Neuroscience

The function of juvenile–adult transition axis in female sexual receptivity of Drosophila melanogaster

1. Jing Li
2. Chao Ning
3. Yaohua Liu
4. Bowen Deng
5. Bingcai Wang
6. Kai Shi
7. Rencong Wang
8. Ruixin Fang
9. Chuan Zhou

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  The aim of this valuable study is to uncover developmental roles of the neuropeptide prothoracicotropic hormone (PTTH) and ecdysone, which later regulate female receptivity of Drosophila melanogaster. The work combines spatially and temporally restricted genetic manipulation with behavior quantification to explore these molecular pathways and the neuronal substrates participating in the control of female sexual receptivity. At present, the implication of both signaling pathways in this process is convincing but the strength of the evidence is incomplete to support the main claim that PTTH pathway controls female sexual receptivity through the function of ecdysone in pC1 neurons.

Reviewed by eLife

Omissions of threat trigger subjective relief and prediction error-like signaling in the human reward and salience systems

1. Anne L Willems
2. Lukas Van Oudenhove
3. Bram Vervliet

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This study presents valuable findings on the relationship between prediction errors and brain activation in response to unexpected omissions of painful electric shocks. The strengths are the research question posed, as it has remained unresolved if prediction errors in the context of biologically aversive outcomes resemble reward-based prediction errors. The evidence is solid but there are weaknesses in the experimental design, where verbal instructions do not align with experienced outcome probabilities. It is further unclear how to interpret neural prediction error signaling in the assumed absence of learning. The work will be of interest to cognitive neuroscientists and psychologists studying appetitive and aversive learning.

Reviewed by eLife

Impaired 26S proteasome causes learning and memory deficiency and induces neuroinflammation mediated by NF-κB in mice

1. Christa C. Huber
2. Eduardo Callegari
3. Maria Paez
4. Xiaoping Li
5. Abena Dwamena
6. Hongmin Wang

Reviewed by preLights

Integration of overlapping sequences emerges with consolidation through medial prefrontal cortex neural ensembles and hippocampal–cortical connectivity

1. Alexa Tompary
2. Lila Davachi

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This important study investigates how memory representations are transformed over time (24h period). The work advances our understanding of the neural processes supporting the behavioral integration of memories for distinct events that are never experienced together in time but are linked by shared predictive cues. Evidence supporting the claims is solid, and reporting of additional comparisons would have strengthened the study.

Reviewed by eLife

Recording γ-secretase activity in living mouse brains

1. Steven S Hou
2. Yuya Ikegawa
3. Yeseo Kwon
4. Natalia Wieckiewicz
5. Mei CQ Houser
6. Brianna Lundin
7. Brian J Bacskai
8. Oksana Berezovska
9. Masato Maesako

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  Hou and colleagues describe the the use of a previously characterized FRET sensor for use in determining gamma secretase activity in the brain of living mice. In an approach that targeted the sensor to neurons, they observe patterns of fluorescent sensor readout suggesting clustered regions of secretase activity. These results once validated would be valuable in the field of Alzheimer's Disease research, yet further validation of the approach is required, as the current evidence provided is inadequate to support the conclusions.

Reviewed by eLife, Arcadia Science

Male cuticular pheromones stimulate removal of the mating plug and promote re-mating through pC1 neurons in Drosophila females

1. Minsik Yun
2. Do-Hyoung Kim
3. Tal Soo Ha
4. Kang-Min Lee
5. Eungyu Park
6. Markus Knaden
7. Bill S Hansson
8. Young-Joon Kim

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This important work unravels how female Drosophila can assess their social context via chemosensory cues and modulate the sperm storage process after copulation accordingly. A compelling set of rigorous experiments uncovers specific pheromones that influence the excitability of the female brain receptivity circuit and their propensity to discard inseminate from a mating. This insight into neuronal mechanisms of sexual behavior plasticity is of general interest to scientists working in the fields of animal behavior, neuroscience, evolution, and sexual selection, as well as insect chemosensation and reproduction.

Reviewed by eLife

Transformation of valence signaling in a mouse striatopallidal circuit

1. Donghyung Lee
2. Nathan Lau
3. Lillian Liu
4. Cory M Root

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This important study by Lee and colleagues examined how neural representations are transformed between the olfactory tubercle (OT) and the ventral pallidum (VP) using single neuron calcium imaging in head-fixed mice trained in classical conditioning. They show that the dimensionality of neural responses is lower in the VP than in the OT and suggest that VP responses represent values in a more abstract form at the single neuron level while OT contains more odor information, potentially enhancing odor contrast. The results are overall convincing and this study provides insights into how odor information is transformed in the olfactory system.

Reviewed by eLife

Language experience shapes predictive coding of rhythmic sound sequences

1. Piermatteo Morucci
2. Sanjeev Nara
3. Mikel Lizarazu
4. Clara Martin
5. Nicola Molinaro

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This study presents important observations about how the human brain uses long-term priors (acquired during our lifetime of listening) to make predictions about expected sounds - an open question in the field of predictive processing. The evidence presented is solid and based on state-of-the-art statistical analysis, but limited by a relatively low N and low magnitude for the interaction effect.

Reviewed by eLife

Taste triggers a homeostatic temperature control in hungry flies

1. Yujiro Umezaki
2. Sergio Hidalgo
3. Erika Nguyen
4. Tiffany Nguyen
5. Jay Suh
6. Sheena S Uchino
7. Joanna Chiu
8. Fumika Hamada

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This paper presents valuable findings that gustation and nutrition might independently influence the preferred environmental temperature in flies. The evidence supporting the main claims is solid and well presented. The finding that flies might thus exhibit a cephalic phase response similar to mammals will be of value for future investigations.

Reviewed by eLife

Increasing adult-born neurons protects mice from epilepsy

1. Swati Jain
2. John J LaFrancois
3. Kasey Gerencer
4. Justin J Botterill
5. Meghan Kennedy
6. Chiara Criscuolo
7. Helen E Scharfman

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  In this manuscript, Jain and colleagues explore whether increasing adult-born neurons is protective against status epilepticus and the development of spontaneous recurrent seizures (chronic epilepsy) in a mouse pilocarpine model of temporal lobe epilepsy. This is an important work that provides solid data, contradicting previous studies on suppressing chronic seizures by reduction in adult-born neurons.

Reviewed by eLife