neuroscience research

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Single-cell long-read sequencing-based mapping reveals specialized splicing patterns in developing and adult mouse and human brain

RNA alternative splicing is involved in determining cell identity, but a comprehensive molecular map is missing. Here, the authors provide a human and mouse brain atlas of transcript isoforms linking them to cellular identity, brain regions and development stages.

Anoushka Joglekar
Hagen U. Tilgner

Neuronal activity rapidly reprograms dendritic translation via eIF4G2:uORF binding

Precise profiling of dendritic RNA regulation reveals how neuronal depolarization leads to ribosome switching onto short upstream open reading frames and new coding sequences to acutely modulate local protein synthesis.

Ezgi Hacisuleyman
Caryn R. Hale
Robert B. Darnell

Centripetal integration of past events in hippocampal astrocytes regulated by locus coeruleus

How astrocytes can integrate information is incompletely understood. Here the authors show that locus coeruleus-controlled calcium signals in hippocampal astrocytes propagating from their processes to their soma are involved in the information integration upon salient events.

Peter Rupprecht
Sian N. Duss
Fritjof Helmchen

Climbing fibers provide essential instructive signals for associative learning

Silva et al. definitively establish climbing fiber-driven complex spike events as essential instructive signals for associative cerebellar learning while also revealing unexpected features of optogenetic manipulation.

N. Tatiana Silva
Jorge Ramírez-Buriticá
Megan R. Carey

Current issue

In conversation with igor adameyko.

Elisa Floriddia

Restoring sensation to prosthetics

Henrietta Howells

HDAC3 stokes microglia in stroke

George Andrew S. Inglis

Recommendations for the responsible use and communication of race and ethnicity in neuroimaging research

Carlos Cardenas-Iniguez
Marybel Robledo Gonzalez

Liprin-α proteins are master regulators of human presynapse assembly

Berta Marcó de la Cruz
Joaquín Campos
Fredrik H. Sterky

PolyGR and polyPR knock-in mice reveal a conserved neuroprotective extracellular matrix signature in C9orf72 ALS/FTD neurons

Carmelo Milioto
Mireia Carcolé
Adrian M. Isaacs

Nature Neuroscience is a Transformative Journal ; authors can publish using the traditional publishing route OR via immediate gold Open Access.

Our Open Access option complies with funder and institutional requirements .

Latest Research articles

Messenger RNA transport on lysosomal vesicles maintains axonal mitochondrial homeostasis and prevents axonal degeneration

Using human iPSC-derived and mouse neurons, this study demonstrates that mRNA transport on lysosome-related vesicles is critical for the maintenance of axonal homeostasis and that its failure causes axonal degeneration.

Raffaella De Pace
Saikat Ghosh
Juan S. Bonifacino

Xenografted human microglia display diverse transcriptomic states in response to Alzheimer’s disease-related amyloid-β pathology

Human microglia transplanted in the mouse brain mount a multipronged response to amyloid-β pathology, displaying unique transcriptional states. Alzheimer’s disease risk genes are differentially regulated across cell states and profoundly alter microglial function.

Renzo Mancuso
Nicola Fattorelli
Bart De Strooper

Latest Reviews & Analysis

Widespread changes in alternative splicing in developing and adult mouse brain

In the first comprehensive mRNA isoform atlas of the developing and adult mouse brain, we discover that region and age influence the isoform repertoire of cell subtypes. We link peak cell type regulation to the critical development period and report attenuated levels in adulthood.

This paper provides recommendations for researchers on responsibly conceptualizing, contextualizing and communicating issues related to race and ethnicity, including examples of important terms and frameworks.

Identification of a cold sensor in peripheral somatosensory neurons

Cold sensor identities in peripheral somatosensory neurons remain obscure. We show that GluK2, a kainate-type glutamate-sensing chemoreceptor that mediates synaptic transmission in the brain, mediates the sensing of cold but not cool temperatures in mouse dorsal root ganglia neurons in the periphery. Thus, we identify GluK2 as a cold-sensing thermoreceptor.

The silence of the reactive astrocytes

Astrocytes have important roles in disease and are difficult to modulate, owing to a paucity of known targets. Clayton et al. develop a screening platform to unbiasedly identify modulators of astrocyte reactivity. They discover that HDAC3 inhibitors regulate astrocyte transitions into their reactive phenotype in vitro and in vivo.

