Neuroscience

Probing PAC1 receptor activation across species with an engineered sensor

1. Reto B Cola
2. Salome N Niethammer
3. Preethi Rajamannar
4. Andrea Gresch
5. Musadiq A Bhat
6. Kevin Assoumou
7. Elyse T Williams
8. Patrick Hauck
9. Nina Hartrampf
10. Dietmar Benke
11. Miriam Stoeber
12. Gil Levkowitz
13. Sarah Melzer
14. Tommaso Patriarchi

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This fundamental paper reports a new biosensor to study G protein-coupled receptor activation by the pituitary adenylyl cyclase-activating polypeptide (PACAP) in cell culture, ex vivo (mouse brain slices), and in vivo (zebrafish, mouse). Convincing data are presented that show the new sensor works with high affinity in vitro, while requiring very high (non-physiological) concentrations of exogenous PACAP when applied to intact tissues. The sensor has not yet been used to detect endogenously released PACAP, raising questions about whether the sensor can be used for its intended purpose. While further work must be pursued to achieve broad in vivo applications under physiological conditions, the new tool will be of interest to cell biologists, especially those studying the large and significant GPCR family.

Reviewed by eLife

Combining array tomography with electron tomography provides insights into leakiness of the blood-brain barrier in mouse cortex

1. Georg Kislinger
2. Gunar Fabig
3. Antonia Wehn
4. Lucia Rodriguez
5. Hanyi Jiang
6. Cornelia Niemann
7. Andrey S Klymchenko
8. Nikolaus Plesnila
9. Thomas Misgeld
10. Thomas Müller-Reichert
11. Igor Khalin
12. Martina Schifferer

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  The present paper describes an important methodological development that combines light (confocal) microscopy with scanning and transmission EM and EM tomography. The method expands the level of structural detail accessible to large-volume EM studies and thus represents an approach to integrate analyses of cellular and sub-cellular structures in biological samples. The study, which provides a compelling proof-of-principle, will be of particular value to cell biologists interested in the in-depth interpretation of high-resolution ultrastructural information from sparsely distributed targets - at multiple scales and in diverse biological structures.

Reviewed by eLife

Sex-peptide targets distinct higher order processing neurons in the brain to induce the female post-mating response

1. Mohanakarthik P Nallasivan
2. Deepanshu ND Singh
3. Mohammed Syahir RS Saleh
4. Matthias Soller

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This valuable study provides new insights into the neural circuits involved in post-mating responses in Drosophila females. It presents convincing evidence that the circuits for mating receptivity and egg-laying are distinct. A more thorough discussion regarding the integration of the new findings into the current understanding of post-mating behavior as well as clarification of some experimental details would further improve the manuscript.

Reviewed by eLife

Systematic annotation of a complete adult male Drosophila nerve cord connectome reveals principles of functional organisation

1. Elizabeth C Marin
2. Billy J Morris
3. Tomke Stürner
4. Andrew S Champion
5. Dominik Krzeminski
6. Griffin Badalamente
7. Marina Gkantia
8. Christopher R Dunne
9. Katharina Eichler
10. Shin-ya Takemura
11. Imaan FM Tamimi
12. Siqi Fang
13. Sung Soo Moon
14. Han SJ Cheong
15. Feng Li
16. Philipp Schlegel
17. Sebastian E Ahnert
18. Stuart Berg
19. Janelia FlyEM Project Team
20. Gwyneth M Card
21. Marta Costa
22. David Shepherd
23. Gregory SXE Jefferis

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This fundamental study provides a near-comprehensive anatomical description and annotation of neurons in a male Drosophila ventral nerve cord, based on large-scale circuit reconstruction from electron microscopy. This connectome resource will be of substantial interest to neuroscientists interested in sensorimotor control, neural development, and analysis of brain connectivity. However, although the evidence is extensive and compelling, the presentation of results in this very large manuscript lacks clarity and concision.

