Action Potential

The use of human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) in research is of course highly controversial, raising ethical questions that for many people amount to serious dilemmas. In our April editorial we didn't address the moral questions at all, but criticized recent efforts to discredit hESC research.

We've received two letters chiding us for the editorial. Though we can't publish these letters in Nature Neuroscience, we are happy to discuss the matter on Action Potential. We invite the authors of the two letters to join us on the blog, and everyone else of course is also welcome to chip in.

Here are the links to the editorial, and the two pieces we discussed as examples for the new trick of spinning stem cell science against stem cell science. All are available for free:

Nature Neuroscience April 2007 editorial

Maureen L. Condic, "What We Know About Embryonic Stem Cells", First Things, January 2007

The White House Domestic Policy Council, "Advancing Stem Cell Science Without Destroying Human Life", January 2007

Posted by Annette Markus at 05:34 PM on April 26, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (25) | TrackBacks (2)
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PKC-1 regulates secretion of neuropeptides

The atypical protein kinase C PKC-1 is required for exocytosis of dense-core neuropeptide vesicles in worm motoneurons, but it is not involved in synaptic neurotransmitter vesicle exocytosis.

Posted by Annette Markus at 03:24 PM on December 03, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
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Dyslexia and the failure to form a perceptual anchor

Reading appears to be primarily a visual task, but it has been proposed that children suffering from dyslexia may actually have in impairment in auditory processing. This study reports that a set of learning-disabled and dyslexic children had trouble with certain sound discrimination tasks, supporting the idea that the root of dyslexia could lie in auditory cognition.

Posted by Annette Markus at 03:05 PM on December 03, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)
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Propagating waves mediate information transfer in the motor cortex

The authors here trained macaques to reach for a target upon command, then recorded field potential oscillations from their premotor and motor cortices. Just before the monkey made its reaching motion, the cue triggered beta waves whose phase and amplitude correlated with reaching direction.

Posted by Annette Markus at 02:53 PM on December 03, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
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Simple fall-off pattern of correlated neural activity in the developing lateral geniculate nucleus

Multielectrode recordings from the lateral geniculate nucleus of movie-watching young ferrets reveal an activity pattern that does not agree with theoretical predictions.

Posted by Annette Markus at 02:46 PM on December 03, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
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Dynorphin A activates bradykinin receptors to maintain neuropathic pain

Opioids usually alleviate pain by acting at opiate receptors, but this study now reports that the opioid dynorphin A can also activate bradykinin receptors, thereby contributing to neuropathic pain.

Posted by Annette Markus at 02:42 PM on December 03, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)
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Cannabinoids reveal importance of spike timing coordination in hippocampal function

In vivo multi-unit recordings from rats reveal that cannabinoids desynchronize hippocampal neuron assemblies without affecting the average firing rate. The loss of synchrony correlates with cannabinoid-induced memory deficits in a hippocampus-dependent task.

This paper received quite some coverage in the popular press. Even the free rag metro NY (distributed on the subway here) covered it, with the fabulous headline "Baked neurons behind marijuana memory loss".

(Thanks to Jan Theunissen from Nature Biotechnology for alerting me to the metro article.)

Posted by Annette Markus at 02:40 PM on December 03, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
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BACE1 modulates myelination in the central and peripheral nervous system

The proteinase BACE1 is part of the mechanism that releases the toxic amyloid Abeta fragment from APP, but its 'real' function has been enigmatic. This study reports that myelination is impaired in BACE1 null mice, and suggests that the myelination signal neuregulin-1 is a BACE1 substrate.

Posted by Annette Markus at 02:30 PM on December 03, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
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The P2Y12 receptor regulates microglial activation by extracellular nucleotides

This study identifies in mice a metabotropic ATP/ADP receptor that is essential for the activation of microglia in response to injury to the cortex .

Posted by Annette Markus at 09:00 PM on November 30, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
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In vivo time-lapse imaging shows dynamic oligodendrocyte progenitor behavior during zebrafish development

Watch oligodendrocyte precursors migrate through the zebrafish embryonic spinal cord, and orderly align themselves along the axons they are going to myelinate. Amazing videos.

Posted by Annette Markus at 08:50 PM on November 30, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
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A diacylglycerol kinase modulates long-term thermotactic behavioral plasticity in C. elegans

Worms can be 'taught' to prefer different temperatures. Here the authors report that worms lacking the kinase DGK-3 are very slow temperature learners. As DGK-3 is a crucial enzyme in the degradation of the signaling mediator DAG, authors hypothesize that DAG levels in thermosensory neurons determine worms' temperature preferences, and confirm this idea experimentally.

Posted by Annette Markus at 08:29 PM on November 30, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
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Hierarchical assembly of presynaptic components in defined C. elegans synapses

Dazzling worm genetics draws a signaling cascade that controls construction of the presynaptic specialization. It is triggered by the transient interaction of cell adhesion molecules SYG-1 and SYG-2, and coordinated by liprin-alpha as the master builder.

Posted by Annette Markus at 08:19 PM on November 30, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
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SYD-2 Liprin-alpha organizes presynaptic active zone formation through ELKS

These authors use elegant worm genetics to unravel the link between liprin-alpha, which is crucial for the integrity of the presynaptic active zone, and the synaptic vesicle docking machinery.

Posted by Annette Markus at 08:09 PM on November 30, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
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A neuregulin 1 variant associated with abnormal cortical function and psychotic symptoms

Variants in the NRG1 gene may confer an elevated risk for schizophrenia. The authors here have followed for up to 10 years a group of young people from families affected by schizophrenia. They found that one particular SNP in the NRG1 gene promotor region, substituting a T for a C nucleotide, correlates with low IQ and high risk for the disease.

Posted by Annette Markus at 07:57 PM on November 30, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)
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Cochlear efferent feedback balances interaural sensitivity

Sound location requires that the brainstem compare the very slim difference in input from the two ears. This study suggests that feedback from the olivary complex to the auditory nerve is required to keep the signals from both cochleas in balance, enabling this comparison. One of our referees called this paper "one of the most interesting manuscripts I have ever reviewed."

Posted by Annette Markus at 07:46 PM on November 30, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
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Cortical feed-forward networks for binding different streams of sensory information

In a technical tour de force, the authors find specific connections between layer2/3 and layer 5 'subnetworks' in the rat somatosensory cortex.

Posted by Annette Markus at 07:38 PM on November 30, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
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fruitless regulates aggression and dominance in Drosophila

Splicing of a transcription factor determines whether a fruit fly prefers to get rid of its rival by boxing, or by head-butting! Watch some hilarious videos of highly confused flies here, and let us know what you think about the paper.

Posted by Annette Markus at 07:29 PM on November 30, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
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Of course I forgot to put up last week's papers during the maelstrom that is SfN -- sorry. Here they are. Published online on 15 October:

Hahn et al., Phase-locking of hippocampal interneurons' membrane potential to neocortical up-down states
Hansen et al., Memory modulates color appearance
Garriga-Canut et al., 2-Deoxy-D-glucose reduces epilepsy progression by NRSF-CtBP–dependent metabolic regulation of chromatin structure
Rust et al., How MT cells analyze the motion of visual patterns
Veruki et al., Activation of a presynaptic glutamate transporter regulates synaptic transmission through electrical signaling

And here is this week's set of papers, published online on 22 October:

Chen et al., Optimal decoding of correlated neural population responses in the primate visual cortex
Ma et al., Bayesian inference with probabilistic population codes
Özdinler & Macklis, IGF-I specifically enhances axon outgrowth of corticospinal motor neurons

Enjoy, and feel free to comment if any of the papers inspire you to. Next week and through the end of the year I'll follow a suggestion from our executive editor Linda Miller and give each new paper its own blog entry, in an attempt to make the blog more attractive as a feedback forum.

I still owe y'all a few notes on the last two days of SfN. Yes, I did venture into the faraway QQ section! More about that, and other impressions -- tomorrow...

Posted by Annette Markus at 11:04 PM on October 23, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)
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Some interesting sessions yesterday. First, the panel discussion on the future of scientific publishing that Sandra already described (below). I was impressed with several of the panelists, particularly Heather Joseph from a consortium of academic libraries dubbed SPARC. She made numerous valuable points. Access barriers are not the only problem users of scientific information face these days. There is also the explosion of biomedical literature, leading to colossal information overload for everyone. So SPARC encourages the development of better semantic search and indexing applications, to allow users to get a grip on what's even out there. More polemically but in the same vein, Michael Keller from Highwire Press said that he'd be thrilled if the number of scientific publications could be reduced by half - as 50% of papers never get cited even once!

