2026-09-21
Zhiqing Cai, Zhimin Zhang, Yuxin Wang, Shencai Liu, Jiarong Leng, Yun Chu, Jihang Liu, Yingying Fang, Bochong Chen, Wenquan Liang, Hong Wang, Lu Zhang, Weiguo Zou, Fan Yang, Qiancheng Song, Di Lu, Xiaochun Bai
Mechanical loading of the tibia improves survival and recovery after brain surgery in mice and pigs. This bone–brain axis is mediated by osteocyte PIEZO1, which triggers the release of neuroprotective factors into the circulation.
DOI: 10.1038/s41593-026-02422-w2026-09-18
Rayyan T. Jokhai, Carolyn E. Dundes, Hadia S. Ahsan, Rachel S. Kang, Rachel E. A. Salomon-Shulman, Arjun Rajan, Yoon Seok Kim, Liam J. Stanton, Christine Xu, Stephanie Do, Brennan D. McDonald, José Miguel Andrade López, Hugo A. Urrutia, Hannah Greenfeld, Alicia Wong, Yimiao Qu, Andrew S. Petkovic, Yi Miao, K. Christopher Garcia, Michelle Monje, Daniel E. Wagner, Marianne E. Bronner, Christopher J. Lowe, Kyle M. Loh
This study shows that the brain arises from two distinct progenitors: one forms the forebrain and midbrain, whereas the other generates the hindbrain. These insights enable the generation of human hindbrain motor neurons from pluripotent stem cells.
DOI: 10.1038/s41593-026-02433-72026-09-18
Qianru Zhao, Bing Feng, Vicky Dong, Lee How Lau, Hailan Liu, Meng Yu, Keqin Liang, Cindy Tran, Heidi Feng, Taylor Smiley, Peiyu Gao, Amy Yan, Hui Ye, Yuwei Jiang, Chunmei Wang, Pingwen Xu, Yanlin He
Zhao, Feng, Dong and colleagues found that pregnant mice crave highly palatable foods due to SK3-mediated inhibition of 5-HT neurons in DRN. Reactivating serotonergic DRN→VTA projections reduced these cravings and may provide new approaches to prevent maternal obesity.
DOI: 10.1038/s41593-026-02445-32026-09-18
Mitra Javadzadeh, Marine Schimel, Sonja B. Hofer, Yashar Ahmadian, Guillaume Hennequin
The authors show that reciprocal interactions between cortical areas generate slow dynamics that gradually build consensus across distributed cortical networks, revealing a potential general principle for coordinating activity across the neocortex.
DOI: 10.1038/s41593-026-02437-32026-09-16
Benjamin A. Filio, Amma Otchere, Subhiksha Srinivasan, Srijan Thota, Luke Drake, Lizmaylin Ramos, Philipp Maurus, Mark J. Wagner
Cerebellar neurons encode abstract dopamine rewards using activity patterns that reinforce reward-seeking behavior in mice.
DOI: 10.1038/s41593-026-02449-z2026-09-16
Ryan A. Senne, Rebecca L. Suthard, Rui Cao, Siria Coello, Amy H. Monasterio, Evan A. Ruesch, Michelle D. Buzharsky, Marc W. Howard, Steve Ramirez
Senne, Suthard and colleagues show that dorsal hippocampal astrocytes display time-compressed calcium-event sequences after foot shock and upon context re-exposure, and that their spontaneous activity relates to freezing and implicates astrocytes in associative memory.
DOI: 10.1038/s41593-026-02448-02026-09-15
Clara Kwon Starkweather, Ethan H. Willbrand, Kristin Sellers, Patrick W. Hullett, Andrew D. Krystal, A. Moses Lee, Kevin S. Weiner, Jon T. Willie, Peter Brunner, Ming Hsu, Edward F. Chang, Robert T. Knight
Intracranial recordings reveal oppositely tuned activity in the medial and lateral regions of the human orbitofrontal cortex during approach–avoidance decisions: the medial orbital sulcus activates just before approach, whereas lateral orbitofrontal cortex activity decreases before approach.
DOI: 10.1038/s41593-026-02444-42026-09-14
Robert R. Rozeske, Léonie Runtz, J. Quinn Lee, Alexandra T. Keinath, Aaron Sossin, Mark P. Brandon
Fear learning increases the similarity of threatening and neutral context representations in ventral CA1, which may enable faster reinstatement of threat memories, compared to dorsal CA1.
