Neuroscience

The pelvic organs receive no parasympathetic innervation

1. Margaux Sivori
2. Bowen Dempsey
3. Zoubida Chettouh
4. Franck Boismoreau
5. Maïlys Ayerdi
6. Annaliese Eymael
7. Sylvain Baulande
8. Sonia Lameiras
9. Fanny Coulpier
10. Olivier Delattre
11. Hermann Rohrer
12. Olivier Mirabeau
13. Jean-François Brunet

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This useful study compares gene expression patterns among different autonomic ganglia and will be of interest to developmental neuroscientists and neurophysiologists. The study expands the database of genes expressed by subpopulations of autonomic neurons in ganglia, a key step in decoding their developmental origins and physiological functions. The evidence supporting the alternative view that the pelvic ganglionic neurons are actually modified sympathetic neurons is incomplete and may cause confusion, given the enrichment of cholinergic neurons, as well as the large number of molecular and functional differences known to be present between cranial and sacral neurons.

Reviewed by eLife

Spatial transcriptomics and single-nucleus RNA sequencing reveal a transcriptomic atlas of adult human spinal cord

1. Donghang Zhang
2. Yali Chen
3. Yiyong Wei
4. Hongjun Chen
5. Yujie Wu
6. Lin Wu
7. Jin Li
8. Qiyang Ren
9. Changhong Miao
10. Tao Zhu
11. Jin Liu
12. Bowen Ke
13. Cheng Zhou

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  Zhang et al. deliver an important transcriptomic atlas of the human spinal cord, combining single-cell and spatial transcriptomics to unveil molecular insights. While convincingly overcoming Visium limitations using snRNA-seq, the manuscript is criticized for its largely observational approach and lack of quantitative analysis, especially in supporting claims about sex differences in motor neurons and DRG-spinal cord neuronal interactions.

Reviewed by eLife

Neurophysiological trajectories in Alzheimer’s disease progression

1. Kiwamu Kudo
2. Kamalini G Ranasinghe
3. Hirofumi Morise
4. Faatimah Syed
5. Kensuke Sekihara
6. Katherine P Rankin
7. Bruce L Miller
8. Joel H Kramer
9. Gil D Rabinovici
10. Keith Vossel
11. Heidi E Kirsch
12. Srikantan S Nagarajan

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This work presents important findings for the field of Alzheimer's disease, especially for the electrophysiology subfield, by investigating the temporal evolution of different disease stages typically reported using M/EEG markers of resting-state brain activity. The evidence supporting the conclusions is convincing and the methodology as well as the descriptions of the processes are of high quality, although a separation of individuals who are biomarker positive versus negative would have strengthened the results and conclusions of the study.

Reviewed by eLife

Transcriptional cartography integrates multiscale biology of the human cortex

1. Konrad Wagstyl
2. Sophie Adler
3. Jakob Seidlitz
4. Simon Vandekar
5. Travis T Mallard
6. Richard Dear
7. Alex R DeCasien
8. Theodore D Satterthwaite
9. Siyuan Liu
10. Petra E Vértes
11. Russell T Shinohara
12. Aaron Alexander-Bloch
13. Daniel H Geschwind
14. Armin Raznahan

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This study provides continuous maps of human brain gene expression and explores their relationship with a large variety of microscopic and macroscopic aspects of brain organisation. The authors provide convincing evidence for a relationship between gene expression maps with various aspects of the anatomy of adult brains, during development, and in the case of mental disorders. The data and methods introduced can be an important tool for neuroimaging research.

Reviewed by eLife

Coupling of Slack and NaV1.6 sensitizes Slack to quinidine blockade and guides anti-seizure strategy development

1. Tian Yuan
2. Yifan Wang
3. Yuchen Jin
4. Hui Yang
5. Shuai Xu
6. Heng Zhang
7. Qian Chen
8. Na Li
9. Xinyue Ma
10. Huifang Song
11. Chao Peng
12. Ze Geng
13. Jie Dong
14. Guifang Duan
15. Qi Sun
16. Yang Yang
17. Fan Yang
18. Zhuo Huang

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  The authors report that an interaction between the sodium-activated potassium channel Slack and Nav1.6 sensitizes Slack to inhibition by quinidine. This is an important finding because it contributes to our understanding of how the antiseizure drug quinidine affects epilepsy syndromes arising from mutations in the Slack-encoding gene KCNT1. The results are largely compelling and the work will likely spark interest in further examining the proposed channel-channel interaction in neuronal cell membranes.