Heather Joseph also mentioned science blogs as a new medium that's changing science communication, and she wasn't talking about the popular ones such as The Loom or Pharyngula, but about specialized ones that serve as informal hallway discussions or minisymposia. (I'll look into those some other time, and put a few links on the blog if I can find any.) An audience member suggested a blog-like format for readers to provide feedback on published articles. Well, that's exactly the idea that prompted us to start Action Potential almost a year ago! It's not working too well, though (yet??)... (A short internet walkabout reveals that the 'audience member' was blogging grad student Jake Young, whose take on the SfN meeting you can read here!) Michael Keller mentioned that the British Medical Journal had run an article feedback option a while ago but stopped it for lack of actual feedback. And Gary Westbrook announced that the Journal for Neuroscience has just launched eLetters for exactly the same purpose! W'ell be getting there some day; to the ongoing exchange of neuroscience ideas over the internet that is... (Annette the optimist speaking!)

Then Donald Kennedy, chief editor of Science and overall grand old man in the field, declared that he avoids blogs like the plague. Oh my! But apparently Dr. Kennedy relishes setting himself up for target practice -- he also said that the Open Access movement should stop claiming the moral high ground, and that Science magazine was open access 'for all practical purposes'. I cannot hold a candle to Dr. Kennedy, but I do respectfully disagree. Nature and Nature Neuroscience are easily available to anyone associated with a big research institution, but they are not open access by any means. Neither is Science.

I also want to mention a lady from the University of South Carolina who told the panel and audience about an undergraduate science journal she advises. I apologize for not getting her name, and I hope to walk by her poster "in the QQ section where nobody goes" some time before this meeting is over... In any case, she alerted everyone to the fact that notions such as copyright are entirely alien to the current undergrads, and that should get publishers thinking indeed. Those undergrads will be our customers, i.e. scientists, in due course.

Apart from the publishing session, I enjoyed conversations about the latest blows in the ongoing "does-kiss-and-run-exocytosis-even-exist" debate, and about the non-reproducibility of computational neuroscience papers. That one (from Yale's Ted Carnevale) floored me completely - models are mathematics, after all! How can they not be reproducible? Carnevale explained that essential code pieces are missing from most computational papers, and that the journals should insist on having these code modules deposited in a publicly accessible database such as his ModelDB. We'll think about it for sure. Any other computational neuroscientists want to chime in?

Cori Bargmann wins my crown for best lecture of the day, for her fine exposition of behavioral circuits in C. elegans.

And again I was disappointed in my efforts to get a half-decent dinner (shoeleather-dry hamburger at the sports bar across from the convention center...), and after spending some time at a late evening stem cell 'data blitz' I gave up on trying to find the MIT party as it was raining miserably. Really, Atlanta as a conference venue isn't winning any points with me.

Posted by Annette Markus at 01:40 PM on October 17, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
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The first full day of SfN. My favorite lecture was Wilfried Denk's, about applications of non-linear optics. The idea of mice carrying miniaturized fiber-optical two-photon scopes on their little heads is not totally new, but still awesome. He also mentioned 'second harmonic imaging', which can deliver information about orderly molecular arrays and membrane voltage in living cells. Finally he reported on efforts to automate EM imaging of serial sections and the subsequent threedimensional reconstruction - a project that if successful (in the sense of yielding a widely applicable methodology) could make the lives of many grad students a lot easier.

Other lectures today felt less inspiring as they stuck closely to published material. What really got me miffed though was the difficulty of procuring a decent lunch in downtown Atlanta. Few options made for verrrrry long lines. The area is also an amazingly ugly concrete jumble. Folks, I'm so nostalgic for New Orleans! Plenty of good food there!! Hopefully the town will come back, in spite of all the bad news (discouragingly, the papers recently reported that New Orleans' population now is about 40% of pre-Katrina times...)

Fun nighttime socials made up for some daytime scientific disappointment. Nature Publishing threw a very classy party at the Sundial Restaurant, slowly rotating high above downtown. I was astonished to hear Morgan Sheng, Moses Chao and Bartlett Mel all speak (some) German! Very good, guys, keep it up :-)

I'm not supplying any links tonight (it's gotten late with all the partying!) but I may add some later once I get a chance to google for second harmonics... I shall see y'all at the Nature booth tomorrow afternoon!

Posted by Annette Markus at 01:02 AM on October 16, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
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I flew in this morning and thought I would easily make it to Frank Gehry's talk at noon, but this being my first time in Atlanta it took me a while to find my hotel, so I missed it. Bummer. Do write in and let me know what he spoke about. I assume he was less controversial than last year's "Neuroscience and Society Dialogues" speaker :-)

I poked my head into the symposium on the ongoing efforts to cure Parkinson's with dopaminergic neurons derived from ES cells (progress is being made, though as usual the goal seems to recede as we approach it), and learned about synaptic scaling from Gina Turrigiano's polished presentation. Michael Sendtner however made my day when he told me that Bavarian politicians were impressed by our recent editorial on a new competitive university funding scheme in Germany (in our June issue). Bavarian politicians are a notoriously crusty bunch, very hard to impress. This scary guy is the prototype of homo politicus bavariensis - the Munich airport is named after him...

Posted by Annette Markus at 05:44 PM on October 14, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
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The big SfN neuroscience bash is coming up fast, starting this Saturday. We are sending quite a big delegation, including our chief editor Sandra Aamodt, my colleague Josh McDermott and myself, plus John Spiro and I-han Chou from Nature. You'll have a chance to meet us at the Nature booth, #1832 in the Exhibitors' Hall, where we'll be holding court (ahem...) for about an hour each. Tentatively, you can shake hands with Sandra on Sunday afternoon from 3:30 to 4:30, and yell at me on Monday from 2 to 3 p.m. Times may change. Current info and other editors' booth hours will be posted on a chalkboard at the booth. Our marketing colleagues tell me they'll distribute free journal copies and other goodies at the booth, and they've also put up a special SfN 2006 webpage to give you easy access to the most recent neuroscience coverage by Nature Publishing.

This blog should see some real action as my colleagues have solemnly promised to post their impressions daily! So check back often. If you think I should come by your poster or slide talk, please post a comment with your abstract and abstract number. I look forward to meeting y'all (and to hearing those wonderful Southern accents again!)

Posted by Annette Markus at 10:20 AM on October 12, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
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Nozaki et al., Limited transfer of learning between unimanual and bimanual skills within the same limb
Schenk, An allocentric rather than perceptual deficit in patient D.F.
Amitay et al., Discrimination learning induced by training with identical stimuli
Hafed & Krauzlis, Ongoing eye movements constrain visual perception
Pasalar et al., Force field effects on cerebellar Purkinje cell discharge with implications for internal models

Enjoy.

Posted by Annette Markus at 10:15 AM on October 10, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
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You might be interested in this Associated Press piece on the NYT website, on new web-based 'open peer review' journals . The article is apparently motivated by the imminent launch of PloS ONE. However, this blog and our colleagues at Free Association also get a brief mention at the very end of the piece, as "blog-like forums for researchers to post their thoughts on published articles."

Well, to make it easier for y'all to post your thoughts, I have just fixed all the newly obsolete links to our October issue papers. Comment away...

Posted by Annette Markus at 05:35 PM on October 02, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
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These went online yesterday, and will be printed in our November issue. Enjoy.

Fisher et al., Capacity for 5-HT1A–mediated autoregulation predicts amygdala reactivity

Filosa et al., Local potassium signaling couples neuronal activity to vasodilation in the brain

Witten et al., Dynamic shifts in the owl's auditory space map predict moving sound location

Posted by Annette Markus at 10:37 AM on October 02, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
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I can't tear myself away from that story on awakening PVS patients with a sleeping pill... Before I finally pack my bags for the night let me direct you to http://blog.bioethics.net/. These guys blogged about that story back in May, when it was really news. They are getting it wrong when calling PVS patients "people who are basically dead" (a weird mistake for professional bioethicists to make!), but their piece together with the comments it elicited is still worth reading. Certainly the short paper in Neurorehabilitation needs to be followed up with a large-scale study.

