateau potentials may allow the integration and storage of coincident location and contextual information in hippocampal neurons. See also: Article by Bittner et al. Removing synaptic brakes on learning   pp1062 - 1064 Federico W Grillo, Lucien West and Vincenzo De Paola doi:10.1038/nn.4073 Imaging experiments in awake mice reveal striking, circuit-specific synaptic structural remodeling of inhibitory axons during learning. See also: Article by Chen et al. Reassessing VMPFC: full of confidence?   pp1064 - 1066 Helen C Barron, Mona M Garvert and Timothy E J Behrens doi:10.1038/nn.4076 The confidence that we place in our decisions can affect the judgments themselves. The BOLD signal in ventromedial prefrontal cortex automatically reflects the relationship between confidence and judgments on a range of tasks. See also: Article by Lebreton et al. The RNAs of ALS   p1066 Sebastien Thuault doi:10.1038/nn0815-1066 See also: Resource by Prudencio et al. Neuroscience JOBS of the week PhD Positions in Neuroscience Scuola Normale Superiore Postdoctoral Researcher in Neuroscience Thomas Jefferson University (TJU) Director, Institute for Translational Neuroscience University of Minnesota Two Postdoctoral Positions in Human Behavior, Physiology and Neuroimaging Ecole Polytechnique Federal de Lausanne Post-doctoral Research Fellow / Research Assistant Professor The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology More Science jobs from Neuroscience EVENT Neuroscience R&D Technologies Conference 03.12.15 Barcelona, Spain More science events from Review Top Common circuit design in fly and mammalian motion vision   pp1067 - 1076 Alexander Borst and Moritz Helmstaedter doi:10.1038/nn.4050 The nature of the retinal computations of the direction of motion of visual stimuli has fascinated vision researchers for decades. In this Review, Borst and Helmstaedter discuss the most recent findings in the field, and draw parallels and point to differences in the circuitry of the mouse retina and the fly optic lobe from which such basic neuronal computation arises. Brief Communications Top Nuclear pore complex remodeling by p75NTR cleavage controls TGF-β signaling and astrocyte functions   pp1077 - 1080 Christian Schachtrup, Jae Kyu Ryu, Könül Mammadzada, Abdullah S Khan, Peter M Carlton et al. doi:10.1038/nn.4054 The authors show that changes in nuclear dynamics of p75NTR by γ-secretase cleavage are a novel molecular switch that determines TGF-β signaling in astrocytes. Cleaved p75NTR acts as a component of the nuclear pore complex, regulating nuclear import of Smad-2 in astrocytes. The authors find that p75NTR is required in mice for TGF-β-induced glial scar formation and reduced neuronal activity. Different immune cells mediate mechanical pain hypersensitivity in male and female mice   pp1081 - 1083 Robert E Sorge, Josiane C S Mapplebeck, Sarah Rosen, Simon Beggs, Sarah Taves et al. doi:10.1038/nn.4053 A large literature has demonstrated the important role of spinal microglia in chronic pain processing. This paper demonstrates that microglia are required in male but not female mice. In female mice, a similar function appears to be subserved by adaptive immune cell, likely T lymphocytes. See also: News and Views by Brings & Zylka Articles Top Identification of a Vav2-dependent mechanism for GDNF/Ret control of mesolimbic DAT trafficking   pp1084 - 1093 Shuyong Zhu, Chengjiang Zhao, Yingying Wu, Qiaoqiao Yang, Aiyun Shao et al. doi:10.1038/nn.4060 The molecular mechanisms underlying the regulation of dopamine transporter activity in the brain remain poorly understood. The authors show that glial cell line-derived neurotrophic factor, its receptor Ret and the Rho family GEF protein Vav2 are required for modulating dopamine transporter cell surface expression and transporter activity in the nucleus accumbens. The role of ventral striatal cAMP signaling in stress-induced behaviors   pp1094 - 1100 Florian Plattner, Kanehiro Hayashi, Adan Hernández, David R Benavides, Tara C Tassin et al. doi:10.1038/nn.4066 Changes in cAMP signalling in the brain influence mood and responses to stress. Here, the authors found that Cdk5 regulates cAMP degradation by PDE4 phosphodiesterases in the mouse ventral striatum. Targeting this mechanism in striatum