A circuit that integrates drive state and social contact to gate mating.

Internal motive states, such as sexual arousal, drive behaviour in response to social cues. However, little is known about how internal states and external cues are integrated to release appropriate behaviours at the correct moment during a social interaction, such as the transition from the appetitive to the consummatory phases of mating. Here we identify a neural circuit in male mice that gates the onset of consummatory reproductive behaviours on contact with a mating partner.

Divergent outputs of the ventral lateral geniculate nucleus mediate visually evoked defensive behaviors.

Rapid alternations between exploration and defensive reactions require ongoing risk assessment. How visual cues and internal states flexibly modulate the selection of behaviors remains incompletely understood. Here, we show that the ventral lateral geniculate nucleus (vLGN)-a major retinorecipient structure-is a critical node in the network controlling defensive behaviors to visual threats.

When Visual Circuits Collide: Motion Processing in the Brain.

How is sensory information transformed by each station of a synaptic circuit as it flows progressively deeper into the brain? In this issue of Cell, Mauss et al. describe a set of connections in the fly brain that combines opposing directional signals, and they hypothesize that this motif limits global motion noise as the fly moves through space.

Dyrk kinases regulate phosphorylation of doublecortin, cytoskeletal organization, and neuronal morphology.

In a neuronal overexpression screen focused on kinases and phosphatases, one "hit" was the dual specificity tyrosine phosphorylation-regulated kinase (Dyrk4), which increased the number of dendritic branches in hippocampal neurons. Overexpression of various Dyrk family members in primary neurons significantly changed neuronal morphology. Dyrk1A decreased axon growth, Dyrk3 and Dyrk4 increased dendritic branching, and Dyrk2 decreased both axon and dendrite growth and branching.