Neuroscience

Axon guidance genes modulate neurotoxicity of ALS-associated UBQLN2

1. Sang Hwa Kim
2. Kye D Nichols
3. Eric N Anderson
4. Yining Liu
5. Nandini Ramesh
6. Weiyan Jia
7. Connor J Kuerbis
8. Mark Scalf
9. Lloyd M Smith
10. Udai Bhan Pandey
11. Randal S Tibbetts

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This valuable study carried out a genetic screening of Drosophila lines expressing wild-type or ALS/FTD mutations of ubiquilin 2, and identified several suppressors and enhancers of ubiquilin 2 phenotypes. The study particularly focused on two genes involved in axon guidance pathways, unc5 and beat-1b. The evidence supporting the conclusions is solid, although some of the presented data are unrelated to the main findings, which detracts from the focus of the work. This work will be of interest to a broad audience studying ALS/FTD and neurodegenerative diseases.

Reviewed by eLife

Zika virus-induces metabolic alterations in fetal neuronal progenitors that could influence in neurodevelopment during early pregnancy

1. Javier Gilbert-Jaramillo
2. Ujang Purnama
3. Zoltán Molnár
4. William S. James

Reviewed by Review Commons

Neural circuits underlying habituation of visually evoked escape behaviors in larval zebrafish

1. Haleh Fotowat
2. Florian Engert

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  In the present study, the authors discovered the inhibitory neurons that are potentiated during the repetitive visual stimuli and control neurons that transmit looming information to evoke escape responses. Thus, the study elucidated a principle of habituation using a model vertebrate zebrafish.

Reviewed by eLife

Nutrigenomic regulation of sensory plasticity

1. Hayeon Sung
2. Anoumid Vaziri
3. Daniel Wilinski
4. Riley KR Woerner
5. Lydia Freddolino
6. Monica Dus

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This important work identifies new proteins and outlines the interactions between molecular players that control diet-induced plasticity in sensory neuron function in the Drosophila taste system. The authors provide solid evidence in support of their working model and open clear avenues to follow up on downstream molecular mechanisms.

Reviewed by eLife

Development of frequency tuning shaped by spatial cue reliability in the barn owl’s auditory midbrain

1. Keanu Shadron
2. José Luis Peña

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This is a valuable study that uses an innovative approach to show how the statistics of sound stimulation influence neural coding in an experience-dependent fashion in the developing barn owl brain. The paper will therefore be of interest to the fields of developmental and sensory neuroscience. In its present form, however, the evidence presented to support the main claims of the paper is incomplete and could be strengthened in various ways.

Reviewed by eLife

Connectomics of the Octopus vulgaris vertical lobe provides insight into conserved and novel principles of a memory acquisition network

1. Flavie Bidel
2. Yaron Meirovitch
3. Richard Lee Schalek
4. Xiaotang Lu
5. Elisa Catherine Pavarino
6. Fuming Yang
7. Adi Peleg
8. Yuelong Wu
9. Tal Shomrat
10. Daniel Raimund Berger
11. Adi Shaked
12. Jeff William Lichtman
13. Binyamin Hochner

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This extraordinary study mapped the circuit architecture of a brain module for learning and memory in the octopus brain. In particular, one gyrus of the Octopus vulgaris brain vertical lobe was imaged with volume electron microscopy, its neurons reconstructed and their synapses mapped. The acquisition of this pioneering data set was followed by a very convincing analysis of the circuits supporting learning and memory, and therefore behavioral plasticity, in this animal. The data and findings establish an important point of comparison with analogous brain structures in other organisms, such as the vertebrate cerebellum and the arthropod mushroom body, offering a new neural circuit architecture to support the study of behavior and inspire the design of artificial neural networks.

Reviewed by eLife

Cortico-thalamo-cortical interactions modulate electrically evoked EEG responses in mice

1. Leslie D Claar
2. Irene Rembado
3. Jacqulyn R Kuyat
4. Simone Russo
5. Lydia C Marks
6. Shawn R Olsen
7. Christof Koch

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This study makes a fundamental observation about the role of activity in the mouse thalamus on scalp recorded voltage fluctuations. The novel approach and sophisticated analysis of neural signals provides compelling support for the authors' observations. This work will likely be of broad interest to neuroscientists.

Reviewed by eLife

Cables1 links Slit/Robo and Wnt/Frizzled signaling in commissural axon guidance

1. Nikole R. Zuñiga
2. Alexandre Dumoulin
3. Giuseppe Vaccaro
4. Esther T. Stoeckli

Reviewed by Review Commons

Theta-phase-specific modulation of dentate gyrus memory neurons

1. Bahar Rahsepar
2. Jacob F Norman
3. Jad Noueihed
4. Benjamin Lahner
5. Melanie H Quick
6. Kevin Ghaemi
7. Aashna Pandya
8. Fernando R Fernandez
9. Steve Ramirez
10. John A White

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This study represents an important step toward unifying two strains of inquiry, one related to the functional role of hippocampal theta oscillations and one related to the behavioral impact of engram reactivation, and thus the findings have implications for our understanding of memory that will impact multiple subfields. In combination with additional context from the literature, the important findings are supported by solid evidence supporting the conclusion that memory recall operations occur preferentially at a specific phase of theta.

Reviewed by eLife

Enteroendocrine cell lineages that differentially control feeding and gut motility

1. Marito Hayashi
2. Judith A Kaye
3. Ella R Douglas
4. Narendra R Joshi
5. Fiona M Gribble
6. Frank Reimann
7. Stephen D Liberles

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  As digested food moves through the intestines specialized epithelial cells (called Enterochromaffin Cells or EECs) sense and respond to the constituent chemicals. The current work utilizes single-cell transcriptomic analyses and intersectional approaches to define and genetically manipulate subsets of EECs. Key findings are that direct stimulation of EEC subtypes influences key aspects of feeding, specifically gut transit, ingestion, and food preference.

Reviewed by eLife