August 2007

• Neurodegenerative disease: A good night's sleep

  Standfirst

  Sleep decreases cognitive deficits in a mouse model of Huntington's disease.

  Katherine Whalley
  Nature Reviews Neuroscience 8 656
  doi:10.1038/nrn2220

• Circadian rhythms: Glia set the beat

  Standfirst

  A glial factor is involved in the circadian regulation of locomotor activity.

  Monica Hoyos Flight
  Nature Reviews Neuroscience 8 654
  doi:10.1038/nrn2224

• Fine-tuning RNAi in vivo

  Standfirst

  An inducible microRNA-based short hairpin RNA (shRNA) construct is the basis for the tissue-specific control of endogenous gene expression in transgenic mice.

  Nicole Rusk
  Nature Methods 4 610
  doi:10.1038/nmeth0807-610

• New neurons in a whiff

  Standfirst

  Male pheromones induce neurogenesis in the female brain.

  Leonie Welberg
  Nature Reviews Neuroscience 8 575
  doi:10.1038/nrn2202

• CatS relief

  Standfirst

  The glial factor cathepsin S mediates nociception by proteolytically cleaving fractalkine.

  Monica Hoyos Flight
  Nature Reviews Drug Discovery 6 604
  doi:10.1038/nrd2390

• It's a wrap

  Standfirst

  The RhoGTPase rac1 is important in the association between Schwann cells and neurons.

  Katherine Whalley
  Nature Reviews Neuroscience 8 572 - 573
  doi:10.1038/nrn2197

• NetworKIN in context—casting a net for kinases

  Standfirst

  By combining sequence motifs with biological information about kinases and phosphoproteins, researchers develop an algorithm, NetworKIN, to predict in vivo phosphorylation networks.

  Nicole Rusk
  Nature Methods 4 604 - 605
  doi:10.1038/nmeth0807-604b

• Selective stabilization

  Standfirst

  Neuroligins 1 and 2 are important in the specification of excitatory and inhibitory synapses, respectively.

  Monica Hoyos Flight
  Nature Reviews Neuroscience 8 574
  doi:10.1038/nrn2199

• A pathway to complexity

  Standfirst

  Genes involved in axon guidance associate with Parkinson's disease in a whole-genome association study.

  Francesca Pentimalli
  Nature Reviews Genetics 8 568
  (3 July 2007); doi:10.1038/nrg2163

• Orexin neurons on acid

  Standfirst

  Hypothalamic orexin neurons respond to small changes in pH and may regulate respiration.

  Leonie Welberg
  Nature Reviews Neuroscience 8 571
  doi:10.1038/nrn2198