No two neurons are the same, yet models often treat neural populations as pools of identical and interchangeable elements. Here, Dahmen et al. highlight recent theoretical advances that reveal the imp...

Mitochondrial ATP production is essential for life. Mitochondrial function depends on the spatio-temporal coordination of nuclear and mitochondrial genome expression, yet how this coordination occurs ...

Nature - Calcium imaging of taste neurons and the ventral brain provides insight into evolutionary divergence of food choice in Drosophila species, supporting a role of sensorimotor processing in...

Calcium imaging of taste neurons and the ventral brain provides insight into evolutionary divergence of food choice in Drosophila species, supporting a role of sensorimotor processing in addition to p...

A multi-pronged approach reveals that ion transport peptide neuropeptide acts through the guanylate cyclase receptor Gyc76C to coordinate osmotic and metabolic homeostasis across multiple tissues in D...

Extracting relevant features of a complex sensory signal typically involves sequential processing through multiple brain regions. However, identifying the logic and mechanisms of these transformations...

To pursue a moving visual object, the brain must generate motor commands that continuously steer the object to the center of the visual field via feedback. The gain of this control loop is flexible, y...

Kay et al. review evidence that parental care, and more complex social behaviour based on parental care, evolved in multiple species through the repeated co-option of members of a pleiotropic molecula...

Social deficits are a hallmark of schizophrenia, often characterized by impairments in processing and integrating socially transmitted information. However, translational models that accurately captur...

The FlyBase team’s fundraising efforts have proven successful in the short term, but restoration of its federal grant remains uncertain.

Consolidation is a time when labile memories transition to a stable form. Malaise learning in Drosophila reveals consolidation to also permit memory updating. Flies taught to associate one of two odor...

Project website for the MaleCNS connectome

Background The ability to respond plastically to environmental variation is a key determinant of fitness. Females may use cues to strategically place their eggs, for example adjusting the number or lo...

Arbitrium is a communication system that helps bacteriophages decide between lysis and lysogeny via secreted peptides. In arbitrium, the AimP peptide binds its cognate AimR receptor to repress aimX ex...

During menstruation, an inner layer of the endometrium is selectively shed, while an outer, progenitor-containing layer is preserved to support repeated regeneration. Progress in understanding this co...

Odor detection differs fundamentally in vertebrates, which use G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs), and insects, which employ ion channels. Here, we report the first evidence for a GPCR defining tunin...

A team of researchers has unveiled the complete connectome of a male fruit fly central nervous system —a seamless map of all the neurons in the brain and nerve cord of a single male fruit fly and the ...

Mechanical forces are extensively involved in pregnancy and parturition, but their precise roles and mechanisms remain poorly understood. Here, we identify mechanically activated ion channels PIEZO1 a...

Neuromodulators allow circuits to dynamically change their biophysical properties in a context-sensitive way. In addition to their role in learning, neuromodulators have been suggested to play a role ...

Male bees navigate complex trade-offs between energy acquisition and reproductive signalling, yet their movement strategies remain understudied. Unlike workers that optimise foraging to support the co...

Neuronal subtype-specific synaptopathy is a hallmark of many forms of neurodegeneration. We examined the cellular basis for synaptic vulnerability in the auditory system, where three subtypes of spiral ganglion neurons (SGNs) - Ia, Ib, and Ic - carry acoustic information from the cochlea to the brain. In response to noise and aging, a subset of synapses between inner hair cells and SGNs are lost, but it is unclear how this loss varies across SGN subtypes. Using genetic labelling, we showed that Ia SGNs have larger post-synaptic densities (PSDs) than Ib and Ic SGNs and are the most resilient subtype. Ia PSD volumes increased with age and were unchanged after noise exposure. By contrast, average Ib/Ic PSD volumes did not change with age but decreased with noise. Genetic reprogramming of Ib/Ic neurons to a Ia-like identity provided significant protection against noise-induced synaptopathy, linking identity to resilience and providing an entry point for therapeutics. ### Competing Interest Statement The authors have declared no competing interest. Blavatnik Family Foundation, https://ror.org/049hmt962, Blavatnik Sensory Disorders Research Grant National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders, R01DC009223 National Institute on Aging, K00AG078230

Animals actively sense their environment to extract features of interest to guide behaviors. For mammals, odors are prominent environmental features which are sampled by active modulation of sniffing ...