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Khabre desk
Recent reporting, analysis and explainers from the Neuroscience desk.
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A bioRxiv preprint reports higher Serpin A3 levels in human brain tissue from cases with cerebral amyloid angiopathy and Alzheimer’s disease than in neurological controls. The protein was also prominent around damaged vessels in one postmortem case of severe lecanemab-associated ARIA.
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A bioRxiv preprint reports that multiple neurotransmitter vesicles are commonly released at cortical synapses in living brains. The researchers link this multiquantal signalling to more reliable transmission and to behavioural-state-dependent changes in synaptic potency.
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A bioRxiv preprint analysing fMRI data from 1,712 people reports that task-related changes in brain activity timescales vary across cortical regions, track cognitive performance and follow a two-stage pattern during youth. The findings link these changes to cortical features associated with neural plasticity, but do not establish a causal mechanism.
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A bioRxiv preprint describes iFLiP, a low-cost fiber photometry system using off-the-shelf components to measure fluorescence lifetime. The researchers report demonstrations tracking protein kinase A activity in cells and mice, including measurements over multiple days.
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A bioRxiv preprint compares a simple model of the primary visual cortex with phosphenes described and drawn by one cortical-implant recipient. The model reproduced a variety of reported shapes and suggests that some electrodes may activate multiple locations.
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Researchers report Airscope, a 1.0-gram wireless mesoscope that records calcium activity across the mouse cortex during free behaviour. The system enabled neural recordings during social interactions, maze exploration and fear conditioning.
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A bioRxiv preprint reports that stress granules contain elevated hydrogen peroxide in living cells and use a locally recruited redox system to restrain TDP-43 aggregation. The findings come from cellular and in-vitro experiments.
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A bioRxiv preprint reports that hippocampal Cajal-Retzius cells receive traced input from at least seven areas outside the hippocampus. The authors also describe strychnine-sensitive activity and close positioning of entorhinal fibres to glycinergic receptors.
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A bioRxiv preprint reports that intracortical signals predicted movement onset 250–400 milliseconds ahead in three people with tetraplegia. Participants reported intending to act on 88% of trials when a virtual opponent interrupted them.
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A bioRxiv preprint reports that the timing of hippocampal neurons’ spikes relative to theta rhythms carried information about locations and viewed images, including in neurons without corresponding firing-rate changes. In human navigation data, spike timing improved location decoding beyond firing rates alone.
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A bioRxiv preprint reports that vagus nerve stimulation recruited neurons in the default mode network in mice. Selectively activating or silencing those neurons reproduced or abolished stimulation-related changes in cognitive behaviours.
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A bioRxiv preprint describes COMET, a 3.75-g head-mounted imaging system that recorded more than 15,000 cortical neurons in freely moving mice during five-minute sessions. The researchers used it to examine brain activity during social interaction and fear conditioning.
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A bioRxiv preprint reports sex-specific reference charts for 296 structural brain measures, built from imaging data from 59,915 healthy people aged from 266 days after conception to 100 years. The authors found differences in when measures reached peak milestones and reported improved prediction compared with charts that pooled sexes.
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A bioRxiv preprint reports maternal microchimerism in epilepsy surgery tissue and healthy-brain datasets, with cells matching several neuronal, immune and vascular identities. The reported frequency declined with age.
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A bioRxiv preprint reports that a scalp EEG signal associated with awareness of touch corresponds to activity recorded inside the brain. The study connects the N140/SAN with an insulo-opercular signal that follows high-frequency activity after stimulation.
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A bioRxiv preprint reports that ALS- and FTD-linked TDP-43 alterations reduce HSV-1 infection in experimental models. The researchers connect the effect to changes in cell-adhesion signalling involving focal adhesion kinase.
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A bioRxiv preprint reports that ventral tegmental area dopamine activity drives bursting in basal forebrain neurons in rats and mice. The researchers measured a roughly 10-millisecond delay and used optogenetic manipulations to test the connection.
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A bioRxiv preprint reports two functionally distinct amyloid-beta intermediate populations in laboratory, mouse-model and human Alzheimer’s brain material. In mice, pharmacologically suppressing the intermediates reduced plaque burden and astrogliosis and improved cognition.
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A bioRxiv preprint reports that seven days of partial sleep deprivation progressively reduced spontaneous neuronal activity in the live mouse hippocampus while tissue oxygen levels rose. After seven days of recovery, activity had not returned to baseline and oxygenation continued to increase.
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A bioRxiv preprint reports that cerebral organoids cultured for more than six months reproduce a pattern of interneuron migration seen in the postnatal human cortex. The researchers used imaging, transcriptomics and gene perturbations to investigate how the cells move and organize.
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A bioRxiv preprint presents a synapse-resolved electron-microscopy dataset of the mouse spinal dorsal horn and a deep-learning tool for classifying sensory neuron types. Its circuit reconstruction identifies inhibitory pathways that preferentially target individual sensory subtypes while also crossing between sensory pathways.
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A bioRxiv preprint maps how mouse spinal-cord circuits route different sensory signals toward the brain. The wiring diagram distinguishes direct routes for noxious and cooling signals from an interneuron-mediated route for touch and itch.
