Neuroscience

A Forebrain Hub for Cautious Actions via the Midbrain

1. Ji Zhou
2. Muhammad S Sajid
3. Sebastian Hormigo
4. Manuel A Castro-Alamancos

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This valuable study uses fiber photometry, implantable lenses, and optogenetics, to show that a subset of subthalamic nucleus neurons are active during movement, and that active but not passive avoidance depends in part on STN projections to substantia nigra. The strength of the evidence for these claims is solid, whereas evidence supporting the claims that STN is involved in cautious responding is unclear as presented. This paper may be of interest to basic and applied behavioural neuroscientists working on movement or avoidance.

Reviewed by eLife

Disruption of theta-timescale spiking impairs learning but spares hippocampal replay

1. Abhilasha Joshi
2. Alison E. Comrie
3. Samuel Bray
4. Abhijith Mankili
5. Jennifer A. Guidera
6. Rhino Nevers
7. Xulu Sun
8. Emily Monroe
9. Viktor Kharazia
10. Ryan Ly
11. Daniela Astudillo Maya
12. Denisse Morales-Rodriguez
13. Jai Yu
14. Anna Kiseleva
15. Victor Perez
16. Loren M. Frank

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This important study employs a closed-loop, theta-phase-specific optogenetic manipulation of medial septal parvalbumin-expressing neurons in rats and reports that disrupting theta-timescale coordination impairs performance of challenging aspects of spatial behaviors, while sparing hippocampal replay and spatial coding in hippocampal place cells. The findings are expected to advance theoretical understanding of learning and memory operations and to provide practical implications for the application of similar optogenetic approaches. The experiments were viewed as technically rigorous, but the strength of evidence provided in the current version of the manuscript was viewed as incomplete, mostly due to limited analyses and the descriptions of some of the experimental protocols.

Reviewed by eLife

Large-scale bidirectional arrayed genetic screens identify OXR1 and EMC4 as modifiers of α-synuclein aggregation

1. Sandesh Neupane
2. Lea Nikolić
3. Lorenzo Maraio
4. Thomas Goiran
5. Nathan Karpilovsky
6. Stefano Sellitto
7. Vangelis Bouris
8. Jiang-An Yin
9. Ronald Melki
10. Edward A. Fon
11. Elena De Cecco
12. Adriano Aguzzi

Reviewed by Review Commons

The oneirogen hypothesis: modeling the hallucinatory effects of classical psychedelics in terms of replay-dependent plasticity mechanisms

1. Colin Bredenberg
2. Fabrice Normandin
3. Blake Richards
4. Guillaume Lajoie

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This paper provides a useful new theory of the hallucinatory effects of 5-HT2A psychedelics. The authors present convincing evidence that a computational model trained with the Wake-Sleep algorithm can reproduce some features of hallucinations by varying the strength of top-down connections in the model, though it is not clear that this model applies to 5-HT2A hallucinogens in particular. The work will be of interest to researchers studying hallucinations or offline activity and plasticity more broadly.

Reviewed by eLife

Real-Time Closed-Loop Feedback System For Mouse Mesoscale Cortical Signal And Movement Control: CLoPy

1. Pankaj K Gupta
2. Timothy H Murphy

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This study presents a platform to implement closed-loop experiments in mice based on auditory feedback. The authors provide convincing evidence that their platform enables a variety of closed-loop experiments using neural or movement signals, indicating that it will be a valuable resource to the neuroscience community. The paper could be strengthened by the addition of additional tutorials, such as on how to run an experiment.

Reviewed by eLife

Toward neuroanatomical and cognitive foundations of macaque social tolerance grades

1. Sarah Silvère
2. Julien Lamy
3. Christelle Po
4. Mathieu Legrand
5. Jerome Sallet
6. Sebastien Ballesta

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This important work compares the size of two brain areas, the amygdala and the hippocampus, across 12 species belonging to the Macaca genus. The authors find, using a convincing methodological approach, that amygdala - but not hippocampal - volume varies with social tolerance grade, with high tolerance species showing larger amygdala than low tolerance species of macaques. Interestingly, their findings also suggest an inverted developmental effect, with intolerant species showing an increase in amygdala volume across the lifespan, compared to tolerant species exhibiting the opposite trend. Overall, this paper offers new insights into the neural basis of social and emotional processing.

Reviewed by eLife

Humans underestimate their body mass in microgravity: evidence from reaching movements during spaceflight

1. Zhaoran Zhang
2. Yu Tian
3. Chunhui Wang
4. Changhua Jiang
5. Bo Wang
6. Hongqiang Yu
7. Rui Zhao
8. Kunlin Wei

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This paper undertakes an important investigation to determine whether movement slowing in microgravity is due to a strategic conservative approach or rather due to an underestimation of the mass of the arm. The experimental dataset is unique, the coupled experimental and computational analyses comprehensive, and the effect is strong. However, the authors present incomplete results to support the claim that movement slowing is due to mass underestimation. Further analysis is needed to rule out alternative explanations.

Reviewed by eLife

In vivo autofluorescence lifetime imaging of spatial metabolic heterogeneities and learning-induced changes in the Drosophila mushroom body

1. Philémon Roussel
2. Mingyi Zhou
3. Chiara Stringari
4. Thomas Preat
5. Pierre-Yves Plaçais
6. Auguste Genovesio

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This valuable study uses NAD(P)H fluorescence lifetime imaging (FLIM) to map metabolic states in the Drosophila brain. The authors reveal subtype-specific metabolic profiles in Kenyon cells and report learning-related changes, supported by solid evidence and careful methodology. However, the FLIM shifts observed after memory formation in α/β neurons are small and only weakly significant, so the ability of FLIM to detect subtle physiological changes still requires further validation. Nevertheless, this work provides a strong starting point and demonstrates the promising potential of FLIM for probing neural metabolism in vivo.

Reviewed by eLife

Symmetric brain-liver circuits mediate lateralized regulation of hepatic glucose output

1. Zhonglong Wang
2. Xiangfei Gong
3. Li Jiang
4. Ke Wang
5. Xinyuan Sun
6. Yingxi Li
7. Mengtong Ran
8. Yanshen Chen
9. Hongdong Wang
10. Xuehui Chu
11. Shun Wang
12. Junjie Wang
13. Xiao Zheng
14. Haiping Hao
15. Hao Xie

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This manuscript proposes a lateralized, lobe-specific brain-liver sympathetic neurocircuit regulating hepatic glucose metabolism and presents anatomical evidence for sympathetic crossover at the porta hepatis using viral tracing and neuromodulation approaches. While the topic is of important significance and the methodologies are, in principle, state-of-the-art, significant concerns regarding experimental design, incomplete methodological reporting, sparse and ambiguous labeling, and overi-nterpretation of the data substantially weaken support for the study's central conclusions, thereby limiting the study's completeness. The work will be of interest to biologists, clinicians, and physiologists.

Reviewed by eLife

Prior cocaine use disrupts identification of hidden states by single units and neural ensembles in orbitofrontal cortex

1. Wenhui Zong
2. Lauren E Mueller
3. Zhewei Zhang
4. Jingfeng Zhou
5. Geoffrey Schoenbaum

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This important work shows that a history of cocaine self-administration disrupts the orbitofrontal cortex's ability to encode similarities between distinct sensory stimuli that possess identical task information - hidden states. The evidence supporting these conclusions is compelling, with methods and analyses spanning self-administration, a novel 'figure 8' sequential odor task, recordings from 3,881 single units, and sophisticated firing analyses revealing complex orbitofrontal representations of task structure. These results will be of broad interest to psychologists, neuroscientists, and clinicians.

Reviewed by eLife