Francesco Limone
Shane Liddelow

Mapping the dysfunctome provides an avenue for targeted brain circuit therapy

Brain connections modulated by 534 deep-brain-stimulation electrodes revealed a gradient of circuits involved in dystonia, Parkinson’s disease, Tourette’s syndrome and obsessive-compulsive disorder. Together, these circuits begin to describe the human ‘dysfunctome’, a library of dysfunctional circuits that lead to various brain disorders.

Leaky blood–brain barrier in long-COVID-associated brain fog

Glial lipid droplets resolve ros during sleep.

Lindsey D. Goodman
Matthew J. Moulton
Hugo J. Bellen

Hunger guides immunity to friend versus foe

Noga Or-Geva
Lawrence Steinman

Anterior cingulate learns reward distribution

William R. Stauffer

News & Comment

Larry J. Young (1967–2024)

Zoe R. Donaldson
Elizabeth A. D. Hammock
Miranda M. Lim

Advancing the neuroscience of human pregnancy

The study of the female brain during pregnancy and motherhood is gaining traction, and holds the potential to address the unmet needs of millions of women worldwide. Here we highlight the most pressing gaps in this field. Filling these knowledge gaps will require two paths forward: focused longitudinal studies that deeply characterize individuals, and collaborative initiatives that build large-scale international databases.

Magdalena Martínez-García
Emily G. Jacobs
Susana Carmona

Pushing the bounds on dimensionality

Luis A. Mejia

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 the field has evolved, and where it is heading. This month, we are talking to Igor Adameyko (Department Chair at the Center for Brain Research of the Medical University of Vienna, Austria, and a group leader at the Karolinska Institutet, Sweden), a developmental biologist by training with research interests ranging from neural crest cell fate to aquatic life and a champion of a positive research culture.

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Pervasive environmental chemicals impair oligodendrocyte development

Identification of a dopamine pathway that regulates sleep and arousal in Drosophila

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A still from a video in which a fruit fly walks on a tiny treadmill

Tiny treadmills show how fruit flies walk

A method to force fruit flies to move shows the insects’ stepping behavior and holds clues to other animals’ brains and movement.

In ‘Get the Picture,’ science helps explore the meaning of art

Chickadees use memory ‘bar codes’ to find their hidden food stashes, more stories in neuroscience.

A desert ant strolls across sand near its nest.

Here’s how magnetic fields shape desert ants’ brains

Exposure to a tweaked magnetic field scrambled desert ants’ efforts to learn where home is — and affected neuron connections in a key part of the brain.

A white, gray and tan dog with electrodes on its head lies on a bed

Dogs know words for their favorite toys

The brain activity of dogs that were expecting one toy but were shown another suggests canines create mental concepts of everyday objects.

Stacks of long tubes of various lengths are seen. Inside the tubes is a bright purple "filling". This is the long part of a nerve fiber called an axon. Around those fibers are thick tubes colored brownish-gray that form an insulating sheath around the nerve. Some wispy strands of connective tissue lays over some of the tubes. Connective tissue is colored hot pink.

Ancient viruses helped speedy nerves evolve

A retrovirus embedded in the DNA of some vertebrates helps turn on production of a protein needed to insulate nerve cells, aiding speedy thoughts.

A baby sits on a white couch reading a book next to a teddy bear.

How do babies learn words? An AI experiment may hold clues

Using relatively little data, audio and video taken from a baby’s perspective, an AI program learned the names of objects the baby encountered.

A man's prosthetic hand hovers over metal cubes that he sorted into a red area for hot and blue area for cold. A sensor on the index finger of the prosthetic hand is connected to a box higher up on his arm where the nerve impulses to sense temperature originate. A thermal image on a laptop show that the cubes were sorted correctly.

A new device let a man sense temperature with his prosthetic hand

A device that can be integrated into prosthetic hands capitalizes on phantom sensations to enable users to sense hot and cold.

An image of a brain scan with glowing purple and orange spots that mark amyloid-beta.

Under very rare conditions, Alzheimer’s disease may be transmitted

Alzheimer’s isn’t contagious. But contaminated growth hormone injections caused early-onset Alzheimer’s in some recipients, a new study suggests.

Handwriting may boost brain connections more than typing does

Students asked to write words showed greater connectivity across the brain than when they typed them, suggesting writing may be a better boost for memory.