Featured Paper of the Month

Featured Paper of the Month – January 2017
Published in Cell Reports by Yau, Hau-Jie; Wang, Dong V; Tsou, Jen-Hui; Chuang, Yi-Fang; Chen, Billy T; Deisseroth, Karl; Ikemoto, Satoshi; Bonci, Antonello

The ventral tegmental area (VTA) receives phenotypically distinct innervations from the pedunculopontine tegmental nucleus (PPTg). While PPTg-to-VTA inputs are thought to play a critical role in stimulus-reward learning, direct evidence linking PPTg-to-VTA phenotypically distinct inputs in the learning process remains lacking…

Featured Paper of the Month – December 2016
Published in Scientific Reports by Root, David H; Wang, Hui-Ling; Liu, Bing; Barker, David J; Mod, Laszlo; Szocsics, Peter; Silva, Afonso C; Magloczky, Zsofia; Morales, Marisela

The rodent ventral tegmental area (VTA) and substantia nigra pars compacta (SNC) contain dopamine neurons intermixed with glutamate neurons (expressing vesicular glutamate transporter 2; VGluT2), which play roles in reward and aversion. However, identifying the neuronal compositions of the VTA and SNC in higher mammals has remained challenging…

Featured Paper of the Month – November 2016
Published in The Journal of Neuroscience by Warren, Brandon L; Mendoza, Michael P; Cruz, Fabio C; Leao, Rodrigo M; Caprioli, Daniele; Rubio, Javier F; Whitaker, Leslie R; McPherson, Kylie B; Bossert, Jennifer M; Shaham, Yavin; Hope, Bruce T

In operant learning, initial reward-associated memories are thought to be distinct from subsequent extinction-associated memories. Memories formed during operant learning are thought to be stored in “neuronal ensembles.” Thus, we hypothesize that different neuronal ensembles encode reward- and extinction-associated memories…

Featured Paper of the Month – October 2016
Published in The Journal of Biological Chemistry by Stolzenberg, Sebastian; Quick, Matthias; Zhao, Chunfeng; Gotfryd, Kamil; Khelashvili, George; Gether, Ulrik; Loland, Claus J; Javitch, Jonathan A; Noskov, Sergei; Weinstein, Harel; Shi, Lei

Neurotransmitter:sodium symporters (NSSs) terminate neurotransmission by Na(+)-dependent reuptake of released neurotransmitters. Previous studies suggested that Na(+)-binding reconfigures dynamically coupled structural elements in an allosteric interaction network (AIN) responsible for function-related conformational changes, but the intramolecular pathway of this mechanism has remained uncharted…

Featured Paper of the Month – September 2016
Published in Elife by Sadacca, Brian F; Jones, Joshua L; Schoenbaum, Geoffrey

Midbrain dopamine neurons have been proposed to signal reward prediction errors as defined in temporal difference (TD) learning algorithms. While these models have been extremely powerful in interpreting dopamine activity, they typically do not use value derived through inference in computing errors…

Featured Paper of the Month – August 2016
Published in The Journal of Neuroscience by Marchant, Nathan J; Campbell, Erin J; Whitaker, Leslie R; Harvey, Brandon K; Kaganovsky, Konstantin; Adhikary, Sweta; Hope, Bruce T; Heins, Robert C; Prisinzano, Thomas E; Vardy, Eyal; Bonci, Antonello; Bossert, Jennifer M; Shaham, Yavin

In many human alcoholics, abstinence is self-imposed because of the negative consequences of excessive alcohol use, and relapse is often triggered by exposure to environmental contexts associated with prior alcohol drinking…

Featured Paper of the Month – July 2016
Published in Natural Neuroscience by Zhang, Wen; Zhang, Lifeng; Liang, Bo; Schroeder, David; Zhang, Zhong-Wei; Cox, Gregory A; Li, Yun; Lin, Da-Ting

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and frontotemporal dementia (FTD) are overlapping neurodegenerative disorders whose pathogenesis remains largely unknown. Using TDP-43(A315T) mice, an ALS and FTD model with marked cortical pathology, we found that hyperactive somatostatin interneurons disinhibited layer 5 pyramidal neurons (L5-PNs) and contributed to their excitotoxicity…

Featured Paper of the Month – June 2016
Published in The Journal of Neuroscience by Quiroz, Cesar; Orru, Marco; Rea, William; Ciudad-Roberts, Andres; Yepes, Gabriel; Britt, Jonathan P; Ferre, Sergi

It is generally assumed that infralimbic cortex (ILC) and prelimbic cortex, two adjacent areas of the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) in rodents, provide selective excitatory glutamatergic inputs to the nucleus accumbens (NAc) shell and core, respectively…

Featured Paper of the Month – May 2016
Published in Neuron by Takahashi, Yuji K; Chang, Chun Yun; Lucantonio, Federica; Haney, Richard Z; Berg, Benjamin A; Yau, Hau-Jie; Bonci, Antonello; Schoenbaum, Geoffrey

Imagination, defined as the ability to interpret reality in ways that diverge from past experience, is fundamental to adaptive behavior. This can be seen at a simple level in our capacity to predict novel outcomes in new situations. The ability to anticipate outcomes never before received can also influence learning if those imagined outcomes are not received…

Featured Paper of the Month – April 2016
Published in Biological Psychiatry by Justinova, Zuzana; Panlilio, Leigh V; Secci, Maria E; Redhi, Godfrey H; Schindler, Charles W; Cross, Alan J; Mrzljak, Ladislav; Medd, Amy; Shaham, Yavin; Goldberg, Steven R

Based on rodent studies, group II metabotropic glutamate receptors (mGluR2 and mGluR3) were suggested as targets for addiction treatment. However, LY379268 and other group II agonists do not discriminate between the mainly presynaptic inhibitory mGluR2 (the proposed treatment target) and mGluR3. These agonists also produce tolerance over repeated administration and are no longer considered for addiction treatment…