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A bioRxiv preprint reports cryo-EM structures of human VIAAT in two states, identifying a GABA-binding pocket and a proposed gate that opens toward the synaptic-vesicle interior.
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A bioRxiv preprint reports one adversity-related pattern linking 104 measures of children’s environments with brain imaging in 5,976 youth. The pattern was associated chiefly with socioeconomic and neighborhood deprivation, lower cortical surface area and differences in functional connectivity.
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A bioRxiv preprint uses Drosophila connectomics data and biophysical modeling to explain how visual neurons may distinguish a moving figure from whole-field background motion. The model centres on interactions between T4a motion neurons and vCH cells.
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A bioRxiv preprint reports cryo-EM structures of human THIK1 bound to two chemically related inhibitors. Both occupy the same pore site, but structural and electrophysiological results indicate that they affect a second channel gate differently.
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A study used single-nucleus data from human prefrontal cortex to map genetically regulated gene-expression signals across 12 brain disorders. Its cell-type and ancestry-aware models identified associations that bulk-tissue analyses missed.
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A bioRxiv preprint links autism-associated genes to three molecular programs and to particular neuronal lineages, developmental stages and cortical patterns. The findings come from an integrative analysis of genomic and brain-atlas data.
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A bioRxiv preprint reports that blocking bumblebee dorsal ocelli disrupts the visual system’s normal response to brightness. The effect was associated with poorer orientation at dusk and reduced flight speed under bright daytime conditions.
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A bioRxiv preprint tested picture naming in six vision-language models by silencing each attention head in turn. The results ranged from one strongly necessary early head to no critical head, showing that disruption and computation are not the same.
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A bioRxiv preprint found no measurable change in arousal when focused ultrasound was applied to the central lateral thalamus of two anaesthetised rhesus macaques. The animals remained physiologically stable, while the authors propose testing more distributed stimulation in future studies.
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A bioRxiv preprint comparing rats with Chinese tree shrews reports that tree-shrew CA1 uses a hybrid spatial code, combining weaker position tuning with more multiplexed neural activity. The findings suggest that spatial representations can change within a conserved hippocampal circuit while retaining core network properties.
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A bioRxiv preprint identifies the nuclear enzyme MSK1 as a regulator of TRPV1 expression in a specific subset of pain-sensing neurons. In experimental models, blocking this inflammatory pathway reduced heat hypersensitivity while preserving acute heat sensation and body-temperature control.
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A bioRxiv preprint reports chemical and microscopy evidence of synthetic polymers in plastics-enriched preparations from human brain tissue. Particles with spectral properties similar to polyethylene and polypropylene were observed along arterioles and venules, but the work is an early laboratory study of a possible association with brain microvascular pathology.
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A bioRxiv preprint combining mathematical modelling with intracellular recordings in behaving mice reports that CA3 pyramidal neurons have an activation exponent slightly above 1, as predicted for stable memory recall. The analysis included 49 new recordings and 133 cells from two earlier studies.
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A bioRxiv preprint of 47 patients links phase-specific brain activity and connectivity patterns to early and later language recovery after ischemic stroke.
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A bioRxiv preprint presents a 658,059-cell reference atlas of human hippocampus development and uses it to study brain organoids carrying the familial Alzheimer’s disease-associated PSEN1 E280A variant. The organoids showed altered cell composition, gene expression and inferred neuronal maturation.
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A bioRxiv preprint reports a single-neuron correlate of mnemonic pattern separation in the human hippocampus. The finding came from recordings of 3,506 neurons in 97 patients performing a recognition-memory task involving false memories.
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A bioRxiv preprint describes zAcademy, an open-source programmable arena for conditioning adult zebrafish. In experiments, avoidance responses differed between wild-type and shank3 knockout fish and were driven mainly by females.
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A Duke-led computational preprint compares cortical-column models to explain the short-latency D- and I-wave responses produced by cortical stimulation. Models of motor and auditory cortex reproduced both wave types, while the somatosensory model generated rhythms with mismatched timing.
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A Nature Review proposes that Alzheimer’s disease develops through discrete molecular, cellular and network transitions rather than a single linear cascade from amyloid-β to Tau pathology and neurodegeneration. The framework places amyloid-associated Tau phosphorylation at a pivotal biological threshold.
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Researchers developed a mouse model in which human stem-cell-derived cortical organoids occupy most of the cerebral cortical space and connect with the host nervous system. The grafts showed organized electrical activity, influenced behaviour and produced measurable responses to experimentally induced hypoxic injury.
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Nature reports extensive cellular integration after human brain tissue was transplanted into mice lacking a cortex. The work could provide a living-animal platform for testing therapies involving human neural tissue.
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A bioRxiv preprint reports that parvalbumin interneurons and dentate-gyrus changes shape seizure susceptibility in Angelman syndrome model mice. The findings point to altered inhibitory control and homeostatic plasticity as possible drivers of epileptogenesis.
