Volume 26 Issue 10, October 2023

As Nature Neuroscience celebrates its 25th anniversary, we are having conversations with both established leaders in the field and those earlier in their careers to discuss how neuroscience has evolved and where it is heading. This month, we are talking to Theanne Griffith, Assistant Professor in the Department of Physiology and Membrane Biology at the University of California, Davis. We spoke about how she discovered her passion for biophysics and her work as an author of children’s books about science.

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is an autoimmune disease of the central nervous system that is driven by autoreactive lymphocytes. An in vivo CRISPR screen of T cell infiltration in a rat model of MS now identifies the genetic modules that control this key step in the immunopathology of MS.

Oligodendrocyte precursor cells (OPCs) are mostly known for their ability to differentiate into myelinating oligodendrocytes. Here, the authors discuss the multiple functions of OPCs beyond their precursor cell function in the healthy and diseased CNS.

Engelen et al. review in animals and humans how the CNS senses cardiac, respiratory and gastric rhythmic activity, and detail the range of cognitive functions impacted, from perceptual detection up to the sense of self.

Release of glutamate at high frequency involves a distinct subset of synaptic vesicles made by adaptor protein AP-3. Sorting of the phospholipid flippase ATP8A1 by AP-3 confers release at high frequency by recruiting synapsin to synaptic vesicles.

Interleukin-12 (IL-12) can have anti-inflammatory properties; however, the underlying mechanisms are unclear. Here, the authors show that IL-12-sensing neurons mediate IL-12-induced neuroprotective tissue adaptation in autoimmune conditions of the CNS.

Multiple sclerosis (MS) lesions are initiated by the infiltration of T cells to the CNS. Here, Kendirli et al. use a genome-wide CRISPR screen in an MS model to define the molecules that regulate T cell entry to the CNS.

The transcriptional program underlying the origin of glial cells is unclear. Here the authors leverage single-cell/single-nucleus transcriptional and chromatin accessibility profiling to identify candidate cell fate specification genes and optimize a rapid astrocyte differentiation protocol.

Calcium dynamics and their role in oligodendrocyte precursor cells (OPCs) are unclear. In this study, the authors show that calcium dynamics at the processes of OPCs are modulated by norepinephrine and influence OPC proliferation during arousal in awake adult mice.

Su et al. show that loss of GluN2A in adult mice is sufficient to elicit antidepressant-like responses without evoking psychomimetic effects, and that GluN2A is necessary for ketamine and MK-801 to induce rapid antidepressant-like effects.

The authors establish a connection between functional subtypes and genetic subtypes of dopamine neurons in mice and demonstrate that molecular expression patterns can serve as a common framework to dissect dopaminergic functions.

Carbo-Tano and colleagues investigate the mesencephalic locomotor region in larval zebrafish and its role in triggering forward locomotion by activating specific sets of hindbrain V2a reticulospinal neurons.

In rats performing automatic and flexible cue-guided motor sequences, the basal ganglia help shape low-level movement kinematics but are dispensable for high-level sequencing of cue-guided behaviors.

The sleep drive builds with time spent awake. Tossell et al. show in mice that tiredness triggers neurons in the prefrontal cortex to instruct the hypothalamus to initiate nesting and then sleep itself, ensuring that sleep occurs in a safe place.

Hong et al. show that activation of the medial prefrontal cortex induces REM sleep via its projections to the lateral hypothalamus, thus demonstrating a critical role of the cortex in the regulation of REM sleep.