Neuroscience

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

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