Neuroscience

eLife Assessment

This important study advances our understanding of the neural substrate of planning trajectories towards a goal by using recurrent neural networks. The manuscript provides solid evidence for most of the claims, but it remains unclear whether the dynamics do indeed bear the defining characteristics of attractors, and the interpretation and scope of some claims may need to be reassessed in light of prior work. The work will be of broad interest to theoretical and systems neuroscientists and to cognitive scientists.

eLife Assessment

This is an important study that takes a key step towards understanding developmental disorders linked to mutations in the O-GlcNAc transferase enzyme by generating a mouse model harboring the C921Y mutation. While the mechanisms remain open, the study thoroughly examines behavioral and anatomical differences in these mice and provides convincing evidence for behavioral hyperactivity and learning/memory deficits, as well as phenotypic differences in skull and brain formation. This study will be of interest to those studying neurodevelopmental disorders and associated mechanisms.

eLife Assessment

The manuscript presents important findings on how C. elegans can utilize distinct molecular mechanisms and circuit engagements to regulate tactile-dependent locomotory behaviours through the AFD thermosensory neuron. The authors use multiple techniques including microfluidics, genetic manipulations and single-copy rescue experiments, to provide compelling evidence for the role of AFD/AIB electrical synaptic connections in this behaviour. The reviewers are satisfied with the comprehensive revisions made by the authors.

eLife Assessment

Du et al. present a valuable study examining neural activation in medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) subpopulations projecting to the basolateral amygdala (BLA) and nucleus accumbens (NAc) during behavioral tasks assessing anxiety, social preference, and social dominance. The strength of the evidence linking in vivo neural physiology to behavioral outcomes was considered solid; however, the electrophysiology data and their interpretation were less well received. Overall, the reviewers felt that the revised work provides insight into how distinct mPFC→BLA and mPFC→NAc pathways influence anxiety, exploration, and social behaviors.

eLife Assessment

This study uses a Bayesian framework to characterize latent brain state dynamics associated with memory encoding and performance in children, as measured with functional magnetic resonance imaging. The novelty of the approach offers valuable insights into memory-related brain activity, but the consideration of developmental changes in memory and brain dynamics, and the evidence to support the proposed mapping between specific states and distinct aspects of memory, are incomplete. This work will be of interest to researchers interested in cognitive neuroscience and the development of memory.

eLife Assessment

This paper provides solid electrophysiological evidence that an individual's effort expenditure increases the subjective value of a subsequent reward when the beneficiary is the individual themselves, but decreases the subjective value of a reward when the beneficiary is someone else. These findings have valuable implications for our understanding of how effort investment shapes reward evaluation during prosocial behavior.

eLife Assessment

This fundamental study substantially advances our understanding of sibling chimerism in marmosets by demonstrating that chimerism is limited to hematopoietic cells. The evidence supporting these findings is compelling, demonstrated through comprehensive analyses, including single-cell RNA-seq data from multiple individuals and tissues. A few minor concerns were successfully addressed in a revision. The work will be of broad interest to many fields of biology.

eLife Assessment

This well-designed study offers important insights into the development of infants' responses to music based on the exploration of EEG neural auditory responses and video-based movement analysis. The compelling results revealed that evoked responses emerge between 3 and 12 months of age, but no age group demonstrated evidence of coordinated movements to music. This study will be of significant interest to developmental psychologists and neuroscientists, as well as researchers interested in music processing and in the translation of perception into action.

eLife Assessment

This important work examines the effects of gaze on valuation signals in the human brain as participants choose between bundles of sequentially presented items food items. The paper provides convincing analyses of how gaze affects participants choice behaviour and how this varies across time. The work will be of interest to neuroscientists working on attention and decision-making.

eLife Assessment

This manuscript provides a valuable contribution by identifying a stress-responsive circuit and its regulation of anxiety-related behaviors. The evidence is convincing that the supramammillary nucleus contains stress-responsive neurons that increase anxiety-like behaviors when activated, and that ventral subiculum projections to the supramammillary are also activated by stress and their inhibition alleviates some effects of stress. Evidence that this pathway encodes and is functionally specific to anxiety is, at present, not sufficiently support and will require future studies. This work offers new insights into how distinct circuits are activated by stress and can regulate emotional behaviors and will be of interest to those interested in brain systems of aversive emotional and behavioral states.