Posted by Annette Markus at 09:55 PM on September 29, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
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(This is a peripatetic blog entry, but bear with me. It gets neuroscientific eventually!)

"Eeek - it's Friday afternoon, and I haven't managed to put up a real blog entry yet this week!" Thus I dug myself out of the manuscript pile and thought about typing up something about Nature's open peer review trial. I had posted the links a couple of weeks ago, and last week I noticed they weren't working anymore, so maybe that experiment had now ended (it was supposed to run for three months starting in mid-June), and maybe, just maybe, the Nature folks had already posted some evaluation or conclusions. However, those links work tonight, and manuscripts are still up for commenting, so obviously it isn't over yet.

I clicked over to Timo Hannay's Nascent blog (always good for cutting edge news about my employers!) to see whether he had anything enlightening to say about the open peer review trial. He hadn't really (apart from this entry, blasting The Wall Street Journal and other outlets for having noticed the experiment only after more than two months, and getting it wrong, too...) Rummaging further around Nascent, I came across a link to ContentWise. ContentWise, as far as I can tell, is a blog by two publishing consultants who, again as far as I can tell, have no direct connection to Nature Publishing Group. But they are praising Nature.com as a *transcendent* website. TRANSCENDENT? Just what have these guys been smoking???

Now, I use Nature.com in the daily grind, so I might well be overlooking the diamond right under my nose. What exactly do ContentWise find so *transcendent* -- I just can't get over that word, folks! -- about Nature.com? Turns out they praise the various interactive web initiatives, Connotea, the Nature Protocols Network, and Dissect Medicine, an example of a "niche-specific article recommendations network."

Uh-huh. I work for this company and I have never heard so much as a whisper about Dissect Medicine.

So over I click to DM, and do some more rummaging. And there, finally, I find some neuroscience usable as blog fodder! Seems the idea behind DM is that users/readers are invited to post links to medicine-related news articles, and users can then vote for what they think are the most interesting articles, and those then rise to the top of the list, becoming literally "headlines."

(Somebody who knows anything about DM please correct me if I've got this all wrong.)

Astonishingly this recent story from The Guardian is not at the top. It reports that *seven years ago* a physician in South Africa discovered by pure serendipity that the drug zolpidem could wake up patients who've suffered in persistent vegetative states (PVS) for years. Zolpidem is sold as "Ambien" in my part of the world -- a common sleeping pill. These PVS patients are given an Ambien in the morning, and can function and communicate for several hours. Apparently it works day after day. The scientific report of these cases is here.

I am just floored at this fabulous news, and amazed that it has been so little publicized. (Maybe I am just sleepwalking...) The story is eerily reminiscent of Oliver Sacks' "Awakenings". I have no idea on what percentage of PVS patients this trick would work (and of course each patient is a unique case with unique lesions), nor does anyone understand how it works, but nevertheless. Anything that can help severely brain-damaged people is good news (unless it's a hoax - I hope not!!)

In the hopeful vein, DM also gave me this story about an antiinflammatory medication reversing liver cirrhosis, from the BBC. Not neuroscience, you say? Maybe, but liver cirrhosis is almost always caused by chronic alcohol abuse, and alcoholism like all addictions is to a large extent a malfunction of the brain. We deal with plenty of papers on addiction mechanisms at Nature Neuroscience! And on the blog we consider anything with even a tenuous link to neuroscience fair game.

Great stories indeed are listed in DM, but the top headline tonight is "Madrid Fashion Show Bans 5 Thin Models" !!

Somebody explain this to me, please.

And let's put an end to this embarrassment by casting our votes on Dissect Medicine for the Guardian story, "The 'miracle' treatment that's bringing the brain-damaged back to life".

Posted by Annette Markus at 09:40 PM on September 29, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)
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These two went live online yesterday, September 24th.

Ben Mamou et al., NMDA receptors are critical for unleashing consolidated auditory fear memories

Sereno & Huang, A human parietal face area contains aligned head-centered visual and tactile maps

Enjoy.

Posted by Annette Markus at 03:32 PM on September 25, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
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All these papers will be printed in our upcoming October issue.

Published online September 17:

Smith et al., Kinase activity of mutant LRRK2 mediates neuronal toxicity
Williams et al., Local caspase activity directs engulfment of dendrites during pruning
Kim et al., NGL family PSD-95–interacting adhesion molecules regulate excitatory synapse formation
Leung et al., Asymmetrical -actin mRNA translation in growth cones mediates attractive turning to netrin-1
Yao et al., An essential role for -actin mRNA localization and translation in Ca2+-dependent growth cone guidance
Wang et al., Functional alignment of feedback effects from visual cortex to thalamus

Published online September 10:

Cano et al., Brain state and contrast sensitivity in the awake visual thalamus
Ling & Carrasco, When sustained attention impairs perception
Borrell & Marin, Meninges control tangential migration of hem-derived Cajal-Retzius cells via CXCL12/CXCR4 signaling
Farrow et al., Nonlinear, binocular interactions underlying flow field selectivity of a motion-sensitive neuron
Paz et al., Emotional enhancement of memory via amygdala-driven facilitation of rhinal interactions
Wu et al., Soluble adenylyl cyclase is required for netrin-1 signaling in nerve growth cones

Published online September 3:

Robles & Gomez, Focal adhesion kinase signaling at sites of integrin-mediated adhesion controls axon pathfinding

Published online August 27:

Custer et al., Bergmann glia expression of polyglutamine-expanded ataxin-7 produces neurodegeneration by impairing glutamate transport

Next, I'll be putting up the links to the papers we published over the summer. These will be posted with fake dates to fit their publication months, so readers of the blog will have an easier time finding them. Thanks for your understanding.

Posted by Annette Markus at 12:42 PM on September 21, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
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I couldn't make much sense of the term "neuro-economics" until I bumped into Ernst Fehr at the FENS Forum this past July. This week The New Yorker features a fine piece on the subject, and they're even making it available online for free.

Posted by Annette Markus at 11:53 PM on September 14, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)
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As you all have noticed, this blog has taken a rather prolonged 'summer break'. Reasons are many. I apologize for the long silence. We are now relaunching 'Action Potential'. Welcome back.

In case anyone is still subscribing to the RSS feed, let me warn you that I will over the next few days upload the links to all the fine papers we published in the past six months. This is necessary because the prime motivation for this blog was and is to offer a way for our readers to comment on our papers. This catch-up will make for a series of not-so-exciting blog entries...

But before I embark on this chore, here are a few bits of neuroscience and publishing news that caught my eye this spring and summer:

March: Columbia University receives a $200 million gift from an alumnus' estate to build a new neuroscience center. Coming from Europe, I continue to be amazed at the fundraising prowess of American universties, and the philanthropic generosity. And I'm a wee bit worried that some fancy new buildings may stand half-empty as NIH funding contracts...

April: PLoS Biology drops the double-blind peer review option. Click here and scroll all the way down. But WHY did they stop it?

June: Nature starts an experiment with online *open* peer review. Select manuscripts that were submitted to Nature are made available for public comment here, while at the same time undergoing conventional confidential peer review. The experiment is ongoing, and is accompanied by a web discussion.

July: The European "FENS Forum" attracts over 5000 neuroscientists to Vienna. Great science and some fine entertainment. The sulky horse race of neuroscience societies presidents was unique fun. If I remember correctly, Maja Bresjanac of the Slovenian Neuroscience Association won. I'd wagered my money on the Russian, who came in ninth... The same night, Italy beat France in the soccer/football world cup on penalty shootouts. Two Nature Neuroscience papers were featured in a special "Late Breaking News" session: the identification of oncomodulin as a regeneration factor for optic nerve fibers by Yin et al., and the description of a new neuron population in the very early human fetus by Bystron et al.

August: UCLA neurobiologist Dario Ringach quits his life's work on visual processing in macaques after months of harrassment and terror by "animal rights" groups. Inside Higher Ed has a good writeup of this sad story here.

That's it for today - stay tuned...

Posted by Annette Markus at 04:24 PM on September 11, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
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For your commenting pleasure. All links are to abstracts. Posted on September 21, 2006.

