Neuroscience

Synaptic and circuit mechanisms prevent detrimentally precise correlation in the developing mammalian visual system

1. Ruben A Tikidji-Hamburyan
2. Gubbi Govindaiah
3. William Guido
4. Matthew T Colonnese

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  The authors use computational modeling of the mammalian visual system to address an important and understudied problem: how precise temporal properties of synaptic transmission might impact the kinds of neuronal correlations that instruct development. The present description of the simulations provides mixed evidence for the authors' conclusions. That slow NMDA currents help to minimize rapid timescale correlations is compelling, but other aspects of the simulations, such as neuronal heterogeneity may also contribute.

Reviewed by eLife

Mating activates neuroendocrine pathways signaling hunger in Drosophila females

1. Meghan Laturney
2. Gabriella R Sterne
3. Kristin Scott

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  After mating, animals show a repertoire of behavioural changes. In flies, this includes an increase in egg-laying, salt, and food (particularly protein) consumption, and a concomitant decrease in sexual receptivity. This valuable study compellingly shows that flies also have an increased sugar appetite and they identify the central brain circuitry that controls this increase in the mated condition.

Reviewed by eLife

An analogue of the Prolactin Releasing Peptide reduces obesity and promotes adult neurogenesis

1. Sara KM Jörgensen
2. Alena Karnošová
3. Simone Mazzaferro
4. Oliver Rowley
5. Hsiao-Jou Cortina Chen
6. Sarah J Robbins
7. Sarah Christofides
8. Florian T Merkle
9. Lenka Maletínská
10. David Petrik

Reviewed by Review Commons

Ketamine’s rapid antidepressant effects are mediated by Ca2+-permeable AMPA receptors

1. Anastasiya Zaytseva
2. Evelina Bouckova
3. McKennon J Wiles
4. Madison H Wustrau
5. Isabella G Schmidt
6. Hadassah Mendez-Vazquez
7. Latika Khatri
8. Seonil Kim

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This paper addresses an important clinical concern which is how the antidepressant ketamine exerts its effects acts rapidly. The authors suggest the reason is that ketamine increases glutamatergic transmission in the hippocampus. The strengths are the data are mostly very good, and the limitations are a lack of compelling evidence that the hippocampus is the location where effects occur, as well as several other issues.

Reviewed by eLife

Rapid cell type-specific nascent proteome labeling in Drosophila

1. Stefanny Villalobos-Cantor
2. Ruth M Barrett
3. Alec F Condon
4. Alicia Arreola-Bustos
5. Kelsie M Rodriguez
6. Michael S Cohen
7. Ian Martin

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  Villalobos-Cantor et. al. describe a new technique for cell-type specific in vivo labeling of nascent peptides, which they call POPPi. POPPi is based on sequence-independent incorporation of the puromycin analog OPP into an elongating peptide, which also simultaneously terminates the growing peptide. To achieve cell-type-specific labeling, the authors used an OPP derivative, PhAc-OPP, as the labeling substrate. The method is potentially interesting but needs further characterization to be able to assess its use.

Reviewed by eLife

Promoting axon regeneration by inhibiting RNA N6-methyladenosine demethylase ALKBH5

1. Dong Wang
2. Tiemei Zheng
3. Songlin Zhou
4. Mingwen Liu
5. Yaobo Liu
6. Xiaosong Gu
7. Susu Mao
8. Bin Yu

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This important study combines a screen of known N6-methyladenine (m6A)-dependent RNA modifying factors to identify ALKBH5 as critical in crush injury response. They demonstrate through gain and loss of function an effect on ALKBH5 m6A-dependent Lpin2 mRNA stability during injury-induced axon regeneration in both dorsal root ganglia nerve and optic nerve regeneration. The results provide new insight into the role of RNA modification on neural injury. However, the limitations of the experimental design on the conclusions drawn require additional consideration. With additional control experiments and further consideration of the limitations, the paper will provide a link between N6-methyladenine and neurotrauma.

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Neural circuit-wide analysis of changes to gene expression during deafening-induced birdsong destabilization

1. Bradley M Colquitt
2. Kelly Li
3. Foad Green
4. Robert Veline
5. Michael S Brainard

• Curated by eLife

  **eLife assessment
  **
  This is an important study that uses the song system in a bird model to understand the transcriptional mechanisms underlying neuronal adaptations to sensory deprivation. The manuscript offers compelling data in support of their hypothesis that these transcriptional changes are related to song plasticity. The work will be of interest to biologists who study neuronal plasticity mechanisms.

Reviewed by eLife

How inhibitory and excitatory inputs gate output of the inferior olive

1. Sebastián Loyola
2. Tycho M Hoogland
3. Hugo Hoedemaker
4. Vincenzo Romano
5. Mario Negrello
6. Chris I De Zeeuw

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  Inferior olivary neurons drive complex spiking activity in Purkinje neurons of the cerebellar cortex, ultimately playing critical roles in controlling motor coordination and plasticity. Using transgenic mice or optogenetic techniques to independently control a major excitatory and inhibitory pathway to the inferior olive, the authors show that the probability and phase of olivary neuron output depend critically on the relative timing of excitation and inhibitory inputs. Network models predict that appropriately timed excitatory and inhibitory input patterns efficiently synchronize larger clusters of inferior olivary neurons, raising the possibility that input timing can gate the output of the motor commands. These valuable findings have the potential to impact the field's understanding of sensorimotor processing, but the strength of evidence is currently incomplete.

Reviewed by eLife

Large-scale electrophysiology and deep learning reveal distorted neural signal dynamics after hearing loss

1. Shievanie Sabesan
2. Andreas Fragner
3. Ciaran Bench
4. Fotios Drakopoulos
5. Nicholas A Lesica

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This fundamental work uses deep neural networks to simulate activity evoked by a wide range of stimuli and demonstrates systematic differences in latent population representations between hearing-impaired and normal-hearing animals that are consistent with impaired representations of speech in noise. While the evidence supporting the conclusions is compelling, additional analyses would facilitate the generalizability of the neural-network approach. The research will be of interest to auditory neuroscientists and computational scientists.

Reviewed by eLife

Homophilic wiring principles underpin neuronal network topology in vitro

1. Danyal Akarca
2. Alexander WE Dunn
3. Philipp J Hornauer
4. Silvia Ronchi
5. Michele Fiscella
6. Congwei Wang
7. Marco Terrigno
8. Ravi Jagasia
9. Petra E Vértes
10. Susanna B Mierau
11. Ole Paulsen
12. Stephen J Eglen
13. Andreas Hierlemann
14. Duncan E Astle
15. Manuel Schröter

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  The study examines the principles according to which neurons connect to each other in the brain. The authors find that data could be best explained by the homophillic wiring principle where neurons preferentially connect to neurons within overlapping groups. The work will provide a valuable resource to the neuroscience community once analyses are standardized across various datasets included.

Reviewed by eLife