A common complaint of older adults is difficulty understanding speech, particularly in challenging listening conditions. Accumulating evidence suggests that these difficulties may reflect a loss and/or dysfunction of auditory nerve (AN) fibers. We used a novel approach to study age-related changes in AN structure and several measures of AN function, including neural synchrony, in 58 older adults and 42 younger adults. AN activity was measured in response to an auditory click (compound action potential; CAP), presented at stimulus levels ranging from 70 to 110 dB pSPL. Poorer AN function was observed for older than younger adults across CAP measures at higher but not lower stimulus levels. Associations across metrics and stimulus levels were consistent with age-related AN disengagement and AN dyssynchrony. High-resolution T2-weighted structural imaging revealed age-related differences in the density of cranial nerve VIII, with lower density in older adults with poorer neural synchrony. Individual difference...

Years of basic neuroscience on the modulation of the small circuits found in the crustacean stomatogastric ganglion have led us to study the effects of temperature on the motor patterns produced by the stomatogastric ganglion. While the impetus for this work was the study of individual variability in the parameters determining intrinsic and synaptic conductances, we are confronting substantial fluctuations in the stability of the networks to extreme temperature; these may correlate with changes in ocean temperature. Interestingly, when studied under control conditions, these wild-caught animals appear to be unchanged, but it is only when challenged by extreme temperatures that we reveal the consequences of warming oceans.

Invited reviewers are asked to identify colleagues who assisted with review. JNeurosci would like to acknowledge the hard work of these collaborating reviewers and thank them for their service to the journal. Andrin Abegg Julia Abitbol Tobias Ackels Elie Adam Kadidia Adula Blanca Aldana Mor

Space-specific neurons in the owl's midbrain form a neural map of auditory space, which supports sound-orienting behavior. Previous work proposed that a population vector (PV) readout of this map, implementing statistical inference, predicts the owl's sound localization behavior. This model also predicts the frontal localization bias normally observed and how sound-localizing behavior changes when the signal-to-noise ratio varies, based on the spread of activity across the map. However, the actual distribution of population activity and whether this pattern is consistent with premises of the PV readout model on a trial-by-trial basis remains unknown. To answer these questions, we investigated whether the population response profile across the midbrain map in the optic tectum of the barn owl matches these predictions using in vivo multielectrode array recordings. We found that response profiles of recorded subpopulations are sufficient for estimating the stimulus interaural time difference using responses f...

The primary somatosensory cortex (S1) plays a critical role in processing multiple somatosensations, but the mechanism underlying the representation of different submodalities of somatosensation in S1 remains unclear. Using in vivo two-photon calcium imaging that simultaneously monitors hundreds of layer 2/3 pyramidal S1 neurons of awake male mice, we examined neuronal responses triggered by mechanical, thermal, or pruritic stimuli. We found that mechanical, thermal, and pruritic stimuli activated largely overlapping neuronal populations in the same somatotopic S1 subregion. Population decoding analysis revealed that the local neuronal population in S1 encoded sufficient information to distinguish different somatosensory submodalities. Although multimodal S1 neurons responding to multiple types of stimuli exhibited no spatial clustering, S1 neurons preferring mechanical and thermal stimuli tended to show local clustering. These findings demonstrated the coding scheme of different submodalities of somatosen...

Neurotoxic HIV-1 viral proteins contribute to the development of HIV-associated neurocognitive disorder (HAND), the prevalence of which remains high (30–50%) with no effective treatment available. Estrogen is a known neuroprotective agent; however, the diverse mechanisms of estrogen action on the different types of estrogen receptors is not completely understood. In this study, we determined the extent to which and mechanisms by which 17α-estradiol (17αE2), a natural less-feminizing estrogen, offers neuroprotection against HIV-1 gp120-induced neuronal injury. Endolysosomes are important for neuronal function, and endolysosomal dysfunction contributes to HAND and other neurodegenerative disorders. In hippocampal neurons, estrogen receptor α (ERα) is localized to endolysosomes and 17αE2 acidifies endolysosomes. ERα knockdown or overexpressing an ERα mutant that is deficient in endolysosome localization prevents 17αE2-induced endolysosome acidification. Furthermore, 17αE2-induced increases in dendritic spine ...

The cerebral cortex, basal ganglia and motor thalamus form circuits important for purposeful movement. In Parkinsonism, basal ganglia neurons often exhibit dysrhythmic activity during, and with respect to, the slow (∼1 Hz) and beta-band (15-30 Hz) oscillations that emerge in cortex in a brain state-dependent manner. There remains, however, a pressing need to elucidate the extent to which motor thalamus activity becomes similarly dysrhythmic after dopamine depletion relevant to Parkinsonism. To address this, we recorded single-neuron and ensemble outputs in the basal ganglia-recipient zone (BZ) and cerebellar-recipient zone (CZ) of motor thalamus in anesthetized male dopamine-intact rats and 6-OHDA-lesioned rats during two brain states, respectively defined by cortical slow-wave activity and activation. Two forms of thalamic input zone-selective dysrhythmia manifested after dopamine depletion: (1) BZ neurons, but not CZ neurons, exhibited abnormal phase-shifted firing with respect to cortical slow oscillati...

The editors depend heavily on outside reviewers in forming opinions about papers submitted to JNeurosci and would like to formally thank the following individuals for their help during the past year. Gloster B. Aaron Nobuhito Abe Aman Aberra Jose Francisco Abisambra Alfonso Abizaid Karina P.

In the article “Reducing Amyloid-Related Alzheimer's Disease Pathogenesis by a Small Molecule Targeting Filamin A,” by Hoau-Yan Wang, Kalindi Bakshi, Maya Frankfurt, Andres Stucky, Marissa Goberdhan, Sanket M. Shah, and Lindsay H. Burns, which appeared on pages [9773–9784][1] of the July 18,