Animal Behavior and Cognition

Learning and cognition in highspeed decision making

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

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This important study investigates the adaptability of prey capture by archerfish, which hunt insects by spitting at them and then rapidly turning to reach their landing point on the water surface. The results of elaborate behavioral experiments and measurements show that, even though the visuomotor behavior unfolds very rapidly (in less than 100 ms), it is not hardwired and can adapt to different simulated physics and different prey shapes. The data are convincing and should be of relevance to those interested in rapid decision making in general, beyond the archerfish model.

Reviewed by eLife

A contextual fear conditioning paradigm in head-fixed mice exploring virtual reality

1. Seetha Krishnan
2. Can Dong
3. Heather Ratigan
4. Denisse Morales-Rodriguez
5. Chery Cherian
6. Mark Sheffield

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This useful study presents a virtual reality-based contextual fear conditioning paradigm for head-fixed mice. Solid evidence supports the claim that the reported methods provide a reliable paradigm for studying contextual fear conditioning in head-fixed mice. The approach provides a way to perform multiphoton imaging of neural circuits, and other techniques that are typically performed in head-fixed animals, during behaviors that have traditionally been studied in freely moving animals.

Reviewed by eLife

Tracking butterfly flight in the field from an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV): a methodological proof of principle

1. Emmanuel de Margerie
2. Kyra Monmasson

Reviewed by Peer Community in Ecology

Fitness drivers of division of labor in vertebrates

1. Irene García-Ruiz
2. Dustin Rubenstein

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This valuable work formulates an individual-based model to understand the evolution of division of labor in vertebrates, in particular, to examine the role of indirect versus direct fitness benefits. The evidence supporting the main conclusions is incomplete at this stage, with key details of simulation assumptions not adequately described and exploration of alternative assumptions and parameter space lacking.

Reviewed by eLife

Four individually identified paired dopamine neurons signal taste punishment in larval Drosophila

1. Denise Weber
2. Katrin Vogt
3. Anton Miroschnikow
4. Michael J Pankratz
5. Andreas S Thum

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This comprehensive study presents important findings that delineate how specific dopaminergic neurons (DANs) instruct aversive learning in Drosophila larvae exposed to high salt through an integration of behavioral experiments, imaging, and connectomic analysis. The work reveals how a numerically minimal circuit achieves remarkable functional complexity, with redundancies and synergies within the DL1 cluster that challenge our understanding of how few neurons generate learning behaviors. By establishing a framework for sensory-driven learning pathways, the study makes a compelling and substantial contribution to understanding associative conditioning while demonstrating conservation of learning mechanisms across Drosophila developmental stages.

Reviewed by eLife

Information, certainty, and learning

1. Justin A Harris
2. Charles R Gallistel

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This important paper shows that the moment at which rats acquire an appetitive Pavlovian conditioned response is determined by the ratio of the reward rate during the Pavlovian cue to the overall reward rate in the context. The exact quantitative relationship between reward rate during the Pavlovian cue, reward rate in the context and acquisition of conditioned responding is very similar to that observed over 40 years ago in a pigeon auto-shaping procedure. This similarity suggests that the mathematical laws that determine acquisition of conditioned responding in different species may be perfectly general. Claims about the processes underlying learning and conditional behavior in rats are supported by convincing evidence. There is solid evidence for the claim that the same relationship describes data from pigeons by Gibbon and Balsam (1981) and the rats in this study. This study will be of interest to those interested in learning, motivated behavior, and related disease states and brain mechanisms.

Reviewed by eLife

CHROMAS: A Computational Pipeline to Track Chromatophores and Analyse their Dynamics

1. Johann Ukrow
2. Mathieu D. M. Renard
3. Mahyar Moghimi
4. Gilles Laurent

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  The open-source software Chromas tracks and analyses cephalopod chromatophore dynamics. The software features a user-friendly interface alongside detailed instructions for its application, with compelling exemplary applications to two widely divergent cephalopod species, a squid and a cuttlefish, over time periods large enough to encompass new chromatophore development among existing ones. It demonstrates accurate tracking of the position and identity of each chromatophore. The software and methods outlined therein will become an important tool for scientists tracking dynamic signaling in animals.

Reviewed by eLife

DeePosit: an AI-based tool for detecting mouse urine and fecal depositions from thermal video clips of behavioral experiments

1. David Peles
2. Shai Netser
3. Natalie Ray
4. Taghreed Suliman
5. Shlomo Wagner

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This manuscript presents an important machine-learning-based approach to the automated detection of urine and fecal deposits by rodents, key ethological behaviors that have traditionally been very poorly studied. The strength of evidence for the claim is solid, showing accuracy near 90% across several contexts. Training and testing for the specific contexts used by other experimenters, however, is probably warranted to make the model most relevant to the data that may be analyzed.

Reviewed by eLife

Switching perspective: Comparing ground-level and bird’s-eye views for bumblebees navigating dense environments

1. Annkathrin Sonntag
2. Odile Sauzet
3. Mathieu Lihoreau
4. Martin Egelhaaf
5. Olivier Bertrand

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  In this useful study, the authors tested the ability of bumblebees to use bird-view and ground-view for homing in cluttered landscapes using modeling and behavioral experiments, claiming that bumblebees rely most on ground-views for homing. However, due to a lack of analysis of the bees' behavior during training and a lack of information as to how the homing behavior of bees develops over time, the evidence supporting their claims is currently incomplete. Moreover, there was concern that the experimental environment was not representative of natural scenes, thus limiting the findings of the study.

Reviewed by eLife

A cross-species framework for investigating perceptual evidence accumulation

1. Sucheta Chakravarty
2. Cristina Delgado-Sallent
3. Gary A Kane
4. Hongjie Xia
5. Quan H Do
6. Ryan A Senne
7. Benjamin B Scott

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This translational study presents a direct cross-species comparison (between mice, rats, and humans) of choice behavior in the same perceptual decision-making task. The study is rare in opening a window on the evolution of decision-making, and the results will be important for many disciplines including behavioral sciences, psychology, neuroscience, and psychiatry. While the strength of the evidence presented is solid, the manuscript would benefit from additional information and analyses to strengthen and clarify its main conclusions.

Reviewed by eLife