Neuroscience

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

A direct neural signature of serial dependence in working memory

1. Cora Fischer
2. Jochen Kaiser
3. Christoph Bledowski

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This study reveals a neural signature of a common behavioural phenomenon: serial dependence, whereby estimates of a visual feature (here motion direction) are attracted towards the recent history of encoded and reported stimuli. The study provides solid evidence that this phenomenon arises primarily during working memory maintenance. The pervasiveness of serial dependencies across modalities and species makes these findings important for researchers interested in perceptual decision-making across subfields.

Reviewed by eLife

High Cognitive Violation of Expectations is Compromised in Cerebellar Ataxia

1. Leonardo Daniel A
2. Eli Vakil
3. William Saban

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This valuable investigation provides new and solid evidence for a specific cognitive deficit in cerebellar degeneration patients. The authors use three tasks that modulate complexity and error presence to show specific slowing of reaction times in the presence of errors but not with task complexity. While the authors interpret these findings as indicating that the cerebellum is required for the processing of violations of expectations, the exact patterns of results may suggest alternative interpretations. Nonetheless, the work provides a new, invaluable data point in describing the cognitive contribution of cerebellar processing.

Reviewed by eLife

Interdigitating Modules for Visual Processing During Locomotion and Rest in Mouse V1

1. Andrew M Meier
2. Rinaldo D D’Souza
3. Weiqing Ji
4. Edward B Han
5. Andreas Burkhalter

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This valuable study shows that locomotion-related modulations in the mouse visual cortex are not uniform but primarily affect neurons in muscarinic receptor-negative patches, which receive projections from specific cortical areas. While the evidence is mostly solid, some uncertainties remain regarding the link between anatomical data and functional measurements. The study should be of interest to neuroscientists interested in state modulation of cortical function.

Reviewed by eLife

Antagonist actions of CMK-1/CaMKI and TAX-6/calcineurin along the C. elegans thermal avoidance circuit orchestrate adaptation of nociceptive response to repeated stimuli

1. Martina Rudgalvyte
2. Zehan Hu
3. Dieter Kressler
4. Jörn Dengjel
5. Dominique A Glauser

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This study uses C. elegans to investigate how the Calcium/Calmodulin-dependent kinase CMK-1 regulates adaptation to thermo-nociceptive stimuli. The authors use compelling approaches to identify Calcineurin as a phosphorylation target of CMK-1 and to investigate the relationship between CMK-1 and Calcineurin using gain and loss of function genetic and pharmacological methods. The findings of this study are valuable as they show that CMK-1 and Calcineurin act in separate neurons in an antagonistic and complex manner to regulate thermo-nociceptive adaptation, and these results may be relevant for understanding some chronic human pain conditions.

Reviewed by eLife

WWOX deficiency impairs neurogenesis and neuronal function in human organoids

1. Daniel J. Steinberg
2. Asia Zonca
3. Idan Rosh
4. Irina Kustanovich
5. Kian Maroun
6. Shani Stern
7. Jose Davila-Velderrain
8. Rami I. Aqeilan

Reviewed by Review Commons

Neuropeptidergic circuit modulation of developmental sleep in Drosophila

1. Chikayo Hemmi
2. Kenichi Ishii
3. Mana Motoyoshi
4. Masato Tsuji
5. Kazuo Emoto

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  The study investigates an emerging research field: the interaction between sleep and development. The authors use Drosophila larvae sleep as a study model and provide valuable insight into how neuropeptide circuitry controls larvae sleep. By using a broad range of behaviour and imaging methods and analysis, the authors conclude a sleep regulatory neural pathway of Hugin-PK2-Dilps in the Drosophila neurosecretory centre IPC. However, the evidence that supports this pathway is incomplete - in particular, the methodology in sleep measurement and the specificity at each step of the Hugin-PK2-Dilps pathway require further clarifying experiments or explanation.

Reviewed by eLife