Neuroscience

Neural Representation of Time across Complementary Reference Frames

1. Yangwen Xu
2. Nicola Sartorato
3. Léo Dutriaux
4. Roberto Bottini

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This study presents a valuable finding on the neural representation of time from two distinct egocentric and allocentric reference frames. The presentation of evidence in the version of the original submission is incomplete, as further conceptual clarifications, methodological details, and addressing potential confounds would strengthen the study. The work will be of interest to cognitive neuroscientists working on the perception and memory of time.

Reviewed by eLife

Reorganization of spinal neural connectivity following recovery after thoracic spinal cord injury: insights from computational modelling

1. Natalia A Shevtsova
2. Andrew B Lockhart
3. Ilya A Rybak
4. David SK Magnuson
5. Simon M Danner

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This important study describes a computational model of the rat spinal locomotor circuits and how they could be plastically reconfigured after lateral hemisection or contusion injuries to replicate gaits observed experimentally in vivo. Overall, the simulation results convincingly mirror the gait parameters observed experimentally. The model suggests the emergence of detour circuits after lateral hemisection, whereas after a midline contusion, the model suggests plasticity of left-right and sensory inputs below the injury.

Reviewed by eLife

Odors drive feeding through gustatory receptor neurons in Drosophila

1. Hongping Wei
2. Thomas Ka Chung Lam
3. Hokto Kazama

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This study convincingly demonstrates that odors evoke a feeding response in Drosophila, mediated by gustatory receptors and observed as a proboscis extension. The evidence is comprehensive, encompassing behavior, functional imaging and electrophysiology. This important results on the molecular and cellular basis of multimodal integration across olfaction and gustation will be of interest for the study of chemosensation, sensory biology, and animal behavior.

Reviewed by eLife

A neural network model that generates salt concentration memory-dependent chemotaxis in Caenorhabditis elegans

1. Masakatsu Hironaka
2. Tomonari Sumi

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  With a computational analysis of a neuroanatomical network model in C. elegans, this valuable work investigates the synaptic mechanism for memory-dependent klinotaxis, i.e., salt concentration chemotaxis. By incorporating experimental data altering the ASER neuron's basal glutamate release into their model, the authors demonstrate the possibility of a transition between excitatory and inhibitory signaling at the ASER-AIY synapse, depending on environmental and cultivated salt concentrations. These solid findings offer a proposal for how synaptic plasticity plays a role in sensorimotor navigation, and will be of interest to worm biologists and theoretical neuroscientists.

Reviewed by eLife

Sequence action representations contextualize during early skill learning

1. Debadatta Dash
2. Fumiaki Iwane
3. William Hayward
4. Roberto F Salamanca-Giron
5. Marlene Bönstrup
6. Ethan R Buch
7. Leonardo G Cohen

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This valuable study asks how the neural representation of individual finger movements changes during the early periods of sequence learning. By combining a new method for extracting features from human magnetoencephalography data and decoding analyses, the authors provide solid evidence of an early, swift change in the brain regions correlated with sequence learning, including a set of previously unreported frontal cortical regions. The authors also show that offline contextualization during short rest periods is the basis for improved performance. Further confirmation of these results on multiple movement sequences would further strengthen the key claims.

Reviewed by eLife

Acquisition phase-specific contribution of climbing fiber transmission to cerebellum-dependent motor memory in mice

1. Jewoo Seo
2. Seung Ha Kim
3. Jaegeon Lee
4. Min Seok Kim
5. Yong-Seok Lee
6. Sang Jeong Kim

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This study presents potentially valuable insights into the role of climbing fibers in cerebellar learning. The main claim is that climbing fiber activity is necessary for optokinetic reflex adaptation, but is dispensable for its long-term consolidation. There is evidence to support the first part of this claim, though it requires a clearer demonstration of the penetrance and selectivity of the manipulation. However, support for the latter part of the claim is incomplete owing to methodological concerns, including the robustness of the CF marking and manipulation approach and the unclear efficacy of longer-duration climbing fiber activity suppression.

Reviewed by eLife

Establishing synthetic ribbon-type active zones in a heterologous expression system

1. Rohan Kapoor
2. Thanh Thao Do
3. Niko Schwenzer
4. Arsen Petrovic
5. Thomas Dresbach
6. Stephan E Lehnart
7. Rubén Fernández-Busnadiego
8. Tobias Moser

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  The authors take a synthetic approach by introducing synaptic ribbon proteins into HEK cells to analyze how these assemblies cluster calcium channels at the active zone. Using a synapse-naive heterologous expression system and overexpression-based strategy is valuable, as it establishes a promising model for studying molecular interactions at the active zone. The study is built on a solid combination of super-resolution microscopy and electrophysiology, though it currently falls short of replicating the full functional properties of native ribbon synapses and instead resembles a multiprotein complex that partially mimics ribbon-type active zones.

Reviewed by eLife

The resource elasticity of control

1. Levi Solomyak
2. Aviv Emanuel
3. Eran Eldar

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This study makes the valuable claim that people track, specifically, the elasticity of control (that is, the degree to which outcome depends on how many resources - such as money - are invested), and that control elasticity is impaired in certain types of psychopathology. A novel task is introduced that provides solid evidence that this learning process occurs and that human behavior is sensitive to changes in the elasticity of control. Evidence that elasticity inference is distinct from more general learning mechanisms and is related to psychopathology remains incomplete.

Reviewed by eLife

Growing Minds, Integrating Senses: Neural and Computational Insights into Age-related Changes in Audio-Visual and Tactile-Visual Learning in Children

1. Nina Raduner
2. Carmen Providoli
3. Sarah V. Di Pietro
4. Maya Schneebeli
5. Iliana I. Karipidis
6. Ella Casimiro
7. Saurabh Bedi
8. Michael von Rhein
9. Nora M. Raschle
10. Christian C. Ruff
11. Silvia Brem

Reviewed by preLights

Induction of Human Pruriceptors from Pluripotent Stem Cells via Transcription Factors

1. Hisato Iriki
2. Ruiqi Hu
3. Xu Li
4. Erdene Baljinnyam
5. Carina Habich
6. Ichiro Imanishi
7. Loan Miller
8. Kavya Chegireddy
9. Laraib Iqbal Malik
10. Daniel Yassky
11. Aaron Ver Heul
12. Kathleen M. Smith
13. Eric R. Goedken
14. Peter Reinhardt
15. Brian S. Kim
16. Samuele G. Marro

Reviewed by Arcadia Science