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 (24) | 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 (0) | 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