Neuroscience

Resilience of A Learned Motor Behavior After Chronic Disruption of Inhibitory Circuits

1. Zsofia Torok
2. Laura Luebbert
3. Jordan Feldman
4. Alison Duffy
5. Alexander A Nevue
6. Shelyn Wongso
7. Claudio V Mello
8. Adrienne Fairhall
9. Lior Pachter
10. Walter G Gonzalez
11. Carlos Lois

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This valuable study demonstrates that silencing of inhibitory interneurons in zebra finch HVC, a premotor nucleus critical for song production, disrupts song. However, song naturally recovers in a way that is surprisingly independent of LMAN, a distinct premotor nucleus required for normal song plasticity. The authors provide solid evidence that disruption is associated with microglial activation, activation of MHCI, synaptic changes, and altered neural dynamics in HVC. However, the manuscript would benefit from a clearer narrative structure, contextualization of the microglial results, and quantitative analyses to fully characterize song syntax and recovery after LMAN lesions.

Reviewed by eLife

Varicose-projection astrocytes: a reactive phenotype associated with neuropathology

1. Caterina Ciani
2. Giulio Pistorio
3. Simona Giancola
4. Marika Mearelli
5. Francesca Emma Mongelli
6. Delaram Forouzeh
7. Luca Mio
8. Paula Ramos-Gonzalez
9. Carlos Matute
10. Ugne Kuliesiute
11. Sari Elena Dötterer
12. Gediminas Luksys
13. Saulius Rocka
14. Urte Neniskyte
15. Marya Ayub
16. Jean-Marie Graïc
17. Francesco Petrelli
18. Alexei Verkhratsky
19. Nunzio Iraci
20. Fabio Cavaliere
21. Carmen Falcone

Reviewed by Arcadia Science

Single nuclei RNA-sequencing of adult brain neurons derived from type 2 neuroblasts reveals transcriptional complexity in the insect central complex

1. Derek G Epiney
2. Gonzalo Morales Chaya
3. Noah R Dillon
4. Sen-Lin Lai
5. Chris Q Doe

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This important study offers a molecular characterization of neurons and glia in the adult nervous system of the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster. The study focuses on the progeny of a specific set of neural stem cells that contribute to the central complex, a conserved brain region that plays key roles in sensorimotor integration. The data are convincing and collected using validated methodology, generating an invaluable resource for future studies. The study will be of interest to developmental neurobiologists.

Reviewed by eLife

Otoacoustic emissions but not behavioral measurements predict cochlear nerve frequency tuning in an avian vocal communication specialist

1. Diana M Karosas
2. Leslie Gonzales
3. Yingxuan Wang
4. Christopher Bergevin
5. Laurel H Carney
6. Kenneth S Henry

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  In contrast with mammals, measures of cochlear tuning in budgerigars do not match the frequency dependence of behavioral tuning. Earlier behavioral data in the budgerigar had shown good selectivity at around 3-4 kHz, but it was unknown whether this unusual selectivity arose in the inner ear or was a more central adaptation. The authors measured both auditory-nerve tuning curves and stimulus-frequency otoacoustic emissions and found fairly normal-looking cochlear tuning in the budgerigar. These important findings imply that any behavioral/perceptual differences in frequency selectivity are likely more central in original. These solid new data also provide significant support for the utility of otoacoustic estimates of cochlear tuning.

Reviewed by eLife

Enhanced Notch dependent gliogenesis and delayed physiological maturation underlie neurodevelopmental defects in Lowe syndrome

1. Yojet Sharma
2. Priyanka Bhatia
3. Gagana Rangappa
4. Sankhanil Saha
5. Padinjat Raghu

Reviewed by Review Commons

Auditory stimuli extend the temporal window of visual integration by modulating alpha-band oscillations

1. Mengting Xu
2. Biao Han
3. Qi Chen
4. Lu Shen

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This study provides valuable insights into how auditory stimuli influence the temporal dynamics of visual perception by modulating brain rhythms (oscillations) in the alpha band. The authors present convincing evidence that auditory input induces a drop in visual alpha frequency, increasing the time window for audio-visual integration, and subsequently shifting the predictive role from prestimulus alpha frequency to alpha phase. The conclusions are well-supported by the combination of psychophysics, electrophysiological recordings (EEG), non-invasive brain stimulation (tACS), and computational modelling.

Reviewed by eLife

Stimulus dependencies—rather than next-word prediction—can explain pre-onset brain encoding during natural listening

1. Inés Schönmann
2. Jakub Szewczyk
3. Floris P de Lange
4. Micha Heilbron

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This important study investigates whether neural prediction of words can be measured through pre-activation of neural network word representations in the brain; solid evidence is provided that neural network representations of neighboring words are correlated in natural language. Therefore, it is crucial to differentiate between neural activity that predicts the upcoming word and neural activity that encodes the current words - information that can be used to predict the upcoming word. The study is of potential interest to researchers investigating language encoding in the brain or in large language models. Additional discussions are needed regarding the distinction between prediction and stimulus dependency and potential methods to distinguish them.

Reviewed by eLife

Semantic representations in the visual cortex of blind and sighted humans

1. Małgorzata Paczyńska
2. Marta Urbaniak
3. Marta Dębecka
4. Łukasz Bola

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This study offers valuable insights into brain responses to words in the visual cortex of blind and sighted individuals. However, the evidence supporting the authors' claims remains incomplete, and the conclusions would benefit from a more comprehensive characterization of the conceptual properties of the word stimuli. This work will be of broad interest to cognitive neuroscientists, psycholinguists, and neurologists investigating meaning representation in the brain.

Reviewed by eLife

Executioner caspase is proximal to Fasciclin 3 which facilitates non-lethal activation in Drosophila olfactory receptor neurons

1. Masaya Muramoto
2. Nozomi Hanawa
3. Misako Okumura
4. Takahiro Chihara
5. Masayuki Miura
6. Natsuki Shinoda

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This important study identifies a mechanism by which caspases are activated in a non-lethal context to induce functional modulation in Drosophila olfactory receptor neurons. To deliver, the authors generated a new reporter of caspases, used TurboID to identify proteins proximal of the Drosophila executioner caspases Drice, and then focused on Fasciclin 3 as a mediator. The experimental results and the main conclusions are convincing. This substantial body of work will be of interest to researchers across fields, from neuroscience of olfaction to development and cell biology.

Reviewed by eLife

No effect of additional education on long-term brain structure – a preregistered natural experiment in thousands of individuals

1. Nicholas Judd
2. Rogier Kievit

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  A regression discontinuity analysis finds essentially no effect of 1 additional year of secondary education on brain structure in adulthood. This is a valuable finding that adds to the literature on the impact of education on brain health. While the finding is convincing on its own, as the analysis was pre-registered and very carefully conducted, the impact is limited as the manipulated variable only relates to a single additional year of education (remaining in education to 15 vs 16 years of age).

Reviewed by eLife