or D1 dopamine receptor-expressing neurons improved behavioral responses to acute and chronic stressors. These results suggest an alternative strategy for the treatment of mental illnesses like depression where stress is a risk factor. Pathway-specific reorganization of projection neurons in somatosensory cortex during learning   pp1101 - 1108 Jerry L Chen, David J Margolis, Atanas Stankov, Lazar T Sumanovski, Bernard L Schneider et al. doi:10.1038/nn.4046 The authors used chronic two-photon calcium imaging to record activity in primary whisker somatosensory cortex neurons projecting to secondary somatosensory or primary motor cortex while mice learned a texture discrimination task. Learning-related changes in primary somatosensory cortex enhanced sensory representations in a pathway-specific manner and provided downstream areas with task-relevant information for behavior. Subtype-specific plasticity of inhibitory circuits in motor cortex during motor learning   pp1109 - 1115 Simon X Chen, An Na Kim, Andrew J Peters and Takaki Komiyama doi:10.1038/nn.4049 This study identifies opposite changes in two main subtypes of inhibitory neurons in the mouse motor cortex during motor learning. With learning, the number of synapses made by somatostatin-expressing inhibitory neurons (SOM-IN) onto the distal dendritic branches of pyramidal neurons decreased, whereas the number of perisomatic contacts made by parvalbumin-positive cells increased. The authors also found that optogenetic disruption of SOM-IN activity resulted in impairment of learning-related dendritic spine reorganization and motor learning. See also: News and Views by Grillo et al. Learning enhances the relative impact of top-down processing in the visual cortex   pp1116 - 1122 Hiroshi Makino and Takaki Komiyama doi:10.1038/nn.4061 By examining the activity of layer 2/3 excitatory neurons in the mouse primary visual cortex, the authors demonstrate that learning enhances the relative impact of top-down processing by the retrosplenial cortex while reducing the influence of the bottom-up stream from layer 4 excitatory neurons. This effect is partially mediated by somatostatin-expressing inhibitory neurons. The medial entorhinal cortex is necessary for temporal organization of hippocampal neuronal activity   pp1123 - 1132 Magdalene I Schlesiger, Christopher C Cannova, Brittney L Boublil, Jena B Hales, Emily A Mankin et al. doi:10.1038/nn.4056 Specialized cell types in the medial entorhinal cortex (MEC), such as grid cells, are thought to provide spatial information to the hippocampus. Here the authors show that MEC lesions disrupt hippocampal theta phase precession, which suggests that the MEC is critical for cognitive functions that depend on precisely timed neuronal activity. Conjunctive input processing drives feature selectivity in hippocampal CA1 neurons   pp1133 - 1142 Katie C Bittner, Christine Grienberger, Sachin P Vaidya, Aaron D Milstein, John J Macklin et al. doi:10.1038/nn.4062 The authors found that dendritic plateau potentials, resulting from the conjunction of EC3 and CA3 inputs, positively modulate existing place fields and induce novel place field formation in CA1 pyramidal neurons. Such a canonical circuit operation may support the formation of spatial maps in the hippocampus and the acquisition of feature selectivity elsewhere in cortex. See also: News and Views by Sheffield & Dombeck Retrosplenial cortex maps the conjunction of internal and external spaces   pp1143 - 1151 Andrew S Alexander and Douglas A Nitz doi:10.1038/nn.4058 Intelligent behavior demands coordination among the multiple forms of spatial representation generated in distinct neural structures. Here, Alexander and Nitz show that retrosplenial cortex neuron ensembles conjunctively encode progression through routes, environmental position, and the actions of the animal. Thus, the region may serve as a critical interface between brain regions generating different forms of spatial mapping. Human representation of visuo-motor uncertainty as mixtures of orthogonal basis distributions   pp1152 - 1158 Hang Zhang, Nathaniel D Daw and Laurence T Maloney doi:10.1038/nn.4055 Individuals must compensate for their motor uncertainty—that is, the discrepancy between intended movement and