Neuroscience

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

An evolutionarily conserved scheme for reformatting odor concentration in early olfactory circuits

1. Yang Shen
2. Arkarup Banerjee
3. Dinu F Albeanu
4. Saket Navlakha

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This is a valuable computational study of odor responses in the early olfactory system of insects and vertebrates. The study addresses the question of how information about odor concentration is encoded by second-order neurons in the invertebrate and vertebrate olfactory system; it offers insights into the transformation of neural signals from receptors to second-order neurons. While reanalysis of published data presents solid evidence supporting compression of concentration information, incomplete analysis is provided to resolve how this observation could be reconciled with the need to preserve information about changes in stimulus intensity. This work will be of interest to neuroscientists studying sensory processing broadly and olfaction specifically.

Reviewed by eLife

A three-dimensional immunofluorescence atlas of the brain of the hackled-orb weaver spider, Uloborus diversus

1. Gregory Artiushin
2. Abel Corver
3. Andrew Gordus

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This valuable study provides a 3D standardised anatomical atlas of the brain of an orb-weaving spider. The authors describe the brain's shape and its inner compartments - the neuropils - and add information on the distribution of a number of neuroactive substances such as transmitters and neuropeptides. Through the use of histological and microscopy methods, the authors provide a more complete view of an arachnid brain than previous studies and also present convincing evidence about the organisation and homology of brain regions. The work will serve as a reference for future studies on spider brains and will enable comparisons of brain regions with insects so that the evolution of these structures can be inferred across arthropods.

Reviewed by eLife

Enhanced Tactile Coding in Rat Neocortex Under Darkness

1. Kotaro Yamashiro
2. Shiyori Tanaka
3. Nobuyoshi Matsumoto
4. Yuji Ikegaya

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This study presents useful findings on how the transient absence of visual input (i.e., darkness) affects tactile neural encoding in the somatosensory cortex. The evidence supporting the authors' claims is incomplete, as key conclusions rely on subtle differences in surface roughness discriminability between sensory conditions, whose physiological underpinnings remain unclear. Potential methodological confounds are also not fully addressed. With additional analyses and methodological clarifications, this work could substantially inform neuroscientists studying cross-modal interactions.

Reviewed by eLife