Neuroscience

eLife assessment

This study provides valuable findings about how brain machine interfaces cope with changes in context, an important consideration for deploying such devices in the real world. The evidence supporting the claims is solid although increasing the number and range of contexts investigated would have strengthened the study. The work will be of interest to motor neuroscientists and engineers developing brain machine interfaces and will be useful for future development of such devices.

eLife assessment

This is an important and methodologically compelling paper that reports the first application of optogenetics to inner hair cell ribbon exocytosis mechanisms in the inner ear and rapid flash-and-freeze techniques to a ribbon synapse. The conclusions of the paper are mostly well supported by the data and it will capture the interests of a broad audience of neurobiologists and sensory physiologists. Paired recordings of inner hair cells and afferents validate the optogenetic protocols of stimulation. A surprising finding is the nearly complete absence of docked vesicles at rest and after stimulation, but upon stimulation vesicles rapidly associate with the ribbon. The reviewers agreed that this is a high-quality study, but that some additional work is needed to address certain pitfalls of the methods used and to rule out alternative explanations of the data.

eLife assessment

This manuscript provides a successful model to study the ultrafast brain oscillation-mediated brain circuitry and cellular mechanisms in sensory processing. Utilizing this model, the authors studied potential cellular mechanisms that generate ultrafast oscillations (250-600Hz) in the cortex. These oscillations correlate with sensory stimulation and might be relevant for perceiving relevant sensory inputs. The data reasonably support most of the claims by the authors in this manuscript.

eLife assessment

This paper reports a useful set of results that uses a reduced network model based on a previously published large-scale network model to explain the generation of theta-gamma rhythms in the hippocampus. Combining the detailed and reduced models and comparing their results is a powerful approach. However, the evidence for the main claim that CCK+ basket cells play a key role in theta-gamma coupling in the hippocampus is currently incomplete.

eLife assessment

This is an extremely thorough investigation of the role of cadherins in generating a functional motor circuit. The presented data support a model whereby combinations of redundant adhesion molecules create a code to wire the breathing circuit. This study advances understanding of the molecular basis of circuit wiring in the brain.

eLife assessment

This study models the predictions a listener makes in music in two ways: how different model algorithms compare in their performance at predicting the upcoming notes in a melody, and how well they predict listeners' brain responses to these notes. The study will be valuable to the field as it implements three contemporary models of music prediction. In a set of solid analyses, the authors find that musical melodies are best predicted by models taking into account long-term experience of musical melodies, whereas brain responses are best predicted by applying these models to only a few most recent notes.

eLife assessment

This fundamental study employs a publicly available dataset to examine the role of gamma oscillations in the coding of olfactory information in the mouse piriform cortex. The authors convincingly show that gamma originates in the piriform cortex, is driven by feedback inhibition, and that the time course of odour decoding is most accurate when gamma oscillations are strongest. This work is relevant to a wide audience interested in the mechanisms and role of oscillations in the brain, and nicely demonstrates the benefits of well-curated, publicly available datasets.

eLife assessment

This is a very interesting manuscript that will be of interest to the field of stress neurobiology and neuropsychiatry. Claims about the interactions between stress and medial prefrontal cortex NPAS4 on anhedonia and motivation remain to be firmly established, yet clear evidence is provided for NPAS4 function on medial prefrontal cortex pyramidal neuron dendritic morphology and gene expression.

eLife assessment

This paper provides valuable new insight into the neural encoding and behavioral tracking of visual objects in the Drosophila. It provides solid evidence that a specific type of neuron in the fly visual system (T3 neuron) is involved in the tracking of moving objects during flight. With additional experimental evidence to resolve whether T3 neurons function as local object detectors, this paper would be of broad interest to visual neuroscientists.

eLife assessment

This manuscript will be of interest to a wide range of neuroscientists and clinicians employing imaging methods. Using a combination of cutting edge high resolution magnetic resonance protocols, the authors investigate the structure-function relationship of specialised compartments in the human cortex in vivo. Their results indicate different patterns of myelination across the "stripes" of visual area V2, but will require further independent validation with myelin staining in the human brain.