Masahiro Kawatani

The paper identifies Trpc4 interneurons in the spinal cord that gate bladder sensory input and regulate micturition reflexes, revealing their role in bladder-sphincter coordination and visceral pain.

The paper identifies a phosphorylation pathway initiated by NMDARs that regulates synaptic growth and learning through a cascade involving CaMKII, ARHGEF2, Rho-kinase, and SHANK3.

The paper inhibits interareal inputs to the whisker primary somatosensory cortex during whisking and finds that inputs from the thalamus and secondary somatosensory cortex, not the motor cortex, drive neuronal activity changes.

This study identifies neural mechanisms for uninstructed orofacial movements during reward-based learning in mice, showing distinct roles of dopamine and motor cortex circuits.