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It is known that compressed sequences of hippocampal place cells can ‘replay’ previous navigational trajectories in linearly constrained mazes; here, rat place-cell sequences representing two-dimensional spatial trajectories were observed before navigational decisions, and predicted the immediate navigational path.

An error detecting code running on a trapped-ion quantum computer protects expressive circuits of eight logical qubits with a high-fidelity and partially fault-tolerant implementation of a universal gate set.

Scattering resonances are quantum effects occurring in low-temperature molecular collisions. Here the authors observe resonances for the six-atom ND₃-H₂/HD systems in velocity map imaging experiments explained by high-level theoretical predictions.

Shuman et al. report that epileptic mice harbor desynchronized hippocampal interneuron activity and unstable spatial representations, revealing that precise intrahippocampal synchronization is critical for spatial coding.

Autonomous quantum error correction protects quantum systems against decoherence through engineered dissipation. Here the authors introduce the Star code, which actively corrects single-photon loss and passively suppresses low-frequency dephasing and implement it in a two-transmon device.

A single electron spin in silicon is dressed by a microwave field to create a new qubit with tangible advantages for quantum computation and nanoscale research.

Understanding past warming events is essential to project the consequences of anthropogenic carbon emissions. Here, carbon and hydrological cycle changes of the Carnian Pluvial Episode are revealed, offering insights into Earth System functioning.

High-grade gliomas functionally remodel neural circuits in the human brain, promoting tumour progression and impairing cognition.

Neonatal brain dynamics are not well understood. Here, the authors characterise brain transient states in neonates, and show that preterm infants display altered whole brain dynamics and an atypical repertoire of regional transient states, which are associated with behavioural outcomes at 18 months of age.

Beta cell subpopulations with low expression in PDX1, MAFA, and insulin might contribute to islet function and insulin release. Here the authors show that altering the proportion of PDX1^LOW MAFA^LOW to PDX1^HIGH MAFA^HIGH cells impairs islet function.

It is often assumed that systems that can be analyzed accurately via mean-field theory would not be worth looking at using quantum algorithms, given entanglement plays no key role. Here, the authors show instead that a quantum advantage can be expected for simulating the exact time evolution of such electronic systems.

Waves are ubiquitous in nature and occur across various scales and settings. In this Primer, Jafarzadeh et al. discuss techniques for preprocessing and analysing waves, including information on choosing the appropriate methods based on wave properties, and present worked examples using synthetic datasets.

A core aspect of human episodic memory is the ability to recall events in the order that they were experienced. The authors found that successful memory for order is related to the precise timing of high frequency brain activity with respect to slower underlying rhythms.

Brain slices offer an experimental window into human neurophysiology. Using high-density microelectrode array recordings and adeno-associated virus–mediated optogenetics, the authors demonstrate that optogenetic targeting of CAMK2A+ neurons can affect network activity in human hippocampal slices.

El-Gaby et al. combine multiunit recordings and optogenetic silencing in the mouse hippocampus and uncover a primary role for millisecond-timescale neural coactivity in encoding behavioral contingency information and supporting memory retrieval.

The biological mechanisms of rehabilitation after stroke are not fully understood. Here authors identify parvalbumin interneurons as a key mediator of rehabilitation-induced stroke recovery and a drug targeting these neurons as a potential therapy.

Experiments demonstrate the powerful capabilities of ultracold molecules to study dynamics in the context of quantum magnetism, and create new possibilities for studying quantum physics with ultracold molecules more broadly.

Machine learning analyses and playback experiments in wild African elephants suggest that individuals address conspecifics with name-like calls that do not rely on imitation of the receiver.

Despite being a paradigmatic description of dissipative quantum dynamics, implementations of spin-boson models with trapped ions had limited tunability. Here, the authors demonstrate a trapped-ion quantum simulator of spin-boson dynamics with controllable bath spectral density, contributing towards scalable simulations of energy transfer processes.

Speech neuroprosthetic devices should be capable of restoring a patient’s ability to participate in interactive dialogue. Here, the authors demonstrate that the context of a verbal exchange can be used to enhance neural decoder performance in real time.

The ASAP4 family of genetically encoded voltage indicators allows recording of action potentials and subthreshold activity with either one- or two-photon microscopy over extended periods of time.

The hippocampus is a central memory hub and exhibits prominent theta oscillations. Here the authors show that oscillations are visible in behavior when decisions depend on memory, paralleled by theta phase synchronization in hippocampal recordings.

A study establishes a scalable approach to engineer and characterize a many-body-localized discrete time crystal phase on a superconducting quantum processor.

A simple behavioral task identifies two qualitatively different groups within the general population, according to their speech-to-speech synchronization abilities. Group pertinence predicts brain function and anatomy, as well as word-learning performance.

Quantum computing is a promising technology to solve complex challenges that would take classical computers an impractical amount of time. This Perspective discusses the current state of quantum computing and possible applications in enzyme engineering and biocatalysis.

