Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Articles in this Issue
How circuits for habits are formed within the basal ganglia
Recent findings show that stereotyped movement sequences (habits) need the cortex in the learning phase, but after learning, the cortex can be inactivated, and the movement still be performed flawless...
Intravital imaging of translocated bacteria via fluorogenic labeling of gut microbiota in situ
The translocation of bacteria from intestinal tracts into blood vessels and distal organs plays pivotal roles in the pathogenesis of numerous severe diseases. Intravital monitoring of bacterial transl...
Mechanistic insights into dengue virus inhibition by a clinical trial compound NITD-688
Dengue, caused by the dengue virus (DENV), presents a significant public health challenge with limited effective treatments. NITD-688 is a potent panserotype DENV inhibitor currently in Phase II clini...
Discovery and functional characterization of a bombesin-type neuropeptide signaling system in an invertebrate
Neuropeptide signaling systems are key regulators of physiological and behavioral processes in animals. However, the evolutionary history of some neuropeptides originally discovered in vertebrates is...
Dopaminergic neurons in the paraventricular hypothalamus extend the food consumption phase
Feeding behavior is controlled by various neural networks in the brain that are involved in different feeding phases: Food procurement, consumption, and termination. However, the specific neural circu...
Linear Recursive Feature Machines provably recover low-rank matrices
A fundamental problem in machine learning is to understand how neural networks make accurate predictions, while seemingly bypassing the curse of dimensionality. A possible explanation is that common t...
Expectation-dependent stimulus selectivity in the ventral visual cortical pathway
The hierarchical view of the ventral object recognition pathway is primarily based on feedforward mechanisms, starting from a fixed basis set of object primitives and ending on a representation of who...
Belief in belief: Even atheists in secular countries show intuitive preferences favoring religious belief
We find evidence of belief in belief —intuitive preferences for religious belief over atheism, even among atheist participants—across eight comparatively secula...
Explaining human motor coordination via the synergy expansion hypothesis
The search for an answer to Bernstein’s degrees of freedom problem has propelled a large portion of research studies in human motor control over the past six decades. Different theories have been deve...
The emergence of eukaryotes as an evolutionary algorithmic phase transition
The origin of eukaryotes represents one of the most significant events in evolution since it allowed the posterior emergence of multicellular organisms. Yet, it remains unclear how existing regulatory...
Manipulation of interoceptive signaling biases decision making in rhesus macaques
Several influential theories have proposed that interoceptive signals, sent from the body to the brain, contribute to neural processes that coordinate complex behaviors. We altered the physiological s...
Modulation of host gene expression by the zinc finger antiviral protein
The zinc finger antiviral protein (ZAP) depletes nonself RNAs through recognition of their elevated CpG dinucleotide content. CpG dinucleotides are sparse in most endogenous mammalian mRNAs, but a sub...
Bayesian inference by visuomotor neurons in the prefrontal cortex
Perceptual judgments of the environment emerge from the concerted activity of neural populations in decision-making areas downstream of the sensory cortex. When the sensory input is ambiguous, percept...
Cholesterol-dependent enzyme activity of human TSPO1
The amino acid sequence of the tryptophan-rich sensory proteins (TSPO) is substantially conserved throughout all kingdoms of life. Human mitochondrial TSPO1 ( Hs...
Climate change impacts have potentially big repercussions for kids’ education
Allosteric mechanism in the distinctive coupling of G <sub>q</sub> and G <sub>s</sub> to the parathyroid hormone type 1 receptor
The mechanism determining the preferential stimulation of one heterotrimeric G protein signaling pathway over another by a ligand remains undetermined. By reporting the cryogenic electron microscopy (...
The PVD neuron has male-specific structure and mating function in <i>Caenorhabditis elegans</i>
Neurons display unique shapes and establish intricate networks, which may differ between sexes. In complex organisms, studying sex differences in structure and function of individual neurons is diffic...
Cancer-associated SF3B1 mutation K700E causes widespread changes in U2/branchpoint recognition without altering splicing
Myelodysplastic syndromes and other cancers are often associated with mutations in the U2 snRNP protein SF3B1. Common SF3B1 mutations, including K700E, disrupt SF3B1 interaction with the protein SUGP1...
Bridging the human–AI knowledge gap through concept discovery and transfer in AlphaZero
AI systems have attained superhuman performance across various domains. If the hidden knowledge encoded in these highly capable systems can be leveraged, human knowledge and performance can be advance...
Potassium-sensitive loss of muscle force in the setting of reduced inward rectifier K <sup>+</sup> current: Implications for Andersen–Tawil syndrome
Andersen–Tawil syndrome (ATS) is an ion channelopathy with variable penetrance for the triad of periodic paralysis, arrhythmia, and dysmorphia. Dominant-negative mutations of KCNJ2...
Actuating superparamagnetic nanoparticle monolayers
Magnetically responsive, mechanically flexible microstructures are desirable for applications ranging from smart sensors to remote-controlled actuation for surgery or robotics. Embedding magnetic nano...
An atlas of protein phosphorylation dynamics during interferon signaling
Interferons (IFNs, types I-III) have pleiotropic functions in promoting antiviral and antitumor responses, as well as in modulating inflammation. Dissecting the signaling mechanisms elicited by differ...
In situ cavitation bubble manometry reveals a lack of light-activated guard cell turgor modulation in bryophytes
Diversification of plant hydraulic architecture and stomatal function coincides with radical changes in the Earth’s atmosphere over the past 400 my. Due to shared stomatal anatomy with the earliest la...
Tetrapod species–area relationships across the Cretaceous–Paleogene mass extinction
Mass extinctions are rare but catastrophic events that profoundly disrupt biodiversity. Widely accepted consequences of mass extinctions, such as biodiversity loss and the appearance of temporary “dis...
Observation of odd-parity superconductivity in UTe <sub>2</sub>
Symmetry properties of the order parameter are among the most fundamental characteristics of a superconductor. UTe 2 , which was found to feature an exceedingly...