Robert R Rozeske, Léonie Runtz, J Quinn Lee, Alexandra T Keinath, Aaron Sossin, Mark P Brandon
{"title":"Overlapping representations in the ventral hippocampus support rapid fear memory retrieval.","authors":"Robert R Rozeske, Léonie Runtz, J Quinn Lee, Alexandra T Keinath, Aaron Sossin, Mark P Brandon","doi":"10.1038/s41593-026-02435-5","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41593-026-02435-5","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The dorsal and ventral hippocampus (dCA1 and vCA1) are critical for contextual fear conditioning. The canonical theory states that the hippocampus generates dissimilar context representations to prevent interference and facilitate discrimination between contexts. Here, to test this, we monitored dCA1 and vCA1 context representations as mice were instantaneously transitioned between threatening and neutral contexts. Fear conditioning induced representational changes in both subregions, but the change was larger in vCA1 and scaled with freezing. During discrimination testing, threatening and neutral context representations were more similar in vCA1, whereas dCA1 representations remained distinct. During retrieval, vCA1 reinstated the threatening context representation faster and more strongly than dCA1, and the relative dominance of the two representations in vCA1 predicted freezing. These results reveal an unrecognized coding strategy in vCA1: fear learning increases representational overlap, consistent with a shallower attractor landscape, which may permit rapid transitions between neutral and threatening memories.</p>","PeriodicalId":19076,"journal":{"name":"Nature neuroscience","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":20.3,"publicationDate":"2026-09-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148970391","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Omer Sharon,Xi Chen,Jason Dude,James Westphal,Chelsea Brown,Vyoma D. Shah,Yo-El S. Ju,William J. Jagust,Matthew P. Walker
{"title":"Human tau pathology is associated with lonely, nontraveling slow waves linked to memory impairment","authors":"Omer Sharon,Xi Chen,Jason Dude,James Westphal,Chelsea Brown,Vyoma D. Shah,Yo-El S. Ju,William J. Jagust,Matthew P. Walker","doi":"10.1038/s41593-026-02415-9","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41593-026-02415-9","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":19076,"journal":{"name":"Nature neuroscience","volume":"9 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":25.0,"publicationDate":"2026-09-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148932664","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Bo Hu, Nesibe Z Temiz, Chi-Ning Chou, Peter Rupprecht, Claire Meissner-Bernard, Benjamin Titze, SueYeon Chung, Rainer W Friedrich
{"title":"Representational learning by optimization of neural manifolds in an olfactory memory network.","authors":"Bo Hu, Nesibe Z Temiz, Chi-Ning Chou, Peter Rupprecht, Claire Meissner-Bernard, Benjamin Titze, SueYeon Chung, Rainer W Friedrich","doi":"10.1038/s41593-026-02429-3","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s41593-026-02429-3","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Cognition relies on internal representations of relevant information that are organized by constraining population dynamics to activity subspaces referred to as neural manifolds. Here, to examine how manifold geometry is modified by experience, we trained juvenile and adult zebrafish in an odor discrimination task and measured population activity in telencephalic area pDp, the homolog of piriform cortex. No obvious signatures of attractor dynamics were detected; however, olfactory discrimination training selectively enhanced the separation of neural manifolds representing task-relevant odors from other representations, consistent with predictions of autoassociative network models endowed with precise synaptic balance. Analytical approaches using the framework of manifold capacity revealed multiple geometrical modifications of representational manifolds that supported the classification of task-relevant sensory information. Manifold capacity predicted odor discrimination across individuals, indicating that representational geometry is linked to behavior. Hence, pDp and possibly related recurrent networks store information in the geometry of neural manifolds, resulting in joint sensory and semantic maps that may support distributed learning processes.</p>","PeriodicalId":19076,"journal":{"name":"Nature neuroscience","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":20.3,"publicationDate":"2026-09-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148930791","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Cheng Xue, Sol K Markman, Ruoyi Chen, Lily E Kramer, Marlene R Cohen
{"title":"Feature interference underlies a neuronal basis for the behavioral cost of task uncertainty.","authors":"Cheng Xue, Sol K Markman, Ruoyi Chen, Lily E Kramer, Marlene R Cohen","doi":"10.1038/s41593-026-02430-w","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41593-026-02430-w","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Humans and animals have an impressive ability to juggle multiple tasks in a constantly changing environment. This flexibility, however, worsens performance under uncertain task conditions. Here we combined monkey electrophysiology, human psychophysics and artificial neural network modeling to investigate the neuronal mechanisms underlying this performance cost. We developed a behavioral paradigm to measure and influence participants' decision-making and perception in two distinct perceptual tasks. Our data reveal that both humans and monkeys, unlike an artificial neural network trained for the same tasks, make less accurate perceptual decisions when the task is uncertain. By comparing this neural network trained to produce correct choices with another network trained to replicate the participants' choices, we hypothesize that the cost of task uncertainty comes from feature interference. Through behavioral, physiological and causal experiments, we show that, under uncertain conditions, feature interference causes errors by inducing stronger representations of irrelevant features and entangled neuronal representations of different features. Our results suggest that cognitive capacity limitations may stem from interference between neural representations of different stimuli, tasks or memories.