DOI: 10.1038/s41593-026-02435-52026-09-14
Samantha C. Brosler, Jessie R. Liu, Alexander B. Silva, Irina P. Hallinan, Cady M. Kurtz-Miott, Jonah F. B. Dunkel Wilker, Adelyn Tu-Chan, Karunesh Ganguly, Edward F. Chang
Brosler et al. develop a brain–computer interface that simultaneously decodes speech and gestures from a single cortical implant to animate a virtual avatar, providing a step toward more flexible communication for people with paralysis.
DOI: 10.1038/s41593-026-02446-22026-07-23
Emmett J. Thompson
Nature Neuroscience, Published online: 23 July 2026; doi:10.1038/s41593-026-02362-5 Thompson, Rollik and colleagues show that, during sleep, the brain replays procedural memories in the striatum independently of the hippocampus. Replay content was shaped by prior reward and error outcomes and predicted next-day motor performance improvements.]]>
DOI: 10.1038/s41593-026-02362-52026-07-22
Marie-Renee El Kamouh
Nature Neuroscience, Published online: 22 July 2026; doi:10.1038/s41593-026-02358-1 The authors show that cerebral venous blood flow and meningeal lymphatics co-regulate intracranial pressure and brain clearance in mice and humans. This finding supports idiopathic intracranial hypertension as a cerebral venous disorder.]]>
DOI: 10.1038/s41593-026-02358-12026-07-20
Zhi-Peng Yu
Nature Neuroscience, Published online: 20 July 2026; doi:10.1038/s41593-026-02369-y Yu, Zhang et al. show that repeated exposure to the psychedelic drug 25C-NBOMe in adolescent rats, but not in adult rats, reduces willingness to engaged in food resource competition in adulthood, due to reduced theta synchrony between ventral hippocampus and orbitofrontal cortex.]]>
DOI: 10.1038/s41593-026-02369-y2026-07-14
Zhixi Yun
Nature Neuroscience, Published online: 14 July 2026; doi:10.1038/s41593-026-02376-z This study establishes a region-matched framework for comparing single-neuron dendritic morphology in human and mouse cortex, revealing more compact local dendrites and stronger lobe-level morphological specialization in humans.]]>
DOI: 10.1038/s41593-026-02376-z2026-07-14
Nature Neuroscience, Published online: 14 July 2026; doi:10.1038/s41593-026-02349-2 Loss of orexin neurons in narcolepsy leads to sleepiness and cataplexy episodes, which are most common in social contexts. In a mouse model, an oxytocin-sensitive circuit in the central amygdala is both necessary and sufficient for cataplexy induced by socialization and reward, which links positive emotional signals to motor suppression and highlights a potential therapeutic target.]]>
DOI: 10.1038/s41593-026-02349-22026-07-08
Anne-Claire Compagnion
Nature Neuroscience, Published online: 08 July 2026; doi:10.1038/s41593-026-02348-3 Compagnion et al. show that TDP-43 loss in microglia causes myelin defects, oligodendrocyte precursor cell imbalance and motor deficits in mice. They identify TDP-43 as a regulator of the TREM2-DAP12 signaling, through the control of Tyrobp mis-splicing.]]>
DOI: 10.1038/s41593-026-02348-32026-07-06
Leonie Welberg
Nature Neuroscience, Published online: 06 July 2026; doi:10.1038/s41593-026-02371-4 Clarity in clearance pathways]]>
DOI: 10.1038/s41593-026-02371-42026-07-06
Luis A. Mejia
Nature Neuroscience, Published online: 06 July 2026; doi:10.1038/s41593-026-02372-3 Neuropixels harness the light]]>
DOI: 10.1038/s41593-026-02372-32026-07-02
Roxana Zeraati
Nature Neuroscience, Published online: 02 July 2026; doi:10.1038/s41593-026-02343-8 This review integrates computational approaches to provide a unified view on how data analysis methods, biophysical mechanistic models and machine learning approaches can help to uncover the origins and functions of neural timescales.]]>
DOI: 10.1038/s41593-026-02343-82026-07-01
Brandy Schmidt
Nature Neuroscience, Published online: 01 July 2026; doi:10.1038/s41593-026-02366-1 Planning is a cognitive process that is thought to be grounded in hippocampal sequences, but recent studies have suggested that a simpler mechanism, fundamentally incompatible with those planning hypotheses, underlies these sequences. Two studies in this issue of Nature Neuroscience provide the first steps to resolving that controversy.]]>
