Volume 26 Issue 9, September 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 Marguerite Matthews, Program Director at the Office of Programs to Enhance Neuroscience Workforce Diversity at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) in the US. We spoke about how she transitioned from neuroscience research into a public service career, her work to promote diversity, equity and inclusion, and how each of us can champion these causes in our communities.

Activating a specific subpopulation of glutamatergic neurons in the brainstem issues a motor command for global motor arrest. This motor arrest is distinct from defensive freezing and has a striking pause-and-play pattern accompanied by a reduction in respiration and heart rate.

Noh et al. show that the regulation of social behavior extends beyond neurons. Astrocytes, a major type of glial cell in the CNS, can influence social dominance behavior by modulating excitatory and inhibitory neural activities in the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex of adult male mice. This work highlights the importance of neuron–astrocyte interplay in controlling ethologically relevant behaviors.

We developed a 3D human neuroimmune axis model to study the interplay of brain innate immune cells and peripheral adaptive immune cells in Alzheimer’s disease. Alzheimer’s disease pathology induced a marked increase in CD8⁺ T cell infiltration, exacerbating neurodegeneration. The CXCL10–CXCR3 pathway has a key role in mediating this process.

Jorfi et al. developed a three-dimensional human neuroimmune axis model of Alzheimer’s disease (AD). The authors demonstrated an increase in T cell infiltration into AD cultures, which led to microglial activation and exacerbation of neurodegeneration.

Organoid modeling of human forebrain development reveals an opposite imbalance in excitatory neuron number in macrocephalic and normocephalic autistic probands, stemming from divergent expression of transcription factors driving cell fate.

The mechanisms underlying motor arrest are unclear. Here, the authors show that Chx10⁺ neurons in the mouse pedunculopontine nucleus control global motor arrest in a pattern of pause (movement on hold) and play (movement resuming from the exact position it paused) likely in response to salient and nonthreatening environmental cues.

Tao et al. show that depressive-like behaviors in a female mouse model of ovarian hormone withdrawal can be attributed to downregulation of neuronal activity in Esr1 (estrogen receptor-1)-expressing GABAergic neurons in the medial preoptic area.

Dominance behavior can influence social hierarchy. Here the authors show that cortical astrocytes can enhance excitatory and reduce inhibitory transmission via release of glutamate and ATP, which modulate dominance behavior, affecting the establishment of social hierarchy, among adult male mice.

Spontaneous population activity bursts promote the development of brain circuits. This study shows that single GABAergic hub neurons exert a strong influence on spontaneous and sensory-evoked population bursts in the mouse barrel cortex.

The authors show that choice information is relayed from the ventrolateral orbitofrontal cortex to the dorsomedial striatum to lead accurate economic decision-making.

During decision-making, neurons in the orbitofrontal cortex flip-flop between representing the value of alternative options, which influences ramping signals in the downstream anterior cingulate cortex that encode the choice response.

The authors reveal how the perception of optogenetic stimulation depends on the variability of background neural activity.

The authors used precision functional imaging and computational modeling to uncover the structure of perceptual odor coding in the human brain. Olfactory areas differ in the granularity, dimensionality and subjectivity of perceptual coding.

In a birth cohort, Holz et al. found widespread structural brain changes at the age of 25 years as a function of adversity. This pattern was replicated at the age of 33 years and in another cohort. Individual-level volume reductions on top of this pattern predicted anxiety.

A new brain mapping approach tailored to individual people reveals that volume changes in psychiatric illness occur in highly variable locations across individuals, but that these differences often aggregate within common brain systems.

Sensorimotor inputs are first compressed before being routed to the cerebellum and similar brain structures. The authors develop a theory to understand the computational role of this compression, leading to anatomical and functional predictions.

A multiplane confocal microscope provides high-contrast volumetric imaging at kilohertz rates. This system enables imaging of densely expressed genetically encoded voltage indicators with cellular resolution in the mouse brain in vivo and in vitro.