Search

Analysis of neuroimaging datasets across five major psychedelics revealed a shared brain signature and provides a comprehensive insight into how these drugs reorganize brain architecture.

Decreased brain volumes and increased NfL levels can be observed earlier than disease diagnosis in short-tandem-repeat-associated neurological diseases.

Paracrine signalling between tuft cells and enterochromaffin cells is a key mode of immune–sensory and gut–brain communication, and accounts for the pattern of gastrointestinal symptoms that occurs during parasite infections.

SeeDB-Live is a tissue-clearing approach for live samples such as tissue slices or the in vivo brain. It improves image quality while having minimal effects on electrophysiological properties of neurons.

This study mapped normative growth trajectories of 28 fetal brain phenotypes derived from 4,205 3D ultrasound scans collected across 7 international sites. The low variance between sites reinforces the principle that the brain develops similarly when environmental constraints are minimal.

How humans process competing information when making multi-alternative decisions remains unclear. Here, the authors show that the brain resolves the trade-off between “evaluating within” and “comparing across” alternatives by employing rhythmic attention.

Mouse models demonstrate that vagal sensory neurons transmit signals from lung adenocarcinoma to the brain, increasing sympathetic efferent activity in the tumour microenvironment and thereby creating a immunologically permissive environment for tumour growth.

Induction of hypothermia during hibernation/torpor enables certain mammals to survive under extreme conditions. Here, the authors show that the natural product P57 induces hypothermia by targeting pyridoxal kinase and has a potential application in therapeutic hypothermia.

The Human Development Multiomic Atlas catalogues single-cell accessibility and gene expression data from human fetal cells across 12 organs, enabling the inference of syntactic rules for motifs that govern cell-type-specific transcription factor binding and chromatin accessibility during human development.

In a study of four brain-dead human decedents, extracorporeal liver cross-circulation using genetically modified pig livers provides essential hepatic functions, supporting the feasibility of this approach for temporary liver support as a bridge to organ transplantation.

The transcription factor ATF4 is shown to regulate double-stranded DNA repair within vulnerable CUX2⁺ upper-layer 2/3 cortical neurons, enabling their survival during development.

Transcription factor osr2 is identified as a specific marker and regulator of mural lymphatic endothelial cell (muLEC) differentiation and maintenance, and muLECs and border-associated macrophages share functional analogies but are not homologous, providing an example of convergent evolution.

DNA damage burden and inadequate repair in CUX2⁺ cortical layer 2/3 excitatory neurons contributes to selective vulnerability in neuroinflammatory injury.

Verhaege et al. identify a conserved fibroblast barrier population at the base of the choroid plexus that compartmentalizes brain–CSF interfaces and is disrupted by inflammation, revealing a new site of central nervous system immune entry and barrier regulation.

Single-nucleus chromatin and RNA sequencing identifies epigenetic chromatin domains that confer vulnerability to paediatric brain tumours such as ependymomas, providing insight into the development of such tumours despite ‘quiet’ genomes.

During development of eutherian females, one of the X-chromosomes is silenced. Here, authors show that alleles on the inactive X-chromosome are dynamically expressed along neural differentiation enhancing resilience of female neural tissue.

MAU2’s role in Cornelia de Lange syndrome was unclear. Here, the authors identify pathogenic MAU2 variants that disrupt NIPBL–MAU2 function, define MAU2‑specific episignatures, and show variable CdLS‑related phenotypes, supported by a Mau2 knockout mouse model.

The excitatory neuron diversity and specialized connectivity of complex, multilayered mammalian neocortex are driven by mammalian-specific cis-regulatory elements bound by ZBTB18, deletion of which disrupts gene expression and results in projection patterns resembling those of non-mammalian brains.

Tissue stiffness mediated by Piezo1 is shown to regulate the expression of diffusive guidance cues in the developing Xenopus laevis brain, revealing a crosstalk between mechanical signals and long-range chemical signalling.

Androgen activity in the male embryonic hindbrain prolongs hindbrain differentiation in male individuals and drives sex differences in the incidence and prognosis of posterior fossa type A (PFA) ependymoma, an aggressive childhood brain tumour.

This study detects Chlamydia pneumoniae in human retina and brain, increasing with AD severity. Retinal pathogen load with Aβ₄₂ may predict AD stage. In models, infection drives Aβ deposition and NLRP3 activation, worsening pathology and cognition.

When 100 social and behavioural science claims were examined, 34% of reanalyses closely matched the original results, with 74% reaching the same conclusion, revealing limited robustness of single-path analyses and the need to address analytical uncertainty.

In this study, Agathos et al. examine alterations in thalamocortical network connectivity during cognitive restructuring of negative cognitions in individuals with post-traumatic stress disorder, using ultrahigh-field 7-T functional MRI and dynamic causal modeling.