DOI: 10.1038/s41593-026-02366-12026-07-01
Wenbo Tang
Nature Neuroscience, Published online: 01 July 2026; doi:10.1038/s41593-026-02364-3 Hippocampal neural activity sweeps toward remembered goals on internal maps during navigation. These goal-directed sweeps coordinate with prefrontal cortex activity and are preferentially replayed offline, supporting flexible memory-guided planning.]]>
DOI: 10.1038/s41593-026-02364-32026-07-01
Yang Zhou
Nature Neuroscience, Published online: 01 July 2026; doi:10.1038/s41593-026-02356-3 Author Correction: Spinal cord Tau pathology induces tactile deficits and cognitive impairment in Alzheimer’s disease via dysregulation of CCK neurons]]>
DOI: 10.1038/s41593-026-02356-32026-06-29
Jarod Lévy
Nature Neuroscience, Published online: 29 June 2026; doi:10.1038/s41593-026-02303-2 Here the authors introduce Brain2Qwerty, a deep learning model that decodes typed sentences from non-invasive brain activity with character error rate down to 18%. This opens a pathway for non-invasive communication neuroprostheses.]]>
DOI: 10.1038/s41593-026-02303-22026-06-26
Aixiao Chen
Nature Neuroscience, Published online: 26 June 2026; doi:10.1038/s41593-026-02353-6 Amygdalar acetylcholine signals dynamically represent salience. Chen et al. show that striatal D1 and D2 neurons oppositely control these signals via basal forebrain cholinergic pathways to shape salience-associated learning.]]>
DOI: 10.1038/s41593-026-02353-62026-06-25
Michał J. Wójcik
Nature Neuroscience, Published online: 25 June 2026; doi:10.1038/s41593-026-02333-w Learning transforms prefrontal cortex activity from flexible, high-dimensional representations into compact, task-relevant and abstract codes, enabling efficient generalization of learned rules to new stimuli and contexts.]]>
DOI: 10.1038/s41593-026-02333-w2026-06-24
Nature Neuroscience, Published online: 24 June 2026; doi:10.1038/s41593-026-02368-z Brain aneurysms are a major cause of stroke worldwide, yet the cellular mechanisms that drive vessel instability remain poorly defined. A combined single-cell and spatial transcriptomic atlas of aneurysm tissue shows previously unrecognized interplay between scarring-associated fibroblasts and osteoclast-like macrophages that is associated with aneurysm formation and rupture.]]>
DOI: 10.1038/s41593-026-02368-z2026-06-23
Federico d’Oleire Uquillas
Nature Neuroscience, Published online: 23 June 2026; doi:10.1038/s41593-026-02374-1 Author Correction: Cerebellar aging is spatially heterogeneous and supports cognitive resilience in later life]]>
DOI: 10.1038/s41593-026-02374-12026-06-19
J. David Wong-Campos
Nature Neuroscience, Published online: 19 June 2026; doi:10.1038/s41593-026-02339-4 Simultaneous voltage imaging of soma and dendrites in layer 2/3 cortical neurons in live mice reveals rich dynamics of spike back-propagation, with amplitude shaped by spiking history, dendrite location and behavioral state.]]>
DOI: 10.1038/s41593-026-02339-42026-06-19
Guoqin Wei
Nature Neuroscience, Published online: 19 June 2026; doi:10.1038/s41593-026-02341-w Erucamide, a fatty acid amide reduced in degenerating retinas, activates myeloid cells via TMEM19 to release neurotrophic and angiogenic factors, rescuing photoreceptors and vasculature in mouse models of retinal degeneration.]]>
DOI: 10.1038/s41593-026-02341-w2026-06-15
Mohammad Hadi Aarabi
Nature Neuroscience, Published online: 15 June 2026; doi:10.1038/s41593-026-02355-4 The 2026 closure of the Strait of Hormuz exposed a structural dependency that the neuroimaging community has rarely discussed openly.]]>
DOI: 10.1038/s41593-026-02355-42026-06-10
Yipeng Li
Nature Neuroscience, Published online: 10 June 2026; doi:10.1038/s41593-026-02322-z Li et al. used functional MRI-guided high-density electrophysiological recordings across macaque visual cortex to characterize responses to natural scenes, providing a resource for studying visual coding and cross-species comparisons.]]>
DOI: 10.1038/s41593-026-02322-z