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Khabre desk
Recent reporting, analysis and explainers from the neuroscience desk.
health
A bioRxiv preprint reports that deleting truncated TrkB receptors in astrocytes reduced amyloid plaques and preserved synaptic markers in 5xFAD mice. The findings are from a mouse model, not a human treatment study.
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A bioRxiv preprint reports that a cerebrospinal-fluid-delivered siRNA reduced prion protein to 12% residual levels in mouse brain and kept early-treated, prion-infected mice symptom-free through 500 days after inoculation. The researchers also report activity in humanized mice and cynomolgus macaques.
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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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OpenAI says it worked with PerturbAI and Scripps Research to use thousands of GPT-Rosalind agents to analyse a whole-brain mouse CRISPR atlas in 32 minutes. The agents linked gene-disruption effects with scientific literature to produce leads for follow-up research.
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A Nature correspondence links research into how single-celled algae sense light to the discovery of channelrhodopsins and the development of optogenetics. Its authors say this line of work underpins this year’s Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
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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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A bioRxiv preprint reports that canary breeds selected for song differ from other breeds in neural development, song-related brain regions and auditory sensitivity. Genome-wide findings point to many genes contributing to song divergence, including an ADGRV1 variant associated with singing and hearing traits.
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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 NOSTRA, a small molecule found through a DNA-encoded library screen, stabilises the NOS1AP–SCRIB interaction. In Alzheimer’s patient-derived neurons, the researchers report changes in several cellular measures, including amyloid-beta ratio, p-tau217 and network activity.
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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 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 maps the maturation of human choroid-plexus organoids and reports that their response to valproic acid depends on developmental stage. Early changes recovered after the drug was withdrawn, while some late-stage transporter impairments persisted.
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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 describes a continuous score derived from regional amyloid PET scans that captured early-stage variation and was associated with faster subsequent memory decline in two cohorts. The authors present it as a complement to, rather than a replacement for, global amyloid burden.
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A bioRxiv preprint reports that C3a receptor signalling in leptin-receptor neurons contributes to leptin resistance and obesity-related cardiac changes in mice. Human measurements of complement markers offer an associated finding, not evidence that targeting the pathway treats obesity in people.
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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 that pregnancy changes gene expression in several hormone-sensitive brain-cell populations in mice. Removing one neuronal type prevented implantation and viable pregnancy in the animals studied.
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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 increased nuclear acetyl-CoA in lab-grown neurons from people with sporadic Alzheimer’s disease was linked to altered RNA-protein acetylation and splicing. Inhibiting the enzyme ACLY reversed these changes in the cell model.
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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 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 describes ProxiNet, a framework that learns cellular proximity from spatial transcriptomics and applies those relationships to dissociated single-cell RNA sequencing. The authors report spatial validation and use the approach to identify inferred neighborhoods in an Alzheimer dataset.
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A Nature editorial argues that brain-organoid research needs international oversight as human lab-grown brain tissue is integrated into animal brains. It points to independent, multidisciplinary ethics advisers as one way to guide research.
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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 describes SpiraMed, a helical catheter designed to deliver therapies across a brain target through one access path per target. Testing in phantoms, sheep and cadaveric human brain reported improved coverage and reduced reflux, but the work is preclinical.
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A bioRxiv preprint reports that genetic and drug-based SARM1 inhibition protected axons in mouse models relevant to multiple sclerosis. The drug preserved visual function without preventing demyelination.
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A bioRxiv preprint reports that Chandipura virus infection in neuronal cells involves a shift from weakened antiviral signalling to mitochondrial stress, STING activation and GSDME-linked inflammatory cell death. Experiments targeting STING or GSDME altered neuronal injury, with different effects on viral replication.
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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 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 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 reports that neonatal AAV-SIL1 gene therapy prevented neurological and muscle disease in a mouse model of Marinesco-Sjögren syndrome. The treatment preserved cerebellar Purkinje cells and maintained its effects through 26 weeks.
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A man with slowly progressing ALS caused by a rare CHCHD10 mutation showed improved motor-function scores and a biomarker associated with nerve damage returned to the normal reference range one year after receiving a mutation-targeted antisense oligonucleotide treatment.
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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 Purdue University team reports a loop-mediated isothermal amplification assay for detecting Balamuthia mandrillaris. In laboratory testing, the assay detected multiple isolates with higher sensitivity than conventional PCR and produced a visible colour-based result.
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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 Nature Medicine study links levetiracetam use with longer survival in children with diffuse midline glioma and reports reduced tumour growth in mouse models. The findings point to a tumour-selective effect on GABAergic neuron-to-glioma synapses and require prospective clinical testing.
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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 using data from 1,494 donors finds that many single-cell gene-expression studies may lack sufficient statistical power to detect small effects. Cell counts, gene-expression levels and sequencing depth strongly influenced which findings were detected and reproduced.
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A genome-wide association study involving more than one million people examined how genetic variation contributes to personality traits and may influence physical health, mental health and behaviour. The findings highlight genetic effects without separating them from the role of environment.
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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 reports that restoring several TDP-43 cryptic targets, including Unc13a, protected spinal motor neurons in a mouse model of early-stage ALS more effectively than targeting Unc13a alone.
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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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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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A bioRxiv preprint describes a human stem-cell-derived nerve-like construct that supported axon regeneration and remyelination in 7-mm sciatic nerve defects in mice.
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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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Researchers at Shandong University and BGI Research describe DiffGSP, a computational framework that models mRNA diffusion to reconstruct spatial gene-expression patterns. The work is a bioRxiv preprint evaluated across diverse spatial-transcriptomics datasets.
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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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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 Nature study identifies RNF213 as an enzyme that marks abnormal glycogen, or polyglucosan, for autophagy in brain cells. Experiments in engineered cells and mice link the pathway to protection against polyglucosan accumulation.
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A bioRxiv preprint describes Bio-CM2, a miniature mesoscope combining fluorescence and label-free reflectance imaging across a 7.5 × 10 mm² field of view. Demonstrations in worms, zebrafish and mice paired molecular signals with morphology, behaviour and physiology.
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A bioRxiv preprint describes RNA-fragment end joining (REJ), a modular system that joins separate RNA units into functional coding mRNAs. The reported platform supports gene complementation, intersectional cell labeling and expression of large proteins.
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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 longitudinal study of 3,119 older adults found that Alzheimer’s disease dementia risk was associated independently with pathological burden and cognitive resilience. The two factors also interacted, with the highest risk among people with high pathology and low resilience.
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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 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.