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New Tools for Neurobiology

New Content ItemGuest Editors: Michael Stryker, Mu-ming Poo, Joshua Sanes, Leslie Vosshall

New tools are transforming Neurobiology, both in the way experiments are being done and the questions they are addressing. 
For this series BMC Biology have invited reviews, Q&As and commentaries on new methods of observation and analysis that are enhancing our understanding of the complex workings of the brain. 
We will consider methodology manuscripts that report a new method or technique of broad interest, or a significant improvement on an existing method that will accelerate discovery. Research manuscripts that bring fresh insights through the use of recently developed methods will also be considered.

Papers in our Registered Reports format will also be welcomed.

Submit your manuscript here

Please use the online submission system, and indicate in your covering letter that you would like the manuscript to be considered for the “New Tools in Neurobiology” series. If you would like to inquire about the suitability of a manuscript for consideration, please email a pre-submission inquiry to BMCBiologyEditorial@biomedcentral.com 

Image adapted from Q&A by Ed Boyden and colleagues in this series; originally published by Macmillan Publishers Ltd: Nature Biotechnology, copyright 2016, and adapted with permission

  1. Annotation of cell identity is an essential process in neuroscience that allows comparison of cells, including that of neural activities across different animals. In Caenorhabditis elegans, although unique identi...

    Authors: Yu Toyoshima, Stephen Wu, Manami Kanamori, Hirofumi Sato, Moon Sun Jang, Suzu Oe, Yuko Murakami, Takayuki Teramoto, Chanhyun Park, Yuishi Iwasaki, Takeshi Ishihara, Ryo Yoshida and Yuichi Iino
    Citation: BMC Biology 2020 18:30
    Content type: Methodology article Published on:

  2. As a “holy grail” of neuroscience, optical imaging of membrane potential could enable high resolution measurements of spiking and synaptic activity in neuronal populations. This has been partly achieved using ...

    Authors: Yuki Bando, Christiane Grimm, Victor H Cornejo and Rafael Yuste
    Citation: BMC Biology 2019 17:71
    Content type: Review Published on:

  3. Understanding the brain requires understanding behavior. New machine vision and learning techniques are poised to revolutionize our ability to analyze behaviors exhibited by animals in the laboratory. Here we ...

    Authors: Sandeep Robert Datta
    Citation: BMC Biology 2019 17:44
    Content type: Question and Answer Published on:

  4. RNA localization involves cis-motifs that are recognized by RNA-binding proteins (RBP), which then mediate localization to specific sub-cellular compartments. RNA localization is critical for many different ce...

    Authors: Sarah A. Middleton, James Eberwine and Junhyong Kim
    Citation: BMC Biology 2019 17:5
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  5. High throughput methods for profiling the transcriptomes of single cells have recently emerged as transformative approaches for large-scale population surveys of cellular diversity in heterogeneous primary tis...

    Authors: Aparna Bhaduri, Tomasz J Nowakowski, Alex A Pollen and Arnold R Kriegstein
    Citation: BMC Biology 2018 16:113
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  6. Array tomography encompasses light and electron microscopy modalities that offer unparalleled opportunities to explore three-dimensional cellular architectures in extremely fine structural and molecular detail...

    Authors: Stephen J Smith
    Citation: BMC Biology 2018 16:98
    Content type: Question and Answer Published on:

  8. Huntington disease (HD) is a fatal neurodegenerative disorder caused by a CAG expansion in the huntingtin (HTT) gene, leading to selective and progressive neuronal death predominantly in the striatum. Mutant HTT ...

    Authors: Mandi E. Schmidt, Caodu Buren, James P. Mackay, Daphne Cheung, Louisa Dal Cengio, Lynn A. Raymond and Michael R. Hayden
    Citation: BMC Biology 2018 16:58
    Content type: Methodology article Published on:

  9. Advances in tissue clearing and molecular labeling methods are enabling unprecedented optical access to large intact biological systems. These developments fuel the need for high-speed microscopy approaches to...

    Authors: Bianca Migliori, Malika S. Datta, Christophe Dupre, Mehmet C. Apak, Shoh Asano, Ruixuan Gao, Edward S. Boyden, Ola Hermanson, Rafael Yuste and Raju Tomer
    Citation: BMC Biology 2018 16:57
    Content type: Methodology article Published on:

  10. The need for high-throughput, precise, and meaningful methods for measuring behavior has been amplified by our recent successes in measuring and manipulating neural circuitry. The largest challenges associated...

    Authors: Gordon J. Berman
    Citation: BMC Biology 2018 16:23
    Content type: Review Published on:

  11. Genetically encoded calcium ion (Ca2+) indicators (GECIs) are indispensable tools for measuring Ca2+ dynamics and neuronal activities in vitro and in vivo. Red fluorescent protein (RFP)-based GECIs have inherent ...