Volynski et al., Presynaptic fluctuations and release-independent depression

Kozorovitskiy et al., Fatherhood affects dendritic spines and vasopressin V1a receptors in the primate prefrontal cortex

Thompson et al., Representation of interaural time delay in the human auditory midbrain

Cappello et al., The Rho-GTPase cdc42 regulates neural progenitor fate at the apical surface

Singh et al., C-terminal modulator controls Ca2+-dependent gating of Cav1.4 L-type Ca2+ channels

Knott et al., Spine growth precedes synapse formation in the adult neocortex in vivo

Komai et al., Postsynaptic excitability is necessary for strengthening of cortical sensory responses during experience-dependent development

Heurteaux et al., Deletion of the background potassium channel TREK-1 results in a depression-resistant phenotype

Yu et al., Reduced sodium current in GABAergic interneurons in a mouse model of severe myoclonic epilepsy in infancy

Armstead et al., Neutralizing the neurotoxic effects of exogenous and endogenous tPA

Womelsdorf et al., Dynamic shifts of visual receptive fields in cortical area MT by spatial attention

Rudebeck et al., Separate neural pathways process different decision costs

Huber et al., Arm immobilization causes cortical plastic changes and locally decreases sleep slow wave activity

Grill-Spector et al., High-resolution imaging reveals highly selective nonface clusters in the fusiform face area

Neri et al., Meaningful interactions can enhance visual discrimination of human agents

Posted by Annette Markus at 03:40 PM on September 01, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
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For your commenting pleasure. All links are to abstracts. Posted on September 21, 2006.

Sosa et al., IGF-1 receptor is essential for the establishment of hippocampal neuronal polarity

Williams et al., UNC5A promotes neuronal apoptosis during spinal cord development independent of netrin-1

Göpfert et al., Specification of auditory sensitivity by Drosophila TRP channels

Goel et al., Cross-modal regulation of synaptic AMPA receptors in primary sensory cortices by visual experience

Moriceau & Sullivan, Maternal presence serves as a switch between learning fear and attraction in infancy

Somerville et al., Anterior cingulate cortex responds differentially to expectancy violation and social rejection

Yano et al., BDNF-mediated neurotransmission relies upon a myosin VI motor complex

Wienisch & Klingauf, Vesicular proteins exocytosed and subsequently retrieved by compensatory endocytosis are nonidentical

Shaban et al., Generalization of amygdala LTP and conditioned fear in the absence of presynaptic inhibition

Ferris et al., G(o) signaling is required for Drosophila associative learning

Meredith et al., BK calcium-activated potassium channels regulate circadian behavioral rhythms and pacemaker output

Nader et al., PET imaging of dopamine D2 receptors during chronic cocaine self-administration in monkeys

Morris et al., Midbrain dopamine neurons encode decisions for future action

Gil-da-Costa et al., Species-specific calls activate homologs of Broca's and Wernicke's areas in the macaque

Ipata et al., LIP responses to a popout stimulus are reduced if it is overtly ignored

Posted by Annette Markus at 03:10 PM on August 01, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
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For your commenting pleasure. All links are to abstracts. Posted on September 21, 2006.

Martin et al., Cocaine self-administration selectively abolishes LTD in the core of the nucleus accumbens

Chhatwal et al., Amygdala BDNF signaling is required for consolidation but not encoding of extinction

Vul & MacLeod, Contingent aftereffects distinguish conscious and preconscious color processing

Miyazaki et al., Bayesian calibration of simultaneity in tactile temporal order judgment

Falck-Ytter et al., Infants predict other people's action goals

Bystron et al., The first neurons of the human cerebral cortex

Rao et al., AMPA receptors regulate transcription of the plasticity-related immediate-early gene Arc

Shakiryanova et al., Activity-dependent synaptic capture of transiting peptidergic vesicles

Kim et al., Role of hypothalamic Foxo1 in the regulation of food intake and energy homeostasis

Morfini et al., JNK mediates pathogenic effects of polyglutamine-expanded androgen receptor on fast axonal transport

Cardona et al., Control of microglial neurotoxicity by the fractalkine receptor

Stuphorn & Schall, Executive control of countermanding saccades by the supplementary eye field

Noreña et al., Spectrally enhanced acoustic environment disrupts frequency representation in cat auditory cortex

Kennerley et al., Optimal decision making and the anterior cingulate cortex

Maimon & Assad, A cognitive signal for the proactive timing of action in macaque LIP

Lo & Wang, Cortico–basal ganglia circuit mechanism for a decision threshold in reaction time tasks

Vandenbulcke et al., Knowledge of visual attributes in the right hemisphere

Weissman et al., The neural bases of momentary lapses in attention

Posted by Annette Markus at 02:55 PM on July 01, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
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For your commenting pleasure. All links are to abstracts. Posted on September 21, 2006.

Meshi et al., Hippocampal neurogenesis is not required for behavioral effects of environmental enrichment

Doi et al., Impaired light masking in dopamine D2 receptor–null mice

Kleim et al., BDNF val66met polymorphism is associated with modified experience-dependent plasticity in human motor cortex

Jordan et al., Adaptation of gender derived from biological motion

Mevorach et al., Opposite biases in salience-based selection for the left and right posterior parietal cortex

Shen et al., The timing of cortical neurogenesis is encoded within lineages of individual progenitor cells

Anggono et al., Syndapin I is the phosphorylation-regulated dynamin I partner in synaptic vesicle endocytosis

Shintani et al., Eph receptors are negatively controlled by protein tyrosine phosphatase receptor type O

Mizuguchi et al., Ascl1 and Gsh1/2 control inhibitory and excitatory cell fate in spinal sensory interneurons

Koizumi et al., Doublecortin maintains bipolar shape and nuclear translocation during migration in the adult forebrain

Müller-Smith et al., Midline radial glia translocation and corpus callosum formation require FGF signaling

Soler-Llavina & Sabatini, Synapse-specific plasticity and compartmentalized signaling in cerebellar stellate cells

Glickfeld & Scanziani, Distinct timing in the activity of cannabinoid-sensitive and cannabinoid-insensitive basket cells

Wang et al., Astrocytic Ca2+ signaling evoked by sensory stimulation in vivo

Yanai et al., Palmitoylation of huntingtin by HIP14is essential for its trafficking and function

Ding et al., RGS4-dependent attenuation of M4 autoreceptor function in striatal cholinergic interneurons following dopamine depletion

Yin et al., Oncomodulin is a macrophage-derived signal for axon regeneration in retinal ganglion cells

Posted by Annette Markus at 02:39 PM on June 01, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
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For your commenting pleasure. All links are to abstracts. Posted on September 21, 2006.

Sandoval et al., A genetic interaction between the vesicular acetylcholine transporter VAChT/UNC-17 and synaptobrevin/SNB-1 in C. elegans

Plant et al., Transient incorporation of native GluR2-lacking AMPA receptors during hippocampal long-term potentiation

Pu et al., BDNF-dependent synaptic sensitization in midbrain dopamine neurons after cocaine withdrawal

Crochet & Petersen, Correlating whisker behavior with membrane potential in barrel cortex of awake mice

Pérez-Otaño et al., Endocytosis and synaptic removal of NR3A-containing NMDA receptors by PACSIN1/syndapin1

Yudowski et al., Distinct modes of regulated receptor insertion to the somatodendritic plasma membrane

Xu et al., Oregano, thyme and clove-derived flavors and skin sensitizers activate specific TRP channels

Bellone & Lüscher, Cocaine triggered AMPA receptor redistribution is reversed in vivo by mGluR-dependent long-term depression

Hartman et al., Activity-dependent regulation of inhibitory synaptic transmission in hippocampal neurons

Majdan & Shatz, Effects of visual experience on activity-dependent gene regulation in cortex

Tropea et al., Gene expression changes and molecular pathways mediating activity-dependent plasticity in visual cortex

Li & DeVries, Bipolar cell pathways for color and luminance vision in a dichromatic mammalian retina

Li et al., The development of direction selectivity in ferret visual cortex requires early visual experience

Hanks et al., Microstimulation of macaque area LIP affects decision-making in a motion discrimination task

Jazayeri & Movshon, Optimal representation of sensory information by neural populations

Yazdanbakhsh & Livingstone, End stopping in V1 is sensitive to contrast

Lai & Lee, Genetic mosaic with dual binary transcriptional systems in Drosophila

Posted by Annette Markus at 02:25 PM on May 01, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
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For your commenting pleasure. All links are to abstracts. Posted on September 21, 2006.

