The cerebral cortex produces perception based on sensory information fed through the thalamus. Neuroscientists have struggled to understand how it works so well, given the relative paucity of observed connections between the two regions. In a new study published in Nature Neuroscience, MIT researchers report that thalamic inputs into superficial layers of the cortex are surprisingly weak and quite diverse in their distribution patterns. Despite this, they are reliable and efficient representatives of information in the aggregate, and their diversity is what underlies these advantages.

In patients with Huntington’s disease, neurons in a part of the brain called the striatum are among the hardest hit. Degeneration of these neurons contributes to patients’ loss of motor control, one of the major hallmarks of the disease. Neuroscientists at MIT have now shown that two distinct cell populations in the striatum are affected differently by Huntington’s disease. The researchers hope that their mapping of the striatum could help lead to new treatments targeting specific brain cells.

After decades of fundamental scientific and drug discovery research, Alzheimer’s disease has remained inscrutable and incurable, with a bare minimum of therapeutic progress. But in a new review article in Nature Neuroscience, MIT scientists write that by employing the new research capability of single-cell profiling, the field has rapidly achieved long-sought insights with strong potential for both explaining Alzheimer’s disease and doing something meaningful about it.