actual. Here, the authors measured the subjective error representation used in planning reaching movements and found that, while the objective motor error was uni-modal, near-Gaussian, subjective distributions were typically multimodal. This suggests a flexible strategy for computing with uncertainty across many different sorts of problems. Automatic integration of confidence in the brain valuation signal   pp1159 - 1167 Maël Lebreton, Raphaëlle Abitbol, Jean Daunizeau and Mathias Pessiglione doi:10.1038/nn.4064 The ventromedial prefrontal cortex has been identified as a key node for judging the pleasantness of various situations. In a series of fMRI experiments, Lebreton and colleagues demonstrate that the same brain region also computes an implicit representation of confidence, defined as an estimate of judgment accuracy. See also: News and Views by Barron et al. Resources Top Coexpression networks identify brain region-specific enhancer RNAs in the human brain   pp1168 - 1174 Pu Yao, Peijie Lin, Akira Gokoolparsadh, Amelia Assareh, Mike W C Thang et al. doi:10.1038/nn.4063 Identifying enhancers regions has been primarily focused on model organisms and human transformed cell lines. This study characterizes enhancer RNA (eRNA) expression in the human brain by identifying brain region-specific eRNAs and assessing eRNA-gene coexpression interactions. The authors further demonstrate an enrichment of brain eRNAs for autism-associated genetic variants. Distinct brain transcriptome profiles in C9orf72-associated and sporadic ALS   pp1175 - 1182 Mercedes Prudencio, Veronique V Belzil, Ranjan Batra, Christian A Ross, Tania F Gendron et al. doi:10.1038/nn.4065 Evidence suggests that aberrant RNA processing contributes to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). Using RNA sequencing, Prudencio et al. assessed the extent of transcriptome defects in C9orf72-associated (c9ALS) and sporadic ALS (sALS) brains. They report extensive defects in expression, alternative splicing and alternative polyadenylation that are significantly distinct between individuals with c9ALS and sALS. See also: News and Views by Thuault Tau post-translational modifications in wild-type and human amyloid precursor protein transgenic mice   pp1183 - 1189 Meaghan Morris, Giselle M Knudsen, Sumihiro Maeda, Jonathan C Trinidad, Alexandra Ioanoviciu et al. doi:10.1038/nn.4067 Abnormal post-translational modifications of tau may contribute to Alzheimer's disease, but normal tau modifications are poorly understood. Using advanced mass spectrometry, a great variety of modifications were identified on endogenous mouse tau. Tau appears to be highly regulated and may fulfill diverse functions, most of which remain to be defined. Top Natureevents is a fully searchable, multi-disciplinary database designed to maximise exposure for events organisers. The contents of the Natureevents Directory are now live. The digital version is available here. Find the latest scientific conferences, courses, meetings and symposia on natureevents.com. For event advertising opportunities across the Nature Publishing Group portfolio please contact natureevents@nature.com More Nature Events

You have been sent this Table of Contents Alert because you have opted in to receive it. You can change or discontinue your e-mail alerts at any time, by modifying your preferences on your nature.com account at: www.nature.com/myaccount (You will need to log in to be recognised as a nature.com registrant) For further technical assistance, please contact our registration department For print subscription enquiries, please contact our subscription department For other enquiries, please contact our customer feedback department Nature Publishing Group | One New York Plaza, Suite 4500 | New York | NY 10004-1562 | USA Nature Publishing Group's worldwide offices: London - Paris - Munich - New Delhi - Tokyo - Melbourne San Diego - San Francisco - Washington - New York - Boston Macmillan Publishers Limited is a company incorporated in England and Wales under company number 785998 and whose registered office is located at Brunel Road, Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. © 2015 Nature Publishing Group, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited. All Rights Reserved.