The ability to quickly re-acquire a previously lost motor skill is associated with lasting synaptic changes in the brain circuit that controls that motor skill.
Sequential live imaging of abnormal skull bone fusion in zebrafish reveals a deeply conserved role of two transcription factors, Twist1 and Tcf12, in regulating stem cell activity during growth of the skull.
Virtual investigation of the 3.67-million-year-old skull of 'Little Foot' using synchrotron radiation reveals histological details of Australopithecus dental and bone tissues.
Homology of vertebrate skull structures should be based on evolutionary continuity and an appreciation of germ layer origins and inductive signaling in the embryonic head.
Recordings from the mouse brain as animals learn a lever pressing task reveal how the motor system optimizes skill learning by reducing variability in those aspects of task performance that are essential for achieving a goal.
By demonstrating song learning-related synaptic strengthening and pruning in the vocal control circuits of songbirds, and showing how such changes can reduce the sensitivity of the circuit to ‘noisy’ inputs, a simple neural circuit mechanism for regulating motor variability during motor skill learning is identified.
Detailed analysis of fMRI data shows that sequences of movements are associated with individual patterns of neural activity that become more distinct with training.
Stunning new scan data of an enigmatic fish from the Early Devonian of Australia, Ligulalepis, is identified as a stem osteichthyan, specifically, as the sister taxon to the 'psarolepids' plus crown osteichthyans.
Dorsomedial and dorsolateral striatal neural activity differ during early learning of action sequences but do not change with performance improvement across sessions, and become similar after extended training.
