Featured
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Research Highlight |
Babies benefit when parents are fluent in baby talk
Formal instruction in ‘parentese’ might seem unnecessary, but researchers find that coaching caregivers leads to chattier children.
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Article |
A distributional code for value in dopamine-based reinforcement learning
Analyses of single-cell recordings from mouse ventral tegmental area are consistent with a model of reinforcement learning in which the brain represents possible future rewards not as a single mean of stochastic outcomes, as in the canonical model, but instead as a probability distribution.
- Will Dabney
- , Zeb Kurth-Nelson
- & Matthew Botvinick
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Article |
Internal state dynamics shape brainwide activity and foraging behaviour
During foraging for live prey, zebrafish larvae alternate between persistent exploitation and exploration behavioural states that correlate with distinct patterns of neuronal activation.
- João C. Marques
- , Meng Li
- & Jennifer M. Li
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Article |
Frontal cortex neuron types categorically encode single decision variables
Frontal cortex neurons can be grouped into categorical response types corresponding to particular decision variables, such as reward size, decision confidence, or value, and individual variables may be encoded in distinct projection populations; this suggests that, like neurons in sensory cortex, frontal neurons form a sparse and overcomplete representation of important variables in the environment.
- Junya Hirokawa
- , Alexander Vaughan
- & Adam Kepecs
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Letter |
Daytime colour preference in Drosophila depends on the circadian clock and TRP channels
Innate colour preference in adult fruit flies changes with the time of day, and depends on rhodopsins 1 and 7, TRP channels and the circadian clock.
- Stanislav Lazopulo
- , Andrey Lazopulo
- & Sheyum Syed
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Books & Arts |
What makes a dictator, a guide to the apocalypse, and demythologizing language: Books in brief
Barbara Kiser reviews five of the week’s best science picks.
- Barbara Kiser
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Nature Careers Podcast |
Working Scientist podcast: Career transitions from physics to data science
Industry has long courted physicists for their data science expertise, but will this change as more undergraduates acquire these skills?
- Julie Gould
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Career Column |
Six tips for adapting to a new language and culture
Moving abroad for a career opportunity can be stressful and difficult. But there are ways to navigate the minefields.
- Lisa Liu
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Spotlight |
How one Canadian scientist is tapping into the knowledge of Indigenous communities
Jean Polfus found her research was strengthened by bringing more voices to the table.
- Brian Owens
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News & Views |
The origin and spread of the Sino-Tibetan language family
A robust computational approach with added finesse provides evidence to support the view that the Sino-Tibetan languages arose in northern China and began to split into branches about 5,900 years ago.
- Randy J. LaPolla
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News & Views |
Brain implants that let you speak your mind
A brain–computer interface device synthesizes speech using the neural signals that control lip, tongue, larynx and jaw movements, and could be a stepping stone to restoring speech function in individuals unable to speak.
- Chethan Pandarinath
- & Yahia H. Ali
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Letter |
Sensing with tools extends somatosensory processing beyond the body
Tools are embodied by the human somatosensory system, serving as sensory extensions of the human body.
- Luke E. Miller
- , Luca Montroni
- & Alessandro Farnè
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Career Feature |
How to harness the support of your local community: write with your PhD pals
Writing sessions with colleagues are a great reminder to PhD students that we’re all in it together.
- Agata Bochynska
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News |
Diverse genome study upends understanding of how language evolved
Research casts doubt on the idea that the FOXP2 gene — linked to language evolution — is special to modern humans.
- Matthew Warren
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News Q&A |
The researchers who study alien linguistics
Nature speaks to linguist Sheri Wells-Jensen who co-hosted a workshop about the challenges of communicating with extraterrestrials.
- Davide Castelvecchi
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Career Column |
Write fiction to discover something new in your research
Creative writing can help you to approach your science from a completely different perspective — and boost its impact, says Amanda C. Niehaus.
- Amanda C. Niehaus
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News |
Ancient DNA offers clues to remote Pacific islands’ population puzzle
Genomic studies provide details about the complex peopling of Vanuatu — one of the last places on Earth reached by humans.
- Ewen Callaway
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Letter |
Posterior parietal cortex represents sensory history and mediates its effects on behaviour
A working memory task in rats demonstrates that the posterior parietal cortex is a critical locus for the representation and use of prior stimulus information.
- Athena Akrami
- , Charles D. Kopec
- & Carlos D. Brody
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Spotlight |
Neuroscience starts talking
The previously introverted discipline is opening up to collaboration.
- Andrew Curry
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News |
Language patterns reveal body's hidden response to stress
Volunteers' use of certain words predicted stress-related changes in gene expression better than their self-reported feelings.
- Jo Marchant
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News |
Baby bats crowdsource their dialects from colony members
Mothers aren’t the only ones with influence over what the young mammals learn.
- Rachael Lallensack
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Books & Arts |
History of technology: How China sidestepped QWERTY
Raja Adal investigates the 150-year history of a typewriter able to reproduce thousands of characters.
- Raja Adal
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Books & Arts |
Books in brief
Barbara Kiser reviews five of the week's best science picks.
- Barbara Kiser
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Books & Arts |
Cryptography: The codes that got away
Andrew Robinson takes on a compendium of past and current ciphers ripe for decoding.
