2.1.B-11/2/KMR-2011-0002, Wellcome Trust (095668 and 094513), and EPSRC (EP/I005102). P.B. and F.M. are Bolyai fellows. “
“(Neuron I-BET-762 cost 82, 522–536; May 7, 2014) In the original publication of this Review, the abstract inadvertently stated that Gate Control Theory was first published sixty years ago, instead of

fifty years ago. This has now been corrected online. “
“The key feature of the mammalian cerebral cortex is the uniformly laminar structure that historically has been described as hexalaminar (Zilles and Amunts, 2010). Heterogeneous populations of excitatory/inhibitory neurons and their neurites and various glia cell types are merged in distinct proportions to make up different cortical layers. These layers are present in all cortical areas, but

their thickness, cell density, and proportions vary according to the requirements of computational functions performed by the area. This variation in cell composition (cytoarchitecture) has been the subject of investigation Cilengitide chemical structure for more than a century because it often correlates with functional specialization (Zilles and Amunts, 2010). Laminar and areal differences are reflected in the expression of marker genes, which often encode proteins of neurological importance (Belgard et al., 2011) and are thus likely contribute to some functional differences between these groups of cells. Gene expression has been examined in mice using both high-throughput in situ hybridization (Lein et al., 2007 and Hawrylycz et al., 2010) and RNA-seq (Belgard et al., 2011). Although individual

genes have been examined in humans and nonhuman primates, in this issue of Neuron, Bernard et al. (2012) uniquely assess transcriptional expression patterns in adult Rhesus monkeys using high-throughput approaches. Implementing laser microdissection techniques ( Wang et al., 2009, Ayoub et al., 2011 and Oeschger over et al., 2011), the authors isolated small neocortical regions with high accuracy and resolution for subsequent microarray and weighted gene coexpression network analyses. By examining individual neocortical layers within regions, including the sublayers of layer 4 in V1, the authors were able to reveal differences in gene expression that can be lost in gross dissections of whole cortical areas. The regions selected for analyses included sensory, motor, association, and functional visual cortical areas. Layers of the lateral geniculate nucleus (LGN) and hippocampus were also dissected to allow extracortical comparisons. Biological replicates from both sexes (two female and two male) were profiled with GeneChip Rhesus Macaque Genome Arrays. The authors identified differentially expressed genes and coexpressed gene sets that differentiated cortical layers and areas, or that varied between males and females or more broadly among individuals.