Reviewed by eLife

Human adherent cortical organoids in a multiwell format

1. Mark van der Kroeg
2. Sakshi Bansal
3. Maurits Unkel
4. Hilde Smeenk
5. Steven A Kushner
6. Femke MS de Vrij

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This paper describes an important advance in an in vitro neural culture system to generate mature, functional, diverse, and geometrically consistent cultures, in a 384-well format with defined dimensions and the absence of the necrotic core, which persists for up to 300 days. The well-based format and conserved geometry make it a promising tool for arrayed screening studies. Some of the evidence is incomplete and could benefit from a more direct head-to-head comparison with more standard culture methods and standardization of cell seeding density as well as further data on reproducibility in each well and for each cell line.

Reviewed by eLife

Revealing unexpected complex encoding but simple decoding mechanisms in motor cortex via separating behaviorally relevant neural signals

1. Yangang Li
2. Xinyun Zhu
3. Yu Qi
4. Yueming Wang

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This study presents a useful method for the extraction of behaviour-related activity from neural population recordings based on a specific deep learning architecture, a variational autoencoder. Although the authors performed thorough benchmarking of their method in the context of decoding behavioural variables, the evidence supporting claims about encoding is incomplete as the results may stem, in part, from the properties of the method itself.

Reviewed by eLife

Ca2+ channel and active zone protein abundance intersects with input-specific synapse organization to shape functional synaptic diversity

1. Audrey T Medeiros
2. Scott J Gratz
3. Ambar Delgado
4. Jason T Ritt
5. Kate M O'Connor-Giles

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  Calcium channels are key regulators of synaptic strength and plasticity. The authors generate new endogenous tags of the Drosophila channel Cac as well as auxiliary subunits to investigate distinct calcium channel functions at the fly NMJ, Is and Ib. They demonstrate functions for voltage-gated calcium channel subunits in promoting synaptic strength, diversity, and plasticity with a series of convincing analyses. The work is important and has broad implications. In addition, the newly developed tools should be quite beneficial for fly biologists.

Reviewed by eLife

A robust brain network for sustained attention from adolescence to adulthood that predicts later substance use

1. Yihe Weng
2. Johann Kruschwitz
3. Laura M Rueda-Delgado
4. Kathy L Ruddy
5. Rory Boyle
6. Luisa Franzen
7. Emin Serin
8. Tochukwu Nweze
9. Jamie Hanson
10. Alannah Smyth
11. Tom Farnan
12. Tobias Banaschewski
13. Arun LW Bokde
14. Sylvane Desrivières
15. Herta Flor
16. Antoine Grigis
17. Hugh Garavan
18. Penny A Gowland
19. Andreas Heinz
20. Rüdiger Brühl
21. Jean-Luc Martinot
22. Marie-Laure Paillère Martinot
23. Eric Artiges
24. Jane McGrath
25. Frauke Nees
26. Dimitri Papadopoulos Orfanos
27. Tomas Paus
28. Luise Poustka
29. Nathalie Holz
30. Juliane Fröhner
31. Michael N Smolka
32. Nilakshi Vaidya
33. Gunter Schumann
34. Henrik Walter
35. Robert Whelan
36. IMAGEN Consortium

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This study presents an important finding on the relationship between brain activity related to sustained attention and substance use in adolescence/early adulthood with a large longitudinal dataset. The evidence supporting the claims of the authors is convincing. The work will be of interest to cognitive neuroscientists, psychologists, and clinicians working on substance use or addiction.

Reviewed by eLife

Bidirectional dysregulation of synaptic glutamate signaling after transient metabolic failure

1. Stefan Passlick
2. Ghanim Ullah
3. Christian Henneberger

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  The authors show that short bouts of chemical ischemia lead to presynaptic changes in glutamate release and long-term potentiation, whereas longer bouts of chemical ischemia lead to synaptic failure and presumably cell death. This convincing work relies on rigorous electrophysiology/imaging experiments and data analysis. It is important as it provides new mechanistic details on chemical ischemia, which could offer potential insights into ischemic stroke in vivo.

Reviewed by eLife

Effects of early life adversity and adolescent basolateral amygdala activity on corticolimbic connectivity and anxiety behaviors

1. Caitlyn R. Cody
2. Emilce Artur de la Villarmois
3. Anabel Miguelez Fernandez
4. Janelle Lardizabal
5. Chaney McKnight
6. Kuei Tseng
7. Heather C. Brenhouse

Reviewed by preLights