</p>","PeriodicalId":19076,"journal":{"name":"Nature neuroscience","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":20.3,"publicationDate":"2026-09-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148930772","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Martin J MacKinnon, Sheng Song, Tzu-Hao Harry Chao, Li-Ming Hsu, Scott T Albert, Yuncong Ma, Tatiana A Shnitko, Tzu-Wen Winnie Wang, Randy J Nonneman, Corey D Freeman, Samuel Booth, Siddhi S Ozarkar, Paul B Manis, Uzay E Emir, Eric R Muir, Mark D Shen, Benjamin D Philpot, Adam W Hantman, Sung-Ho Lee, Wei-Tang Chang, Yen-Yu Ian Shih
{"title":"SORDINO: silent, sensitive, specific and artifact-resistant fMRI in awake, behaving mice.","authors":"Martin J MacKinnon, Sheng Song, Tzu-Hao Harry Chao, Li-Ming Hsu, Scott T Albert, Yuncong Ma, Tatiana A Shnitko, Tzu-Wen Winnie Wang, Randy J Nonneman, Corey D Freeman, Samuel Booth, Siddhi S Ozarkar, Paul B Manis, Uzay E Emir, Eric R Muir, Mark D Shen, Benjamin D Philpot, Adam W Hantman, Sung-Ho Lee, Wei-Tang Chang, Yen-Yu Ian Shih","doi":"10.1038/s41593-026-02424-8","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s41593-026-02424-8","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Blood-oxygenation-level-dependent (BOLD) functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) has advanced brain mapping across species. This widely used technique, however, faces challenges such as acoustic noise, electromagnetic interference, motion artifacts, magnetic-field inhomogeneity and limitations in sensitivity and specificity. Here we introduce Steady-state On-the-Ramp Detection of INduction-decay with Oversampling (SORDINO), an improved zero echo time (ZTE)-based fMRI technique that maintains ultra-low slew rate and acquires data exclusively during gradient direction changes. At 9.4 T, SORDINO outperforms conventional gradient-recalled-echo-based echo-planar imaging and ZTE in metrics crucial for fMRI while being silent, sensitive, specific and resistant to motion and susceptibility artifacts. We showcase SORDINO's superior compatibility with multimodal experiments and reveal T<sub>1</sub>-based contrast mechanisms distinct from BOLD that are expected to generalize across ZTE-based fMRI techniques. We further demonstrate SORDINO brain-wide activity and functional connectivity mapping in awake, behaving mice, overcoming stress-related, motion-related and sensitivity-related limitations that remain common barriers in current animal fMRI studies.</p>","PeriodicalId":19076,"journal":{"name":"Nature neuroscience","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":20.3,"publicationDate":"2026-09-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13647596/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148920664","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Wouter H van der Valk, Shantha Devi Udayappan, Edward S A van Beelen, Jermaine Goveia, Aleksandar Beatovic, Matthieu Moisse, Roberta Menafra, John C M J de Groot, Karl R Koehler, Peter Paul G van Benthem, Heiko Locher
{"title":"A single-nucleus transcriptomic atlas of human inner ear development.","authors":"Wouter H van der Valk, Shantha Devi Udayappan, Edward S A van Beelen, Jermaine Goveia, Aleksandar Beatovic, Matthieu Moisse, Roberta Menafra, John C M J de Groot, Karl R Koehler, Peter Paul G van Benthem, Heiko Locher","doi":"10.1038/s41593-026-02432-8","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41593-026-02432-8","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Hearing and balance rely on coordinated activity of multiple inner ear cell types, yet the mechanisms governing their development and specification in humans remain unclear. Consequently, this limits our understanding of how disease genes affect cell type formation and function, limiting the development of targeted treatments, including gene therapies. Here we present the Human Inner Ear Development snRNA-seq Atlas (HIEDRA), a single-nucleus transcriptomic atlas of the human inner ear spanning the first and second trimesters. HIEDRA maps sensory and nonsensory epithelia, neurons and mesenchyme-associated populations, including undercharacterized secretory cells required for ion homeostasis. We identify selective vulnerability in sensory and secretory lineages to disease-associated genes, infer regulatory networks and show that Hedgehog signaling suppression is required for secretory cell specification. We validate this mechanism in human inner ear organoids, expanding the model to include all major cell types. Altogether, these findings provide insights into human inner ear cell type specification, improve in vitro models and establish HIEDRA as a resource for investigating human inner ear development.</p>","PeriodicalId":19076,"journal":{"name":"Nature neuroscience","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":20.3,"publicationDate":"2026-09-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148920666","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Aaron Fleming, Karen Neish, Rafael Di Marco-Barros, David A Posner, Colin Y C Lee, Andrew Stewart, Zewen Kelvin Tuong, Miles Bremridge, Ana Peñalver, Mia Cabantous, Nathan Richoz, Anais Portet, Katherine Harcourt, Eleanor Gillman, Tammie Tao Min Sow, Tetsuo Hasegawa, David Ruano-Gallego, Gad Frankel, David Withers, Simon Clare, Menna R Clatworthy
