Neuroscience

eLife assessment

The authors introduce a potentially valuable novel method that provides trial-by-trial probabilistic estimates of learning and decision-making strategies inferred from choice behavior across species. This approach could prove more useful over traditional techniques for arbitrating between strategies and detecting when learning happens, and because it is computationally lightweight. Reviewers identified several concerns that limit the strength of the evidence provided, rendering the findings incomplete.

eLife assessment

This study presents a computational model to explore how neurostimulation could impact hippocampal theta oscillations. The computational model combines a detailed physiologically realistic hippocampus model and an abstract theta oscillator. The study could provide valuable predictions on pathological changes in this network. The modelling is based on convincing approaches that could be improved with experimental validation in future experiments.

eLife assessment

This important manuscript focuses on the mechanisms by which food signals and food ingestion modulate animal foraging. The authors provide convincing support for the interesting idea that chemosensory and interoceptive signals converge on transcriptional regulation of the TGF-beta ligand DAF-7 in a single pair of C. elegans chemosensory neurons (ASJ) to regulate behavior. Their studies implicate a conserved signaling molecule, ALK, in this regulation, suggesting a conserved link between food cues and the neuroendocrine control of foraging behavior.

eLife assessment

This study has important implications for theoretical proposals concerning how language lateralization affects the lateralization of other cognitive functions. The methods are solid, with an appropriate selection of cognitive control tasks that share homotopic regions of the brain with language, comparing participants with typical and atypical organization of language. The participants included in the study were mainly bilinguals, a population previously reported to have a more bilateral organization of cognitive control regions than monolinguals, limiting the generalizability of the results to the general population. Despite this limitation, the results will be of interest to researchers working of brain plasticity and development, in addition to those interested in language and cognitive control.

eLife assessment

In Drosophila melanogaster, the SOCE channel Orai is required for the development of flight promoting dopaminergic neurons. The Hasan laboratory has previously shown that disabling Orai function impairs Drosophila flight due to aberrant neuronal development at the pupal stage. In this fundamental study, Mitra et al show that SOCE drives a transcriptional feedback loop via the homeobox transcription factor, 'Trithorax-like' (Trl), and histone modifiers, Set2 and E(z), to regulate the expression of key genes required for the function of dopaminergic flight neurons, including the muscarinic acetylcholine receptor and the inositol 1,4,5-trisphosphate receptor. This solid study is carefully performed with validated methodology and most of the analyses are rigorous.

eLife assessment

In this study, neurons were recorded and combined across the parahippocampal area while rats performed a memory-guided spatial navigation task. Sophisticated analytical tools were used to provide convincing evidence that neuronal populations in these areas show behavior-related changes that might indicate the encoding of errors by the system. The valuable results suggest that rate remapping is a likely mechanism to support changes in representations that support memory-guided behavior in these regions, most interestingly in neurons that code head direction.

eLife assessment

This important study reports on the causal role of the inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) in behavioral control. Transcranial ultrasonic stimulation is used to stimulate the IFG in a stop-signal task. The results are compelling while the analyses remain incomplete and some claims are unsubstantiated.

eLife assessment

This work advances on two Aso et al 2014 eLife papers to describe further resources that are valuable for the field. This paper identified and contributes additional MBON split-Gal4s, convincingly describing their anatomy, connectivity and function.

eLife assessment

The work by O'Reilly and Delis is important to extend the synergy ideas using methods from signal processing and information theory to cluster muscles and task parameters, thereby advancing our understanding of the modular architecture of motor control. The method is innovative, and the findings are compelling from theoretical and practical perspectives. The work will be of broad interest to motor control and neural engineering researchers.

eLife assessment

The manuscript offers useful descriptive insights into the potential influence of whole-brain lactate and pH levels on the manifestation of behavioral phenotypes seen in diverse animal models of neuropsychiatric disorders. However, reviewers have raised concerns about the potential loss of specificity in capturing regional and cell-type-specific effects when relying solely on whole-brain analysis methods. While the evidence supporting the conclusions is largely solid, the robustness of these conclusions could be enhanced by the inclusion of additional data and further analysis.