Neuroscience

A unified rodent atlas reveals the cellular complexity and evolutionary divergence of the dorsal vagal complex

1. Cecilia Hes
2. Abigail J Tomlinson
3. Lieke Michielsen
4. Hunter J Murdoch
5. Fatemeh Soltani
6. Maia Kokoeva
7. Paul V Sabatini

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This manuscript applies state-of-the-art techniques to define the cellular composition of the dorsal vagal complex in two rodent species (mice and rats). The result is a fundamental resource that substantially advances our understanding of the dorsal vagal complex's role in the regulation of feeding and metabolism while also highlighting key differences between species. The analyses of single-cell profiling experiments in the manuscript provide compelling insight into the cellular architecture of the dorsal vagal complex, with potential implications for obesity therapeutics.

Reviewed by eLife

Sparse innervation and local heterogeneity in the vibrissal corticostriatal projection

1. Kenza Amroune
2. Lorenzo Fontolan
3. Agnès Baude
4. David Robbe
5. Ingrid Bureau

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This revised manuscript provides fundamental findings on how the mouse barrel cortex connects to the dorsolateral striatum, uncovering that inputs from discrete whisker cortical columns are convergent and SPN-specific, but topographically organized at the population level. The evidence supporting this claim is compelling, demonstrating that SPNs uniquely integrate sparse input from variable stretches across the barrel cortex. The study would be of interest to basal ganglia and sensory-motor integration researchers.

Reviewed by eLife

Asymmetric cortical projections to striatal direct and indirect pathways distinctly control actions

1. Jason R Klug
2. Xunyi Yan
3. Hilary A Hoffman
4. Max D Engelhardt
5. Fumitaka Osakada
6. Edward M Callaway
7. Xin Jin

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This valuable study demonstrates that D1- and D2-striatal neurons receive distinct cortical inputs, offering key insights into corticostriatal function. For instance, in the context of striatal-dependent learning, this distinction is highly informative for interpreting synaptic physiology data, particularly when inputs to one neuron subtype may change independently of the other. The strength of the evidence is solid, with anatomical and electrophysiological findings aligning well with results from optogenetic and behavioral studies.

Reviewed by eLife

Unsupervised pipeline for the identification of cortical excitatory and inhibitory neurons in high-density multielectrode arrays with ground-truth validation

1. Eloise Giraud
2. Michael Lynn
3. Philippe Vincent-Lamarre
4. Jean-Claude Beique
5. Jean-Philippe Thivierge

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  In this manuscript, the authors describe a software package for automatic differentiation of action potentials generated by excitatory and inhibitory neurons, acquired using high-density microelectrode arrays. The work is valuable as it offers a tool with the potential to automatically identify these neuron types in vitro. It is solid, as it provides a tool to identify putative excitatory and inhibitory neurons on high-density electrode arrays, which can be used in conjunction with other existing spike sorting pipelines.

Reviewed by eLife

Unveiling Distinct Neuroimmune Responses in Mouse Models of Cervical Spinal Cord Injury: Hemisection versus Hemicontusion

1. Wei Chen
2. Lucille Adam
3. Michel-Flutot Pauline
4. Arnaud Mansart
5. Stéphane Vinit
6. Isabelle Vivodtzev

Reviewed by Arcadia Science

The representation of facial emotion expands from sensory to prefrontal cortex with development

1. Xiaoxu Fan
2. Abhishek Tripathi
3. Kelly R Bijanki

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This study examines a valuable question regarding the developmental trajectory of neural mechanisms supporting facial expression processing. Leveraging a rare intracranial EEG (iEEG) dataset including both children and adults, the authors reported that facial expression recognition mainly engaged the posterior superior temporal cortex (pSTC) among children, while both pSTC and the prefrontal cortex were engaged among adults. However, the sample size is relatively small, with analyses appearing incomplete to fully support the primary claims.

Reviewed by eLife

Newly trained navigation and verbal memory skills elicit changes in task-related networks but not brain structure

1. Li Zheng
2. Zachary Boogaart
3. Andrew McAvan
4. Joshua Garren
5. Stephanie Doner
6. Bradley J Wilkes
7. Will Groves
8. Ece Yuksel
9. Lucia Cherep
10. Arne D Ekstrom
11. Steven M Weisberg

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This work presents a useful investigation of functional and structural brain changes following navigation and verbal memory training. The analyses of whole-brain structural changes are incomplete and would benefit from a more comprehensive approach to support the study's main conclusion regarding the lack of a structural whole-brain plasticity effect. However, some analyses are exhaustive and compelling in demonstrating the presence of longitudinal behavioural effects, the presence of functional activation changes, and the lack of hippocampal volume changes.

Reviewed by eLife

Separable global and local beta burst dynamics in motor cortex of primates

1. Preeya Khanna
2. Behraz Farrokhi
3. Hoseok Choi
4. Sandon Griffin
5. Ian Heimbuch
6. Lisa Novik
7. Katherina Thiesen
8. John Morrison
9. Robert J Morecraft
10. Karunesh Ganguly

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This important study investigates changes in oscillatory activity across cortical and subcortical areas during stroke recovery in a nonhuman primate model. The authors distinguish between global and local oscillatory bursts, providing solid evidence that these two types of bursts correlate with distinct aspects of movement; additionally, they show that the likelihood of these bursts occurring follows opposing trends during recovery. The study could be further improved by accounting for inter-individual differences and by some technical improvements, such as employing more robust burst detection methods and more stringent analyses.

Reviewed by eLife

Cell-to-cell signalling mediated via CO2: activity dependent CO2 production in the axonal node opens Cx32 in the Schwann cell paranode

1. Jack Butler
2. Lowell Mott
3. Angus Brown
4. Nicholas Dale

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This manuscript describes solid and very interesting findings that substantially advance our understanding of a major research question on the role of Cx32 hemichannels in the Schwann cell paranode. It provides an interdisciplinary integration of imaging, in silico approaches, and functional data. This important study proposes a new mechanism with profound physiological relevance and provides new insights into glial modulation of electrical conduction in sensory/motor myelinated nerves.

Reviewed by eLife

Phasic and tonic pain serve distinct functions during adaptive behaviour

1. Shuangyi Tong
2. Timothy Denison
3. Danielle Hewitt
4. Sang Wan Lee
5. Ben Seymour

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  The article presents important findings of a dissociation between phasic and tonic pain functions in adaptive behavior, combining immersive VR, computational modeling, skin conductance, and EEG data. The methodology used is solid. Its ecological design and sophisticated computational modeling are major strengths. The article would benefit from adding details on hypotheses, VR implementation, sample size determination, modeling, analysis, and pain specificity.

Reviewed by eLife