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A bioRxiv preprint introduces NANHA, a searchable atlas of published non-invasive brain-stimulation studies spanning 22 neurodevelopmental disorders.
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A bioRxiv preprint in a DYT-TOR1A mouse model links striatal cholinergic interneuron pathology to abnormal movements while showing that antimuscarinic drugs can act without those neurons being present. The findings separate a developmental role for the neurons from the circuit mechanism through which the drugs suppress movements.
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A bioRxiv preprint reports a Tris-EDTA-supplemented photobleaching workflow that reduced autofluorescence by 58–70% in fresh-frozen aged human brain sections while preserving tissue architecture and cellular content. The study also introduces a 28-plex antibody panel for spatial proteomics.
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A bioRxiv preprint reports that perivascular fibroblasts regulate the movement of pial arterioles and fluid around brain-surface vessels.
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A bioRxiv preprint describes a probe-based method for measuring lysosome acidity in living mouse brain immune cells. The researchers found substantial variation among meningeal phagocytes, with only about 5% reaching a pH below 5.0.
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Experiments in mouse embryos, human pluripotent stem cells and other species suggest that the brain develops from two distinct progenitor populations. The study also reports an efficient route to hindbrain motor-neuron cells for laboratory disease research.
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A bioRxiv preprint describes ST9, a designed peptide that binds claudin-5 and produces a rapid, transient and reversible increase in blood-brain barrier permeability in reported cell-based experiments.
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A bioRxiv preprint reports that the accessibility and membrane organisation of cholesterol help control TLR4 signalling in microglia. The study identifies SR-B1 and sphingomyelin–cholesterol interactions as regulators of this inflammatory pathway.
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Researchers have identified a measure of cognitive resilience that helps explain why people with similar Alzheimer’s-related brain pathology can develop dementia symptoms of different severity. The finding could improve understanding and prediction of Alzheimer’s dementia risk.
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Researchers mapped 4,321 microproteins in 608 post-mortem human brain samples, including dozens with altered expression in Alzheimer’s disease. The atlas expands the molecular inventory available for studying neurodegeneration, while the proteins’ biological roles still require experimental validation.
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A bioRxiv preprint reports Cx36 gap junctions at direct contacts between neuronal cell bodies in the adult mouse inferior olive. The finding expands the anatomical basis used to model electrical coupling in this brain region beyond dendritic-spine connections.
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A bioRxiv preprint reports that brain-originating dopaminergic neurodegeneration can produce persistent NaV1.7-dependent hyperexcitability in peripheral sensory neurons in a preclinical Parkinson’s model. Blocking NaV1.7 or disrupting its CRMP2 regulation reduced pain-like behaviours, while human Parkinson’s DRG profiling found related excitability-gene changes.
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A bioRxiv preprint reports that 20 MHz focused ultrasound activated auditory circuits and sharply reduced noise-induced hearing loss in anesthetized guinea pigs.
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Genetic ablation of the Unc13a cryptic exon preserved memory in a mouse model of TDP-43 dysfunction, supporting UNC13A as a therapeutic target for related dementias.
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A bioRxiv preprint reports that 19 human patients used the same cortical regions and oscillatory architecture during easy and difficult visual-search tasks. The researchers suggest that alpha rhythms adjust the speed of this shared circuit rather than switching between dedicated systems.
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Researchers used a 253-electrode cortical implant and artificial intelligence to decode intended speech and gestures simultaneously in two people with severe paralysis. The proof-of-concept system displayed words as text and represented gestures through a personalised animated avatar.
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A bioRxiv preprint finds that some adult zebrafish fail to recover movement after complete spinal-cord transection despite forming a tissue bridge. Multi-omic analyses and genetic screening identified hoxb5a as a regulator associated with bridge formation, axon regrowth and functional recovery.
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A bioRxiv preprint reports that six days of audiovisual timing training reduced susceptibility to the sound-induced flash illusion in both children with ADHD and typically developing children. A Bayesian model indicated that the groups reached this similar behavioral outcome through different changes in perceptual precision and causal expectations.
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A bioRxiv preprint introduces MindEvolve, an autonomous workflow that uses large language models to generate interpretable symbolic models of human decision-making in social interactions. The models performed most reliably on simpler economic and social preferences, while some advanced systems showed promise on theory of mind and recursive planning.
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A bioRxiv preprint reports using six-base sequencing to analyse DNA modifications in cell-free DNA released by neural cells into cerebrospinal fluid. The authors say the approach could support liquid-biopsy research into neurodegenerative disease.
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An investigation has found that drugs mimicking the effect of GABAergic neurons slowed glioma growth in mice. The result points to a possible way of targeting interactions between neurons and nervous-system cancer, but remains preclinical.
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A bioRxiv preprint introduces CynoBrain, a macaque brain atlas that combines 9.4-tesla MRI, autofluorescence, cortical layers, gene-expression data and neural connectivity in one reference space. The authors also describe an online platform for exploring and integrating the data.
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HHMI Janelia, Google Research and collaborators report a complete brain and central nervous system map of an adult male fruit fly containing more than 166,000 neurons and 11,691 neuron-cell types.