Across animal phyla, odor information is represented in the first olfactory processing center by combinatorial activation of discrete glomeruli. To examine how this organization of olfactory processin...

Animals use multiple sensory systems to identify signs of danger, including dead conspecifics. Fish can identify decaying conspecifics from chemosensory cues, which prompt a long-lasting avoidance; th...

In recent years, the field of neuroscience has gone through rapid experimental advances and a significant increase in the use of quantitative and computational methods. This growth has created a need for clearer analyses of the theory and modeling approaches used in the field. This issue is particularly complex in neuroscience because the field studies phenomena that cross a wide range of scales and often require consideration at varying degrees of abstraction, from precise biophysical interactions to the computations they implement. We argue that a pragmatic perspective of science, in which descriptive, mechanistic, and normative models and theories each play a distinct role in defining and bridging levels of abstraction, will facilitate neuroscientific practice. This analysis leads to methodological suggestions, including selecting a level of abstraction that is appropriate for a given problem, identifying transfer functions to connect models and data, and the use of models themselves as a form of experiment.

Whole-brain activity mapping, targeted cell manipulations and electrophysiology in mice identify wake-activated neuronal populations that are crucial for sleep drive and can persistently red...

Amygdala astrocyte primary cilia are disrupted during stress, and their restoration leads to improvements in stress-related behaviour in mice.

How does social experience shape collective behavior? Here, authors show that larval zebrafish use visual-social encounters in crowded or sparse environments to dynamically retune social interactions,...

Functional heterogeneity of dorsal raphe nucleus is not fully understood. Here authors show topographically organized sensory and locomotor responses from the zebrafish dorsal raphe and its forebrain ...

Cerebellar circuits identify danger and safety to guide flexible, adaptive behavior.

Communication between distant brain regions is mediated by plastic networks of gap junction-coupled astrocytes.

Nature Communications - In this study, the authors develop CaMPARI-seq to link neural activity with molecular profiles in larval zebrafish. They identify inhibitory pretectal neurons required for...

In mice, female aggression is governed by an amygdala–to–medial hypothalamus circuit that is strengthened during pregnancy and is dynamically amplified by oxytocin during lactation.

In a new study, Yale researchers identified drug candidates that reverse disrupted behaviors in zebrafish carrying mutations in autism risk genes.

Nature Neuroscience - Jang et al. measured dopamine and acetylcholine release in the striatum of rats performing a decision-making task and found that the relative timing of cholinergic and...

Mapping behavior of individual vertebrate animals across lifespan could provide an unprecedented view into the lifelong process of aging. We created a platform for high-resolution continuous behaviora...

Veith et al. show how a fish—Danionella cerebrum—can reliably startle away from sound. It uses the relative phase between particle motion and pressure to infer the direction of sound. This sensorimoto...

The cells amplify oxytocin—and may be responsible for sex differences in social behavior, two preprints find.

Astrocytes are increasingly recognized as active participants in sensory processing, but whether they show selective responses to stimulus features, analogous to neuronal receptive fields, is not yet ...

Nature - Using two-photon microscopy with a panoramic virtual reality setup, how head direction cells in larval zebrafish integrate visual landmarks and optic flow to track orientation is revealed.

Nature Neuroscience - Adaptive intelligence envisions AI that, like animals, learns online, generalizes and adapts quickly. This Perspective reviews biological foundations, progress in AI and...

Much effort has been spent clustering neurons into transcriptomic or functional cell types and characterizing the differences between them. Beyond sub…