Reviewed by eLife

Rabies virus-based barcoded neuroanatomy resolved by single-cell RNA and in situ sequencing

1. Aixin Zhang
2. Lei Jin
3. Shenqin Yao
4. Makoto Matsuyama
5. Cindy TJ van Velthoven
6. Heather Anne Sullivan
7. Na Sun
8. Manolis Kellis
9. Bosiljka Tasic
10. Ian Wickersham
11. Xiaoyin Chen

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This study presents an important tool for tracking the connectivity of neurons in mouse and potentially other mammals using a combined approach of barcoded rabies virus libraries and spatial transcriptomics. The data supporting the technique are convincing, the validation against known anatomical knowledge is rigorous, and the authors advance the techniques by combing them in vivo. Overall, this is a very good paper describing a technique for tracking neural circuits.

Reviewed by eLife

A system of feed-forward cerebellar circuits that extend and diversify sensory signaling

1. Harsh N Hariani
2. A Brynn Algstam
3. Christian T Candler
4. Isabelle F Witteveen
5. Jasmeen K Sidhu
6. Timothy S Balmer

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This study presents important findings about synaptic connectivity among subsets of unipolar brush cells (UBCs), a specialized interneuron primarily located in the vestibular lobules of the cerebellar cortex. The evidence supporting the claims are interesting and solid. The work will be of interest to cerebellar neuroscientists as well as those focussed on synaptic properties and mechanisms. Although several compelling pieces of data were presented, some in vivo work remains to be conducted in order to test if the hypothesis and predictions translate into the behaving animal and how it would impact the processing of feedback or feedforward activity that would be required to promote behavior.

Reviewed by eLife

Chemo- and optogenetic activation of hypothalamic Foxb1-expressing neurons and their terminal endings in the rostral-dorsolateral PAG leads to tachypnea, bradycardia, and immobility

1. Reto B Cola
2. Diana M Roccaro-Waldmeyer
3. Samara Naim
4. Alexandre Babalian
5. Petra Seebeck
6. Gonzalo Alvarez-Bolado
7. Marco R Celio

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This paper describes valuable results from studies investigating circuits in the brain that underlie behavioral responses in fearful situations. The authors identified a role for a class of neurons that are sufficient to cause these stereotyped behaviors including freezing behaviors. These solid studies increase our understanding of brain pathways regulating these types of behaviors.

Reviewed by eLife

Microglial TNFα controls synaptic GABAARs, sleep slow waves and memory consolidation

1. Maria Joana Pinto
2. Lucy Bizien
3. Julie M.J. Fabre
4. Nina Ðukanović
5. Valentin Lepetz
6. Fiona Henderson
7. Marine Pujol
8. Romain W. Sala
9. Thibault Tarpin
10. Daniela Popa
11. Antoine Triller
12. Clément Léna
13. Véronique Fabre
14. Alain Bessis

Reviewed by Review Commons

A comprehensive neuroanatomical survey of the Drosophila Lobula Plate Tangential Neurons with predictions for their optic flow sensitivity

1. Arthur Zhao
2. Aljoscha Nern
3. Sanna Koskela
4. Marisa Dreher
5. Mert Erginkaya
6. Connor W. Laughland
7. Henrique Ludwigh
8. Alex Thomson
9. Judith Hoeller
10. Ruchi Parekh
11. Sandro Romani
12. Davi D. Bock
13. Eugenia Chiappe
14. Michael B. Reiser

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This important study presents the first comprehensive catalog of the large neurons that compute optic flow in any insect. The morphological reconstructions from volume electron microscopy of the large arbors of these neurons, the Lobula Plate Tangential Neurons, were followed by the examination of their spatial arrangement to estimate their individual receptive fields and predict their optimal motion sensitivity. This compelling, rigorous data set, which includes the synaptic connectivity of the neurons under study with major target neurons in the fly brain, establishes a foundation for future studies on visual processing on the basis of a known connectome plus genetic driver lines to manipulate its constituent neurons. It will be of interest beyond insect vision to those studying sensory processing and neural circuit function.

Reviewed by eLife