Dong et al., CREB modulates excitability of nucleus accumbens neurons

Fonseca et al., Neuronal activity determines the protein synthesis dependence of long-term potentiation

Lamprecht et al., Fear conditioning drives profilin into amygdala dendritic spines

Kerr & Belluscio, Olfactory experience accelerates glomerular refinement in the mammalian olfactory bulb

Spudich et al., Inhibition of multidrug resistance transporter-1 facilitates neuroprotective therapies after focal cerebral ischemia

Otten et al., Brain activity before an event predicts later recollection

Bandell et al., High-throughput random mutagenesis screen reveals TRPM8 residues specifically required for activation by menthol

Skeberdis et al., Protein kinase A regulates calcium permeability of NMDA receptors

Adler et al., UNC-6/Netrin induces neuronal asymmetry and defines the site of axon formation

Tsankova et al., Sustained hippocampal chromatin regulation in a mouse model of depression and antidepressant action

Stranahan et al., Social isolation delays the positive effects of running on adult neurogenesis

Wang et al., Heterogeneity in the pyramidal network of the medial prefrontal cortex

Andermann & Moore, A somatotopic map of vibrissa motion direction within a barrel column

Priebe & Ferster, Mechanisms underlying cross-orientation suppression in cat visual cortex

Williams & Eskandar, Selective enhancement of associative learning by microstimulation of the anterior caudate

Shmuel et al., Negative functional MRI response correlates with decreases in neuronal activity in monkey visual area V1

Stocker & Simoncelli, Noise characteristics and prior expectations in human visual speed perception

Posted by Annette Markus at 02:10 PM on April 01, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
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Kerr et al., Olfactory experience accelerates glomerular refinement in the mammalian olfactory bulb
Lamprecht et al., Fear conditioning drives profilin into amygdala dendritic spines
Andermann et al., A somatotopic map of vibrissa motion direction within a barrel column
Shmuel et al., Negative functional MRI response correlates with decreases in neuronal activity in monkey visual area V1
Stocker & Simoncelli, Noise characteristics and prior expectations in human visual speed perception
Wang et al., Heterogeneity in the pyramidal network of the medial prefrontal cortex

Posted by Annette Markus at 09:09 AM on March 20, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (1)
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Fonseca et al., Neuronal activity determines the protein synthesis dependence of long-term potentiation
Skeberdis et al., Protein kinase A regulates calcium permeability of NMDA receptors
Stranahan et al., Social isolation delays the positive effects of running on adult neurogenesis

Posted by Annette Markus at 09:06 AM on March 20, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
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Otten et al., Brain activity before an event predicts later recollection
Tsankova et al., Sustained hippocampal chromatin regulation in a mouse model of depression and antidepressant action
Williams & Eskandar, Selective enhancement of associative learning by microstimulation of the anterior caudate

Hope you like 'em.

Posted by Annette Markus at 10:49 AM on February 28, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)
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We've been looking for a while for a new colleague to work with us putting out your favorite neuroscience journal. Maybe you'd be interested? Or know someone who might be?? Let us know! Feel free to ask questions, too, if you're interested but not quite sure what the job entails. Here is our job ad (it closes this coming Sunday officially, but I'm sure we'll look at applications that come in a bit late...) :

Assistant Editor - Nature Neuroscience

Nature Neuroscience has a position available for an Assistant Editor. The journal publishes high-quality papers in all areas of neuroscience, including molecular, cellular, systems, cognitive and computational studies, and provides a highly visible forum for communicating important advances to a broad readership. For more information about the journal, see our website.

Applicants should have a PhD, a strong research background (preferably in cellular or systems neuroscience), broad interest in neuroscience, excellent literary skills, commitment to the communication of scientific ideas, and willingness and ability to learn new fields. Familiarity with online publishing would be an advantage. The successful candidate will participate in all aspects of the editorial process, including manuscript selection, commissioning and editing News and Views and Reviews, and writing for the journal. The job also involves attending meetings in the US and abroad to maintain contact with the international scientific community. The new editor will join our team in the Manhattan office of the larger publishing group that also produces Nature Genetics, Nature Medicine, Nature Biotechnology, Nature Structural and Molecular Biology, Nature Methods and Nature Immunology.

To apply, please submit a curriculum vitae, a short (500-1000 words) News and Views-style article on an exciting and newsworthy recent development in any area of neuroscience, and a cover letter explaining your interest in the position to Human Resources Department, Nature Publishing Group, email: admin@natureny.com.

Applications should arrive as soon as possible, and no later than February 26, 2006.

Posted by Annette Markus at 07:19 PM on February 22, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBacks (0)
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Carvalho et al., Silencing of EphA3 through a cis interaction with ephrinA5
Diano et al., Ghrelin controls hippocampal spine synapse density and memory performance
Gooley et al., The dorsomedial hypothalamic nucleus is critical for the expression of food-entrainable circadian rhythms
Ramírez-Castillejo et al., Pigment epithelium–derived factor is a niche signal for neural stem cell renewal
Lobo et al., FACS-array profiling of striatal projection neuron subtypes in juvenile and adult mouse brains

Posted by Annette Markus at 10:42 AM on February 20, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
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This witty riff (for German speakers only, I'm sorry!) on a News and Views we published in January left me chuckling for days. Oh lovely voles... sweet dopamine... No, I'm not going to attempt a translation. English speakers might instead enjoy some geeky-silly 'valine'tines with a biochemistry bent.

Posted by Annette Markus at 11:22 AM on February 14, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
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On 22 January, we published online the paper by Marmigère et al. about the transcription factor Runx1's role in specifying TrkA-positive nociceptive sensory neurons. Then the Feb. 2 issue of Neuron came out with two papers also describing the function of Runx1 in nociceptor development (Chen et al. and Kramer et al.). Neuron also ran a third paper, on Runx3, and interestingly, although the three Neuron papers come from three different groups at Harvard, Basel and Columbia, they all share two co-authors.

I guess I shouldn't be too surprised at the sudden avalanche of Runx1 papers. We've known for a while that the related Runx3 is crucial to the development of TrkC-positive proprioceptive sensory neurons (Levanon et al., Inoue et al., both published in 2002), so together with the known expression patterns of the Runx's, the idea that Runx1 would be 'responsible' for the nociceptive subpopulation wasn't very far-fetched; of course several groups would be looking into this. Nevertheless I'm amazed that the three groups managed to published their Runx1 work in top-level journals near-simultaneously.

There are some very interesting differences among the Runx1 papers' conclusions. Marmigère et al., using electroporation of wildtype and inhibitory Runx1 constructs, or siRNA, into developing chick embryos, found that Runx is necessary and sufficient for TrkA expression, and thus survival, of young nociceptors. Chen et al. made a conditional knockout of Runx1 and conclude that it is not required for TrkA expression or survival, but instead for the postnatal switch of many nociceptive neurons from TrkA to Ret expression (as well as other mature characteristics of these neurons).

Maybe these contradictory results can be explained by differences in timing of the experiments? Marmigère et al. electroporated at stage HH13, about 2.5 days old embryos, which is long before Runx expression sets in, while Chen et al. show loss of Runx1 at embryonic day 13.5, which is a bit later than its expression begins in mouse DRG. Or maybe one method is superior to the other, or maybe we're wrestling with species differences?

Posted by Annette Markus at 04:40 PM on February 13, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
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Zhu et al., Dendritic patterning by Dscam and synaptic partner matching in the Drosophila antennal lobe
Walter et al., Decreases in the precision of Purkinje cell pacemaking cause cerebellar dysfunction and ataxia
Pun et al., Selective vulnerability and pruning of phasic motoneuron axons in motoneuron disease alleviated by CNTF
Lien et al., Visual stimuli–induced LTD of GABAergic synapses mediated by presynaptic NMDA receptors
Gütig & Sompolinsky, The tempotron: a neuron that learns spike timing–based decisions
Paton et al., Respiratory rhythm generation during gasping depends on persistent sodium current

Enjoy.

