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The International Brain Laboratory presents a brain-wide electrophysiological map obtained from pooling data from 12 laboratories that performed the same standardized perceptual decision-making task in mice.

Brain-wide recordings in mice reveal that prior expectations are distributed through recurrent loops across all levels of cortical and subcortical processing.

Single-cell multimodal data has the potential to unveil noncoding disease mechanisms. Here, authors introduce GrID-Net, a graph-based Granger causal approach that links noncoding variants to genes by exploiting the time lag between epigenomic and transcriptional cell states.

The human brain is a distributed system composed of highly interconnected hubs. Here, patients undergoing a rare operation reveal the immediate impact and compensatory brain network changes that occur when a key hub is removed.

The amygdala is known to be engaged in emotional and autonomic function, yet the detailed functional connectivity of the human amygdala remains unclear. Here, the authors examine effective connectivity in the amygdala of patients with epilepsy using direct focal electrical stimulation.

In determining punishment, an actor's mental state often trumps the impact of emotions, as unintended harms may go unpunished, regardless of their magnitude. Using fMRI, the authors reveal a temporoparietal-medial-prefrontal circuit that regulates amygdala activity and by which evaluation of a transgressor's mental state gates our emotional urges to punish.

A regulated stress response is essential for healthy child growth and development. Here, the authors show that a nutrition, water, sanitation, and hygiene intervention enhanced adaptive responses of the physiological stress system in early childhood.

Self-tolerance is established during B cell development but the contribution of clonal deletion, receptor editing, anergy and apoptosis is debated. Here we show that although apoptosis does occur in a high proportion of transitional B cells after exiting the bone marrow, the reactivity of apoptotic B cells does not differ from that of viable cells, which argues against apoptosis as major mechanism to eliminate self-reactive and polyreactive clones.

Granadaene, produced by Group B Streptococcus (GBS), is a long polyene lipid involved in cellular toxicity and hemolytic activity. Here, the authors synthesize and characterize granadaene-like compounds and show that a non-toxic analog diminishes GBS infection in mice when incorporated into a vaccine formulation.

On the basis of high-quality observational data, Goyal et al. have found that serum potassium levels <3.5 mmol/l or ≥4.5 mmol/l are associated with increased in-hospital mortality in patients with acute myocardial infarction. We discuss whether target potassium levels in clinical practice and guidelines should be changed to 3.5–4.5 mmol/l.

Hugh Watkins, Sekar Kathiresan, Ruth McPherson, Martin Farrall and colleagues report the results of a large genome-wide association meta-analysis of coronary artery disease based on 1000 Genomes imputation. They identify ten new risk loci and show that susceptibility to this disease is largely determined by common SNPs with small effect sizes.

Despite presenting early after symptom onset, some patients with ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction are unable to receive mechanical reperfusion within 60 min. The STREAM trial shows that, among these individuals, fibrinolysis with early angiography is associated with outcomes comparable to modestly delayed primary percutaneous coronary intervention, but with an increased risk of intracranial haemorrhage.

An international consortium reports the genomic sequence for ten Drosophila species, and compares them to two other previously published Drosophila species. These data are invaluable for drawing evolutionary conclusions across an entire phylogeny of species at once.

The Human Microbiome Project Consortium reports the first results of their analysis of microbial communities from distinct, clinically relevant body habitats in a human cohort; the insights into the microbial communities of a healthy population lay foundations for future exploration of the epidemiology, ecology and translational applications of the human microbiome.

The progress in pre-clinical drug discovery for Wilms tumor (WT) is limited by a lack of disease models. Here, the authors develop 45 heterotopic WT patient-derived xenografts including several anaplastic models that recapitulate the biological heterogeneity of WT, and propose this as a resource for evaluating future therapeutics for WT.

The Human Microbiome Project Consortium has established a population-scale framework to study a variety of microbial communities that exist throughout the human body, enabling the generation of a range of quality-controlled data as well as community resources.

Sharing of data from clinical trials provides the opportunity to improve the value and integrity of data analyses, but there are risks, and the primary duty for responsible reporting should reside with the investigators.

Differing definitions and questionable prognostic significance have caused confusion and controversy around the applicability of the current definitions of periprocedural and perioperative myocardial infarction in clinical practice. In this Clinical Outlook, we review the definitions and the clinical and prognostic relevance of the various entities and provide implications for clinical practice.

Using newly derived genome sequences of 137 marine microbial isolates as well as previously obtained genome and metagenome data, this study presents a functional analysis of picoplankton residing in the ocean's surface layer.

Randomized clinical trials are the gold-standard clinical trial design, because they can control for confounding factors. However, they also limited by large financial costs and rigid selection criteria. A possible solution to these limitations is the registry-based randomized clinical trial (RRCT). In this Perspectives article, James et al. discuss the features of RRCTs, and how this trial design can be used to conduct studies efficiently and cost-effectively.

The mechanisms of thromboembolism in patients with atrial fibrillation are complex and not well understood, and existing stroke risk scores are limited in their predictive capacity. In this Review, Calenda et al. discuss stroke risk assessment in atrial fibrillation and explain how the atrial myopathy concept might help to refine stroke risk prediction.

While there is understandable excitement about the development of new cardiovascular drugs, an unmet and equally important need is to perform new clinical trials of old drugs, including to determine their longer-term effects and if and when they should be discontinued after years of use. New trials of old drugs can inform clinical practice and are much needed.

Solveig Gretarsdottir, Kari Stefansson and colleagues report a genome-wide association study for abdominal aortic aneurysm. They identified a variant located within the DAB2IP gene on 9q33 associated with risk of developing abdominal aortic aneurysm.

Daniel Gudbjartsson and colleagues report results of a genome-wide association study for loci influencing eosinophil counts. Follow-up studies showed that a subset of the variants identified in this screen were associated with risk of asthma or myocardial infarction.

A systematic analysis of metabolites in prostate cancer samples has led to the identification of sarcosine as a putative biomarker detectable in urine, which could potentially be used to aid prostate cancer diagnosis. Sarcosine promotes the invasion of prostate cancer cells and may play a role in metastasis.

Efficient response to the pandemic through the mobilization of the larger scientific community is challenged by the limited reusability of the available primary genomic data. Here, the Genomic Standards Consortium board highlights the essential need for contextual genomic data FAIRness, for empowering key data-driven biological questions.