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Multidisciplinary Sciences
Hui Ning, Gan Liu, Lei Li, Qiang Liu, Huiya Huang, Zhen Xie
Summary: The study presents a programmable platform called PROMITAR for miRNA-triggered translation upregulation and downregulation using a single RNA construct. The platform is capable of constructing logic gates and cell-type classifiers, and shows potential for targeted cancer cell killing.
NATURE COMMUNICATIONS
(2023)
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Multidisciplinary Sciences
Bin Yang, Tomomi Karigo, David J. Anderson
Summary: Mating and aggression are innate social behaviours controlled by subcortical circuits. The bed nucleus of the stria terminalis (BNSTpr) receives sex-specific olfactory cues from the medial amygdala and projects to hypothalamic nuclei that control mating and aggression. BNSTpr neurons shape sex- and behavior-specific neural representations in the hypothalamus, controlling the transition from appetitive to consummatory phases of male social behaviors.
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Multidisciplinary Sciences
Jordan P. Hamm, Yuriy Shymkiv, Shuting Han, Weijian Yang, Rafael Yuste
Summary: Neural processing of sensory information is strongly influenced by context, with stimulus-evoked responses being reduced or increased depending on contextual regularities. Deviance-augmented responses are limited to specific neurons in the supragranular layers of the visual cortex, forming a neuronal ensemble. Higher cortical areas modulate these context-selective ensembles in the primary sensory cortex, which play a crucial role in the brain's construction and selection of prediction errors.
PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
(2021)
Article
Neurosciences
Tyler J. Adkins, Taraz G. Lee
Summary: The study found that people perform actions more quickly and accurately when offered a large reward, which may enhance performance by improving neural representations of actions used in motor planning.
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Roberto Di Blasi, Mara Pisani, Fabiana Tedeschi, Masue M. Marbiah, Karen Polizzi, Simone Furini, Velia Siciliano, Francesca Ceroni
Summary: Resource competition can cause unintended coupling between co-expressed genetic constructs. In this study, the authors quantified the resource load of different mammalian genetic components, identifying construct designs with increased performance and reduced resource footprint. By generating improved synthetic circuits and optimizing the co-expression of transfected cassettes, this work sheds light on their usefulness in bioproduction and biotherapeutic applications.
NATURE COMMUNICATIONS
(2023)
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Devasena Thiagarajan, Franziska Eberl, Daniel Veit, Bill S. Hansson, Markus Knaden, Silke Sachse
Summary: Animals form sensory associations and store them as memories to guide behavioral decisions. In our study using Drosophila melanogaster, we found that bimodal training improved long-lasting olfactory memory but did not enhance short-term olfactory memory.
Article
Neurosciences
Thomas A. Stalnaker, Nishika Raheja, Geoffrey Schoenbaum
Summary: By studying neural activity in the orbitofrontal cortex, it was found that rats can accurately predict outcomes and adapt quickly to new states. The activity of neurons in the orbitofrontal cortex is closely related to state representations and has a strong representation ability for action-outcome contingencies.
JOURNAL OF NEUROSCIENCE
(2021)
Article
Neurosciences
Ramon Nogueira, Chris C. C. Rodgers, Randy M. M. Bruno, Stefano Fusi
Summary: Neurons encode non-linear functions of multiple task variables, but the somatosensory cortex of mice reflects a linear integration of whisker contacts. However, there is a structure in the representational geometry where different whisker contacts are represented as disentangled variables in approximately orthogonal subspaces. This geometry allows linear readouts to perform various tasks without compromising the ability to generalize.
NATURE NEUROSCIENCE
(2023)
Article
Neurosciences
Maryna Pilkiw, Justin Jarovi, Kaori Takehara-Nishiuchi
Summary: Memory retrieval relies on cortical memory reinstatement guided by pattern completion in the hippocampus. The lateral entorhinal cortex (LEC) plays a role in stabilizing cortical representations of learned stimulus associations.
JOURNAL OF NEUROSCIENCE
(2022)
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Ivan Voitov, Thomas D. Mrsic-Flogel
Summary: Working memory is an essential component of cognition, but the mechanisms by which neural populations represent and maintain working memory are still unclear. In this study using mice, researchers found that distributed areas of the neocortex were selectively involved in the maintenance of working memory during a visual task. They also discovered that working memory representations were embedded in high-dimensional population activity in visual area AM and premotor area M2, persisting throughout the inter-stimulus delay period.
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Lou Beaulieu-Laroche, Norma J. Brown, Marissa Hansen, Enrique H. S. Toloza, Jitendra Sharma, Ziv M. Williams, Matthew P. Frosch, Garth Rees Cosgrove, Sydney S. Cash, Mark T. Harnett
Summary: The size of neurons influences their input-output features, with different species showing conservative rules of adaptation and human neurons exhibiting atypical behavior in terms of potassium and HCN conductance.
Article
Biology
Nicolas Deperrois, Mihai A. Petrovici, Walter Senn, Jakob Jordan, Anna C. Schapiro
Summary: Dreams play a crucial role in learning semantic concepts, with their creative nature. Training the model in different brain states can improve the quality of learned representations, aiding in extracting semantic concepts and enhancing the robustness of latent representations.
Article
Cell Biology
Chunyue Geoffrey Lau, Huiqi Zhang, Venkatesh N. Murthy
Summary: The deletion of the BDNF receptor TrkB in PV interneurons in the mouse olfactory cortex impairs multiple aspects of PV neuronal function, leading to aberrant spiking patterns in principal neurons and a paradoxical decrease in overall excitability in cortical circuits. This study demonstrates the critical role of TrkB in shaping the evoked pattern of activity in a cortical network by modulating PV circuit plasticity and development.
JOURNAL OF CELLULAR PHYSIOLOGY
(2022)
Article
Neurosciences
Hailin Ai, Yuwei Cui, Nihong Chen
Summary: The human ability to process multiple items simultaneously is affected by whether those items are represented by distinct neural populations. In this study, using fMRI, we found that adding a second face to occupy both visual hemifields increased the neural response, but adding more faces within the same visual field decreased the response. This pattern was observed in various regions of the brain involved in visual processing. A similar trend was also found in behavior, indicating a limited perceptual bandwidth for processing multiple faces simultaneously. These findings suggest that adding signals with nonoverlapping cortical representation enhances perception, while adding signals that compete for representation resources impairs perception.
Article
Neurosciences
Alex Clarke, Jordan Crivelli-Decker, Charan Ranganath
Summary: This study reveals the interaction between memory and perceptual systems in supporting expectations and predictions in familiar environments. The results suggest that the hippocampus plays a crucial role in modulating visual cortical activity, allowing for the anticipation of expected items.
JOURNAL OF NEUROSCIENCE
(2022)