    Authors: Yi Shen, Hod Dana, Ahmed S. Abdelfattah, Ronak Patel, Jamien Shea, Rosana S. Molina, Bijal Rawal, Vladimir Rancic, Yu-Fen Chang, Lanshi Wu, Yingche Chen, Yong Qian, Matthew D. Wiens, Nathan Hambleton, Klaus Ballanyi, Thomas E. Hughes…
    Citation: BMC Biology 2018 16:9
    Content type: Research article Published on:

    The Correction to this article has been published in BMC Biology 2019 17:85

  12. A dearth of laboratory tests to study actual human approach-avoidance behavior has complicated translational research on anxiety. The elevated plus-maze (EPM) is the gold standard to assess approach-avoidance ...

    Authors: Sarah V. Biedermann, Daniel G. Biedermann, Frederike Wenzlaff, Tim Kurjak, Sawis Nouri, Matthias K. Auer, Klaus Wiedemann, Peer Briken, Jan Haaker, Tina B. Lonsdorf and Johannes Fuss
    Citation: BMC Biology 2017 15:125
    Content type: Methodology article Published on:

  14. Neural activity in the vertebrate habenula is affected by ambient illumination. The nucleus that links photoreceptor activity with the habenula is not well characterized. Here, we describe the location, inputs...

    Authors: Ruey-Kuang Cheng, Seetha Krishnan, Qian Lin, Caroline Kibat and Suresh Jesuthasan
    Citation: BMC Biology 2017 15:104
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  15. Optical silencing of activity provides a way to test the necessity of neurons in behaviour. Two light-gated anion channels, GtACR1 and GtACR2, have recently been shown to potently inhibit activity in cultured ...

    Authors: Gadisti Aisha Mohamed, Ruey-Kuang Cheng, Joses Ho, Seetha Krishnan, Farhan Mohammad, Adam Claridge-Chang and Suresh Jesuthasan
    Citation: BMC Biology 2017 15:103
    Content type: Methodology article Published on:

  16. Imaging as a means of scientific data storage has evolved rapidly over the past century from hand drawings, to photography, to digital images. Only recently can sufficiently large datasets be acquired, stored,...

    Authors: Josh L. Morgan and Jeff W. Lichtman
    Citation: BMC Biology 2017 15:101
    Content type: Review Published on:

  17. Mammalian organs comprise a variety of cells that interact with each other and have distinct biological roles. Access to evaluate and perturb intact biological systems at the cellular and molecular levels is e...

    Authors: Alon Greenbaum, Min J. Jang, Collin Challis and Viviana Gradinaru
    Citation: BMC Biology 2017 15:87
    Content type: Question and Answer Published on:

  18. Neurons relevant to a particular behavior are often widely dispersed across the brain. To record activity in groups of individual neurons that might be distributed across large distances, neuroscientists and o...

    Authors: Nicholas James Sofroniew
    Citation: BMC Biology 2017 15:82
    Content type: Question and Answer Published on:

  19. Individual neurons vary widely in terms of their gene expression, morphology, and electrophysiological properties. While many techniques exist to study single-cell variability along one or two of these dimensi...

    Authors: Cathryn R. Cadwell, Rickard Sandberg, Xiaolong Jiang and Andreas S. Tolias
    Citation: BMC Biology 2017 15:58
    Content type: Question and Answer Published on:

    The Related Article to this article has been published in Nature Protocols 2017 12:nprot.2017.120

  20. Expansion microscopy (ExM) is a recently invented technology that uses swellable charged polymers, synthesized densely and with appropriate topology throughout a preserved biological specimen, to physically ma...

    Authors: Ruixuan Gao, Shoh M. Asano and Edward S. Boyden
    Citation: BMC Biology 2017 15:50
    Content type: Question and Answer Published on:

  21. Recent developments in droplet-based microfluidics allow the transcriptional profiling of thousands of individual cells in a quantitative, highly parallel and cost-effective way. A critical, often limiting ste...

    Authors: Jonathan Alles, Nikos Karaiskos, Samantha D. Praktiknjo, Stefanie Grosswendt, Philipp Wahle, Pierre-Louis Ruffault, Salah Ayoub, Luisa Schreyer, Anastasiya Boltengagen, Carmen Birchmeier, Robert Zinzen, Christine Kocks and Nikolaus Rajewsky
    Citation: BMC Biology 2017 15:44
    Content type: Methodology article Published on:

  22. Improvements in imaging technology and the development of powerful machine learning algorithms are revolutionizing the study of animal behavior in the laboratory. These innovations promise to reveal both globa...

    Authors: Winthrop F. Gillis and Sandeep R. Datta
    Citation: BMC Biology 2017 15:42
    Content type: Commentary Published on:

  24. Animals exhibit astonishingly complex behaviors. Studying the subtle features of these behaviors requires quantitative, high-throughput, and accurate systems that can cope with the often rich perplexing data.

    Authors: Eyal Itskovits, Amir Levine, Ehud Cohen and Alon Zaslaver
    Citation: BMC Biology 2017 15:29
    Content type: Methodology article Published on: