Neuroscience

eLife Assessment

This important study shows that an odorant that is typically thought of as a repellant actually activates both attractant and repellant olfactory neurons in C. elegans. Convincing evidence is provided that nematode worms can integrate signals in different sensory pathways to drive different behavioral responses to the same cue. These findings will be of interest to scientists interested in combinatorial coding in sensory systems.

eLife Assessment

The findings in this paper provide solid support for a hypothesis that has valuable implications at the intersection of value-based and social decision-making. The findings suggest that the brain processes rewards received for effort differently when they are earned for themselves versus someone else.

eLife Assessment

This important study employed a multi-stage behavioural paradigm of increasing cognitive complexity to investigate the role of inhibitory interneurons in the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) in avoidance behaviour in mice. The authors used imaging and optogenetic techniques, combined with this behavioural task, to show that mPFC interneurons are necessary for encoding but not for executing avoidance under threat. The evidence supporting these claims is compelling, and findings will be of interest to researchers in behavioural and systems neurosciences.

eLife Assessment

This important study investigates how the brain categorizes written words from different writing systems (e.g., alphabetic vs. non-alphabetic), shedding potential light on the neural basis of language's social‑categorization function. Overall, the evidence supporting the authors' claims is solid, though some analyses and key interpretations would benefit from fuller justification.

eLife Assessment

This study presents a useful array of analyses of the effects of training and/or instruction to use the method of loci during episodic encoding and retrieval. A major strength of the experiment is the impressive recruitment of memory athletes and the training of novice athletes to use the method of loci, long known to improve the precision of memory recall. That said, the sheer number of results and their organization should be addressed; streamlining the results and placing them, whenever possible, in a theoretical framework. As it stands, the presented work is incomplete with respect to the major conclusions that training itself leads to neural differentiation of prefrontal cortical neural patterns, and the authors need to temper these claims.

eLife Assessment

This work provides a map of enhancer-promoter interactions associated with genes controlling the development of a specific neuronal cell population. The study offers a valuable resource and integrates multiple complementary datasets to provide insights into regulatory mechanisms, although the conceptual advances are moderate and the central message could be clearer. The evidence supporting the conclusions is generally solid, but the lack of direct functional testing of key regulatory elements limits the strength of some claims.

[Editors' note: this paper was reviewed by Review Commons.]

eLife Assessment

This important study concerns the propagation of waves in bacterial biofilms, bridging active matter physics and bacterial biophysics. The experimental observations are solid, and the theoretical interpretation and model validation have been refined with revisions. This work will be of interest to microbiologists, biophysicists, and researchers studying collective behavior in biological systems.

eLife Assessment

This is a useful study that seeks to elucidate the molecular mechanisms underlying spinal motor circuit assembly. The authors demonstrate that loss of Onecut transcription factors in spinal motor neurons affects the size and spatial distribution of pre-motor interneurons. However, the study in its current form is incomplete: the data and analyses do not fully support the main conclusion that Onecut acts through Neurotrophin-3 to regulate interneuron development in a non-cell autonomous manner. The work will be of broad interest to cell and developmental biologists.

eLife Assessment

This important study examines how chronic pain and opioid exposure interact at the cellular and molecular levels in a reward-related brain region. Using single-nucleus RNA sequencing, the authors map transcriptional changes in the rat ventral tegmental area following chronic inflammatory pain and acute morphine exposure. Notably, their convincing data support that acute morphine, not chronic pain, elicits a stress-related transcriptional response primarily in glial cells rather than neurons, challenging prevailing views of opioid action and supporting growing evidence for glucocorticoid signaling in glial responses. A limitation is the use of a single opioid dose and time point, and further discussion of these constraints would help clarify the broader implications of the findings.

eLife Assessment

This paper presents an important theory and analysis of the role of neurogenesis and inhibitory plasticity in the drift of neural representations in the olfactory system. For one of the findings, regarding the impact of neurogenesis on the drift, the evidence remains incomplete. The reason lies in the differences in variability/drift of the mitral/tufted cell responses observed in the model compared to experimental observations, where these responses remain stable over extended time scales.