In our Select pages, we highlight exciting themes that have emerged from our review of the recent literature on a particular topic. In this issue, we present Neurobiology Select in which we discuss a cluster of recent papers that increases our understanding of complex human neurological disorders such as schizophrenia, Tourette’s syndrome, and developmental dyslexia. Some of the genes implicate...

The role of adipose tissue, or fat, in the development and treatment of metabolic disease is the subject of this issue's Select. A cluster of new studies in mice suggest that dysregulation of lymphocytes and other inflammatory cells in adipose tissue contributes to obesity and metabolic diseases such as type 2 diabetes. Elucidation of how the inflamma-tory response affects different types of ad...

Transporter proteins bind ions and small molecules and transfer them across lipid membranes. Recent studies on transporters, discussed in this issue's Biochemistry Select, provide insight into the family of proteins targeted by tricyclic antidepressants. Other work sheds light on glucose absorption in the gut, host-pathogen interactions , and a mechanism used by an important food crop to adapt ...

This issue's Immunology Select highlights recent studies that provide insight into the timing and regulation of both innate and adaptive immune responses. Recent work in the fruit fly shows that enhanced stem cell proliferation in the intestine maintains tissue homeostasis in the face of bacterial infection. Other recent findings include a new factor involved in regulatory T cell function, a ro...

Several recent studies use microscopy, mass spectroscopy, and proteomic analysis of B cells to elucidate the rapid changes that occur when the B cell receptor engages with its antigen. Other new findings call attention to the emerging role of Toll-like receptors in B cell-mediated autoimmunity. Here we discuss these studies and what they reveal about the intriguing biology of B cells. B cells a...

T helper 17 (Th17) cells are a recently discovered lineage of T lymphocytes that have been implicated in auto-immunity and inflammation. Several recent studies reveal new factors that promote or impair differentiation of T lymphocytes into Th17 cells, thereby contributing to our understanding of how this lineage is specified and how to combat Th17-mediated autoimmunity. Differentiation of naı¨v...

This issue's Neurobiology Select highlights different molecular aspects of the patterning of neuronal circuits during development, as well as factors that determine the number of neurons in the circuit. The network of neu-ronal dendrites receives synaptic input often through specialized structures called spines, and we highlight some recent insights into how these structures are formed. We also...

Frontotemporal dementia (FTD) has been linked to mutations in the gene on chromosome 17 that encodes the microtubule-associated protein tau. However, not all patients with FTD have tau mutations even though their disease has been genetically linked to chromosome 17. Such patients exhibit an unusual pathology with ubiquitinimmunoreactive nuclear and cytoplasmic inclusions in layer II of the fron...

The dopaminergic neurons of the central nervous system regulate behavior associated with reward and punishment. Loss of dopamine neurons in the substantia nigra leads to Parkinson’s disease. This issue’s Neurobiology Select discusses the discovery of a neural circuit involved in decision making in flies and a report showing that associative learning shifts the timing of dopamine signaling in ro...

Students of media and communication sciences study the role of media in our society. They frequently search through media archives to manually select items that cover a certain event. When this is done for large time spans and across media-outlets, this task can however be challenging and laborious. Therefore, up until now the focus of students has been on manual and qualitative analyses of new...