Neuroscience

eLife Assessment

This important work by Qin et al. delineates layered neuropeptidergic mechanisms that regulate sugar intake in a hunger state-dependent manner. Using a combination of genetic, physiological, and behavioral experiments, the authors convincingly show that Hugin- and Allatostatin A-releasing neurons are selectively active in sated flies and suppress sugar feeding by reducing the sensitivity of Gr5a-expressing gustatory neurons. They further demonstrate that Neuromedin U neurons share key physiological properties with fly Hugin neurons, highlighting conserved peptide functions across animal phyla.

eLife Assessment

This study introduces a novel method for estimating spatial spectra from irregularly sampled intracranial EEG data, revealing cortical activity across all spatial frequencies, which supports the global and integrated nature of cortical dynamics. It showcases important technical innovations and rigorous analyses, including tests to rule out potential confounds. However, further direct evaluation of the model, for example by using simulated cortical activity with a known spatial spectrum (e.g., an iEEG volume-conductor model that describes the mapping from cortical current source density to iEEG signals, and that incorporates the reference electrodes and the particular montage used), would even further strengthen the solid evidence.

eLife Assessment

This study presents a valuable application of a video-text alignment deep neural network model to improve neural encoding of naturalistic stimuli in fMRI. The authors provide convincing evidence that models based on multimodal and dynamic embedding features of audiovisual movies predicted brain responses better than models based on unimodal or static features. The work will be of interest to researchers in cognitive neuroscience and AI-based brain modeling.

eLife Assessment

Huang and colleagues examined neural responses in mouse anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) during a discrimination-avoidance task. The authors present useful findings that ACC neurons encode primarily post-action variables or "action content" over extended periods. Though the methodological approach was sound, the evidence in support of action state encoding, ruling out alternative explanations related to movement, is incomplete.

eLife Assessment

This important study addresses the unresolved and long-debated question of whether atypical protein kinase C is required for the maintenance of synaptic potentiation and long-term memory. The results confirm previous findings that persistent activity of PKMζ is required for lasting potentiation of hippocampal synapses and spatial memory. The study also adds new genetic evidence to support the earlier suggestion that enhanced expression of PKC iota/lambda compensates for the genetic reduction of PKM zeta to support synaptic potentiation and memory; however, the results as currently presented were viewed as incomplete.

eLife Assessment

This important study introduces an experimental approach for studying Drosophila oviposition rhythms and identifies the subset of circadian clock neurons that mediate the circadian control of oviposition. The authors try to resolve a known noisy rhythm and provide convincing evidence by using statistical averaging techniques which help reduce this noise but at the cost of variation across individual rhythms. To this end, including the time series of representative individuals for all genotypes tested would have helped in interpreting some of the results. This paper will be of interest to anyone interested in insect ovarian physiology, circadian biology, and reproductive fitness.

eLife Assessment

Foucault and colleagues examine how human adaptive learning depends on the structure of the learning task. The authors provide useful findings clarifying the differences in how people learn in environments that are continuously versus discontinuously changing. While they provide solid evidence for most conclusions, support for some of the claims is incomplete in the current form.

eLife Assessment

The new development of Neuroplex, a pipeline that links projection-defined neuronal identity to in vivo calcium activity within the same animal, is a valuable contribution to the field of neuroscience and beyond. The strength of evidence is judged to be solid, as the methods, data, and analyses broadly support the stated claims.

eLife Assessment

This important study describes long-range serial dependence of performance on a visual texture discrimination training task that manipulated conditions to induce differing degrees of location transfer of learning. The authors re-analyzed a previously-published behavioral data set, generating compelling evidence from converging approaches that serial dependence effects can persist across multiple days post-training, and are impacted by whether training promotes more or less location transfer. Although underlying mechanisms for these processes remain unclear, these results will interest neuroscientists in general by informing our understanding of the importance of temporal integration to long-term perceptual learning and its propensity towards specificity or generalizability.

eLife Assessment

This useful manuscript addresses a stability issue for long-term chronically implanted array recordings and electrolytic lesioning, which is relevant to both basic science and translational research. The authors provide a systematic scanning electron microscopy (SEM) of explanted arrays, evaluating electrode damage and sharing extensive datasets accessible through interactive plots. The strength of the evidence is solid, but it can be improved by performing additional analyses on complementary neurophysiology, functional, or histological data.