Research Highlights in 2023

A mark test of self-recognition in mice reveals that self-responding ventral CA1 neurons underlie mirror-induced self-directed behaviour and are shaped by social experience with conspecifics.

A small population of neurons in the mouse brainstem coordinate sound production and volume control during vocalizations.

A study in mice helps to resolve a debate surrounding striatal DA dynamics and reward benefit or cost and also reveals motivation and transient striatal DA release have a bidirectional causal relationship.

In mice, specific pools of adult neural stem cells are recruited during pregnancy to support postpartum maternal behaviour.

Ongoing systemic and neurocognitive impairments that continue in a subset of individuals after infection with SARS-CoV-2 infection are found to be associated with reduced serotonin levels.

In mice, localized mutant APP expression in the CA3 hippocampal region leads to progressive network dysfunction and hippocampus-dependent memory deficits.

A new biotinylation-based approach identifies previously unknown cell surface proteins of the axonal initial segment (AIS) and shows a role for contactin-1 in assembly of the AIS extracellular matrix.

The organization and diversity of neuronal and glial primary cilia and their connectivity in the human cortex is characterized in detail.

The macaque homologue of the dorsal medial prefrontal cortex tracks the reliability of social information and determines whether this information is used to guide choices during decision making.

Ketamine is ‘trapped’ in the pores of NMDA receptors in the lateral habenula, mediating sustained antidepressant effects in mice.

Grid cells develop in rats soon after they leave the nest. Here, Ulsaker-Janke et al. show that preventing exposure to straight boundaries from birth delays, but does not prevent, grid cell maturation in adult rats.

A new study shows that, in a numerical judgement task, individuals show differences in neuronal coding of numbers below and above approximately four in the medial temporal lobe.

Following synaptic vesicle exocytosis, synaptotagmin 1 recruits a lipid signalling pathway within the presynaptic plasma membrane that drives local dynamin recruitment and membrane retrieval by endocytosis, thus maintaining membrane homeostasis.

A study dissects the neural circuit through which pup cries induce oxytocin release and maternal behaviour in mice.

A study reports that in the mouse hippocampus, the induction of long-term potentiation is dependent on the structural functions of CaMKII and not its enzymatic activity.

A juvenile hormone-degrading enzyme localized in the insect equivalent of the blood–brain barrier governs which social role, forager or soldier, worker carpenter ants fulfil.

During retinal development in the mouse, angiogenesis was unexpectedly found to depend on temporally restricted dopamine production by retinal ganglion cells, rather than by canonical retinal dopamine neurons.

A study identified two different blood biomarker profiles in people hospitalized for COVID-19 that predicted later cognitive deficits.

Two papers report the development of high performance brain–computer interfaces that can decode speech from cortical activity.

Increasing levels of glial-derived neurotrophic factor using a gene-therapy approach in a macaque model of alcohol use disorder resulted in a lower tendency to relapse into alcohol consumption after a period of abstinence.