Murthy and colleagues discussed recent research on the effect of a tucanitib–trastuzumab–capecitabine regimen in patients with HER2⁺ breast cancer and leptomeningeal metastasis.

Smith et al. present M-PACT, a deep neural network leveraging low-input cell-free DNA methylation profiles to achieve robust classification of pediatric brain tumors and enable cellular deconvolution and sensitive copy-number variation detection.

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

This study demonstrates that the extracellular matrix (ECM) of the developing brain stabilizes recently born synapses. The authors identify a microglial metalloprotease that digests the ECM to increase the plasticity of these newborn synapses.

Midbrain dopamine neurons play a key role in schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. The authors report that altered dopaminergic gene expression in schizophrenia preferentially affects sites with complex chromosomal organization linked to genetic risk.

Luppi et al. identify transcriptomic and connectomic controllers of information integration and its breakdown induced by anaesthesia in humans, macaques, marmosets and mice.

In a multicenter, randomized trial of patients with atrial fibrillation and a low risk of thromboembolic events, treatment with the anticoagulant rivaroxaban showed no benefit in reducing cognitive decline, stroke or transient ischemic attack when compared to placebo.

How the brain adapts its representations to prioritize task-relevant information remains unclear. Here, the authors show that both monkey brains and deep learning models stretch neural representations along goal-relevant dimensions, with spike timing playing a key role.

Extracellular vesicles carrying diverse molecules circulate the body. Here, the authors show that blood-borne vesicles containing specific miRNAs boost synaptic function and sociability in mice, revealing a non-canonical pathway for social behavior.

Dysregulation of H3K4 methylation is associated with neurodevelopmental disorders. Here, the authors perturb H3K4 methylation in the MGE and hypothalamus, resulting in altered gene expression and cell fate as well as changes in behavior that mimic NDD symptoms.

Annotating regulatory elements in domestic animal genomes is important to understand the mechanisms underlying gene regulation. Here, the authors use multi-omics data from sheep to map regulatory elements in the sheep genome.

Individual supratentorial ependymoma tumour subgroups have two distinct progenitor-like cell states—neuroepithelial-like and embryonic-like—that are reminiscent of early human brain development and diverge in the extent of their neuronal or ependymal differentiation.

GIANT, a genetically informed brain atlas, integrates genetic heritability with neuroanatomy. It shows strong neuroanatomical validity and surpasses traditional atlases in discovery power for brain imaging genomics.

Repurposing existing drugs to target new disease-associated genes is a promising strategy, but identifying these targets can be challenging. Here, the authors develop GenT, an approach that uses GWAS data to identify disease-associated druggable genes.

Recently published results from a Phase I trial showed the blood brain barrier could be transiently opened in glioblastoma patients using low-intensity ultrasound and microbubbles. Here, the authors develop a microfluidic chip to capture tumour-derived extracellular vesicles and particles in response to paclitaxel treatment.

Fear generalization allows learned threats to extend to similar stimuli, but the early sensory mechanisms involved are unclear. Here, authors show that fear conditioning reduces GABAB inhibition in the olfactory bulb scaled to odor similarity, and that bidirectional manipulation of this inhibition controls breadth of fear generalization.

Inhumans, acute stress may alter food-related signalling of the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis (BNST). Here, authors show that 7-Tesla fMRI reveals stress-related changes in BNST connectivity during food cue presentation and taste delivery.

Across 13 longitudinal studies (3,737 adults), the authors show that brain atrophy parallels memory loss, with a stronger coupling in later life. APOE ε4 increases decline, yet genetic risk does not modify the brain–memory relationship.

A consensus cell type atlas for the fly brain provides both an intellectual framework and open-source toolchains for brain-scale comparative connectomics.

Examining human brain organoids and ex vivo neonatal murine cortical slices demonstrates that structured neuronal sequences emerge independently of sensory input, highlighting the potential of brain organoids as a model for neuronal circuit assembly.

To study myelination in vitro, a hydrogel-based micropillar array is used to mimic the stiffness and diameter of axons, with variations in these properties allowing evaluation of their influence. The platform can also be used to assess the effects of putative remyelination drugs.

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.

Spatial transcriptomic studies and lineage tracing reveal that, after brain injury, transient profibrotic fibroblasts develop from existing brain fibroblasts, infiltrate lesions, regulate the local immune response and lead to beneficial scar tissue formation.

A combination of high-resolution spatial imaging, spatial proteomics and transcriptional data reveals sparse and heterogeneous bacterial signals in gliomas and brain metastases.

Genome-wide analysis coupled with long-read sequencing identifies a repeat expansion in GOLGA8A associated with high risk for atypical frontotemporal lobar degeneration with ubiquitin-positive inclusions.

A single-cell multiomic atlas of the human maternal–fetal interface across pregnancy reveals cell types, states and spatial niches, developmental tissue architectures and transcriptional programmes, and identifies cell types with roles in pre-eclampsia, spontaneous preterm birth and miscarriage.