Neuroscience

Mechanical force of uterine occupation enables large vesicle extrusion from proteostressed maternal neurons

1. Guoqiang Wang
2. Ryan J Guasp
3. Sangeena Salam
4. Edward Chuang
5. Andrés Morera
6. Anna J Smart
7. David Jimenez
8. Sahana Shekhar
9. Emily Friedman
10. Ilija Melentijevic
11. Ken C Nguyen
12. David H Hall
13. Barth D Grant
14. Monica Driscoll

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This important study explores the potential influence of physiologically relevant mechanical forces on the extrusion of vesicles from C. elegans neurons. The authors provide compelling evidence to support the idea that uterine distension per se can induce vesicular extrusion from adjacent neurons. Overall, this work will be of interest to neuroscientists and investigators in the extracellular vesicle and proteostasis fields.

Reviewed by eLife

Analysis of fast calcium dynamics of honey bee olfactory coding

1. Marco Paoli
2. Antoine Wystrach
3. Brice Ronsin
4. Martin Giurfa

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  How neural circuits represent sensory signals during and after stimulus presentation is a central question in neuroscience. Here, a model of the insect mushroom body, constructed from simple, known synaptic connectivity rules, is shown to convincingly explain stimulus discrimination and associative memory, even in the presence of variability in the input signals as experimentally measured from the antennal lobe of the honeybee. This important study makes testable predictions for the role of specific neurons in a neural circuit for associative memory, of relevance to any study of neural network design and operation.

Reviewed by eLife

Speech-induced suppression and vocal feedback sensitivity in human cortex

1. Muge Ozker
2. Leyao Yu
3. Patricia Dugan
4. Werner Doyle
5. Daniel Friedman
6. Orrin Devinsky
7. Adeen Flinker

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  The manuscript describes human intracranial neural recordings in the auditory cortex during speech production, showing that the effects of delayed auditory feedback correlate with the degree of underlying speech-induced suppression. This is an important finding, as previous work has suggested that speech suppression and feedback sensitivity often do not co-localize and may be distinct processes, in contrast with findings in non-human primates where there is a strong correlation. The strength of the evidence is convincing, with appropriate experimental methods, data, and analysis.

Reviewed by eLife

A toolbox for genetic targeting of the claustrum

1. Joël Tuberosa
2. Madlaina Boillat
3. Julien Dal Col
4. Leonardo Marconi
5. Julien Codourey
6. Loris Mannino
7. Elena Georgiou
8. Marc Menoud
9. Alan Carleton
10. Ivan Rodriguez

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This valuable research identifies Smim32 as a new genetic marker for the claustrum and generates transgenic mouse lines aimed at enhancing specificity when studying this brain region. However, the evidence supporting the increased specificity of this marker and its associated transgenic lines is inadequate, as Smim32's specificity to the claustrum is limited. Nevertheless, this work will be of interest to researchers studying the molecular organization of the claustrum.

Reviewed by eLife

Direct observation of the neural computations underlying a single decision

1. Natalie Steinemann
2. Gabriel M Stine
3. Eric Trautmann
4. Ariel Zylberberg
5. Daniel M Wolpert
6. Michael N Shadlen

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This fundamental work quantifies the stochastic dynamics of neural population activity in the lateral intraparietal area (LIP) of the macaque monkey brain during single perceptual decisions. These single-trial dynamics have been subject to intense debate in neuroscience, and they have significant implications for modelling decision-making in various fields including neuroscience and psychology. Through a combination of state-of-the-art recordings from many LIP neurons and theory-driven data analyses, the authors provide convincing evidence for the notion that single-trial neural population dynamics in LIP encode the decision variable postulated by the drift-diffusion model of decision-making.

Reviewed by eLife

Sequential temporal anticipation characterized by neural power modulation and in recurrent neural networks

1. Xiangbin Teng
2. Ru-Yuan Zhang

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This valuable study provides insights into how the brain learns to better detect a target by predicting when the target may appear. Overall, solid evidence is provided that the power fluctuations of alpha- and beta-band oscillations can reflect the predicted occurrence time of the target, but some conclusions, especially ones related to the neural-network model and temporal gain control account, need further consideration. The study highlights an advanced EEG analysis approach as well as a close combination of human EEG analysis and computational modeling using recurrent neural networks.

Reviewed by eLife

Sexually dimorphic role of diet and stress on behavior, energy metabolism, and the ventromedial hypothalamus

1. Sanutha Shetty
2. Samuel J. Duesman
3. Sanil Patel
4. Pacific Huyhn
5. Sanjana Shroff
6. Anika Das
7. Disha Chowhan
8. Robert Sebra
9. Kristin Beaumont
10. Cameron S. McAlpine
11. Prashant Rajbhandari
12. Abha K. Rajbhandari

Reviewed by preLights

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

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