Issue Cover (October 2019)

Front cover: The striatum plays a critical role in controlling several functions, ranging from motor actions to reward processing and motivated behaviors. This functional diversity in part relies on its ability to dynamically integrate multimodal inputs. Several studies have pointed the striatum as an extremely heterogenous structure at the cellular, functional and connectomic level. Here, we focused on the tail of the striatum (TS), a newly described functional domain. In particular, we determined whether stimuli of different nature (rewarding, aversive and salient) modulate the activation of striatal projection neurons (SPNs) in the TS. Overall, our results revealed a cell‐type specific territorialization of D1R‐ and D2R/A2aR‐SPNs within TS subregions and contrasting patterns of ERK activation in response to innate or learned avoidance behaviors compared to rewarding experiences evoked by psychostimulant drugs. Image content: Confocal image of the tail of the striatum in Drd2‐eGFP mice. eGFP (cyan) and DARPP‐32 (yellow, a general marker of SPN). Please note the territorial arrangement of eGFP‐ and DARPP‐32‐positive neurons.Read the full article ‘Contrasting patterns of ERK activation in the tail of the striatum in response to aversive and rewarding signals’ by G. Gangarossa, L. Castell, L. Castro, P. Tarot, F. Veyrunes, P. Vincent, F. Bertaso, E. Valjent ( J. Neurochem . 2019, vol. 151 (2), pp. 204–226) on doi: 10.1111/jnc.14804