Seismic reflection imaging beneath the northeastern Yellowstone caldera reveals a sharp boundary at about 3.8 km depth, which is inferred to result from a mixture of supercritical fluid and magma filling the pore space.

It was recently predicted that, in addition to well-known spinon excitations, a 1D spin-trimer chain with periodic exchange couplings hosts novel composite excitations. Bera et al. experimentally demonstrate and characterize such excitations, termed doublons and quartons, in a spin-trimer compound Na₂Cu₃Ge₄O₁₂.

The authors mapped the dendritic morphology of thousands of striatal D1-type and D2-type medium spiny neurons in healthy and Huntington’s disease mouse brains, revealing dendritic modules with distinct neuronal shapes, spatial distributions and cortical inputs.

Hong et al. show that activation of the medial prefrontal cortex induces REM sleep via its projections to the lateral hypothalamus, thus demonstrating a critical role of the cortex in the regulation of REM sleep.

A class of quantum neural networks is presented that outperforms comparable classical feedforward networks. They achieve a higher capacity in terms of effective dimension and at the same time train faster, suggesting a quantum advantage.

Wu, Zhang and colleagues introduce ‘compare and contrast spatial transcriptomics’ (CoCo-ST), a graph contrastive learning-based method for spatial transcriptomics analysis that detects low-variance structures.

Ultraviolet photoacoustic microscopy in reflection mode can be used to intraoperatively evaluate undecalcified and decalcified thick bone specimens without sectioning them.

As part of the modENCODE initiative, which aims to characterize functional DNA elements in D. melanogaster and C. elegans, this study presents a genome-wide chromatin landscape of the fruitfly, based on 18 histone modifications. Nine prevalent chromatin states are described. Integrating these analyses with other data types reveals individual characteristics of different genomic elements. The work provides a resource of unprecedented scale for future experimental investigations.

Whether maximizing rewards and minimizing punishments rely on distinct brain learning systems remains debated. Here, using intracerebral recordings in humans, the authors provide evidence for brain regions differentially engaged in signaling reward and punishment prediction errors that prescribe repetition versus avoidance of past choices.

Simulating ultrafast quantum dissipation in molecular excited states is a strongly demanding computational task. Here, the authors combine tensor network simulation, entanglement renormalisation and machine learning to simulate linear vibronic models, and test the method by analysing singlet fission dynamics.

Millennial-scale climate oscillations can arise from orbital forcing alone during relatively stable glacial climate states, according to an analysis of high- and low-latitude climate proxy records as well as climate modelling.

Electric fields can be used to manipulate molecular spin qubits, but the mechanisms underlying spin-electric coupling are not well understood. Here, the authors investigate the influence of hyperfine coupling between electron and nuclear spins on the mechanism of spin-electric coupling in a 4f molecular qudit.

Magnetic skyrmions are topological spin textures, most notably occurring in magnetic materials. So far, the skyrmions that have been reported correspond to topological textures of magnetic dipole moments. Zhang et al show theoretically that quantum effects can lead to a distinct type of skyrmion that combines dipolar and quadrupolar moments, proposing a variety of materials, including magnets and quantum paramagnets, where such textures can be stabilized.

We have developed FastKAST, a highly-scalable algorithm to identify non-linear genetic effects on complex traits in large datasets. Applied to 300K UK Biobank individuals, we successfully detected significant non-linear effects across 53 traits.

Assaneo et al. show that speech production timing can facilitate perception. Individuals differed in whether they utilized motor timing depending on the auditory–motor cortex connection strength.

Camacho et al. show that emotion concepts are represented throughout the brain, giving insight to how the brain perceives real-world emotions. These patterns are present before children enter school and become more standardized across adolescence.

Rabi dynamics between the ground state and an excited state in helium atoms are generated using femtosecond extreme-ultraviolet pulses from a seeded free-electron laser, which may allow ultrafast manipulation of coherent processes at short wavelengths.

Active locomotion requires closed-loop sensorimotor co ordination between perception and action. Here the authors show using behavioural, imaging and modelling approaches that gaze orientation during phototaxis behaviour in larval zebrafish is related to oscillatory dynamics of a neuronal population in the hindbrain.

Deep convolutional neural networks (DCNNs) are able to identify faces on par with humans. Here, the authors record neuronal activity from higher visual areas in humans and show that face-selective responses in the brain show similarity to those in the intermediate layers of the DCNN.

Spin models appear in several fields of physics and beyond, but solving many of them is a task for which no general efficient classical algorithm is known to exist. Here the authors demonstrate how a variety of spin glass models can be implemented and solved, via quantum simulation, in a system of trapped ions.

Excited state dynamics of alloyed quantum dots differ from that of binary quantum dots. Here, the authors use femtosecond spectroscopy and theoretical calculations to show that alloying tunes relaxation dynamics separately from traditional optical properties of quantum dots.

Experiments have shown that coupling ensembles of molecules to a cavity mode can modify chemical reactions, though theoretical studies have struggled to model the complexity of this many-body system. Here, matrix product states are used to study the reaction-relevant many-body quantum dynamics, revealing the importance of disorder on entanglement build-up.