Neuroscience

A stress-activated neuronal ensemble in the supramammillary nucleus encodes anxiety but not memory

1. Jinming Zhang
2. Kexin Yu
3. Junmin Zhang
4. Yuan Chang
5. Xiao Sun
6. Zhaoqiang Qian
7. Zongpeng Sun
8. Zhiqiang Liu
9. Wei Ren
10. Jing Han

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This manuscript provides a valuable contribution by identifying stress-responsive neurons in the supramammillary nucleus and their ventral subiculum inputs and assessing the regulation of anxiety-related behaviors. The evidence is convincing that the supramammillary nucleus contains stress-responsive neurons, and activation of these neurons increases anxiety-like behaviors. However, evidence that the ventral subiculum input to the supramammillary nucleus encodes and regulates anxiety and that the supramammillary nucleus generates an anxiety engram is incomplete. This work has the potential to offer new insights into how distinct circuits encode different emotional states and will be of interest to those interested in brain systems of aversive emotional and behavioral states.

Reviewed by eLife

Inhibitory columnar feedback neurons are required for motion processing in Drosophila

1. Miriam Henning
2. Madhura Ketkar
3. Teresa Lüffe
4. Daryl M Gohl
5. Thomas R Clandinin
6. Marion Silies

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This important article reports on the role of specific interneurons in the motion processing circuitry of the fruit fly, and marshals convincing evidence from neural recording, genetic manipulation, and behavioral analysis. A significant result ties the activity of C2/C3 neurons to the temporal resolution of the motion vision system. It remains unclear whether disrupting this pathway affects the dynamics of vision more generally.

Reviewed by eLife

Functional characterization of neuropeptides that act as ligands for both calcitonin-type and pigment-dispersing factor-type receptors in a deuterostome

1. Xiao Cong
2. Huachen Liu
3. Lihua Liu
4. Nayeli Escudero Castelán
5. Kite GE Jones
6. Michaela Egertová
7. Maurice R Elphick
8. Muyan Chen

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This valuable study characterises receptors for calcitonin-related peptides from a deuterostomian animal, the echinoderm Apostichopus japonicus, by a combination of heterologous expression, pharmacological experiments, and the quantification of gene-expression levels. The authors provide convincing evidence for a functional calcitonin-related peptide system in the sea cucumber, but further work will be needed to confirm the proposed physiological functions of PDF receptor system in this species. This work should be of interest to scientists studying the signaling pathways, functions, and evolution of neuropeptides, and could be of relevance to improving the culture conditions of this economically key species.

Reviewed by eLife

High-throughput single-cell CRISPRi screens stratify neurodevelopmental functions of schizophrenia-associated genes

1. Umut Yildiz
2. Annique Claringbould
3. Mikael Marttinen
4. Víctor Campos-Fornés
5. Mantha Lamprousi
6. Manu Saraswat
7. Mathias Saver
8. Daria Bunina
9. Michael W. Dorrity
10. Judith Zaugg
11. Kyung-Min Noh

Reviewed by preLights

Molecular and functional dissection using CaMPARI-seq reveals the neuronal organization for dissociating optic flow-dependent behaviors

1. Koji Matsuda
2. Chung-Han Wang
3. Atsushi Toyoda
4. Tomoya Shiraki
5. Koichi Kawakami
6. Fumi Kubo

Reviewed by preLights

How serially homologous neuroblasts produce different temporal cohorts along the Drosophila larval body axis

1. Deeptha Vasudevan
2. Yi-wen Wang
3. Hannah Carr
4. Elise Paniel
5. Sean Corcoran
6. Chris C. Wreden
7. Elaine Kushkowski
8. Conor Lee-Smith
9. Ellie S. Heckscher

Reviewed by Review Commons

PTBP1 depletion in mature astrocytes reveals distinct splicing alterations without neuronal features

1. Min Zhang
2. Naoto Kubota
3. David Nikom
4. Ayden Arient
5. Sika Zheng

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This study reports important negative results, showing that genetically removing the RNA-binding protein PTBP1 in astrocytes is insufficient to convert them into neurons, thereby challenging previous claims in the field. It also offers a compelling analysis of PTBP1's role in regulating astrocyte-specific splicing. The evidence is strong, as the experiments are technically sound, carefully controlled, and supported by both imaging and transcriptomic analyses.

Reviewed by eLife

Biophysical network modeling of temporal and stereotyped sequence propagation of neural activity in the premotor nucleus HVC

1. Zeina Bou Diab
2. Marc Chammas
3. Arij Daou

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This computational study examines how neurons in the songbird premotor nucleus HVC might generate the precise, sparse burst sequences that drive adult song. The findings would be useful for understanding how intrinsic conductances and HVC microcircuitry may produce neural sequences, but the work is incomplete because of arbitrary network assumptions, insufficient consideration of biological details such as how silent gaps in song sequences are represented, and failure to incorporate interactions with auditory and brainstem inputs. As a result, the study offers limited advance and only a modest conceptual advance over prior models.

Reviewed by eLife

Eye-specific differences in active zone addition during synaptic competition in the developing visual system

1. Chenghang Zhang
2. Tarlan Vatan
3. Colenso M Speer

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This is a valuable analysis of STORM data that characterizes the clustering of active zones in retinogeniculate terminals across ages and in the absence of retinal waves. The design makes it possible to relate fixed time point structural data to a known outcome of activity-dependent remodeling. The latest revision has tempered the causal claims made in previous versions. The result provides solid structural support for the hypotheses regarding how activity influences the clustering of these synapses.

Reviewed by eLife

Molecular Architecture and Function Mechanism of Tri-heteromeric GluN1-N2-N3A NMDA Receptors

1. Zengwei Kou
2. Fenyong Yao
3. Tongtong Zhang
4. Nan Song
5. Chun Xie
6. Boshuang Wang
7. Yidi Sun

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This important work advances our understanding of NMDAR diversity in the brain by providing evidence into the subunit arrangement, architecture, and activation mechanism of GluN1-N2-N3A tri-NMDAR. However, the evidence supporting the conclusions provides incomplete proof for the presence and functional properties of this NMDA receptor subtype. The work will be of broad interest to neuroscientists and biophysicists.

Reviewed by eLife