Neuroscience

Reactivation strength during cued recall is modulated by graph distance within cognitive maps

1. Simon Kern
2. Juliane Nagel
3. Martin F Gerchen
4. Çağatay Gürsoy
5. Andreas Meyer-Lindenberg
6. Peter Kirsch
7. Raymond J Dolan
8. Steffen Gais
9. Gordon B Feld

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This magnetoencephalography study reports important new findings regarding the nature of memory reactivation during cued recall. It replicates previous work showing that such reactivation can be sequential or clustered, with sequential reactivation being more prevalent in low performers. It adds convincing evidence, even though based on limited amounts of data, that high memory performers tend to show simultaneous (i.e., clustered) reactivation, varying in strength with item distance in the learned graph structure. The study will be of interest to scientists studying memory replay.

Reviewed by eLife

Spatially targeted inhibitory rhythms differentially affect neuronal integration

1. Drew B. Headley
2. Benjamin Latimer
3. Adin Aberbach
4. Satish S. Nair

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This valuable study assesses through simulations how several known features of local cortical circuits - interneuron subtypes, their specific targeting of dendritic compartments, and certain brain rhythms - together affect the integration of synaptic inputs by a pyramidal cell into a spiking output signal. Employing several carefully considered simulation setups they convincingly demonstrate that beta rhythms are best suited to modulate and control dendritic Ca-spikes while gamma rhythms affect their coupling to somatic spiking, or how basal inputs are directly integrated into somatic spikes. However, the baseline setup may be idealized for the generation of the events in question and it would be beneficial if the similarity to the in-vivo activity regime was demonstrated further. The results will be relevant for neuroscientists studying local circuits or developing more abstract theories at the systems level.

Reviewed by eLife

Goal-directed motor actions drive acetylcholine dynamics in sensory cortex

1. Jing Zou
2. Jan Willem de Gee
3. Zakir Mridha
4. Simon Trinh
5. Andrew Erskine
6. Miao Jing
7. Jennifer Yao
8. Stefanie Walker
9. Yulong Li
10. Matthew McGinley
11. Samuel Andrew Hires

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This study provides important evidence that links acetylcholine responses in the sensory cortex to motor actions during perceptual tasks, rather than to rewards. The evidence for the association between acetylcholine responses and motor actions is solid, but does not demonstrate the causal link implied by the title and abstract. The manuscript would benefit from a more detailed description of results and methodologies. This study is of broad interest to the neuroscience field.

Reviewed by eLife

Testing the state-dependent model of subsecond time perception against experimental evidence

1. Pirathitha Ravichandran-Schmidt
2. Joachim Hass

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This useful paper explores a mathematical model of subsecond time perception, testing potential neural mechanisms behind the linear psychophysical law, Weber's law, and dopaminergic modulation of subjective durations. The model employed readout units to decode an interval. Nevertheless, the work is incomplete and presented as data-driven, but there is no analysis of empirical data.

Reviewed by eLife

Theta cycle dynamics of spatial representations in the lateral septum

1. Katarzyna Bzymek
2. Fabian Kloosterman

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  In this study, the authors present convincing evidence to demonstrate theta cycle skipping by individual neurons of the lateral septum, which they then relate to population coding of future trajectories encapsulated by theta cycles. This valuable finding furthers our understanding of how the septum conveys navigational information downstream.

Reviewed by eLife

Goal-directed vocal planning in a songbird

1. Anja T Zai
2. Anna E Stepien
3. Nicolas Giret
4. Richard HR Hahnloser

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This important work identifies a previously uncharacterized capacity for songbird to recover vocal targets even without sensory experience. The evidence supporting this claim is convincing, with technically difficult and innovative experiments exploring goal-directed vocal plasticity in deafened birds. This work has broad relevance to the fields of vocal and motor learning.

Reviewed by eLife, PREreview

Aβ-driven nuclear pore complex dysfunction alters activation of necroptosis proteins in a mouse model of Alzheimer’s disease

1. Vibhavari Aysha Bansal
2. Jia Min Tan
3. Hui Rong Soon
4. Norliyana Zainolabidin
5. Takaomi Saido
6. Toh Hean Ch'ng

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This study focuses on nuclear pore complex dysfunction in a mouse model of Alzheimer's disease related Aβ pathology. If future revisions can adequately respond to the reviewer comments, the findings may eventually be useful in supporting the idea that nuclear cytoplasmic transport defects occur prior to plaque deposition in this disease model and may be caused by Alzheimer's disease pathology. However, even after revision, the work suffers from overinterpretation of some of the data and remains incomplete in several respects.

Reviewed by eLife

Conservation of neuron-astrocyte coordinated activity among sensory processing centers of the developing brain

1. Vered Kellner
2. Patrick Parker
3. Xuelong Mi
4. Guoqiang Yu
5. Gesine Saher
6. Dwight E. Bergles

Reviewed by Arcadia Science

Serotonergic amplification of odor-evoked neural responses maps onto flexible behavioral outcomes

1. Yelyzaveta Bessonova
2. Baranidharan Raman

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This useful work shows that the experimental application of serotonin to locust antennal lobes induces an increased feeding-related response to some odorants (even in food-satiated animals). To explain how the odorant-specific effects are seen despite similar consequences of 5-HT modulation on all projection neuronal types, the authors propose a simple quantitative model built around projection with different downstream connections. While they are consistent with the authors' conclusions, the current panel of experiments is incomplete and additional future work will be required to fully support the conclusions the authors currently draw from their observations.

Reviewed by eLife

EFEMP1 contributes to light-dependent ocular growth in zebrafish

1. Jiaheng Xie
2. Bang V. Bui
3. Patrick T. Goodbourn
4. Patricia R. Jusuf

Reviewed by Review Commons