When neuroscience meets the gallery
The 15th edition of Art of Neuroscience showcases work submitted by artists and scientists worldwide, spanning media from music and dance to embroidery, poetry, sculpture, and painting. The piece reflects on this year’s submissions, highlights the winner and honorable mentions, and pairs each artwork with the creator’s story and juror commentary—offering a curated view of how brain science continues to inspire creative practice.
Why it might matter to you:
If your work depends on communicating systems-level brain ideas clearly, this collection offers concrete examples of how complex concepts can be translated into memorable visual and narrative forms. It may also suggest new ways to frame hypotheses and mechanisms so they travel across disciplines—useful for talks, grant narratives, and public-facing explanations.
DNA knots in a disease gene, smoothed by heat and time
This study focuses on G-quadruplex (G4) structures formed by the GGGGCC repeat sequence in the ALS/FTD-linked C9ORF72 gene. Because these repeats can adopt multiple G4 topologies that may differently affect DNA synthesis, the work examines how conformational heterogeneity is regulated, emphasizing thermodynamic behavior and a history-dependent, thermally activated shift toward more uniform folding states.
Why it might matter to you:
Mechanistic models of neural vulnerability increasingly intersect with genome stability, especially where repeat expansions and repair dynamics shape downstream cellular stress. If you build systems explanations that span molecular to circuit timescales, this kind of thermodynamics-informed “state landscape” for nucleic acids can be a useful template for thinking about how biological history and stabilization processes constrain plasticity.
A cellular map of sterility, one cell at a time
Using single-cell transcriptomics alongside meiotic chromosome spreading, researchers chart spermatogenesis in cattle, yak, and their hybrids to pinpoint where hybrid fertility fails. While cattle and yak testes show diverse spermatogonia, spermatocytes, and spermatids, hybrids display reduced cell-type diversity and a notable arrest at the diplotene-to-diakinesis transition, accompanied by defects in double-strand break repair. Backcrossed offspring show partial rescue, and integrated analyses highlight genes with altered protein abundance, including a subset linked to structural genomic variation that reverts toward normal expression in backcrosses.
Why it might matter to you:
High-resolution, cell-state atlases like this provide a practical blueprint for dissecting where complex biological programs derail—and how repair pathways and genomic architecture contribute to those failures. For neuroscience-facing systems work, the methodological lesson is transferable: resolving heterogeneous trajectories at single-cell scale can sharpen mechanistic claims about stability, transitions, and points of failure in other plastic tissues.
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