The time squares sequences: a new task for assessing visuospatial working memory – Olives are pretty tightly coupled to medullar CPG “master” circuits. All sensory data is initially processed in the brainstem, despite the canonical depictions of visual pathways.
A disynaptic basal ganglia connection to the inferior olive: potential for basal ganglia influence on cerebellar learning – I really wish the interactions between the globes/olives were able to be studied in depth, it’s like the main information super highway in human brains. The reticular formation as a whole probably accounts for the overwhelming amount (bullshitty random guess, 80%?) of processing in nervous systems.
Characterization of three cholinergic inputs to the cochlear nucleus – This type of configuration is pretty common across most “brain circuits”, down to the differing input levels to dorsal vs. ventral regions. The ventral side is a feedback circuit to the dorsal feedforward processing, see – startle behavior, “PTSD”, “Sensory Processing Disorder”.
Characterization of the superior olivary complex of chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) in comparison to humans – Wish we could train researchers to instinctively stain for glia whenever they see cal* proteins (e.g. bindin/modulin).
A brainstem integrator for self-location memory and positional homeostasis in zebrafish – Banger. Salience is a brainstem function. Love work like this which addresses systematic flaws in research (in this case, the focus on monitoring only pre-selected regions based on prior assumptions of function). The core sense and perception of “self” initiates in the brainstem.
Cerebellum-Cortical Interaction in Spatial Navigation and Its Alteration in Dementias – I think despite all the focus on cortical etiologies of dementias, there’s a massive body of evidence which suggests brainstem insult is the actual driver of symptomologies. Why can someone have fully blown out lateral ventricles or enough NFTs to start a dementia village, but still not exhibit clinical dementia? Just like brain trauma scales, it’s all about the brain stem.
Neurogenic timing of the inferior olive subdivisions is related to the olivocerebellar projection topography – Isn’t this a cool piece of work? The two dominant cognitive streams are essentially mirrors of each other, and the difference between them provides a metabolically efficient calculation of “drift from homeostasis” when the streams are differenced. We see this same effect in the hippocampal/lenticular complex.
Complex spikes perturb movements, revealing the sensorimotor map of Purkinje cells – Pre-print, but wow. Hacking the “self” map instead of the “external map” in the sensorimotor cortex is going to open up a lot of cool stuff.
Principal neuron diversity in the murine lateral superior olive supports multiple sound localization strategies and segregation of information in higher processing centers – More of the map integration from above, but looking at individual input integration. If only there were a cell type which integrated information from disparate input sources, this would all make sooo much more sense!
Experience-dependent flexibility in a molecularly diverse central-to-peripheral auditory feedback system – We’ve been so enamored by the PNS, that the CNS initiates salience has somehow gotten missed until recently. Cool stuff.
The effect of dorsal column lesions in the primary somatosensory cortex and medulla of adult rats – Okay, abstracting away the ghoulishness of work like this, it suggests the core of all behavior is generated in the medulla, that the medulla can modify the downstream inputs to limbic circuits, and that changes to this region create a requirement for major downstream remodeling. That’s a pretty big finding and if it’s consistent, is a pretty hugely confirmatory piece of work for the model. It’s almost like everything north of the red nucleus is “post processing”.
Would really love to see a year study evaluating differences with chronic tDCS or TMS stimulation against the medulla/pons. Might even be the first treatment that significantly slows some dementia types.