Neuroscience

The ciliary kinesin KIF7 controls the development of the cerebral cortex by acting differentially on SHH-signaling in dorsal and ventral forebrain

1. María Pedraza
2. Valentina Grampa
3. Sophie Scotto-Lomassese
4. Julien Puech
5. Aude Muzerelle
6. Azka Mohammad
7. Sophie Lebon
8. Nicolas Renier
9. Christine Métin
10. Justine Masson

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This important study provides convincing evidence that the Kinesin protein family member KIF7 regulates the development of the cerebral cortex and its connectivity and the specificity of Sonic Hedgehog signaling by controlling the details of Gli repressor vs activator functions. This study provides new insights into general aspects of cortical development.

Reviewed by eLife

Accept–reject decision-making revealed via a quantitative and ethological study of C. elegans foraging

1. Jessica A Haley
2. Tianyi Chen
3. Mikio Aoi
4. Sreekanth H Chalasani

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  Understanding how neural circuits mediate decision-making is a core problem in neuroscience. In this interesting and important work, the authors use detailed behavioral analysis and rigorous quantitative modeling to convincingly support the idea that the nematode C. elegans uses an "accept-reject" behavioral strategy, based on learned features of its environment, to make decisions upon encountering food patches. The work expands our understanding of the behavioral repertoire of this species, providing a foundation for future mechanistic studies in this powerful model system.

Reviewed by eLife

Dissociable dynamic effects of expectation during statistical learning

1. Hannah H McDermott
2. Federico De Martino
3. Caspar M Schwiedrzik
4. Ryszard Auksztulewicz

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This important study is of relevance for the fields of predictive processing, perception and learning, with a well-designed paradigm allowing the authors to avoid several common confounds in investigating predictions, such as adaptation. Using a state-of-the-art multivariate EEG approach, the authors test the opposing process theory and find evidence in support of it - i.e., the persuasive within trial effects. However, the interactions across block are not well motivated and much less persuasive, such that the support for the conclusions is only incomplete at present.

Reviewed by eLife

Automatic and accurate reconstruction of long-range axonal projections of single-neuron in mouse brain

1. Lin Cai
2. Taiyu Fan
3. Xuzhong Qu
4. Ying Zhang
5. Xianyu Gou
6. Quanwei Ding
7. Weihua Feng
8. Tingting Cao
9. Xiaohua Lv
10. Xiuli Liu
11. Qing Huang
12. Tingwei Quan
13. Shaoqun Zeng

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This important paper takes a novel approach to the problem of automatically reconstructing long-range axonal projections from stacks of images. The key innovation is to separate the identification of sections of an axon from the statistical rules used to constrain global structure. The authors provide compelling evidence that their method is a significant improvement over existing measures in circumstances where the labelling of axons and dendrites is relatively dense.

Reviewed by eLife

Distinct Roles of Somatostatin and Parvalbumin Interneurons in Regulating Predictive Actions and Emotional Responses During Trace Eyeblink Conditioning

1. Jiaman Dai
2. Qian-Quan Sun

Reviewed by PREreview

Transforming descending input into motor output: An analysis of the Drosophila Male Adult Nerve Cord connectome

1. Han SJ Cheong
2. Katharina Eichler
3. Tomke Stürner
4. Samuel K Asinof
5. Andrew S Champion
6. Elizabeth C Marin
7. Tess B Oram
8. Marissa Sumathipala
9. Lalanti Venkatasubramanian
10. Shigehiro Namiki
11. Igor Siwanowicz
12. Marta Costa
13. Stuart Berg
14. Janelia FlyEM Project Team
15. Gregory SXE Jefferis
16. Gwyneth M Card

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This paper describes the structure and connectivity of brain neurons that send descending connections to motor neurons and muscle in the fruit fly nerve cord, using a synapse-resolution connectome. This important work provides a wealth of hypotheses and predictions for future experimentation and modelling. Using state-of-the-art methods, the authors provide solid evidence for their conclusions.

Reviewed by eLife

Synaptic Encoding of Time in Working Memory

1. Gianluigi Mongillo
2. Misha Tsodyks

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This valuable manuscript addresses the longstanding question of how the brain maintains serial order in working memory, proposing a biologically grounded model based on synaptic augmentation mechanisms that operates on longer time scales than facilitation. The authors show that augmentation provides a mechanism by which this order can be maintained in memory thanks to a temporal gradient of synaptic efficacies. Although the evidence remains incomplete at present, it can be made stronger by demonstrating robustness to network heterogeneity, spiking, and threshold values for encoding the working memory.

Reviewed by eLife

Single neurons detect spatiotemporal activity transitions through STP and EI imbalance

1. Aditya Asopa
2. Upinder Singh Bhalla

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This useful study examines excitation/inhibition (E/I) balance in the CA3-CA1 circuit of the hippocampus. Experimental and computational modeling results are presented, but these results provide incomplete evidence to support the paper's main claims due to shortcomings in the experimental and modeling approaches, as well as concerns about the neurobiological relevance of the results.

Reviewed by eLife

Alcohol Attenuates CRF-Induced Excitatory Effects from the Extended Amygdala to Dorsostriatal Cholinergic Interneurons

1. Amanda Essoh
2. Himanshu Gangal
3. Zhenbo Huang
4. Ruifeng Chen
5. Xueyi Xie
6. Xuehua Wang
7. Valerie Vierkant
8. Miguel Garza
9. Lierni Ugartemendia
10. Maria E Secci
11. Nicholas W Gilpin
12. Nicholas J Justice
13. Robert O Messing
14. Jun Wang

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This important study identifies a novel CRF-positive projection from the central amygdala and BNST to dorsal striatal cholinergic interneurons, revealing a previously unrecognized pathway by which stress signals modulate striatal function. The authors present strong and convincing evidence for the anatomical and functional connectivity of this circuit and demonstrate that alcohol disrupts CRF-mediated cholinergic activity, supporting its relevance to alcohol use disorder.

Reviewed by eLife

Striatal Crosstalk Between Dopamine and Serotonin Systems

1. Yu Liu
2. Juan Enriquez Traba
3. Christian Lüscher

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This useful study employs optogenetics, genetically-encoded dopamine and serotonin sensors, and patch-clamp electrophysiology to investigate modulations of neurotransmitter release between striatal dopamine and serotonin neurons - a topic of interest to neuroscientists studying the basal ganglia. The results suggest that the dopamine and serotonin systems operate largely in parallel, with the activation of serotonin neurons resulting in a small, transient dopamine release. The authors suggest that this interaction occurs via glutamate release in the ventral tegmental area, findings that are closely related to previous work. Some conclusions are incomplete requiring larger samples-sizes and controls.

Reviewed by eLife