Animal Behavior and Cognition

Agent-based modeling reveals how bats navigate dense group emergences

1. Omer Mazar
2. Yossi Yovel

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This important model-based study seeks to mimic bat echolocation behavior and flight under conditions of high interference, such as when large numbers of bats leave their roost together. The simulations convincingly suggest that the problem of acoustic jamming in these situations may be less severe than previously thought. This finding will be of broad interest to scientists working in the fields of bat biology and collective behaviour.

Reviewed by eLife

Perceptual predictions track subjective, over objective, statistical structure

1. Jessye Clarke
2. Kirsten Rittershofer
3. Emma K Ward
4. Daniel Yon
5. Clare Press

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This important study reports three experiments examining how the subjective experience of task regularities influences perceptual decision-making. Although the evidence linking subjective ratings to behavioral measures is solid, the study would be strengthened if potential reverse influences of response times on subjective ratings were ruled out and if more comprehensive model comparisons supporting the main claims were performed. The findings will appeal to a wide range of researchers in decision-making and perception.

Reviewed by eLife

Predicting human decision-making across task conditions via individuality transfer

1. Hiroshi Higashi

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This revised paper provides a valuable and novel neural network-based framework for parameterizing individual differences and predicting individual decision-making across task conditions. The methods and analyses are solid yet could benefit from further validation of the superiority of the proposed framework against other baseline models. With these concerns addressed, this study would offer a proof-of-concept neural network approach to scientists working on the generalization of cognitive skills across contexts.

Reviewed by eLife

The olfactory receptor SNIF-1 mediates foraging for leucine-enriched diets in C. elegans

1. Ritika Siddiqui
2. Nikita Mehta
3. Gopika Ranjith
4. Marie-Anne Félix
5. Changchun Chen
6. Varsha Singh

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This important work is the first to suggest a model that the nematode C. elegans prefers specific bacteria (its major food source) that release high amounts of the known attractant isoamyl alcohol when supplemented with exogenous leucine and has also identified a likely receptor for the odorant isoamyl alcohol. The evidence supporting the claims of the authors is solid, and the manuscript would be improved by changes to the text that clarify and address the distinction between "supplemented" versus "enriched". The renaming of srd-12 to snif-1 should also be addressed.

Reviewed by eLife

Sex-Dependent Vulnerability to PTSD-Like Behaviors in iNOS Knockout Mice

1. Bruna F. Ferreira
2. Isabela Pavan-Silva
3. Sabrina F. Lisboa

Reviewed by PREreview

Information, certainty, and learning

1. Justin A Harris
2. Charles Randy Gallistel

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This paper presents fundamental research showing 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 compelling. The paper will have a general appeal to those interested in the behavioral and neural analysis of Pavlovian conditioning.

Reviewed by eLife

Colony demographics shape nest construction in Camponotus fellah 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. The experimental evidence that the age of the ants and the group composition affect the digging of tunnels is convincing, and their model is able to replicate the colony's excavation dynamics qualitatively, results that may prove to be a key consideration for interpreting results from other studies in the field of social insect behavior.

Reviewed by eLife

Overcoming distortion in multidimensional predictive representation

1. Euan Prentis
2. Akram Bakkour

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This manuscript makes a valuable contribution to understanding learning in multidimensional environments with spurious associations, which is critical for understanding learning in the real world. The evidence is based on model simulations and a preregistered human behavioral study, but remains incomplete because of inconclusive empirical results and insufficiencies in the modeling. Moreover, there are open questions about the nature and extent to which the behavioral task induced semantic congruency.

Reviewed by eLife

WNKs regulate mouse behavior and alter central nervous system glucose uptake and insulin signaling

1. Ankita B Jaykumar
2. Derk Binns
3. Clinton A Taylor
4. Anthony Anselmo
5. Sachith Gallolu Kankanamalage
6. Shari G Birnbaum
7. Kimberly M Huber
8. Melanie H Cobb

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This study seeks to expand the understanding of insulin and glucose responses in the brain, specifically by implicating a family of protein kinases responsive to insulin. The significance of the study to the field is valuable, given this study is very emblematic of the new field of interoception (Brain-Body physiology). The evidence supporting the conclusions about brain glucose utilization is convincing and is relevant to many age-related diseases, such as Alzheimer's disorder.

Reviewed by eLife

JAX Animal Behavior System (JABS), a genetics-informed, end-to-end advanced behavioral phenotyping platform for the laboratory mouse

1. Anshul Choudhary
2. Brian Q Geuther
3. Thomas J Sproule
4. Glen Beane
5. Vivek Kohar
6. Jarek Trapszo
7. Vivek Kumar

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This important study presents JABS, an open-source platform that integrates hardware and user-friendly software for standardized mouse behavioral phenotyping. The work has practical implications for improving reproducibility and accessibility in behavioral neuroscience, especially for linking behavior to genetics across diverse mouse strains. The strength of evidence is convincing, with comprehensive validation of the platform's components and enthusiastic reviewer support.

Reviewed by eLife