Neuroscience

Exposure to false cardiac feedback alters pain perception and anticipatory cardiac frequency

1. Eleonora Parrotta
2. Patric Bach
3. Giovanni Pezzulo
4. Mauro Gianni Perrucci
5. Marcello Costantini
6. Francesca Ferri

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  In this valuable study, Parrotta et al. showed that it is possible to modulate pain perception and heart rate by providing false heart rate (HR) acoustic feedback before administering electrical cutaneous shocks. The evidence supporting the claims of the authors is rather solid, although what they consider an interoceptive signal is not necessarily supported as such by the results. In this regard, including a larger number of trials per participant, increasing the sample size, and adding a measure of actual pain perception after its induction would have strengthened the study. Although mechanisms and some alternative explanations for this effect remain to be addressed, the work will nonetheless be of interest to neuroscientists working on predictions and perception, health psychologists, pain researchers, and placebo researchers.

Reviewed by eLife

The Lack of Synapsin Alters Presynaptic Plasticity at Hippocampal Mossy Fibers in Male Mice

1. Felicitas Bruentgens
2. Laura Moreno Velasquez
3. Alexander Stumpf
4. Daniel Parthier
5. Jörg Breustedt
6. Fabio Benfenati
7. Dragomir Milovanovic
8. Dietmar Schmitz
9. Marta Orlando

Reviewed by PREreview

Approach-avoidance reinforcement learning as a translational and computational model of anxiety-related avoidance

1. Yumeya Yamamori
2. Oliver J Robinson
3. Jonathan P Roiser

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This is a valuable paper demonstrating the validity of a novel task that could advance the field of reinforcement learning to better incorporate threat processing in approach-avoidance-conflict. A compelling methodology includes the use of online samples and computational modelling, psychometrics, discovery/replication and pre-registration. This work provides a foundation for future work, which is required to establish this task as relevant to psychopathology and treatment.

Reviewed by eLife

Adolescent neurostimulation of dopamine circuit reverses genetic deficits in frontal cortex function

1. Surjeet Mastwal
2. Xinjian Li
3. Rianne Stowell
4. Matthew Manion
5. Wenyu Zhang
6. Nam-Shik Kim
7. Ki-Jun Yoon
8. Hongjun Song
9. Guo-Li Ming
10. Kuan Hong Wang

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This is an important study that addresses the interesting question of whether stimulation of DA input to prefrontal cortex during adolescence can be used to rescue genetic defects on DA regulation of PFC function. The conclusions are convincingly supported by the data together with discussion of some limitations of the approach. This story will of interest to a broad group of neuroscientists interested in regulation of prefrontal cortical function in behavior.

Reviewed by eLife

Laws for Glia Organization Conserved Across Mammals

1. Antonio Pinto-Duarte
2. Katharine Bogue
3. Terrence J. Sejnowski
4. Shyam Srinivasan

Reviewed by Arcadia Science

Genomic stability of self-inactivating rabies

1. Ernesto Ciabatti
2. Ana González-Rueda
3. Daniel de Malmazet
4. Hassal Lee
5. Fabio Morgese
6. Marco Tripodi

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  The authors previously developed a tool with the goal of non-toxic trans-synaptic tracing using a modified rabies virus, an important goal for the neuroscience field. The tool has the propensity to accumulate mutations over time that promote toxicity, and the manuscript here describes techniques to avoid these mutations. It remains important to show that the non-mutated virus can serve as an effective trans-synaptic tracing tool.

Reviewed by eLife

Optogenetic activation of visual thalamus generates artificial visual percepts

1. Jing Wang
2. Hamid Azimi
3. Yilei Zhao
4. Melanie Kaeser
5. Pilar Vaca Sánchez
6. Abraham Vazquez-Guardado
7. John A Rogers
8. Michael Harvey
9. Gregor Rainer

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This important study shows that tree shrews can detect optogenetic stimulation of the lateral geniculate nucleus (LGN) after training detection of visual stimuli. The solid evidence links optogenetic stimulation of the LGN to behavioural detection and neurophysiological responses. This paper is potentially of interest to neuroscientists and clinicians working on the visual system and visual prostheses.

Reviewed by eLife

Olfaction regulates peripheral mitophagy and mitochondrial function

1. Julian G. Dishart
2. Corinne L. Pender
3. Koning Shen
4. Hanlin Zhang
5. Megan Ly
6. Madison B. Webb
7. Andrew Dillin

Reviewed by PREreview

Nitric oxide feedback to ciliary photoreceptor cells gates a UV avoidance circuit

1. Kei Jokura
2. Nobuo Ueda
3. Martin Gühmann
4. Luis Alfonso Yañez-Guerra
5. Piotr Słowiński
6. Kyle C. A. Wedgwood
7. Gáspár Jékely

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This study reports the discovery of a new circuit mechanism for light-avoidance behavior in the marine annelid, Platynereis dumerilii. Using calcium imaging, molecular perturbations, behavioral measurements, and modeling, the authors provide compelling evidence that nitric oxide is released by postsynaptic neurons onto ciliary photoreceptors to prolong and enhance their response to ultraviolet light. The fundamental new role of nitric oxide described in this study may be conserved across animal phyla and thus will be of broad interests to neuroscientists and neuroendocrinologists.

Reviewed by eLife

Inhibition of microtubule detyrosination by parthenolide facilitates functional CNS axon regeneration

1. Marco Leibinger
2. Charlotte Zeitler
3. Miriam Paulat
4. Philipp Gobrecht
5. Alexander Hilla
6. Anastasia Andreadaki
7. Rainer Guthoff
8. Dietmar Fischer

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  The primary goal of this paper is to examine microtubule detyrosination as a potential therapeutic target for axon regeneration. The valuable findings of this study provide convincing evidence for mechanistic links between microtubule detyrosination and neurite outgrowth in vitro and some evidence for axon regeneration in vivo.

Reviewed by eLife