DURHAM, N.C. -- By combining super-fine electrodes and tiny amounts of a very specific drug, Duke University researchers have singled out a circuit in mouse brains and taken control of it to dial an animal's mood up and down.

Stress-susceptible animals that behaved as if they were depressed or anxious were restored to relatively normal behavior by tweaking the system, according to a study appearing in the July 20 issue of Neuron.

• Neurons are the basic information processing structures in the brain and consist of three parts: dendrites, responsible for receiving information; axons, responsible for sending information; and the soma, the cell body that contains the nucleus.

LA JOLLA, CA - June 23, 2016 - A team of scientists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI), University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego) and Illumina, Inc., has completed the first large-scale assessment of single neuronal "transcriptomes." Their research reveals a surprising diversity in the molecules that human brain cells use in transcribing genetic information from DNA to RNA and producing proteins.

The researchers accomplished this feat by isolating and analyzing single-neuronal nuclei from the human brain, allowing classification of 16 neuronal subtypes in the brain's cerebral cortex, the "gray matter" involved in thought, cognition and many other functions.

Finding out which is the highest mountain in the US Arctic may be the last thing on your mind, unless you are an explorer who skis from the tallest peaks around the globe. Ski mountaineer Kit DesLauriers joined forces with glaciologist Matt Nolan to settle a debate of more than 50 years, while testing a new, affordable mapping technique in a steep mountainous region. Their research is published today (23 June) in The Cryosphere, an open access journal of the European Geosciences Union (EGU).

By the 2080s, as many as 3,331 people could die every year from exposure to heat during the summer months in New York City. The high estimate by Columbia University scientists is based on a new model--the first to account for variability in future population size, greenhouse gas trajectories, and the extent to which residents adapt to heat through interventions like air conditioning and public cooling centers. Results appear online in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives.

Researchers project that as many as 1,779 annual heat-related deaths could be avoided if the climate adheres to the more moderate of two greenhouse gas trajectories--known as representative concentration pathways 4.5 and 8.5. High levels of adaptation could save an additional 1,198 lives.

Researchers have improved the integration of disparate sources and types of data which will advance scientists' understanding of disease using Wikipathways. This study, published in PLOS Computational Biology, will help other scientists better utilize open data and will aid the discovery of new therapeutic targets for disease.