Neuroscience

Fine-tuning FAM161A gene augmentation therapy to restore retinal function

1. Yvan Arsenijevic
2. Ning Chang
3. Olivier Mercey
4. Younes El Fersioui
5. Hanna Koskiniemi-Kuendig
6. Caroline Joubert
7. Alexis-Pierre Bemelmans
8. Carlo Rivolta
9. Eyal Banin
10. Dror Sharon
11. Paul Guichard
12. Virginie Hamel
13. Corinne Kostic

Reviewed by Review Commons

A dynamic neural resource model bridges sensory and working memory

1. Ivan Tomić
2. Paul M Bays

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This study presents important insights into the dynamical process whereby sensory information is converted from stimulus-driven activity to a working memory representation from which the information can be recalled later. The evidence supporting the claims is convincing, using detailed fits and model-comparison techniques applied to new and existing psychophysical data sets to evaluate a wide variety of potential mechanisms. The overall conclusion, that iconic memory and working memory are not distinct mechanisms but rather two slightly different regimes of the same circuitry, will be of interest to neuroscientists and psychologists studying sensory systems and/or working memory.

Reviewed by eLife

Ocular dominance-dependent binocular combination of monocular neuronal responses in macaque V1

1. Sheng-Hui Zhang
2. Xing-Nan Zhao
3. Dan-Qing Jiang
4. Shi-Ming Tang
5. Cong Yu

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  Overall, the reviewers found the significance of the work valuable to the field of visual neuroscience, particularly given the large data set and strength of the method used that allowed for spatial analysis of neuronal responses in macaque V1. The evidence was deemed compelling, owing in part to the consistency of responses across animals and the fitness of modeling. The authors have addressed the major comments from reviewers and improved the manuscript through relation to prior literature and addressing specific limitations of the method used.

Reviewed by eLife

Dopamine lesions alter the striatal encoding of single-limb gait

1. Long Yang
2. Deepak Singla
3. Alexander K Wu
4. Katy A Cross
5. Sotiris C Masmanidis

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This valuable work extends previous studies showing that the striatum multiplexes various aspects of locomotion, including velocity and movement transitions, by demonstrating that striatal neurons also encode single-limb gait. The authors present solid evidence to show that gait deficits induced by severe unilateral dopamine depletion are associated with an imbalance in the gait modulation of striatal firing. Although the source and function of this gait modulation remain unclear, this manuscript uncovers a role of striatal activity in gait, which may have implications for understanding gait disturbances in Parkinson's Disease.

Reviewed by eLife

A choroid plexus apocrine secretion mechanism shapes CSF proteome and embryonic brain development

1. Ya’el Courtney
2. Joshua P. Head
3. Elizabeth D. Yimer
4. Neil Dani
5. Frederick B. Shipley
6. Towia A. Libermann
7. Maria K. Lehtinen

Reviewed by preLights

Altered socio-affective communication and amygdala development in mice with protocadherin10-deficient interneurons

1. Tania Aerts
2. Anneleen Boonen
3. Lieve Geenen
4. Anne Stulens
5. Luca Masin
6. Anna Pancho
7. Annick Francis
8. Elise Pepermans
9. Geert Baggerman
10. Frans Van Roy
11. Markus Wöhr
12. Eve Seuntjens

Reviewed by Review Commons

Neural correlates of perceptual similarity masking in primate V1

1. Spencer Chin-Yu Chen
2. Yuzhi Chen
3. Wilson S Geisler
4. Eyal Seidemann

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This important study used Voltage Sensitive Dye Imaging (VSDI) to measure neural activity in the primary visual cortex of monkeys trained to detect an oriented grating target that was presented either alone or against an oriented mask. The authors show convincingly that the initial effect of the mask ran counter to the behavioral effects of the mask, a pattern that reversed in the latter phase of the response. They interpret these results in terms of influences from the receptive field center, and although an alternative view that emphasizes the role of the receptive field surround also seems reasonable, this study stands as an interesting contribution to our understanding of mechanisms of visual perception.

Reviewed by eLife

Inferring control objectives in a virtual balancing task in humans and monkeys

1. Mohsen Sadeghi
2. Reza Sharif Razavian
3. Salah Bazzi
4. Raeed H Chowdhury
5. Aaron P Batista
6. Patrick J Loughlin
7. Dagmar Sternad

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This study represents a step towards integrating human and non-human primate research towards a broader understanding of the neural control of motor strategies. It could offer valuable insights into how humans and non-human primates (Rhesus monkeys) manage visuomotor tasks, such as stabilizing an unstable virtual system, potentially leading to discoveries in neural behaviour mechanisms. While the evidence is mostly solid, some results, particularly from the binary classification of control strategies for non instructed behaviour, require further validation before it could be conclusively interpreted.

Reviewed by eLife

Indistinguishable network dynamics can emerge from unalike plasticity rules

1. Poornima Ramesh
2. Basile Confavreux
3. Pedro J. Gonçalves
4. Tim P. Vogels
5. Jakob H. Macke

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This work presents a valuable data-driven method to extract the "true" synaptic plasticity rule (or learning rule) operating in a neural circuit from empirical measurements of neural activity. The approach aims to train a generative adversarial network (GAN) to match neural activity measurements in terms of statistics, learning them from the data, rather than being pre-determined by the experimenter. The main conclusion is that the extracted learning rules are not unique, but rather degenerate, meaning that multiple plasticity rules can produce the same neural activity. Although the paper presents a thorough investigation using one learning rule as a case study (the Oja rule), the evidence that the results can be inferred beyond the specific numerical experiments presented in the paper is incomplete.

Reviewed by eLife

Assembly of neuron- and radial glial-cell-derived extracellular matrix molecules promotes radial migration of developing cortical neurons

1. Ayumu Mubuchi
2. Mina Takechi
3. Shunsuke Nishio
4. Tsukasa Matsuda
5. Yoshifumi Itoh
6. Chihiro Sato
7. Ken Kitajima
8. Hiroshi Kitagawa
9. Shinji Miyata

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  The solid study addresses the role of extracellular matrix (ECM) in neuronal migration. The authors showed that the interaction between the ternary complex formed by tenascin-C, the chondroitin sulfate proteoglycan neurocan, and hyaluronic acid is important for the multipolar to bipolar transition in the intermediate zone (IZ) of the developing cortex

Reviewed by eLife