Posted by Annette Markus at 10:35 AM on February 13, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
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Alright, I admit these are a week old. Apologies...

Zheng et al., A transient network of intrinsically bursting starburst cells underlies the generation of retinal waves
Nitschke et al., Altering expectancy dampens neural response to aversive taste in primary taste cortex
Murray et al., The representation of perceived angular size in human primary visual cortex
Le Bras et al., VEGF-C is a trophic factor for neural progenitors in the vertebrate embryonic brain
Darcy et al., Constitutive sharing of recycling synaptic vesicles between presynaptic boutons

Comments welcome, as always.

Posted by Annette Markus at 10:18 AM on February 13, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
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Schulz et al., Variable channel expression in identified single and electrically coupled neurons in different animals

Posted by Annette Markus at 07:58 AM on February 02, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
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Jo et al., Experience-dependent modification of mechanisms of long-term depression
Averbeck et al., Activity in prefrontal cortex during dynamic selection of action sequences
Brankatschk & Dickson, Netrins guide Drosophila commissural axons at short range
Kraves & Weitz, A role for cardiotrophin-like cytokine in the circadian control of mammalian locomotor activity
Marmigère et al., The Runx1/AML1 transcription factor selectively regulates development and survival of TrkA nociceptive sensory neurons
Yasuda et al., Supersensitive Ras activation in dendrites and spines revealed by two-photon fluorescence lifetime imaging

Posted by Annette Markus at 10:42 AM on January 23, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)
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Tronson et al., Bidirectional behavioral plasticity of memory reconsolidation depends on amygdalar protein kinase A
Day et al., Selective elimination of glutamatergic synapses on striatopallidal neurons in Parkinson disease models
He et al., Molecular disruption of hypothalamic nutrient sensing induces obesity
Knöll et al., Serum response factor controls neuronal circuit assembly in the hippocampus
Zachariou et al., An essential role for deltaFosB in the nucleus accumbens in morphine action
Zhao et al., Role of p21-activated kinase pathway defects in the cognitive deficits of Alzheimer disease
Ziv et al., Immune cells contribute to the maintenance of neurogenesis and spatial learning abilities in adulthood

Posted by Annette Markus at 08:48 AM on January 16, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)
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For you fellow New Yorkers - this announcement of a neuro-theater festival just popped into my inbox. A month of plays and performances (plus seminars) focusing on neurological conditions and the brain. How cool is that?? I'm quite tempted by Tabula Rasa and Cincinnati...

Posted by Annette Markus at 05:50 PM on January 10, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)
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I'm just back from our company's annual briefing & pep rally, where our efforts at blogging, here and over at Free Association, were honorably mentioned. I had been entirely unaware, and was quite astonished to hear, that the top brass - NPG Managing Director Annette Thomas! - regularly read the blog including your comments via RSS feed. Jeez... my scare of the week!

Silliness aside, this is really a very very good thing. Our voices and yours are being heard. Your numerous comments on "DBPR" are making an impression. Who knows, there might be some movement on this issue. If there's any other burning issue you think we should be discussing here, send us an email. The email address is above, slightly camouflaged to discourage the spammers.

In our current issue, we've dedicated the editorial to introducing the blog to our wider readership, in yet another effort to increase participation. Our colleagues at Nature Cell Biology also mull the pros and cons of blogging in their current editorial. They seem reluctant about taking the plunge at this time, because they see us and Free Association having a slow start. I think they are correct in attributing this to scientists' general lack of time, information overload, and reluctance to get involved in public discussions. But of course any new publishing venture needs some initial investment followed by patient courting of the audience, and we remain optimistic that the neuroscience community will adopt Action Potential as a useful forum for feedback and discussion.

You may have noticed that we haven't put any new papers online this week. Enjoy the little breather - there'll be a lot of very fine papers coming over the next two Sundays.

Posted by Annette Markus at 01:43 PM on January 10, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)
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Just one new paper to ring in the New Year - however it is a special one insofar as it claims to decide once and for all a longstanding question in gender-specific brain development. Enjoy.

Bakker et al., Alpha-fetoprotein protects the developing female mouse brain from masculinization and defeminization by estrogens

A very happy 2006 to you all!

Posted by Annette Markus at 08:27 AM on January 02, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)
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Here's a question I've heard a few times: why don't we at NN, or any of the Nature journals, strip the author names off a manuscript before sending it out to peer review? This process, where not only the referees remain anonymous to the authors, but where also the authors might remain anonymous to the referees, is termed "double-blind peer review", and is practiced by some specialized biomedical journals. Recently, a group of young scientists published a plea to adopt "DBPR". A 1990 study published in JAMA concluded that DBPR improved the outcome of peer review; nevertheless JAMA itself has not adopted DBPR.

When confronted with the question, I tend to reply that DBPR simply wouldn't work for NN, because most reviewers would find it easy to guess the authors of a manuscript before them. After all, before you submit a paper to us, you have typically already presented a good part of the data to the community in the form of meeting posters, invited talks, etc. Also, authors tend to extensively cite their own previous work... My dialogue partners usually agree with these arguments, but still - DBPR would be easy to implement, so why not go ahead, even if it "worked" only some of the time?

Good question... I'd be very interested in hearing your opinions on this subject!

Posted by Annette Markus at 08:07 AM on December 28, 2005 | Permalink | Comments (17) | TrackBacks (0)
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Kessaris et al., Competing waves of oligodendrocytes in the forebrain and postnatal elimination of an embryonic lineage
Takano et al., Astrocyte-mediated control of cerebral blood flow
Wong et al., Retinoic acid receptor 2 promotes functional regeneration of sensory axons in the spinal cord

Comments welcome!

Posted by Annette Markus at 07:25 AM on December 28, 2005 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
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We normally publish new papers online every Sunday, but none have gone up this week. Like the interruption to the blog over the weekend, this is because of our office move. We were planning to get new papers up today, but now we're tripped up by the strike that's shuttered the New York City public transit system - we cannot even get to our new office!

Good thing this blog is about neuroscience... else I'd be talking at length about what I think of a strike that keeps an eight million metropolis hostage the week before Christmas and Hanukkah...

In any case, we'll get the new papers up as soon as we can. Sorry to keep you waiting.

Posted by Annette Markus at 09:51 AM on December 20, 2005 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
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I must admit I'm in "shock and awe" over the slow-motion implosion of the stem cell breakthroughs reported just months ago by Woo Suk Hwang's lab in South Korea, and their collaborators. At this point, it seems nobody really understands what exactly went wrong, and certainly nobody knows if any part of the group' s landmark May 2005 Science paper will stand.

First their ethics in procuring human egg cells came under scrutiny, precipitated by Pittsburgh co-author Gerald Schatten's very sudden and very public declaration in November to sever his collaboration with the Koreans. Personally, I wasn't too worried about these allegations, given that egg donors in the West are routinely paid to undergo the donation procedure for fertility clinic purposes. I remember well the regular ads in student papers that offered large sums of money for the eggs of those super SAT score high achievers...

But now the data reported in that paper are also under suspicion and, shockingly, the authors cannot produce the 11 cloned human stem cells lines they reported. A fungal contamination killed them, says Hwang, but some cell lines may yet be stored frozen, and could be used to verify their claims. We shall see... Hwang's collaborator (and co-author on the paper!) Sung Il Roh has in television interviews (!!) alleged last week that data for the landmark Science paper were fabricated and possibly no cloned stem cell lines were ever derived from patients.

Both Science and Nature have put up timelines on their websites (here and here), where anyone interested can try to untangle the mess for themselves.

The most reasonable voice last week came from a group surrounding Dolly-the-sheep creator Ian Wilmut, who in a letter to Science offer to analyze the Hwang group's cell lines as a means of independent verification. Of course, at this point it is not clear whether there are any cell lines left for them to analyze! Hwang and Schatten have asked Science to retract the paper, but still need to collect signatures from all their 25 or so co-authors...

The fallout of this disaster, for stem cell research and its public support, will be huge - not only in Korea.

