Neuroscience

The stability of the primed pool of synaptic vesicles and the clamping of spontaneous neurotransmitter release rely on the integrity of the C-terminal half of the SNARE domain of syntaxin-1A

1. Andrea Salazar Lázaro
2. Thorsten Trimbuch
3. Gülçin Vardar
4. Christian Rosenmund

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This important study presents a series of results to uncover the role of C-terminal half of the Syx1 SNARE domain. The evidence supporting the conclusions is convincing. The paper will be of broad interest to biophysicists and neurobiologists.

Reviewed by eLife

Rho GTPase signaling and mDia facilitate endocytosis via presynaptic actin

1. Kristine Oevel
2. Svea Hohensee
3. Atul Kumar
4. Irving Rosas-Brugada
5. Francesca Bartolini
6. Tolga Soykan
7. Volker Haucke

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This manuscript provides convincing evidence for the involvement of membrane actin, and its regulatory proteins, mDia1/3, RhoA, and Rac1 in the mechanism of synaptic vesicle re-uptake (endocytosis). These important data fill a gap in the understanding of how the regulation of actin dynamics and endocytosis are linked. The manuscript will be of interest to all scientists working on cellular trafficking and membrane remodeling.

Reviewed by eLife

Hyperactivity of mTORC1- and mTORC2-dependent signaling mediates epilepsy downstream of somatic PTEN loss

1. Erin R Cullen
2. Mona Safari
3. Isabelle Mittelstadt
4. Matthew C Weston

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This study investigated the role of specific proteins in a mouse model of developmental epilepsy. The significance of the work is important because a new mouse model was used to simulate a type of developmental epilepsy. The work is also significant because the deletion of two proteins together, but not separately, improved the symptoms, and data were convincing.

Reviewed by eLife

An Information-Theoretic Approach to Reward Rate Optimization in the Tradeoff Between Controlled and Automatic Processing in Neural Network Architectures

1. Giovanni Petri
2. Sebastian Musslick
3. Jonathan D. Cohen

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This useful study addresses the interesting and challenging problem of how neural networks (including possibly the brain) can optimize performance while multi-tasking. The authors address this problem by introducing an information-theoretic framework that balances the costs of control and of automaticity to achieve a desired level of overall performance. They present detailed analyses of this framework, but overall the manuscript is not easily accessible to a broad audience, and the supporting evidence is currently incomplete (but could be greatly improved with substantial revisions). They use information-theoretic terminology in non-standard ways that are not clearly explained, leading to difficulties in interpreting the framework and comparing it to other computational approaches, and the relationship between their findings and empirical data is not always clear.

Reviewed by eLife

Experience transforms crossmodal object representations in the anterior temporal lobes

1. Aedan Yue Li
2. Natalia Ladyka-Wojcik
3. Heba Qazilbash
4. Ali Golestani
5. Dirk B Walther
6. Chris B Martin
7. Morgan D Barense

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  The fMRI study is important because it investigates fundamental questions about the neural basis of multimodal binding using an innovative multi-day learning approach. The results provide solid evidence for learning-related changes in the anterior temporal lobe, however, the interpretation of these changes is not straightforward, and the study does not (yet) provide direct evidence for an integrative code. This paper is of potential interest to a broad audience of neuroscientists.

Reviewed by eLife

A latent clinical-anatomical dimension relating metabolic syndrome to brain structure and cognition

1. Marvin Petersen
2. Felix Hoffstaedter
3. Felix L Nägele
4. Carola Mayer
5. Maximilian Schell
6. D Leander Rimmele
7. Birgit-Christiane Zyriax
8. Tanja Zeller
9. Simone Kühn
10. Jürgen Gallinat
11. Jens Fiehler
12. Raphael Twerenbold
13. Amir Omidvarnia
14. Kaustubh R Patil
15. Simon B Eickhoff
16. Goetz Thomalla
17. Bastian Cheng

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This important work contributes to our understanding of the combined effects of metabolic syndrome on fronto-temporal gray matter morphology from two large-scale datasets. The evidence based on state-of-the art multivariate imaging analysis and detailed micro- and macrostructural contextualization analyses is convincing and provides an understanding of the neurological correlates of metabolic syndrome, although the study would have benefitted from the inclusion of longitudinal data.

Reviewed by eLife

Ingestible pills reveal gastric correlates of emotions

1. Giuseppina Porciello
2. Alessandro Monti
3. Maria Serena Panasiti
4. Salvatore Maria Aglioti

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This important study used a novel method to relate gastric acidity to subjective ratings of emotions induced by video clips. The findings are solid but could be strengthened by additional analyses and/or visualization. The findings have broad implications for the field of emotion research and opens new avenues of research for understanding psychosomatic disorders.

Reviewed by eLife

Disruption of awake sharp-wave ripples does not affect memorization of locations in repeated-acquisition spatial memory tasks

1. Lies Deceuninck
2. Fabian Kloosterman

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This manuscript presents the lack of effect of closed-loop SWR disruption in guiding behavior and remembering the recent past in short-term memory tasks in rats. These negative results may have important theoretical and practical implications in the field of memory and learning. However, while SWR detection methods are carefully validated, the strength of evidence is incomplete and some additional controls are required.

Reviewed by eLife

The ion channel TRPM8 is a direct target of the immunosuppressant rapamycin in primary sensory neurons

1. José Miguel Arcas
2. Khalid Oudaha
3. Alejandro González
4. Jorge Fernández‐Trillo
5. Francisco Andrés Peralta
6. Júlia Castro‐Marsal
7. Seyma Poyraz
8. Francisco Taberner
9. Salvador Sala
10. Elvira de la Peña
11. Ana Gomis
12. Félix Viana

Reviewed by Arcadia Science

Synapsin E-domain is essential for α-synuclein function

1. Alexandra Stavsky
2. Leonardo A Parra-Rivas
3. Shani Tal
4. Jen Riba
5. Kayalvizhi Madhivanan
6. Subhojit Roy
7. Daniel Gitler

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  Alpha-synuclein is a synaptic vesicle associated protein that is linked to a number of neurodegenerative disorders. In this manuscript, the authors provide compelling evidence of alpha-synuclein's interaction with E-domain synapsins as the main culprit mediating the suppression of neurotransmitter release and synaptic vesicle recycling by alpha-synuclein. This important work provides molecular mechanisms underlying alpha-synuclein functions.

Reviewed by eLife