Neuroscience

Congruent neuronal modulation across competing actions challenges the role of the substantia nigra in action selection

1. Lingfeng Hou
2. Derin Timuçin
3. Olivia Sato
4. Sofia Grijalva Torres
5. Daniel Svedberg
6. John Assad

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This important study records basal ganglia output neurons in the substantia nigra pars reticulata of head-fixed mice performing self-timed reaching and licking tasks. Contrary to simple predictions of action selection and inhibitory gating by basal ganglia output, the authors report that most substantia nigra pars reticulata neurons modulate congruently across reaching, licking, and reaches to different targets. Optogenetic identification of substantia nigra pars reticulata neurons projecting to the central and lateral, orofacial superior colliculus shows that these congruent signals are routed to both output zones. Evidence from the recordings is convincing, while that from the projection-specific experiments is solid but rests on few animals and would be strengthened by increased power and clearer criteria for unit identification.

Reviewed by eLife

Atypical developmental remodeling of dopamine neurons involves AKT-GSK3β signaling and glia activity

1. Xiaofan Zhang
2. Wei Chen
3. Yayu Wang
4. Xun Tu
5. Xiangyu Zhang
6. Ronald L. Davis
7. Lily Yeh Jan
8. Yuh Nung Jan

Reviewed by Review Commons

Connectomic Analysis of Mitochondria in the Central Brain of Drosophila

1. Kit D Longden
2. Patricia K Rivlin
3. Michał Januszewski
4. Erika Neace
5. Louis K Scheffer
6. Christopher Ordish
7. Jody Clements
8. Elliott Phillips
9. Natalie Smith
10. Satoko Takemura
11. Lowell Umayam
12. Claire Walsh
13. Emily A Yakal
14. Timothy F Musial
15. Michael J Devine
16. Michael B Reiser
17. Stephen M Plaza
18. Stuart Berg

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This study provides a valuable resource describing the size, density, and synaptic proximity of mitochondria across thousands of neurons in the Drosophila brain, drawn from a well-annotated electron microscopy dataset. The evidence supporting the main descriptive findings is mostly solid, though some measured parameters contain internal inconsistencies and the proposed links between mitochondrial properties and neural activity or energy use remain speculative. The work will interest neuroscientists studying mitochondrial biology, energetics, and connectomics, and lays a foundation for future studies connecting mitochondrial organization to neural circuit function.

Reviewed by eLife

Pain is so close to pleasure: the same dopamine neurons can mediate approach and avoidance in Drosophila

1. Daniel Döringer
2. Christian Rohrsen
3. Benjamin de Bivort
4. Wolf Huetteroth
5. Björn Brembs

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This is a valuable study that uses several operant paradigms to test Drosophila for the appetitive or aversive behavioral effects of self-activation of specific dopaminergic neuron (DAN) populations. The work provides solid data, although the range of paradigms and genetic driver lines will require more specific future evidence in case-by-case assays. The results suggest that a more nuanced view of the role of these neurons in ongoing behaviour and learning is necessary. The results will be of broad interest to the neuroscience community.

Reviewed by eLife

Neural representations supporting reuse of abstract structural knowledge in humans

1. Lennart Luettgau
2. Nan Chen
3. Tore Erdmann
4. Sebastijan Veselic
5. Zeb Kurth-Nelson
6. Rani Moran
7. Raymond J. Dolan

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This study provides valuable insights into humans' ability to generalize learned structural knowledge to new experiences that share underlying graph components but involve different stimuli. The behavioral and MEG evidence is solid, broadly supporting the transfer of abstract structural knowledge across contexts, although the findings speak more directly to the reuse of individual structural components than to their recombination. This study will be of interest to cognitive neuroscientists studying structure learning, abstract representations, and the generalization of knowledge across contexts.

Reviewed by eLife

Increased layer 5 Martinotti cell excitation reduces pyramidal cell population plasticity and improves learned motor execution

1. Thawann Malfatti
2. Anna Velica
3. Jéssica Winne
4. Barbara Ciralli
5. Katharina Henriksson
6. George Nascimento
7. Richardson Leao
8. Klas Kullander

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This study provided useful information regarding the role of a subpopulation of cortical interneurons (Chrna2-expressing Martinotti cells) in motor learning and cortical dynamics. However, while some behavior and imaging data are compelling, limitations in the motor-learning task design and data analysis make it difficult to support the central conclusions.

Reviewed by eLife

Applying functional MRI analysis techniques to whole-brain calcium-imaging data to investigate structural and functional relationships in Drosophila melanogaster

1. Takuto Okuno
2. Alexander Woodward
3. Hideyuki Okano
4. Junichi Hata

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This paper presents a collection of analyses relating structure and function in the whole-brain Drosophila EM connectome and whole-brain calcium imaging data. The linkage of detailed anatomical structure with population activity is of broad interest in circuit neuroscience in light of increasingly detailed brain maps, but the methods used made the evidence incomplete due to indirect consideration of biological detail such as neurotransmitter identity and assumptions about the relationship between structural correlations and functional correlations. The conclusions are useful for specific network observations, but a more thorough analysis of the anatomical and functional data is needed to support the overall claims.

Reviewed by eLife

Unique longitudinal contributions of sulcal interruptions to reading acquisition in children

1. Florence Bouhali
2. Jessica Dubois
3. Fumiko Hoeft
4. Kevin S Weiner

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This valuable study relating brain anatomy to reading ability in children studied longitudinally finds that a difference in sulcal anatomy is more predictive of reading ability than cognitive measures. The evidence that this anatomical difference is predictive and confers some benefit in the connectivity between brain areas is based on careful analyses and is solid. The findings would be of interest to researchers studying brain and cognitive development.

Reviewed by eLife

RHODOPSIN 7: An ancestral non-canonical photoreceptor shaping light-responsive behavior

1. Valentina Kirsch
2. Nils Reinhard
3. Heiko Hartlieb
4. Annika Mohr
5. Dirk Rieger
6. Peter Soba
7. Charlotte Helfrich-Förster
8. Pingkalai R Senthilan

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  The study investigates, from multiple angles, the still-debated function of insect rhodopsin-7 (Rh7). The authors present compelling results for its ancient phylogenetic origin across pan-arthropods, a non-visual role based on expression analyses in the fly brain, an unusual G-protein signalling pathway, and - using behavioural genetics - that Rh7 affects how Drosophila melanogaster interprets and responds to light-dark transitions. Through this, the work provides fundamental new insights into the evolution and function of non-visual opsins.

Reviewed by eLife

Parvalbumin interneuron ErbB4 controls ongoing network oscillations and olfactory behaviours in mice

1. Bin Hu
2. Chi Geng
3. Feng Guo
4. Ying Liu
5. Ran Wang
6. You-Ting Chen
7. Xiao-Yu Hou

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This study provides important information on the role of ErbB4 expression in parvalbumin-positive cells in relation to olfactory behaviour and circuit dynamics in the olfactory bulb. The central question is both timely and novel, and the findings could shed light on the critical role that ErbB4 may play in modulating olfactory bulb cell function and olfactory perception. The authors conducted a comprehensive set of experiments which provide solid evidence in support of their conclusions. However, some concerns remain regarding the technical approaches used, such as spike sorting and control/baseline comparisons.

Reviewed by eLife