Neuroscience

Fear conditioning biases olfactory sensory neuron expression across generations

1. Clara W Liff
2. Yasmine R Ayman
3. Eliza CB Jaeger
4. Avery Cardeiro
5. Hudson S Lee
6. Alexis Kim
7. Angélica V Albarracín
8. Dianne-Lee KD Ferguson
9. Bianca J Marlin

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This study provides solid evidence that odor fear conditioning biases olfactory sensory neuron receptor choice in mice and that this bias is detectable in the next generation. The authors use rigorous histological and behavioral analyses, including unsupervised behavioral quantification, to support the conclusion that odor-specific sensory representations can be shaped by experience and partially transmitted across generations. While the behavioral effects in offspring are modest and the mechanistic basis of inheritance remains unresolved, the study offers an important and carefully executed contribution to understanding experience-dependent sensory plasticity and its intergenerational consequences.

Reviewed by eLife

Currentscape analysis of dendritic inputs during place field dynamics

1. Bence Fogel
2. Balázs B Ujfalussy

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This study offers a valuable advance for neuroscience by extending a visualization tool that enables intuitive assessment of how dendritic and synaptic currents shape the output of neurons. The evidence supporting the tool's capabilities is convincing and solid, with well-documented code, algorithmic innovation, and application to hippocampal pyramidal neurons - although experimental confirmation of the predictions is not provided. The work will be of interest to computational and systems neuroscientists seeking accessible methods to examine dendritic computations.

Reviewed by eLife

Multi-timescale neural adaptation underlying long-term musculoskeletal reorganization

1. Roland Philipp
2. Yuki Hara
3. Naohito Ohta
4. Naoki Uchida
5. Tomomichi Oya
6. Tetsuro Funato
7. Kazuhiko Seki

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This important study investigates how the nervous system adapts to changes in body mechanics using a tendon transfer surgery that imposes a mismatch between muscle contraction and mechanical action. Using electromyography (EMG) to track muscle activity in two macaque monkeys, the authors conclude that there is a two-phase recovery process that reflects different underlying strategies. However, neither monkey's data includes a full set of EMG and kinematic measurements, and the two datasets are not sufficiently aligned with each other from a behavioural point of view; as a result, the evidence supporting the conclusions is solid but could be improved.

Reviewed by eLife

Synaptic density and relative connectivity conservation maintain circuit stability across development

1. Ingo Fritz
2. Feiyu Wang
3. Ricardo Chirif
4. Nikos Malakasis
5. Julijana Gjorgjieva
6. André Ferreira Castro

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  The authors have performed a potentially valuable new kind of analysis in connectomics, mapping to an interesting developmental problem of synaptic input to sensory neurons. While the analysis itself is solid, the authors have drawn broader conclusions than are directly supported by the presented data. With more measured claims and greater clarity and explanations for the analysis, the study could potentially become stronger.

Reviewed by eLife

Dynamics of mesoscale brain network during decision-making learning revealed by chronic, large-scale single-unit recording

1. Tian-Yi Wang
2. Chengcong Feng
3. Chengyao Wang
4. Chi Ren
5. Zhengtuo Zhao

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This study presents experiments suggesting intriguing mesoscale reorganization of functional connectivity across distributed cortical and subcortical circuits during learning. The approach is technically impressive and the results are potentially of valuable significance. However, in its current form, the strength of evidence is incomplete. More in-depth analyses and the acquisition of data from additional animals in the primary experiment could bolster these findings.

Reviewed by eLife

Alcohol Attenuates CRF-Induced Excitatory Effects from the Extended Amygdala to Dorsostriatal Cholinergic Interneurons

1. Amanda Essoh
2. Himanshu Gangal
3. Zhenbo Huang
4. Ruifeng Chen
5. Xueyi Xie
6. Xuehua Wang
7. Valerie Vierkant
8. Miguel Garza
9. Lierni Ugartemendia
10. Maria E Secci
11. Nicholas W Gilpin
12. Nicholas J Justice
13. Robert O Messing
14. Jun Wang

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This important study identifies a novel CRF-positive projection from the central amygdala and BNST to dorsal striatal cholinergic interneurons, revealing a previously unrecognized pathway by which stress signals modulate striatal function. The authors present strong and convincing evidence for the anatomical and functional connectivity of this circuit and demonstrate that alcohol disrupts CRF-mediated cholinergic activity, supporting its relevance to alcohol use disorder.

Reviewed by eLife

Comparing electromyography, accelerometry, and visual inspection to assess the resting motor threshold for transcranial magnetic stimulation

1. Gautier Hamoline
2. Antoine E Lunardi
3. Marcos Moreno-Verdú
4. Baptiste M Waltzing
5. Elise E Van Caenegem
6. Siobhan MacAteer
7. Robert M Hardwick

Reviewed by Peer Community in Neuroscience

On CA1 ripple oscillations in rats and the reassessment of asynchronicity evidence

1. Robson Scheffer-Teixeira
2. Adriano BL Tort

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This important study provides new insights into the synchronization of ripple oscillations in the hippocampus, both within and across hemispheres. Using carefully designed statistical methods, it presents compelling evidence that synchrony is significantly higher within a hemisphere than across. This study will be of interest to neuroscientists studying the hippocampus and memory.

Reviewed by eLife

Human EEG and artificial neural networks reveal disentangled representations and processing timelines of object real-world size and depth in natural images

1. Zitong Lu
2. Julie Golomb

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This important study combines EEG, neural networks and multivariate pattern analysis to show that real-world size, retinal size and real-world depth are represented at different latencies. The evidence presented is convincing and the work will be of broader interest to the experimental and computational vision community.

Reviewed by eLife

DendroTweaks, an interactive approach for unraveling dendritic dynamics

1. Roman Makarov
2. Spyridon Chavlis
3. Panayiota Poirazi

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  Computational simulation of neuron function depends on a collection of morphological properties and ion channel biophysics. This manuscript introduces DendroTweaks, a valuable web application and Python library that eases interactive exploration, development, and validation of single-neuron models in an easily installable and well-documented package. The authors provide a convincing demonstration that their software aids with building intuition and rapid prototyping of biophysical models of neurons, which improves the accessibility of dendritic simulation.

Reviewed by eLife