- Andrew Robinson
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News & Views |
A social spin on language analysis
Understanding the prevalence and impact of personal attacks in online discussions is challenging. A method that combines crowdsourcing and machine learning provides a way forward, but caveats must be considered.
- Carolyn Penstein Rosé
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Comment |
Antibiotic resistance has a language problem
A failure to use words clearly undermines the global response to antimicrobials' waning usefulness. Standardize terminology, urge Marc Mendelson and colleagues.
- Marc Mendelson
- , Manica Balasegaram
- & Mike Sharland
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Letter |
Thalamic amplification of cortical connectivity sustains attentional control
The mediodorsal nucleus of the thalamus amplifies the functional connectivity of the prefrontal cortex, thereby sustaining cortical representations of rule sets without relaying categorical information.
- L. Ian Schmitt
- , Ralf D. Wimmer
- & Michael M. Halassa
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Books & Arts |
Language: Points, grunts and speaks
Mark Pagel weighs up a study claiming that the origins of human language are rooted in gesture.
- Mark Pagel
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Letter |
Gamma oscillations organize top-down signalling to hypothalamus and enable food seeking
Coordinated gamma oscillations in the lateral hypothalamus, lateral septum and medial prefrontal cortex are shown to drive food-seeking behaviour in mice independently of nutritional need and to organize firing of feeding behaviour-related hypothalamic neurons.
- Marta Carus-Cadavieco
- , Maria Gorbati
- & Tatiana Korotkova
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News |
Bat banter is surprisingly nuanced
The racket that Egyptian fruit bats make when jammed next to each other contains information about food, sleeping arrangements and mating attempts.
- Ramin Skibba
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News |
Geneticists seek keys to bat vocalizations
Project to sequence the DNA of more than 1,000 species seeks to reveal how bats learn to communicate.
- Ramin Skibba
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Books & Arts |
Cryptography: Calligraphic conundrum
Andrew Robinson relishes a new volume on a work that has long defied decoders.
- Andrew Robinson
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News & Views |
Sound and meaning in the world's languages
The sounds of words that represent particular meanings are usually thought to vary arbitrarily across languages. However, a large-scale study of languages finds that some associations between sound and meaning are widespread.
- W. Tecumseh Fitch
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Research Highlights |
Same sounds for similar meanings
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Article |
A multi-modal parcellation of human cerebral cortex
A detailed parcellation (map) of the human cerebral cortex has been obtained by integrating multi-modal imaging data, including functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), and the resulting freely available resources will enable detailed comparative studies of the human brain in health, ageing and disease.
- Matthew F. Glasser
- , Timothy S. Coalson
- & David C. Van Essen
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Letter |
Dissociated functional significance of decision-related activity in the primate dorsal stream
Activity in regions of the brain have been correlated with decision making but determining whether such relationships are correlative or causative has been challenging; using a technique to reversibly inactivate brain areas in monkeys reveals that although there is decision-related activity in the lateral intraparietal (LIP) area, LIP is not critical for the perceptual decisions studied here.
- Leor N. Katz
- , Jacob L. Yates
- & Alexander C. Huk
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Article |
Natural speech reveals the semantic maps that tile human cerebral cortex
It has been proposed that language meaning is represented throughout the cerebral cortex in a distributed ‘semantic system’, but little is known about the details of this network; here, voxel-wise modelling of functional MRI data collected while subjects listened to natural stories is used to create a detailed atlas that maps representations of word meaning in the human brain.
- Alexander G. Huth
- , Wendy A. de Heer
- & Jack L. Gallant
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Letter |
Nucleus accumbens D2R cells signal prior outcomes and control risky decision-making
Increased activity of dopamine receptor type-2 (D2R)-expressing cells in the nucleus accumbens of rats during a ‘decision’ period reflects a ‘loss’ outcome of the previous decision and predicts a subsequent safe choice; by artificially increasing the activity of D2R neurons during the decision period, risk-seeking rats could be converted to risk-avoiding rats.
- Kelly A. Zalocusky
- , Charu Ramakrishnan
- & Karl Deisseroth
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Research Highlights |
Languages have common structure
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Social Selection |
“A field of crop scientists” — Twitter delivers collective nouns for researchers
The hashtag #scientistherdnames began with a blog post about the lack of group terms for scientists.
- Dalmeet Singh Chawla
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Books & Arts |
Books in brief
Barbara Kiser reviews five of the week's best science picks.
- Barbara Kiser
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Review Article |
Progress and challenges in probing the human brain
This Review evaluates current techniques used to investigate human brain function, discusses the successes and limitations of these techniques to test hypotheses about causal mechanisms, and looks to future directions and implementation of these techniques in real-world problems.
- Russell A. Poldrack
- & Martha J. Farah
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Letter |
Forniceal deep brain stimulation rescues hippocampal memory in Rett syndrome mice
Deep brain stimulation (DBS) of the fimbria–fornix—a region that provides input to the hippocampus—is shown to restore hippocampus-dependent memory and hippocampal long-term potentiation and neurogenesis in a mouse model of Rett syndrome, suggesting that DBS, which is already used in the treatment of several neurological conditions, could be a viable approach to mitigating cognitive impairment in Rett syndrome and other disorders of childhood intellectual disability.
- Shuang Hao
- , Bin Tang
- & Jianrong Tang
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Research Highlights |
Climate sceptics use strong words
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News & Views |
50 & 100 Years Ago