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Connexin proteins found in white perch fish were used to engineer synthetic electrical synapses, enabling precision circuit editing in mammals.

There is an unmet medical need for the detection and treatment of early adenomas to prevent their progression to malignant disease. Here the authors show that orally administered E. coli Nissle 1917 can selectively colonize adenomas in mouse models and in patients as a detection tool, as well as deliver immunotherapeutics for colorectal neoplasia treatment.

Indoor photovoltaics can meet the power demands of the rapidly increasing number of Internet-of-Things devices and reduce the reliance on batteries. This Review describes materials best suited for indoor photovoltaics, and analyses potential routes to scalability and sustainability.

This study shows that in anxiety, circulating LPA16:0 produced by platelets inhibits adult hippocampal neurogenesis, resulting in increased susceptibility to stress and depression. These results support LPA16:0 as a potential therapeutic target for mood disorders.

Peptide secondary metabolites have a diverse range of functions. Here the authors present a method to design and screen a large library of modified peptides in E. coli against a target of interest.

In daily life, light exposure influences cognitive performance in 58 UK adults: brighter, more stable days are linked to better vigilance, memory, and visual search, while recent bright light reduces sleepiness and reaction times.

A preclinical covalent compound, CMX410, contains a aryl fluorosulfate warhead that targets the acyltransferase domain of Mtb Pks13, an essential enzyme in cell-wall biosynthesis, making it a promising candidate for tuberculosis treatment regimens.

The sterile alpha and TIR motif containing 1 (SARM1) is a crucial enzyme in axonal degeneration, making it a potential target for treating nervous system diseases. Here, the authors identify and optimize base-exchange inhibitors (BEXi) targeting SARM1, revealing their limitations and highlighting the complexity of SARM1 as a therapeutic target.

Current media for neuronal cell and organoid cultures are suboptimal for functional imaging and optogenetics experiments, owing to phototoxicity and unphysiological performance. Here the authors formulate an optimised neuronal medium to support live cell imaging and electrophysiological activity.

Mast cells are shown to function as sensor cells linking antigen recognition in type 2 immunity to antigen-specific avoidance behaviour, preventing immune activation and inflammation.

Secretory autophagy (SA) plays a crucial role in neuroinflammation-driven neurodegeneration, through SKA2 and FKBP5. SKA2 regulation of SA can inhibit IL-1β release. Its dysfunction leads to neurodegeneration, and is linked to Alzheimer’s disease.

Teichoic acid is bound to peptidoglycan (wall teichoic acid, WTA) or to membrane glycolipids (lipoteichoic acid, LTA) in most Gram-positive bacteria. Here, the authors identify a putative ligase required for the assembly of LTA, but not WTA, and important for Streptococcus pneumoniae virulence in mouse models.

A dandelion-inspired wireless solar-powered sensing device weighing 30 milligrams that transmits data through radio backscatter achieves dispersal over a wide area by travelling on the breeze, and successfully lands upright.

In this CRISPR-based feedback control system, sgRNA expression is triggered by the burden of protein overexpression, and the sgRNA directs repression of the exogenous gene promoter to reduce burdensome expression and restore growth of the cell.

Diabetes complications are attributed to reactive by-products of glycolysis, but cells consuming lactate and pyruvate are not spared. Here, the authors show that the reactive dicarbonyl dimethylglyoxal is formed from pyruvate, rises in diabetes, and potentially causes neurological complications of diabetes.

The advantage of living in cities compared with rural areas with respect to height and BMI in children and adolescents has generally become smaller globally from 1990 to 2020, except in sub-Saharan Africa.

Studies in mice show that observational fear learning is encoded by neurons in the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex in a manner that is distinct from the encoding of fear learned by direct experience.

Aversive and rewarding social experiences are linked to conspecific identity through converging dorsal raphe 5-HT and paraventricular nucleus of the thalamus neurotensin signals in the vCA1 that instruct opposing valence, representing a synaptic switch for flexible social valence computation.

Stress on land is dynamic, entailing swift and drastic changes. Integrated time-course stress and co-expression analysis predict a gene regulatory network that retraces a web of ancient signal convergences shared by land plants and their algal sisters.

In this Review, Grapsa and colleagues provide an overview of the imaging modalities used in the diagnosis and management of tricuspid regurgitation, describe the valve repair and replacement strategies undergoing clinical testing, and highlight the technological innovations that aim to optimize diagnosis, patient selection and the device development process.

Whether and how highly penetrant NDD (neurodevelopmental disorder) genes such as Syngap1 regulate sensorimotor integration are not fully understood. This study shows that Syngap1 expression in cortical projection neurons promotes cognitive abilities in mice through forming distributed networks that integrate sensory information with motor signals, a dynamic process required for perception and attention.

SARS-CoV-2 persists in the brainstem long after the initial infection has passed. Infected animals exhibit symptoms of anxiety, depression, and memory impairment as well as changes in the brain that can be related to neurodegenerative processes.

Clusters of gold atoms protected with achiral thiolates can display chirality, and such chiral nanoparticles could open new possibilities in catalysis and sensing. Here, the first separation of the enantiomers of a gold cluster, protected by achiral thiolates, Au₃₈(SCH₂CH₂Ph)₂₄, is achieved.

The gut microbiota may contribute to depression, but the underlying mechanism is not well understood. Here the authors use a mouse model of stress induced depression to demonstrate that behavioural changes conferred by fecal transplant from stressed to naïve mice require the endocannabinoid system.

Federated learning (FL) algorithms have emerged as a promising solution to train models for healthcare imaging across institutions while preserving privacy. Here, the authors describe the Federated Tumor Segmentation (FeTS) challenge for the decentralised benchmarking of FL algorithms and evaluation of Healthcare AI algorithm generalizability in real-world cancer imaging datasets.

Gehrlach et al. show how the posterior insular cortex processes and modulates diverse internally and externally generated aversive states, and they dissect the functional contribution of segregated projections mediating inhibition of ongoing behaviors.

Single domain antibodies block tau entry into neurons, a key step in tau propagation in the brain in Alzheimer’s disease. They prevent tau from binding to surface receptors by competition. The most effective, VHH H3-2, has a unique binding mode to tau.

The authors demonstrate that, in a mouse model of heroin use disorder, co-administration of morphine and suvorexant prevented both morphine-induced anatomical changes in hypocretin neurons and morphine anticipation and reduced morphine withdrawal behavior but spared analgesia, suggesting applications for reducing opioid addiction potential in humans.

β-cell dysfunction in type 2 diabetes is associated with pathological aggregates of IAPP that accumulate in pancreatic islets. Here, the authors describe a novel antibody cloned from healthy elderly donors that selectively targets IAPP oligomers and protects from IAPP toxicity.

The dietary factors causing varying intergenerational responses are not fully identified. Here, the authors show that the relative proportion of protein, fats, and carbohydrates in paternal diets before conception differentially influences the phenotype of the next-generation offspring on energy metabolism and behaviour.

A pangenome of oat, assembled from 33 wild and domesticated oat lines, sheds light on the evolution and genetic diversity of this cereal crop and will aid genomics-assisted breeding to improve productivity and sustainability.