Neuroscience

Distinctive whole-brain cell types predict tissue damage patterns in thirteen neurodegenerative conditions

1. Veronika Pak
2. Quadri Adewale
3. Danilo Bzdok
4. Mahsa Dadar
5. Yashar Zeighami
6. Yasser Iturria-Medina

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  Pak et al. examined the relationship between the most common spatial patterns of neurodegeneration and transcriptional markers of the density of different cell types in the cerebral cortex. This valuable study uses innovative methods to provide convincing evidence that patterns of grey matter loss in various forms of dementia are correlated with the anatomical distribution of non-neuronal cell types.

Reviewed by eLife

Dysfunctional hippocampal-prefrontal network underlies a multidimensional neuropsychiatric phenotype following early-life seizure

1. Rafael Naime Ruggiero
2. Danilo Benette Marques
3. Matheus Teixeira Rossignoli
4. Jana Batista De Ross
5. Tamiris Prizon
6. Ikaro Jesus Silva Beraldo
7. Lezio Soares Bueno-Junior
8. Ludmyla Kandratavicius
9. Jose Eduardo Peixoto-Santos
10. Cleiton Lopes-Aguiar
11. Joao Pereira Leite

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This important study assesses anatomical, behavioral, physiological, and neurochemical effects of early-life seizures in rats, describing a striking astrogliosis and deficits in cognition and electrophysiological parameters. The solid results come from a wide range of convergent techniques that were used to understand the effects of early-life seizures on behavior as well as hippocampal prefrontal cortical dynamics. This paper will be of interest to neurobiologists, epileptologists, and behavioral scientists.

Reviewed by eLife

Phasic locus coeruleus activity enhances trace fear conditioning by increasing dopamine release in the hippocampus

1. Jacob H Wilmot
2. Cassiano RAF Diniz
3. Ana P Crestani
4. Kyle R Puhger
5. Jacob Roshgadol
6. Lin Tian
7. Brian Joseph Wiltgen

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This is an important study examining the neural profile of weak and strong fear memories using a variety of imagining and interrogation neural techniques. The data are convincing in detailing the neural profile of neutral, aversive and fear conditioned stimuli in the LC and its input to the dorsal hippocampus and support the conclusion that dopaminergic input from the LC is the key instigator of trace fear conditioning in hippocampus. This paper is of interest to behavioural and neuroscience researchers studying learning, memory and neural networks.

Reviewed by eLife

A neurocomputational account of the link between social perception and social action

1. Lisa M Bas
2. Ian D Roberts
3. Cendri A Hutcherson
4. Anita Tusche

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  These important findings stand out from other similar studies via some convincing demonstration of behavioural and neural relationships between two helping tasks – one focusing more on social perception, one more on its influence on social behaviour – that were performed more than 300 days apart. The claims however would be stronger with a larger sample size.

Reviewed by eLife

Multi-day neuron tracking in high-density electrophysiology recordings using earth mover’s distance

1. Augustine Xiaoran Yuan
2. Jennifer Colonell
3. Anna Lebedeva
4. Michael Okun
5. Adam S Charles
6. Timothy D Harris

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This important study proposes a new method for tracking neurons recorded with Neuropixel electrodes across days. The methods and the strength of the evidence are convincing, but the authors do not address whether their approach can be generalized to other brain areas, species, behaviors, or tools. Overall, this method will be potentially of interest to many neuroscientists who want to study long-term activity changes of individual neurons in the brain.

Reviewed by eLife

Molecular identification of wide-field amacrine cells in mouse retina that encode stimulus orientation

1. Silvia J. Park
2. Wanyu Lei
3. John Pisano
4. Andrea Orpia
5. Jacqueline Minehart
6. Joseph Pottackal
7. Christin Hanke-Gogokhia
8. Thomas E. Zapadka
9. Cheryl Clarkson-Paredes
10. Anastas Popratiloff
11. Sarah E. Ross
12. Joshua H. Singer
13. Jonathan B. Demb

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  Amacrine cells are a heterogeneous and understudied set of retinal interneurons. This study presents valuable new insights into the structure, function, and circuit connectivity of a particular subset of wide field amacrine cells (WACs). The authors use an impressive set of techniques to study structural and functional properties of these cells and to establish their postsynaptic circuit partners. Evidence for the central conclusions is solid, although some of the most interesting results could be pursued more completely.

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Experience-dependent plasticity of a highly specific olfactory circuit in Drosophila melanogaster

1. Benjamin Fabian
2. Veit Grabe
3. Rolf G. Beutel
4. Bill S. Hansson
5. Silke Sachse

Reviewed by preLights

Metabolic and neurobehavioral disturbances induced by purine recycling deficiency in Drosophila

1. Céline Petitgas
2. Laurent Seugnet
3. Amina Dulac
4. Giorgio Matassi
5. Ali Mteyrek
6. Rebecca Fima
7. Marion Strehaiano
8. Joana Dagorret
9. Baya Chérif-Zahar
10. Sandrine Marie
11. Irène Ceballos-Picot
12. Serge Birman

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  The manuscript looks at how dysregulated purine metabolism in mutants for the Aprt gene impacts survival, motor and sleep behavior in the fruit fly. Interestingly, although several deficits arise from dopaminergic neurons, dopamine levels are increased in Aprt mutants. Instead the biochemical change responsible for Aprt mutant neurobehavioural phenotypes appears to be a reduction in levels of adenosine. This valuable study suggests that Drosophila Aprt mutants may serve as a model for understanding Lesch-Nyhan Disease (LND), caused by mutations in the human HPRT1 gene, and may also potentially serve as a model to screen for drugs for the neurobehavioural deficits observed in LND. The strength of evidence is solid.

Reviewed by eLife

Task-anchored grid cell firing is selectively associated with successful path integration-dependent behaviour

1. Harry Clark
2. Matthew F Nolan

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This valuable study examines the relationship between positional anchoring of grid cell activity and performance in spatial navigation tasks that requires path integration. The authors demonstrate that grid cells can either fire in relation to the position relative to task-relevant virtual stimuli or independently based on the distance covered. Their findings convincingly reveal that mice exhibited better performance in the path integration task when grid cell activity was anchored to their position on the virtual track rather than the distance traversed, highlighting the contribution of grid firing to spatial navigation behavior. The work will be of interest to experimental and computational neuroscientists interested in spatial navigation.

Reviewed by eLife

Theoretical principles explain the structure of the insect head direction circuit

1. Pau Vilimelis Aceituno
2. Dominic Dall'Osto
3. Ioannis Pisokas

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This important work suggests that the observed cosine-like activity in the head direction circuit of insects not only subserves vector addition but also minimizes noise in the representation. The authors provide solid evidence using the locust and fruit fly connectomes. The work raises important theoretical questions about the organization of the navigation system and will be of interest to theoretical and experimental researchers studying navigation.

Reviewed by eLife