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Transitive inference is demonstrated in fish populations by showing that they can learn the implied hierarchy among other unfamiliar fish by watching fights between rivals. Remarkably, fish can do this indirectly, as 'bystanders', without any reinforcement; they also make sophisticated use of contextual information available to them.

The amygdala, a brain region important for learning fearful memories, is thought to have a role in generalized anxiety, but the critical subregions and connections are unknown. This paper shows that optogenetic stimulation of basolateral amygdala (BLA) terminals in the central nucleus of the amygdala of rats with channelrhodopsin has an anxiolytic effect, whereas inhibition of the same projection with eNpHR3.0 increases anxiety related behaviours. These effects were not observed with direct optogenetic control of BLA somata themselves, indicating that selective activation of certain connections can have different effects.

Precision functional mapping shows that the frontostriatal salience network occupies nearly twice as much of the cortex in people with depression, and this was unaffected by mood changes and detected in children before onset of symptoms.

Here, the authors identify a frontostriatal circuit that is involved in regulating social interactions based on learned hierarchical relationships.

Buch et al. used machine learning to identify brain–behavior dimensions that define four robust ASD subtypes linked to distinct molecular pathways and that suggest personalized therapeutic targets for circuit-based neuromodulation and pharmacotherapy.

High-resolution imaging has traditionally required thin sectioning, a process that disrupts long-range connectivity in the case of brains: here, intact mouse brains and human brain samples have been made fully transparent and macromolecule permeable using a new method termed CLARITY, which allows for intact-tissue imaging as well as repeated antibody labelling and in situ hybridization of non-sectioned tissue.

Using functional MRI in a large multisite sample of more that 1,000 patients, four distinct neurophysiological biotypes of depression are defined. These biotypes are used to develop diagnostic classifiers that distinguish patients with depression from controls in separate multisite validation and replication cohorts, and can predict patient responsiveness to therapy.

The authors show that the ventrolateral aspect of the ventromedial hypothalamus (VMHvl), a region previously implicated in attack behavior, can also drive flexible aggression-seeking behavior. When male mice learn a task to seek out attack opportunities, activity in the VMHvl tracks and bidirectionally modulates the seeking behavior that leads to future attack.

Small, lightweight LED implants and a radio-frequency transducer as a power source enable wireless optogenetic stimulation in the brain, spinal cord and peripheral nervous system of behaving mice.

This paper describes a single-vector strategy for flexible intersectional expression of genetically encoded reporters and tools in precisely defined cell types in the mouse.

The authors describe the design of an optetrode, a device that allows for colocalized multi-tetrode electrophysiological recording and optical stimulation in freely moving mice.