Published in eNeuro
Dopaminergic neurons in the substantia nigra pars compacta (SNpc) form an important part of the basal ganglia circuitry, playing key roles in movement initiation and co-ordination. A hallmark of Parkinson's disease (PD) is the degeneration of these SNpc dopaminergic neurons leading to akinesia, bradykinesia and tremor. There is gathering evidence t...
Published in Neuron
How does the brain tell apart similar information during memory storage and recall? Allegra et al. show that the input and output regions of the hippocampus play distinct roles in forming non-overlapping memory representations that are differentially related to an animal’s memory-guided behavioral performance.
Published in The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience
A major driver of obesity is the increasing palatability of processed foods. Although reward circuits promote the consumption of palatable food, their involvement in obesity remains unclear. The ventral pallidum (VP) is a key hub in the reward system that encodes the hedonic aspects of palatable food consumption and participates in various proposed...
Published in Current Biology
It is unknown how neural activity is coordinated among lateral hypothalamic area (LH) neurons, which generate fundamental behavioral actions such as attack and evasion. Burdakov and Karnani show there is near-zero local connectivity in the LH, suggesting that incoming synaptic input is integrated primarily within individual neurons.
Published in International Journal of Molecular Sciences
Rodent neocortical neurons undergo prominent postnatal development and maturation. The process is associated with structural and functional maturation of the axon initial segment (AIS), the site of action potential initiation. In this regard, cell size and optimal AIS length are interconnected. In sensory cortices, developmental onset of sensory in...
Published in International Journal of Molecular Sciences
Melatonin, a pineal gland secretion, is an amphiphilic neurohormone involved in the biological and physiologic regulation of bodily functions. Numerous studies have shown the effects of melatonin on the release of gonadotropins and their actions at one or several levels of the hypothalamic–pituitary–gonadal axis. However, direct melatonin action on...
Published in Frontiers in Cellular Neuroscience
The retina and the olfactory bulb are the gateways to the visual and olfactory systems, respectively, similarly using neural networks to initiate sensory signal processing. Sensory receptors receive signals that are transmitted to neural networks before projecting to primary cortices. These networks filter sensory signals based on their unique feat...
Published in Cell reports
Brain states modulate the membrane potential dynamics of neurons, influencing the functional repertoire of the network. Pyramidal cells (PCs) in the hippocampal CA3 are necessary for rapid memory encoding, which preferentially occurs during exploratory behavior in the high-arousal theta state. However, the relationship between the membrane potentia...
Published in American Journal of Human Genetics
Partial or complete loss-of-function variants in SCN5A are the most common genetic cause of the arrhythmia disorder Brugada syndrome (BrS1). However, the pathogenicity of SCN5A variants is often unknown or disputed; 80% of the 1,390 SCN5A missense variants observed in at least one individual to date are variants of uncertain significance (VUSs). Th...
Published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
Large-conductance Ca2+ and voltage-activated K+ (BK) channels control membrane excitability in many cell types. BK channels are tetrameric. Each subunit is composed of a voltage sensor domain (VSD), a central pore-gate domain, and a large cytoplasmic domain (CTD) that contains the Ca2+ sensors. While it is known that BK channels are activated by vo...