Posted by Annette Markus at 09:26 PM on December 19, 2005 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
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Due to servers moving to a new building, "Action Potential" will be unavailable from Friday afternoon through Sunday evening Eastern Time, December 16th through 18th. We'll be back on Monday. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Posted by Annette Markus at 06:44 PM on December 14, 2005 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
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Fox et al., Coherent spontaneous activity accounts for trial-to-trial variability in human evoked brain responses

Tanaka, Inactivation of the central thalamus delays self-timed saccades

Bermingham et al., The claw paw mutation reveals a role for Lgi4 in peripheral nerve development

Duff et al., Development of shared information in communication despite hippocampal amnesia

Hiramoto & Hiromi, ROBO directs axon crossing of segmental boundaries by suppressing responsiveness to relocalized Netrin

Liu et al., CaM kinase II phosphorylation of slo Thr107 regulates activity and ethanol responses of BK channels

Morgan et al., Axons and dendrites originate from neuroepithelial-like processes of retinal bipolar cells

Comments welcome.

Posted by Annette Markus at 10:30 AM on December 12, 2005 | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBacks (0)
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Imagine the scent of freshly baked rolls while browsing through these new NN papers... ;-)
As always, comments are welcome!

Dapretto et al., Understanding emotions in others: mirror neuron dysfunction in children with autism spectrum disorders

Aragona et al., Nucleus accumbens dopamine differentially mediates the formation and maintenance of monogamous pair bonds

Hofer et al., Prior experience enhances plasticity in adult visual cortex

Sharif Naeini et al., An N-terminal variant of Trpv1 channel is required for osmosensory transduction

Posted by Annette Markus at 11:38 AM on December 05, 2005 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
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I've now lived in the U.S. of A. for seven years, but had never been north of the border. So I enthusiastically accepted the invitation of the Canadian Stem Cell Network to give a talk on scientific publishing to their trainees (i.e. grad students and postdocs), last Tuesday at their Annual General Meeting in Calgary. The Weather Channel website predicted moderate temperatures around 50oF, but I just couldn't believe it and bundled up in my warmest winter coat. Of course those weathermen were right, and I looked pretty silly in puffy down at 15oC/60oF. Several friendly locals, including the breakfast omelette chef, explained that the balmy temperatures were due to the "chinook" winds blowing from the west across the Rockies. Apparently midwinter chinooks can heat Calgary from deep freeze to balmy in a day, and they last for a few days, too. Lucky Calgarians! Still, I remain awed at the early peoples and pioneers who settled in a prairie where winter temperatures routinely drop to -30oC/-20oF (or so they tell me...)

I'm going way off-topic here...

The Stem Cell Network folks wanted me to explain how to get published in the Nature brand journals. Really, the answer is pretty simple - just tackle a very interesting question, and do fabulous work on it coming to novel and convincing conclusions. Easy, no? So how am I supposed to talk about this for 45 minutes??

Thank goodness, when people like the SCN ask this question, what they really want to know is what happens to their paper once they surrender it to our claws. Do we actually read it ? (YES!) Why don't we peer review all papers? Who are these fearsome anonymous referees, and why do they have to be anonymous anyways? What proportion of submitted papers ends up getting published? Is there any recourse in case of unfair rejections? And so on and so forth - no problem filling that hour. It also gave me a chance to wave the flag for "Action Potential" as our new feedback & discussion forum.

The audience came up with several good questions. The one that stuck with me was about the difficulty in getting negative results published. It can indeed be challenging. Negative results can seem inherently "boring", even if important. And when a negative result contradicts a previously published positive result, it may face a tough battle in review. The best we editors can do is enlist fair reviewers who don't have a personal stake in the controversy, but they may still give the challengers a hard time. The stem cell field certainly has its share of entrenched controversies - for example, is there such a thing as "transdifferentiation" (such as from bone marrow stem cell to neuron)? Or, do adult neural "stem cells" really exist in vivo, or are they an artifact of in vitro culture? The definition of stem-cell-ness is based on in vitro criteria, and sorely overdue for an update. Lots of material here for blogging - chime in!

Posted by Annette Markus at 06:10 PM on November 29, 2005 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (1)
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Online since Sunday, November 27th:

Lorenzetti et al., Classical and operant conditioning differentially modify the intrinsic properties of an identified neuron

Voss et al., Sensorimotor attenuation by central motor command signals in the absence of movement

Altier et al., ORL1 receptor–mediated internalization of N-type calcium channels

Aoyama et al., Neuronal glutathione deficiency and age-dependent neurodegeneration in the EAAC1 deficient mouse

Online since November 20th, and printed in the December issue:

Jarsky et al., Conditional dendritic spike propagation following distal synaptic activation of hippocampal CA1 pyramidal neurons

Arumugam et al., NMDA receptors regulate developmental gap junction uncoupling via CREB signaling

Laurent et al., The prolactin-releasing peptide antagonizes the opioid system through its receptor GPR10

Liss et al., K-ATP channels promote the differential degeneration of dopaminergic midbrain neurons

Wang et al., Prior experience of rotation is not required for recognizing objects seen from different angles

Posted by Annette Markus at 06:04 PM on November 28, 2005 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
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... to everyone for the thundering silence on "Action Potential" last week. I was out of town, no internet connection at hand, and had neglected to corral any of my colleagues into blogging duties. Sorry! I spent half the week in Calgary at a stem cell conference, which I'll blog a little about later. First, let me get the new NN advance online publication papers up here. Thanks for hanging in there...

Posted by Annette Markus at 05:25 PM on November 28, 2005 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
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Two links of interest:

Nature journalist Jim Giles keeps a running diary of SfN here.

The Society for Neuroscience in a press release issued yesterday highlights four posters and slide presentations about meditation research. Guess they like to fan the flames a bit ;-)

Posted by Annette Markus at 02:14 PM on November 14, 2005 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
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Our chief editor Sandra Aamodt left me a phone message here in the office on Saturday, reporting from the scene in the Convention Center before the DL lecture. Seems she narrowly avoided being squeezed to death by the crowd! Did she manage to get into the hall and hear the talk? Stay tuned...

Also on Saturday, the New York Times ran an op-ed piece by the DL, titled "Our Faith in Science". The link ought to work until Friday Nov 18, but let me excerpt what I think are the main points anyways:

"... the ancient version of cosmology I had been taught... held that the moon was a heavenly body that emitted its own light. But through my telescope the moon was clearly just a barren rock, pocked with craters. If the author of that fourth-century treatise were writing today, I'm sure he would write the chapter on cosmology differently. If science proves some belief of Buddhism wrong, then Buddhism will have to change."

Quite a contrast to the scriptural literalism we hear from so many Christian groups, creationists in particular! Next comes a short discussion of collaborations between Tibetan Buddhist monks and neuroscientists. Richard Davidson's work, as well as studies under way in the labs of Jonathan Cohen and Margaret Kemeny are briefly mentioned. The point is that science and Buddhism can enrich each other - science sets Buddhism straight on cosmology, and may be able some day to explain the neurological mechanisms at work during successful meditation. Buddhism (indeed all religion) can enrich science by contributing an ethical perspective:

"... we must find a way to bring ethical considerations to bear upon the direction of scientific development, especially in the life sciences. By invoking fundamental ethical principles, I am not advocating a fusion of religious ethics and scientific inquiry. Rather, I am speaking of what I call "secular ethics," which embrace the principles we share as human beings: compassion, tolerance, consideration of others, the responsible use of knowledge and power. These principles transcend the barriers between religious believers and non-believers; they belong not to one faith, but to all faiths. ..."

"... It is all too evident that our moral thinking simply has not been able to keep pace with the speed of scientific advancement. Yet the ramifications of this progress are such that it is no longer adequate to say that the choice of what to do with this knowledge should be left in the hands of individuals. This is a point I intend to make when I speak at the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience today in Washington. I will suggest that how science relates to wider humanity is no longer of academic interest alone. This question must assume a sense of urgency for all those who are concerned about the fate of human existence."

So far, so good. In fact, there are a good number of serious-minded bioethics efforts under way. In the context of stem cell research and cloning, bioethics also gets a lot of public attention. See the fine American Journal of Bioethics blog for the scoop on all things bioethics. Now what does the DL recommend from the Tibetan Buddhist perspective? Nothing specific in the entire piece, unfortunately! He ends with this sentence:

"Scientists should be more than merely technically adept; they should be mindful of their own motivation and the larger goal of what they do: the betterment of humanity."

Okay... clearly the DL appreciates science and scientific progress. But if, as he suggests, "secular ethics" could take care of the ethical quandaries thrown up by scientific advances, do we need the science/religion dialogue at all?

