EMERGING IDEAS IN NEURAL SCIENCE

Nature Neuroscience

• The young and the reckless
  A large study of impulsivity in 14-year-olds finds that substance use and ADHD symptoms are associated with different brain networks that inhibit motor responses. Genetic analysis implicates the noradrenergic system in activity levels in one of these networks, which is centered on the right frontal cortex.
  Russell A Poldrack
• Preso1, mGluR5 and the machinery of pain
  By bringing mGluR1/5 and proline-directed kinases together, the scaffold protein Preso1 stabilizes the interaction between mGluR1/5 and Homer. This mechanism may attenuate calcium influx into spinal neurons and reduce pain.
  Natalie C Tronson
• Reward and punishment illuminated
  How do outcomes affect future behavior? A study using precise optogenetic stimulation finds that learning from positive reinforcement is mediated by striatal pathways distinct from those that mediate learning from punishment.
  Kenway Louie
• Squaring cortex with color
  A long-standing puzzle has been the seeming inconsistency between neuronal responses in primary visual cortex to colored stimuli and the elementary perceptual attributes of color vision. Nonlinear analysis resolves this paradox.
  E J Chichilnisky
• The best of times, the worst of times for psychiatric disease
  As long-awaited advances in psychiatric genetics begin to materialize in force, promising to steer us safely to the best of times in psychiatric disease research, many pharmaceutical companies pull away from the challenge of drug development, threatening to bring us to the worst of times for the field. There is a real danger of missed opportunities and a sen […]
  Robert C Malenka
• Calbindin controls release probability in ventral tegmental area dopamine neurons
  Using high-fidelity imaging of pHluorin-tagged vesicular monoamine transporter 2, the authors report differences in coupling of calcium entry and exocytosis between different populations of dopamine neurons. In ventral tegmental area neurons, exocytosis is controlled by calbindin-D28k, and this maintains a lower vesicular release probability as compared with […]
  Timothy A Ryan
• Distinct roles for direct and indirect pathway striatal neurons in reinforcement
  Cell type–specific expression and activation of channelrhodopsin-2 in the dorsomedial striatum shows that stimulation of dopamine D1 receptor–expressing direct pathway medium spiny neurons (MSNs) can reinforce operant behavior in awake behaving mice, whereas activation of D2 receptor–expressing indirect pathway MSNs punishes operant behavior.
  Anatol C Kreitzer
• Neurogenesis requires TopBP1 to prevent catastrophic replicative DNA damage in early progenitors
  In this study, the authors show that TopBP1 is critical for preventing replication-induced DNA damage accumulation in early-born neural progenitors, thereby maintaining genomic integrity in these cells.
  Peter J McKinnon