EMERGING IDEAS IN NEURAL SCIENCE

Nature Neuroscience

• Extending transparency to code
  Reproducibility initiatives seek to promote greater transparency and sharing of scientific reagents, procedures and data. Less recognized is the need to share data analysis routines. Nature Neuroscience is launching a pilot project to evaluate the efficacy of sharing code.
• Microglial confetti party
  Microglia are highly heterogeneous and plastic. However, the dynamics of their turnover have been difficult to visualize. A new multicolor reporter system reveals a plastic but stable network of microglia during health and disease.
  Oleg Butovsky
• A cell-type-specific jolt for motor disorders
  Manipulating the activity of a subpopulation of external globus pallidus neurons with optogenetic deep brain stimulation ameliorates motor deficits in a mouse model of Parkinson's disease.
  Jun B Ding
• Fear from the bottom up
  Two groups demonstrate the importance of inputs from the amygdala to the medial prefrontal cortex for signaling aversion across a range of behaviors and motivational drives.
  Ekaterina Likhtik
• Pinging the brain to reveal hidden memories
  Keeping a picture in mind requires many brain cells to actively communicate ... or does it? There might be more to working memory than neuronal chatter, and silent processes could be hiding right beneath the surface.
  John T Serences
• Toward standard practices for sharing computer code and programs in neuroscience
  Computational techniques are central in many areas of neuroscience and are relatively easy to share. This paper describes why computer programs underlying scientific publications should be shared and lists simple steps for sharing. Together with ongoing efforts in data sharing, this should aid reproducibility of research.
  Jean-Baptiste Poline
• Mural lymphatic endothelial cells regulate meningeal angiogenesis in the zebrafish
  Bower et al. describe a population of mural lymphatic endothelial cells found along meningeal blood vessels in the adult zebrafish. These mural cells are distinct from meningeal lymphatic vessel cells but form by developmental lymphangiogenesis. They take up low-density lipoproteins from the bloodstream and can modulate angiogenesis during meningeal vascular […]
  Benjamin M Hogan
• Abnormal wiring of CCK+ basket cells disrupts spatial information coding
  The authors report that genetic disruption of the connectivity of CCK+ basket cells during development reveals a critical role for these interneurons in the regulation of theta oscillatory activity and in the coding of spatial information in the adult mouse hippocampus.
  Beatriz Rico