The objective of this review of the literature is to summarize the physiology of orofacial pain in dentistry, particularly physiology of the pain pathway and molecular mechanisms on pathophysiology of pain, on account of new insights into classification of orofacial pain related diseases. This article will also focus on possible mechanisms of neuropathic orofacial pain which is distinguished from other types of pain.

Numerous studies have proposed that specific brain activity statistics provide evidence that the brain operates at a critical point, which could have implications for the brain’s information processing capabilities. A recent paper reported that identical scalings and criticality signatures arise in a variety of different neural systems (neural cultures, cortical slices, anesthetized or awake brains, across both reptiles and mammals). The diversity of these states calls into question the claimed role of criticality in information processing. We analyze the methodology used to assess criticality and replicate this analysis for spike trains of two non-critical systems. These two non-critical systems pass all the tests used to assess criticality in the aforementioned recent paper. This analysis provides a crucial control (which is absent from the original study) and suggests that the methodology used may not be sufficient to establish that a system operates at criticality. Hence whether the brain operates at c...

Advances in genome sequencing have identified over 1300 mutations in the SCN1A sodium channel gene that result in genetic epilepsies. However, it still remains unclear how most individual mutations within SCN1A result in seizures. A previous study has shown that the K1270T (KT) mutation, linked to genetic epilepsy with febrile seizure plus (GEFS+) in humans, causes heat-induced seizure activity associated with a temperature-dependent decrease in GABAergic neuron excitability in a Drosophila knock-in model. To examine the behavioral and cellular effects of this mutation in mammals, we introduced the equivalent KT mutation into the mouse ( Mus musculus ) Scn1a ( Scn1aKT) gene using CRISPR/Cas9 and generated mutant lines in two widely used genetic backgrounds: C57BL/6NJ and 129X1/SvJ. In both backgrounds, mice homozygous for the KT mutation had spontaneous seizures and died by postnatal day (P)23. There was no difference in mortality of heterozygous KT mice compared with wild-type littermates up to six months...

Where are we now, 1 year after eNeuro launched an initiative to encourage the use of estimation statistics in neuroscience? We started to attract attention to estimation statistics in August 2019 with an editorial (Bernard, 2019) and opinion paper (Calin-Jageman and Cumming, 2019). In February 2020, I asked Reviewing Editors to identify papers that could benefit from converting to estimation statistics. One hundred were thus identified. And, overall in 2020, 52 published papers included estimation statistics in their analyses! One of the earliest papers to include estimation statistics was from my own laboratory because I was determined to be sure for myself that this was a feasible step to take. So, thank you all for making this initiative a success. Using estimation statistics, in addition to the classical significance testing (and the p value), is not a constraint. The feedback we get from authors who did it is nothing but positive. The display of results is much clearer, and the effect sizes can be se...

Everyone agrees that we do not yet understand how brains work, neither well enough to satisfactorily explain basic functions such as memory nor to design effective interventions to restore mental health. This is one of the great scientific challenges of our era, with huge implications not only for human health but for insight into all animal life and for the development of future technologies. How should resources be invested to foster the necessary leap toward understanding? Given the pressing societal need and the very high public expectations of neuroscience, stoked by TED talks, New York Times articles, and sci fi, the pressures riding on choices of funding targets are enormous. Against this background, 2013 was a banner year for the brain: both the European Union and the United States agreed to devote unprecedented support specifically to neuroscience. The European Union funded the billion-dollar Human Brain Project (HBP; Amunts et al, 2016), whose centerpiece was a team science effort to develop neu...

This commentary puts the In Silico movie in perspective of the Human Brain Project (HBP) and clarifies major differences between this project and the Blue Brain Project, emphasizing that the two projects are very different in scope.

Highlighted Research Paper: [[The Role of Location-Context Binding in Nonspatial Visual Working Memory, by Ying Cai, Jacqueline M. Fulvio, Qing Yu, Andrew D. Sheldon, and Bradley R. Postle (2020).][2]][2] []: /lookup/doi/10.1523/ENEURO.0430-20.2020

In the article, “Unraveling Synaptic GCaMP Signals: Differential Excitability and Clearance Mechanisms Underlying Distinct Ca2+ Dynamics in Tonic and Phasic Excitatory, and Aminergic Modulatory Motor Terminals …

In many preclinical spinal cord injury (SCI) studies, assessment of locomotion recovery is key to understanding the effectiveness of the experimental intervention. In such rat SCI studies, the most basic locomotor recovery scoring system is a subjective observation of animals freely roaming in an open field, the Basso Beattie Bresnahan (BBB) score. In comparison, CatWalk is an automated gait analysis system, providing further parameter specifications. Although together the CatWalk parameters encompass gait, studies consistently report single parameters, which differ in significance from other behavioral assessments. Therefore, we believe no single parameter produced by the CatWalk can represent the fully-coordinated motion of gait. Typically, other locomotor assessments, such as the BBB score, combine several locomotor characteristics into a representative score. For this reason, we ranked the most distinctive CatWalk parameters between uninjured and SC injured rats. Subsequently, we combined nine of the t...

The basal ganglia have long been considered crucial for associative learning, but whether they also are involved in another type of learning, error-based motor learning, is not clear. Error-based learning has been considered the province of the cerebellum. However, learning to use a robotic arm and saccade adaptation, which use error-based learning, are facilitated by motivation, which is a function of the basal ganglia. Additionally, patients with Parkinson’s disease, a basal ganglia deficit, show slower saccade adaptation than age matched controls. To further investigate whether the basal ganglia actually influence error-based learning, we reversibly inactivated the oculomotor portion of the substantia nigra pars reticulata (SNr) in two monkeys and tested saccade adaptation. Here, we show that nigral inactivation affected saccade adaptation. In particular, the inactivation facilitated the amplitude decrease adaptation of ipsiversive saccades. Consistent with previous studies, no effect was seen on the am...