{"title":"Intestinal infections establish antigen-specific, long-lived memory CD4<sup>+</sup> T cells in the brain and meninges.","authors":"Aaron Fleming, Karen Neish, Rafael Di Marco-Barros, David A Posner, Colin Y C Lee, Andrew Stewart, Zewen Kelvin Tuong, Miles Bremridge, Ana Peñalver, Mia Cabantous, Nathan Richoz, Anais Portet, Katherine Harcourt, Eleanor Gillman, Tammie Tao Min Sow, Tetsuo Hasegawa, David Ruano-Gallego, Gad Frankel, David Withers, Simon Clare, Menna R Clatworthy","doi":"10.1038/s41593-026-02428-4","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s41593-026-02428-4","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The meninges form the border between the brain and periphery and house a rich network of immune cells. Here we show that gastrointestinal challenges (intracellular or extracellular bacteria and parasites) reshape the nature of CD4<sup>+</sup> T cells in the dura mater, the outer meningeal layer, changing the dominant polarization states to T helper (T<sub>H</sub>) 1, T<sub>H</sub>17 and T<sub>H</sub>2 cells, respectively, with differing cytokine profiles. This occurs via CXCR6-CXCL16-dependent migration of gut-activated CD4<sup>+</sup> T cells to the central nervous system, where they establish long-lived memory populations around the dural venous sinuses, within dural lymphoid aggregates and in the brain. Functionally, these orally primed dural CD4<sup>+</sup> T were capable of rapid, antigen-specific recall responses, proliferating and producing cytokines upon intravenous rechallenge. Our findings reveal a direct link between intestinal and dural immunity, enabling the central nervous system borders to acquire immunological memory of gut microorganisms, a major source of bloodborne pathogens capable of reaching the brain via fenestrated dural vasculature.</p>","PeriodicalId":19076,"journal":{"name":"Nature neuroscience","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":20.3,"publicationDate":"2026-09-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148912876","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Miguel Angel Abellanas, Leyre Basurco, Maitreyee Purnapatre, Chiara Burgaletto, Giulia Castellani, Sarah Phoebeluc Colaiuta, Javier Maria Peralta-Ramos, Angham Ibraheem, Sama Murad, Paola Antonello, Mariangeles Kovacs, Yuliya Androsova, Bar Nathansohn, Hannah Partney, Liora Cahalon, Rafael Valdes-Mas, Joseph M Josephides, Tomer M Salame, Maria Espelosin, Mar Cuadrado-Tejedor, Ana Garcia-Osta, Aleksandra Deczkowska, Michal Schwartz
{"title":"Bone marrow myelopoiesis dysfunction in Alzheimer's disease limits monocyte homing to the brain and drives disease progression.","authors":"Miguel Angel Abellanas, Leyre Basurco, Maitreyee Purnapatre, Chiara Burgaletto, Giulia Castellani, Sarah Phoebeluc Colaiuta, Javier Maria Peralta-Ramos, Angham Ibraheem, Sama Murad, Paola Antonello, Mariangeles Kovacs, Yuliya Androsova, Bar Nathansohn, Hannah Partney, Liora Cahalon, Rafael Valdes-Mas, Joseph M Josephides, Tomer M Salame, Maria Espelosin, Mar Cuadrado-Tejedor, Ana Garcia-Osta, Aleksandra Deczkowska, Michal Schwartz","doi":"10.1038/s41593-026-02417-7","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41593-026-02417-7","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Bone marrow-derived macrophages were shown to play an important role in coping with Alzheimer's disease (AD). Boosting their spontaneous recruitment reduces inflammation and disease pathology and slows cognitive decline in mouse models of amyloidosis. However, the factors limiting their spontaneous homing to the diseased brain remain unclear. In this study, we discovered that monocyte development is impaired in mouse models and in patients. In the 5×FAD mouse model, monocyte differentiation was disrupted due to a maladaptive type I interferon (IFN-I)-mediated bone marrow response. A similar phenotype was found in circulating monocytes from patients with AD. Blocking IFN-I signaling with neutralizing antibodies or reconstituting 5×FAD mice with IFN-I receptor-deficient bone marrow restored myelopoiesis, normalized monocyte phenotypes and ameliorated disease pathology. This was accompanied by increased homing of monocyte-derived macrophages to the brain. Our results reveal a dysfunction in bone marrow myelopoiesis in AD and reinforce the concept that AD progression is driven by maladaptive systemic processes.</p>","PeriodicalId":19076,"journal":{"name":"Nature neuroscience","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":20.3,"publicationDate":"2026-09-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148912812","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The hidden role of the bone marrow in Alzheimer's disease.","authors":"","doi":"10.1038/s41593-026-02418-6","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41593-026-02418-6","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":19076,"journal":{"name":"Nature neuroscience","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":20.3,"publicationDate":"2026-09-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148912865","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}