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Madruga and colleagues present an open-source, miniature 2-photon microscope that can fit on a mouse’s head. Using this system, the authors perform high-resolution brain activity measurements in fine neuronal structures, which they can achieve even in conditions where the mouse is freely-moving within its cage.

Squeezed light field microscopy (SLIM) combines ideas from tomography and compressed sensing with light field microscopy to enable volumetric imaging at kilohertz rates, as demonstrated in blood flow imaging in zebrafish and voltage imaging in leeches and mice.

The dorsal peduncular area of the mouse brain functions as a network hub that integrates diverse cortical and thalamic inputs to regulate neuroendocrine and autonomic responses.

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.

Using voltage imaging, the authors show that interneurons in the hippocampus sharpen memory-encoding-activity by increasing the signal-to-noise ratio of pyramidal neuron sensory representations during working memory in mice.

How conflicting contingencies between stimulus and outcome can be resolved by attention are not fully understood. Here authors, combining computational model and experimental approaches, show that mouse anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) effectively operates on low-dimensional neuronal subspaces to combine stimulus-related information with internal cues to drive actions under conflict.

Sensory cortex has been primarily shown to represent environmental stimuli. Here, the authors find that the geometry of visual cortical activity permits the parallel representation of stimuli and task context in a format that prevents interference.

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.

In vivo calcium imaging at multiple depths simultaneously is shown using multifocal two-photon microscopy and spatiotemporal multiplexing. This technique involves scanning the sample with multiple beams in parallel at different axial planes and is applied to monitor neuronal network activity in multiple cortical layers of an anesthetized mouse.

Delay- and choice-related activities that are essential for working-memory performance drift during learning and stabilize only after several days of expert performance.

Sun and Jin et al. report that a population of neurons in the subiculum form a pathway for visual information to reach the hippocampus and impact place-specific activity. Activation of these neurons promotes the formation of object-location memories.

Using recurrent neural network (RNN) modelling, Zhou et al. suggest that the same pattern of neural activity may encode working memory and time.

The basolateral amygdala is implicated in several behavior-related states including anxiety, autism, and addiction. The authors apply circuit-level pathway tracing methods combined with computational techniques to provide a comprehensive connectivity atlas of the mouse basolateral amygdala complex.

One major challenge in neuroscience is to uncover how defined neural circuits in the brain encode, store, modify, and retrieve information. Meeting this challenge comprehensively requires tools capable of recording and manipulating the activity of intact neural networks in naturally behaving animals. Head-mounted miniature microscopes are emerging as a key tool to address this challenge. Here we discuss recent work leading to the miniaturization of neural imaging tools, the current state of the art in this field, and the importance and necessity of open-source options. We finish with a discussion on what the future may hold for miniature microscopy.

The authors use two-photon calcium imaging, EEG and electrophysiology to study ensemble neuronal activity in genetically altered mice that lack the Fmr1 protein: a model of Fragile X syndrome. Unanesthetized Fmr1^−/− mice showed high synchrony of neocortical network activity and higher firing rates during sleep.

What are the mechanisms that control gain in the cortex during distinct behavioral states? In this article, the authors record from cortical excitatory and inhibitory neurons from the visual cortex of mice running on a spherical treadmill and find that cholinergic and noradrenergic modulatory inputs play distinct roles in the dynamics of the membrane potential of these neurons during locomotion and immobility.

Two-photon scanning microscopy is inherently slow and thus limits volumetric calcium imaging. Prevedel et al. achieve increased volumetric imaging speed by tailoring the excitation volume via light sculpting.

In this manuscript, the authors use state-of-the-art imaging methods to report the discovery of novel forms of astrocyte calcium signaling in wild-type mice and in mutant mice previously thought to lack astrocyte calcium dynamics. The findings have important implications for experimental and theoretical studies of astrocyte functions in neural circuits.

A miniature light-field microscope in combination with a signal-extraction approach enables high-speed volumetric calcium imaging in freely moving mice.

This paper explores neural network and cellular complexity within human cortical and subcortical fusion organoids. The platform is used to model network dysfunction associated with Rett syndrome and to identify new therapeutic candidates.

A similar neural ensemble participates in the encoding of two distinct memories, resulting in the recall of one memory increasing the likelihood of recalling the other, but only if those memories occur very closely in time—within a day rather than across a week.