Neuroscience

eLife Assessment

This important study provides solid evidence for new insights into the role of Type-1 nNOS interneurons in driving neuronal network activity and controlling vascular network dynamics in awake, head-fixed mice. The authors use an original strategy based on the ablation of Type-1 nNOS interneurons with local injection of saporin conjugated to a substance P analogue into the somatosensory cortex. They show that ablation of type I nNOS neurons has surprisingly little effect on neurovascular coupling, although it alters neural activity and vascular dynamics.

eLife Assessment

This study presents important information about the role of mu opioid receptors in neurotransmission between the medial habenula and the interpeduncular nucleus. The authors provide convincing evidence that mu opioid receptor activation has differential effects on transmission from substance P neurons and cholinergic neurons, and that blockade of potassium channels can unmask a nicotinic cholinergic synaptic response. This work will be of high interest to those studying this brain region, and potentially to the larger neuroscience community studying motivated behavior.

eLife Assessment

This study reports important findings about the nature of feedback to primary visual cortex (V1) during object recognition. The state-of-the-art functional MRI evidence for the main claims is solid, and the combination of high-resolution fMRI with MEG yields significant insight into neural mechanisms. The findings presented here are relevant to a number of scientific fields such as object recognition, categorisation and predictive coding.

eLife Assessment

This important study investigates nerve-injury-induced allodynia by studying the role of a subpopulation of excitatory dorsal horn CCK+ neurons that express the estrogen receptor GPR30 and potentially modulate nociceptive sensitivity via direct inputs from primary somatosensory cortex. In this revised version, the authors addressed many of the critiques raised through added analyses that convincingly support the notion that spinal GPR30 neurons are indeed an excitatory subpopulation of CCK+ neurons that contribute to neuropathic pain. While evidence of a direct functional corticospinal projection to CCK+/GPR30+neurons is not fully demonstrated, this work will be of broad interest to researchers interested in the neural circuitry of pain.

eLife Assessment

This study presents a valuable finding regarding the role of oxytocin neurons in thermogenesis and behavioral thermoregulation. The use of numerous converging methods, including behavior, fiber photometry, optogenetics, thermal recordings, metabolic analyses, and more, produces a multi-dimensional dataset delivering findings that provide solid support for the conclusions. Conclusions would be strengthened with validation of the approaches, inclusion of a loss of function experiment, and further investigation of the social nature of the behavior. The maternal findings are, at present, somewhat disconnected from the conclusions. The findings are novel and open new doors for understanding the role of the PVT and oxytocin in thermoregulation work; the work will be of strong interest to the thermoregulation, social behavior, and oxytocin signaling communities.

eLife Assessment

Whole-brain imaging of neuronal activity in freely behaving animals holds great promise for neuroscience, but numerous technical challenges limit its use. In this important study, the authors describe a new set of deep learning-based tools to track and identify the activity of head neurons in freely moving nematodes (C. elegans) and jellyfish (Clytia hemisphaerica). While the tools convincingly enable high tracking speed and accuracy in the settings in which the authors have evaluated them, the claim that these tools should be easily generalizable to a wide variety of datasets is incompletely supported.

eLife Assessment

This important work fills a gap in the characterization of motor architecture and chemical coupling of the male reproductive system, crucial to understanding male reproduction and fertility. The convincing analysis reveals two distinct types of glutamatergic neurons that co-release either serotonin or octopamine. While serotonergic neurons are required for male fertility, octopaminergic neurons are dispensable, indicating a division of labour. This work lays the foundations for future investigations into the conserved key principles by which multi-transmitter systems control coordinated motor outputs.

eLife Assessment

This useful study uses creative scalp EEG decoding methods to attempt to demonstrate that two forms of learned associations in a Stroop task are dissociable, despite sharing similar temporal dynamics. However, the evidence supporting the conclusions is incomplete due to concerns with the experimental design and methodology. This paper would be of interest to researchers studying cognitive control and adaptive behavior, if the concerns raised in the reviews can be addressed satisfactorily.

eLife Assessment

This important study investigates why the 13-lined ground squirrel (13LGS) retina is unusually rich in cone photoreceptors, the cells responsible for color and daylight vision. The authors perform deep transcriptomic and epigenetic comparisons between the mouse and the 13-lined ground squirrel (13LGS) to provide convincing evidence that identifies mechanisms that drive rod vs cone-rich retina development. Overall, this key question is investigated using an impressive collection of new data, cross-species analysis, and subsequent in vivo experiments. However, the functional analysis showing the sufficiency and necessity of Zic3 and Mef2C remains incomplete, and further analyses are needed to support the claim that these enhancers are newly evolved in 13LGS.

eLife Assessment

This study makes a valuable contribution by separating two timescales of adaptation: rapid, within block reductions in learning rate, and slower, location specific, meta-learned adjustments. Behavioural data and computational modeling converge to support both processes. The evidence is solid with neuroimaging results suggesting that meta-learned learning rates are encoded in the orbitofrontal cortex, while prediction errors are represented in a distributed network including the ventral striatum and are modulated by expected error magnitude, though the specificity of these effects requires further contextualization. The manuscript is timely and clearly written; its main limitation is the weak linkage between neural signals and behavior, leaving uncertainty over whether the reported signals play a mechanistic role in learning.