Animal Behavior and Cognition

Homosensory and heterosensory dishabituation engage distinct circuits in Drosophila

1. Alexandros Charonitakis
2. Sofia Pasadaki
3. Eirini-Maria Georganta
4. Kyriaki Foka
5. Ourania Semelidou
6. Efthimios MC Skoulakis

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This study provides important findings on the neural circuits underlying dishabituation of the olfactory avoidance response in Drosophila. The data as presented provide convincing evidence that the dishabituation involves distinct pathways from habituation. They show that reward-activated dopaminergic neurons provide input for within-modal dishabituation, while punishment-activated dopaminergic neurons provide input for cross-modal dishabituation. The work will interest neuroscientists, particularly behavioral neuroscientists working on habituation, neural circuits, and the dopaminergic system.

Reviewed by eLife

Thermotaxis behavior of Drosophila melanogaster : A quantitative analysis of sensory-motor integration and heat avoidance

1. Zeinab Moradi
2. Sara Jahedazad
3. Ehsan Hosseinian
4. Tayebeh Minaei
5. Ali Sadighi

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This study utilizes a two-choice assay to examine how groups of Drosophila melanogaster respond to temperature changes. The findings are useful, offering focused importance for the collective decision-making community. However, the strength of the evidence is incomplete, as the current data only partially support the primary claims and the work lacks the necessary integration into the existing literature to contextualize the findings.

Reviewed by eLife

Alpha-Band Inter-brain Connectivity during Minimal Tactile Interaction: An Exploratory Hyperscanning Study

1. Chen Lam Loh
2. Leonardo Zapata-Fonseca
3. Mark M. James
4. Guillaume Dumas
5. Tom Froese

Reviewed by PREreview

Specific Sensitivity to Rare and Extreme Events: Quasi-Complete Black Swan Avoidance vs Partial Jackpot Seeking in Rat Decision-Making

1. Mickaël Degoulet
2. Louis-Matis Willem
3. Christelle Baunez
4. Stéphane Luchini
5. Patrick A Pintus

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This study represents an important contribution to the study of decision-making under risk, bringing an interdisciplinary approach spanning economic theory, behavioral neuroscience, and computational modeling to test how choice preference is influenced by rare and extreme events. The authors aim to test whether rats are indeed sensitive to these rare and extreme events despite their infrequent occurrence, and to isolate behavioral evidence for avoidance of "Black Swans" - rare and extreme losses. The evidence for specific sensitivity to rare and extreme events however remains incomplete, owing in part to the difficulty of isolating the effect of these events beyond that arising from risk preferences more generally in both task design and in the computational modeling of the choice behavior. Despite this, and given the approach here brings a relatively novel and highly interdisciplinary perspective, this paper will be of broad interest to those seeking to understand animal behavior through the lens of economic choice and decision theory.

Reviewed by eLife