Neuroscience

Body size as a metric for the affordable world

1. Xinran Feng
2. Shan Xu
3. Yuannan Li
4. Jia Liu

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This paper presents valuable findings that shed light on the mental organisation of knowledge about real-world objects. It provides diverse, if incomplete and tentative, evidence from behaviour, brain, and large language models that this knowledge is divided categorically between relatively small objects (closer to the relevant scale for direct manipulation) and larger objects (further from the typical scope of human affordances for action).

Reviewed by eLife

Acute ampakines increase voiding function and coordination in a rat model of SCI

1. Sabhya Rana
2. Firoj Alom
3. Robert C Martinez
4. David D Fuller
5. Aaron D Mickle

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  Bladder dysfunction following spinal cord injury (SCI) represents a severe and disabling complication without effective therapies. Following evidence that AMPA receptors play a key role in bladder function the authors show convincingly that AMPA allosteric activators can ameliorate many of the subacute defects in bladder and sphincter function following SCI, including prolonged voiding intervals and high bladder pressure thresholds for voiding. These valuable results in rodents may help in the development of these agents as therapeutics for humans with SCI-induced bladder dysfunction.

Reviewed by eLife

Ggnbp2 regulates synaptic development and autophagy in motor neurons

1. Sarah K. Kerwin
2. Nissa Carrodus
3. Amber Kewin
4. Tian Lin
5. Xiaoyu Qian
6. Allan F. McRae
7. Jian Yang
8. Brett M. Collins
9. Naomi R. Wray
10. Fleur C. Garton
11. S. Sean Millard

Reviewed by Review Commons

Fetal influence on the human brain through the lifespan

1. Kristine B Walhovd
2. Stine K Krogsrud
3. Inge K Amlien
4. Øystein Sørensen
5. Yunpeng Wang
6. Anne Cecilie S Bråthen
7. Knut Overbye
8. Jonas Kransberg
9. Athanasia M Mowinckel
10. Fredrik Magnussen
11. Martine Herud
12. Asta K Håberg
13. Anders Martin Fjell
14. Didac Vidal-Pineiro

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This valuable study uses multiple large neuroimaging data sets acquired at different points through the lifespan to provide solid evidence that birthweight (BW) is associated with robust and persistent variations in cortical anatomy, but less-substantial influences on cortical change over time. These findings, supported by robust statistical methods, illustrate the long temporal reach of early developmental influences and carry relevance for how we conceptualize, study, and potentially modify such influences more generally. The paper will be of interest to people interested in brain development and aging.

Reviewed by eLife

Morphology and ultrastructure of external sense organs of Drosophila larvae

1. Vincent Richter
2. Anna Rist
3. Georg Kislinger
4. Michael Laumann
5. Andreas Schoofs
6. Anton Miroschnikow
7. Michael J Pankratz
8. Albert Cardona
9. Andreas S Thum

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  The manuscript from Richter et al. is a very thorough anatomical description of the external sensory organs in Drosophila larvae. It represents a fundamental step forward for sensory physiology, and provides a tool for investigating the relationship between the structure and function of sensory organs. Using improved electron microscopy analysis and digital modelling, the authors provide compelling evidence that form the basis for further molecular and functional studies to decipher the sensory strategies used by larvae to navigate through their environment.

Reviewed by eLife

Noradrenaline release from the locus coeruleus shapes stress-induced hippocampal gene expression

1. Mattia Privitera
2. Lukas M von Ziegler
3. Amalia Floriou-Servou
4. Sian N Duss
5. Runzhong Zhang
6. Rebecca Waag
7. Sebastian Leimbacher
8. Oliver Sturman
9. Fabienne K Roessler
10. Annelies Heylen
11. Yannick Vermeiren
12. Debby Van Dam
13. Peter P De Deyn
14. Pierre-Luc Germain
15. Johannes Bohacek

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This important paper uses a multifaceted approach to implicate the locus coeruleus-noradrenaline system in the stress-induced transcriptional changes of dorsal and ventral hippocampus. It provides an inventory of dorsal and ventral hippocampal gene expression upregulated by activation of LC-NA system, which can be used as starting point for more functional studies related to the effects of stress-induced physiological and pathological changes. The results convincingly support the conclusions. This paper will be of interest to those interested in stress neurobiology, hippocampal, and/or noradrenaline function.

Reviewed by eLife

The mTOR pathway genes MTOR, Rheb, Depdc5, Pten, and Tsc1 have convergent and divergent impacts on cortical neuron development and function

1. Lena H Nguyen
2. Youfen Xu
3. Maanasi Nair
4. Angelique Bordey

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This manuscript examines shared and divergent mechanisms of disruptions of five different mTOR pathway genes on embryonic mouse brain neuronal development. The significance of the manuscript is important, because it bridges several different genetic causes of focal malformations of cortical development. The strength of evidence is compelling, relying on both gain and loss of function, demonstrating differential impact on excitatory synaptic activity, conferring gene-specific mechanisms of hyperexcitability. The results have both theoretical and practical implications for the field of developmental neurobiology and clinical epilepsy.

Reviewed by eLife

Prior probability cues bias sensory encoding with increasing task exposure

1. Kevin Walsh
2. David P McGovern
3. Jessica Dully
4. Simon P Kelly
5. Redmond G O'Connell

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This important paper sheds light on the role of expectations in perceptual decision-making. Sophisticated analyses of human EEG data provide convincing evidence that both motor preparation and sensory processing were affected by expectations, albeit with different time courses. These findings will be of interest to scientists interested in perception and decision-making.

Reviewed by eLife

Neural attentional filters and behavioural outcome follow independent individual trajectories over the adult lifespan

1. Sarah Tune
2. Jonas Obleser

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This study provides a valuable contribution to understanding the neural mechanisms underlying age-related changes in attention and speech understanding. The large dataset (N=105) provides convincing evidence for how speech recognition behaviour and neural tracking of speech separately evolve in about 2 years. The work would be of interest to psychologists, neuroscientists, and audiologists.

Reviewed by eLife

Combinatorial expression of γ-protocadherins regulates synaptic connectivity in the mouse neocortex

1. Yi-jun Zhu
2. Cai-yun Deng
3. Liu Fan
4. Ya-Qian Wang
5. Hui Zhou
6. Hua-tai Xu

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  The authors used an innovative modified 10X genomic sequencing method to detect cPCDHg is-forms in pyramidal neurons. With solid electrophysiological recordings, they showed that neurons expressing the same sets of cPCDHg isoforms are less likely to form synapses with each other. These valuable findings confirms previous results and extend our understanding of cPCDHg diversity and neuronal connectivity.

Reviewed by eLife