Neuroscience

eLife Assessment

This paper develops a fundamental theory that explains how the brain can hold in working memory not only the identity but also the order of presented stimuli. Previous theories did not explain the ability of people to immediately recall the correct order of the stimulus presentation. The authors present compelling evidence that this can be achieved through synaptic augmentation, an experimentally observed phenomenon with a time scale of tens of seconds.

eLife Assessment

This study uses a valuable combination of functional magnetic resonance imaging and electroencephalography (EEG) to study brain activity related to prediction errors in relation to both sensorimotor and more complex cognitive functions. It provides incomplete evidence to suggest that prediction error minimisation drives brain activity across both types of processing and that elevated inter-regional functional coupling along a superior-inferior axis is associated with high prediction error, whereas coupling along a posterior-anterior axis is associated with low prediction error. The manuscript will be of interest to neuroscientists working on predictive coding and decision-making, but would benefit from more precise localisation of EEG sources and more rigorous statistical controls.

eLife Assessment

This valuable study a computational language model, i.e., HM-LSTM, to quantify the neural encoding of hierarchical linguistic information in speech, and addresses how hearing impairment affects neural encoding of speech. Overall the evidence for the findings is solid, although the evidence for different speech processing stages could be strengthened by a more rigorous temporal response function (TRF) analysis. The study is of potential interest to audiologists and researchers who are interested in the neural encoding of speech.

eLife Assessment

This article reports an algorithm for inferring the presence of synaptic connection between neurons based on naturally occurring spiking activity of a neuronal network. One key improvement is to combine self-supervised and synthetic approaches to learn to focus on features that generalize to the conditions of the observed network. This valuable contribution is currently supported by incomplete evidence.

eLife Assessment

This important study combines a two-person joint hand-reaching paradigm with game-theoretical modeling to examine whether, and how, one's reflexive visuomotor responses are modulated by a partner's control policy and cost structure. The study provides a solid and novel set of behavioral findings suggesting that involuntary visuomotor feedback is indeed modulated in the context of interpersonal coordination. The work will be of interest to cognitive scientists studying the motoric and social aspects of action control.

eLife Assessment

This important study addresses a classic debate in visual processing, using a strong method applied to a rare clinical population to evaluate hierarchical models of visual object perception. The paper finds only partial support for the hierarchical model: as expected, neural responses in ventral visual cortex show increased representational selectivity for faces along the posterior-anterior axes, but the onsets of the signals do not show a temporal hierarchy, indicating more parallel processing. The iEEG dataset is impressive, but the evidence for lack of temporal hierarchy is incomplete: essential quality checks need to be performed, and statistical analyses adapted to ensure that the data and analyses would be able to reveal temporal hierarchy if it were present in the data.

eLife Assessment

This manuscript presents a valuable study of the activity and functional relevance of different circuits in the dentate gyrus of mice performing a pattern separation task. The study is likely to be of interest to those studying the subregional organization and cell type-specific functions of the dentate gyrus. However, the strength of evidence for the study's conclusions is currently incomplete.

eLife Assessment

This valuable study provides a practical computational framework for inferring latent neural states directly from calcium fluorescence recordings, bypassing the traditional need for a separate spike deconvolution step. The evidence supporting the method is solid, featuring rigorous validation across multiple latent variable model families (including HMM, GPFA, and LFADS) using both simulated and experimental data. However, the assessment of the method's generality would be further strengthened by application to a broader range of experimental datasets, such as recordings from different brain regions or using different calcium indicators.

eLife Assessment

The authors combine a modeling approach, using a digital twin, with electrophysiological evidence in two species to assess the role of inhibition in shaping selectivity in the visual cortex. The results provide an important advance beyond the classic view of sensory coding by proving compelling evidence that many neurons in visual areas exhibit dual-feature selectivity. Overall, the work exceptionally showcases how in silico experiments can generate concrete hypotheses about neuronal coding that are difficult to discover experimentally.

eLife Assessment

This paper represents a valuable contribution to our understanding of how LFP oscillations and beta band coordination between the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex of rats may relate to learning. Enthusiasm for the reported results was moderated by the concern that some key analyses need to be done, and highly relevant details about task, data, and statistics were missing. Consequently, the reviewers considered the evidence to be incomplete in this version of the manuscript.