The capacity to self-evaluate and control one’s own cognitive performance, known as metacognition, underpins adaptive learning, social behaviours and self-belief. Stephen Fleming outlines our current understanding of the neural basis of metacognition, its contributions to self-regulation and social communication, and the consequences of its dysfunction in clinical conditions.

In this Journal Club, Yu Qi discusses a 2021 study that reported a brain–computer interface that used neural activity in the motor cortex to decode attempted handwriting in real time.

Recent years have witnessed major advances in our understanding of the distinct functional and computational roles of the ventral hippocampus (vHPC). Mazen Kheirbek and colleagues examine the state-dependent representation of behaviourally salient information by the vHPC and discuss how its anatomy and circuit connectivity support affective and motivational behaviours.

The mechanisms underlying electrical transmission are often viewed as relatively simple compared with those mediating chemical transmission, yet electrical synapses exhibit dynamic changes in structure and strength. In this Review, Alberto Pereda and Adam Miller examine the structural and molecular bases and complexities of electrical transmission.

A new study in mice reveals that bile acid homeostasis in the liver is regulated by neurons from the paraventricular hypothalamic nucleus.

In this Tools of the Trade article, Peter Kalugin discusses the development of multiplexed optical recording of sensors on a micro-endoscope (MORSE) to track combinatorial hormone, neurotransmitter, and neuromodulator signals on the spatial and temporal scale of neural activity.

Transplantation of human cortical organoids into ‘apallial’ mice facilitates their integration and provides opportunities to study human cortical development and disease.

Human brain organoids cultured for more than 5 years reproduce endogenous programmes of postnatal brain maturation and track the passage of time in culture.

Human brain activity under psilocybin contains latent temporal structure that improves alignment with ongoing context and covaries with the subjective quality of the psychedelic experience.

Some of the least understood phenomena in the brain emerge from interactions between local and global brain states, yet representing their joint activity is a considerable computational challenge. As neuroscience datasets grow and classical methods reach their limits, alternative approaches are needed. Quantum computing, through its novel approach to information processing, may offer a solution.