Animal Behavior and Cognition

Hippocampal neuroinflammation causes sex-specific disruptions in action selection, food approach memories, and neuronal activation

1. Kiruthika Ganesan
2. Sahar Ghorbanpour
3. William Kendall
4. Sarah Thomas Broome
5. Joanne M. Gladding
6. Amolika Dhungana
7. Arvie Rodriguez Abiero
8. Maedeh Mahmoudi
9. Alessandro Castorina
10. Michael D. Kendig
11. Serena Becchi
12. Veronika Valova
13. Louise Cole
14. Laura A. Bradfield

Reviewed by preLights

Information, certainty, and learning

1. Justin A Harris
2. CR Gallistel

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This important paper shows that the acquisition and expression of Pavlovian conditioned responding are lawfully related to temporal characteristics of an animal's conditioning experience. It showcases a rigorous experimental design, several different approaches to data analysis, careful consideration of prior literature, and a thorough introduction. The evidence supporting the conclusions is strong and convincing. The paper will have a general appeal to those interested in the behavioral and neural analysis of Pavlovian conditioning.

Reviewed by eLife

Why the brown ghost chirps at night

1. Livio Oboti
2. Federico Pedraja
3. Marie Ritter
4. Marlena Lohse
5. Lennart Klette
6. Rüdiger Krahe

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This study addresses a significant question in sensory ethology and active sensing in particular. It links the production of a specific signal - electrosensory chirps - to various contexts and conditions to propose that chirps may also serve an active sensing role in addition to their more well-known role in communication. The evidence supporting the role for active sensing is strong. In particular, the evidence showing increased chirping in more cluttered environments and the relationship between chirping and movement are convincing. The study provides a lot of valuable data, and is likely to stimulate follow-up behavioral and physiological studies.

Reviewed by eLife

Learning and cognition in a decision made at reflex speed

1. Martin Krause
2. Wolfram Schulze
3. Stefan Schuster

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This valuable study investigates prey capture by archer fish, showing that even though the visuomotor behavior unfolds very rapidly (within 40-70 ms), it is not hardwired; it can adapt to different simulated physics and different prey shapes. Although there was agreement that the model system, experimental design, and main hypothesis are certainly interesting, opinions were divided on whether the evidence supporting the central claims is incomplete. A more rigorous definition and assessment of "reflex speed", more detailed evidence of stimulus control, and a more detailed analysis of individual subjects could potentially increase confidence in the main conclusions.

Reviewed by eLife

Contributions of associative and non-associative learning to the dynamics of defensive ethograms

1. Quan-Son Eric Le
2. Daniel Hereford
3. Chandrashekhar D Borkar
4. Zach Aldaco
5. Julia Klar
6. Alexis Resendez
7. Jonathan P Fadok

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This study is deemed to be an important work that carefully deconstructs multi-faceted conditioned fear behavior in mice. The well-controlled experiments provide convincing data that will be of interest to other researchers in the field.

Reviewed by eLife

Colony demographics shape nest construction in ants

1. Harikrishnan Rajendran
2. Roi Weinberger
3. Ehud Fonio
4. Ofer Feinerman

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This study presents an important finding that ant nest structure and digging behavior depend on ant age demographics for a ground-dwelling ant species (Camponotus fellah). By asking whether ants employ age-polyethism in excavation, the authors address a long-standing question about how individuals in collectives determine the overall state of the task they must perform, and their results may prove to be a key consideration for interpreting results from other studies in the field of social insect behavior. While the experimental evidence that the age of the ants and the group composition affect the digging of tunnels is solid, some of the analyses and modeling are seem superfluous, as they do not further support the results or contribute to a deeper understanding of the system.

Reviewed by eLife

Risking your Tail: Modeling Individual Differences in Risk-sensitive Exploration using Bayes Adaptive Markov Decision Processes

1. Tingke Shen
2. Peter Dayan

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  Shen et al. present a computational account of individual differences in mouse exploration when faced with a novel object in an open field from a previously published study (Akiti et al.) that relates subject-specific intrinsic exploration and caution about potential hazards to the spectrum of behaviors observed in this setting. Overall, this computational study is an important contribution that leverages a very general modeling framework (a Bayes Adaptive Markov Decision Process) to quantify and interrogate distinct drivers of exploratory behavior under potential threat. Given their assumptions, the modeling results are convincing: the authors are able to describe a substantial amount of the behavioral features and idiosyncracies in this dataset, and their model affords a normative interpretation related to inherent risk aversion and predation hazard "flexibility" of individual animals and should be of broad interest to researchers working to understand open-ended exploratory behaviors.

Reviewed by eLife

Unsupervised discovery of family specific vocal usage in the Mongolian gerbil

1. Ralph E Peterson
2. Aman Choudhri
3. Catalin Mitelut
4. Aramis Tanelus
5. Athena Capo-Battaglia
6. Alex H Williams
7. David M Schneider
8. Dan H Sanes

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This valuable study provides an experimental paradigm and state-of-the-art analysis method for studying the existence of call types and transition differences among Mongolian gerbil families in a naturalistic environment. The analyses are convincing, with a thorough treatment of the acoustic data and a demonstration of the robustness of the observed effect across days. The work will likely be of interest to the auditory neuroscience and neuroethology communities.

Reviewed by eLife

Polarised Moonlight Guides Nocturnal Bull Ants Home

1. Cody A Freas
2. Ajay Narendra
3. Trevor Murray
4. Ken Cheng

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This important study substantially advances our understanding of nocturnal animal navigation and the ways that animals use polarized light. The evidence supporting the conclusions is convincing, with elegant behavioural experiments in actively navigating ants. The work will be of interest to biologists working on animal navigation or sensory ecology.

Reviewed by eLife

Identification of the trail-following pheromone receptor in termites

1. Souleymane Diallo
2. Kateřina Kašparová
3. Josef Šulc
4. Jibin Johny
5. Jan Křivánek
6. Jana Nebesářová
7. David Sillam-Dussès
8. Pavlína Kyjaková
9. Jiří Vondrášek
10. Aleš Machara
11. Ondřej Lukšan
12. Ewald Grosse-Wilde
13. Robert Hanus

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This important study presents the first identification of the odorant receptor for the trail pheromone in termites. The evidence supporting the conclusions is compelling, with state-of-the-art neurophysiological and genetic methods. The work will be of broad interest in multiple disciplines, such as entomology, chemical ecology, and sensory physiology.

Reviewed by eLife