Posted by Annette Markus at 11:29 AM on November 14, 2005 | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)
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Here's this week's batch - enjoy! As always, comments are welcome.

Lee at al., "NMDA receptor–independent long-term depression correlates with successful aging in rats"
Kao et al., "Neural correlates of actual and predicted memory formation"
Mante et al., "Independence of luminance and contrast in natural scenes and in the early visual system"
Toyofuku et al., "FARP2 triggers signals for Sema3A-mediated axonal repulsion"

Posted by Annette Markus at 10:36 AM on November 14, 2005 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
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Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a heterogeneous disease that affects primarily young adults and often leads to serious disability. We don't know what causes it, and we cannot cure it. This summer, in our July issue, we editorialized about the tragic crash-and-burn of the promising MS drug natalizumab (marketed as Tysabri(R)). In a nutshell - after passing preliminary clinical trials with flying colors, and being approved by the FDA in an accelerated procedure, natalizumab had to be pulled after just three months because a few patients came down with PML, a devastating, crippling or deadly, infection of brain oligodendrocytes. PML is caused by the JC virus, which most of us get exposed to at some point, without it ever doing any noticable harm. How exactly natalizumab would activate the somnolent JCV is unknown, in large part because we don't know enough about its life cycle and physiology. PML is extremely rare, and mice can't catch it - two facts that unfortunately tend to discourage research.

In response to our editorial, Richard Ransohoff from the Cleveland Clinic wrote us a letter putting forward an interesting hypothesis about the natalizumab - PML link. We had his letter peer-reviewed, and we published it in our October issue. Here's a summary of the idea:

Natalizumab works by interfering with a specific adhesion molecule that the myelin-attacking T cells in MS need to migrate into the brain. The same molecule also functions in cell adhesion in the bone marrow, where blood and immune cells are generated. It is known that natalizumab, as a side effect, leads to release of immature blood cells into the circulation. It has also been suggested that the specific genetic rearrangement that activates dormant JCV occurs in the bone marrow. Therefore natalizumab could lead to release of large numbers of JCV-infected immature cells in JCV carriers, overwhelming the immunosurveillance mechanisms that usually keep JCV in check.

Although we know that about 80% of the population have been exposed to JCV and carry antibodies to it, it is completely unknown how many carry dormant virus that could be activated. And there is no easy reliable test to find out.

Ransohoff's letter has triggered a small flurry of follow-up letters, with authors suggesting their own ideas, or variants on the Ransohoff hypothesis. Now, we can't really publish everyone's favorite thoughts on the subject in the printed pages of the journal - first, not all of them are as original as Ransohoff's, and second - it would never end! The journal is really meant for hard data; we publish hypotheses very, very rarely.

But this discussion itself is very much worth having. If there's any chance at salvaging natalizumab - apparently the most effective treatment for MS that's ever been available - and the entire class of drugs it represents, it will emerge from frank discussion among the experts. So why not have the discussion here, on our blog, on "Action Potential"? We'd be proud and happy to host your "virtual meeting".

Posted by Annette Markus at 09:28 AM on November 11, 2005 | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)
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Seems as though our audience is coming out of the woodwork! Thank you mccm, Gabriel and Thomas for your good wishes, and for leaving email addresses and even website URLs. mccm runs a blog called The Genius, where she/he recently discussed a paper on memory mechanisms published in Nature about a year ago. Gabriel directs us to an upcoming symposium at NYU about imitation behaviors from octopus to man. Very distinguished panelists! Thomas runs BrainEthics, where he welcomes us to the blogosphere with so much enthusiasm that he makes me blush! Thomas, I hope "Action Potential" can live up to your high expectations.

Posted by Annette Markus at 08:40 PM on November 10, 2005 | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)
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Yours truly won't be coming to the big neuroscience bash in DC. Boo-hooo!!! The program sounds fabulous. My Nature Neuroscience and Nature colleagues will be giving a talk on how to get published with us, on Monday, Nov 14, at 6:30 pm. We're also going to distribute flyers publicizing this blog, so I hope for lots of new blog participants once everybody is back home with their jet lags slept off.

"Left behind" as I am, I'd love to hear from you conventioneers on this blog. Please leave a comment about whatever you found particularly inspiring, exciting, controversial, ..., at the meeting. I may put those up front as blog entries, and you might spawn some interesting discussions. Also, I'm itching to hear whether the Dalai Lama will give a sensible talk, or whether he'll spout nonsense about brain imaging proving Buddhist "compassion", as Northwestern U.'s Yi Rao fears (read his opinion, and an opposing one, here.)

Have a great trip everyone!

Posted by Annette Markus at 11:51 AM on November 09, 2005 | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)
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We publish all accepted papers online in the weeks before the print issue comes out. The following papers went online this past Sunday November 6th - a bumper crop.

Dean et al., "Neural population coding of sound level adapts to stimulus statistics"
Egner & Hirsch, "Cognitive control mechanisms resolve conflict through cortical amplification of task-relevant information"
Tavazoie et al., "Regulation of neuronal morphology and function by the tumor suppressors Tsc1 and Tsc2"
Lafuente & Romo, "Neuronal correlates of subjective sensory experience"
Daw et al., "Uncertainty-based competition between prefrontal and dorsolateral striatal systems for behavioral control"

The floor is open for discussion!

Posted by Annette Markus at 11:26 AM on November 09, 2005 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
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While typing up the preceding post about our search for a new colleague, it occured to me that "systems neuroscience" sounds a bit foggy - or doesn't it? Here's a definition, cribbed from the MIT Department for Brain and Cognitive Sciences:

"Systems neuroscience follows the pathways of information flow within the central nervous system, attempts to define the kinds of processing occurring there, and uses this information to help explain behavioral functions. Investigators work to understand sensory and perceptual systems and motor control, and how expectations and motivational states influence these basic processes."

Would you agree? Or do you use a different definition?

Posted by Annette Markus at 04:08 PM on November 07, 2005 | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)
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Come work with us! We're a fun team doing a challenging and very interesting job that involves plenty of scientific discussion, travel to meetings, and now even blogging. One of our colleagues is leaving, and we're looking for someone to step into her shoes. If you are a "systems" neuroscientist with broad scientific curiosity, please take a look at our job ad, and send us an application. Informal enquiries are most welcome, too, to actionpotential@natureny.com.

Posted by Annette Markus at 03:17 PM on November 07, 2005 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
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We have great hopes for "Action Potential". But it's also an experiment, which may fail. If you've ever participated in an online discussion forum you have probably seen that they can be ruined by "spam" and "trolls". Here are our ground rules (these may change with time):

1. Anything neuroscience, or affecting neuroscience, is fair game. But we will not discuss football leagues, supreme court nominees, or the Tibet question. Grossly off-topic comments will be deleted.

2. We want to strongly encourage you to use your real name, and to provide your email address when commenting. Your name, but not your email address, will appear online with your post. It is possible to comment using an alias, BUT...

3. We will not tolerate any anonymous criticism, be it of us or others, papers in NN or elsewhere. Critical comments are very welcome, but you must sign with your real name and email address. There's a good chance we'll double-check with you via email before putting your strongly critical comment live online. Once more, participants' email addresses remain confidential; you do not need to fear a spam attack when commenting on "Action Potential".

Once again - welcome!!

Posted by Annette Markus at 02:24 PM on November 07, 2005 | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)
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- to our brand-new blog! We're starting this with some trepidation, but hope that we - and you - will soon be comfortable in this online medium. Why a Nature Neuroscience blog? Don't we have enough on our plate already? Trust me, we do...

However, putting together a monthly journal and meeting our readers and authors at conferences, we gradually realized that we ought to offer some sort of simple, easy, low-threshold feedback and dialogue mechanism for our audience. "Action Potential" is going to be it. We'll be posting links to new NN papers as they go online, so you have a chance to comment on them easily. We'll try to stir up discussion about our editorials. We'll offer links to material published elsewhere that we find interesting. We'll blog about exciting findings in neuroscience, science politics, developments in science publishing, etc, etc. Anything neuroscience may show up on the blog, and we'll always invite your comments. We look forward to hearing from you.

Posted by Annette Markus at 10:22 PM on November 06, 2005 | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)
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