Neuroscience

LINC complex alterations are a hallmark of sporadic and familial ALS/FTD

1. Riccardo Sirtori
2. Michelle Gregoire
3. Emily Potts
4. Alicia Collins
5. Liviana Donatelli
6. Claudia Fallini

Reviewed by preLights

Glutamate neurotransmission from leptin receptor cells is required for typical puberty and reproductive function in female mice

1. Cristina Sáenz de Miera
2. Nicole Bellefontaine
3. Susan J Allen
4. Martin G Myers
5. Carol F Elias

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This important study reports that glutamate signaling in LepRb PMv neurons is necessary for leptin-dependent fertility. The data supporting the conclusion is solid. This work will be of interest to researchers in the fields of both reproductive and metabolic biology.

Reviewed by eLife

An allocentric human odometer for perceiving distances on the ground plane

1. Liu Zhou
2. Wei Wei
3. Teng Leng Ooi
4. Zijiang J He

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This important study reveals the use of an allocentric spatial reference frame in the updating perception of the location of a dimly lit target during locomotion. The evidence supporting this claim is compelling, based on a series of cleverly and carefully designed behavioral experiments. The results will be of interest not only to scientists who study perception, action and cognition but also to engineers who work on developing visually guided robots and self-driving vehicles.

Reviewed by eLife

Episodic boundaries affect neural features of representational drift in humans

1. Nimay Kulkarni
2. Bradley C. Lega

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This valuable study presents a novel analysis of a large human intracranial electrophysiological recording dataset. The study challenges the traditional view that neural responses to word lists exhibit smoothly drifting contexts over time, showing that items just after a boundary have a characteristic response that occurs repeatedly. The evidence is incomplete, however, leaving open the possibility for alternative explanations.

Reviewed by eLife

Sex-specific resilience of neocortex to food restriction

1. Zahid Padamsey
2. Danai Katsanevaki
3. Patricia Maeso
4. Manuela Rizzi
5. Emily E Osterweil
6. Nathalie L Rochefort

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This study provides important findings based on compelling evidence demonstrating that females and males have different strategies to regulate energy consumption in the brain in the context of low energy intake. While food deprivation reduces energy consumption and visual processing performance in the visual cortex of males, the female cortex is unaffected, likely at the expense of other functions. This study is relevant for scientists interested in body metabolism and neuroscience.

Reviewed by eLife

Speech and music recruit frequency-specific distributed and overlapping cortical networks

1. Noémie te Rietmolen
2. Manuel R Mercier
3. Agnès Trébuchon
4. Benjamin Morillon
5. Daniele Schön

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This study presents valuable intracranial findings on how two types of natural auditory stimuli - speech and music - are processed in the human brain, and demonstrates that speech and music largely share network-level brain activities, thus challenging the domain-specific processing view. The evidence supporting the claims of the authors is solid. The work will be of broad interest to speech and music researchers as well as cognitive scientists in general.

Reviewed by eLife

Hippocampal-occipital connectivity reflects autobiographical memory deficits in aphantasia

1. Merlin Monzel
2. Pitshaporn Leelaarporn
3. Teresa Lutz
4. Johannes Schultz
5. Sascha Brunheim
6. Martin Reuter
7. Cornelia McCormick

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This important work substantially advances our understanding of episodic memory in individuals with aphantasia, and sheds light on the neural underpinnings of episodic memory and mental imagery. The evidence supporting the conclusions is convincing, including evidence from a well-established interview paradigm complemented with fMRI to assess neural activation during memory recall. The work will be of broad interest to memory researchers and mental imagery researchers alike.

Reviewed by eLife

Neuroinfectiology of an atypical anthrax-causing pathogen in wild chimpanzees

1. Tobias Gräßle
2. Carsten Jäger
3. Evgeniya Kirilina
4. Jenny E. Jaffe
5. Penelope Carlier
6. Andrea Pizarro
7. Anna Jauch
8. Katja Reimann
9. Ilona Lipp
10. EBC consortium
11. Roman M. Wittig
12. Catherine Crockford
13. Nikolaus Weiskopf
14. Fabian H. Leendertz
15. Markus Morawski

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This useful article provides evidence of the potential neuropathogenicity of Bacillus cereus serovar anthracis in wild chimpanzees. The authors provide an extensive characterization of four chimpanzees that died acutely from anthrax. The study provides incomplete traditional histopathologic evidence of neuroinvasion since the meninges could not be evaluated, which weakens the authors' conclusions. The work will be of interest to infectious disease researchers.

Reviewed by eLife

Systemic pharmacological suppression of neural activity reverses learning impairment in a mouse model of Fragile X syndrome

1. Amin MD Shakhawat
2. Jacqueline G Foltz
3. Adam B Nance
4. Jaydev Bhateja
5. Jennifer L Raymond

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This important manuscript follows up on previous findings from the same lab supporting the idea that deficits in learning due to enhanced synaptic plasticity are due to saturation effects. Compelling evidence is presented that behavioral learning deficits associated with enhanced synaptic plasticity in a transgenic mouse model can be rescued by manipulations designed to reverse the saturation of synaptic plasticity. In particular, the finding that a previously FDA-approved therapeutic can rescue learning could provide new insights for biologists, psychologists, and others studying learning and neurodevelopment.

Reviewed by eLife

EEG-fMRI in awake rat and whole-brain simulations show decreased brain responsiveness to sensory stimulations during absence seizures

1. Petteri Stenroos
2. Isabelle Guillemain
3. Federico Tesler
4. Olivier Montigon
5. Nora Collomb
6. Vasile Stupar
7. Alain Destexhe
8. Veronique Coizet
9. Olivier David
10. Emmanuel L Barbier

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This study conducted fMRI experiments in an inbred rat model of absence seizures. The results provide new information suggesting reduced brain responsiveness during this type of seizure. The reviewers had divergent opinions but on average thought the study was valuable and the conclusions were solid.

Reviewed by eLife