Hélène Marie

TL;DR: This work finds a non-apoptotic baseline caspase-3 activity in hippocampal dendritic spines and an enhancement of this activity at the onset of memory decline in the Tg2576-APPswe mouse model of Alzheimer's disease, and identifies a previously unknown casp enzyme-3–dependent mechanism that drives synaptic failure and contributes to cognitive dysfunction in Alzheimer's Disease.

TL;DR: Excessive excitability of NAc MSNs in vivo by overexpression of potassium channels enhanced locomotor responses to cocaine, suggesting that the increased NAcMSN excitability caused by CREB helped to limit behavioral sensitivity to cocaine.

TL;DR: A new physiological APP processing pathway is described, which generates proteolytic fragments capable of inhibiting neuronal activity within the hippocampus, and this finding may also indicate potential translational relevance for therapeutic strategies targeting APP processing.

TL;DR: Mechanical activation of the tumorigenic β-catenin pathway suggests unexplored modes of tumour propagation based on mechanical signalling pathways in healthy epithelial cells surrounding the tumour, which may contribute to tumour heterogeneity.

TL;DR: Evidence is provided that highly salient in vivo experience, such as exposure to cocaine, generates silent synapses in the nucleus accumbens (NAc) shell, a key brain region mediating addiction-related learning and memory and may act as highly efficient neural substrates for the subsequent experience-dependent synaptic plasticity underlying extremely long-lasting memory.