Neuroscience

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

Cross-species comparative connectomics reveals the evolution of an olfactory circuit

1. Ruairí J.V. Roberts
2. Christoph Giez
3. Serene Dhawan
4. Song Pang
5. Nadine Randel
6. Zhiyuan Lu
7. Hui Gong
8. Léonard Dekens
9. James Di Frisco
10. C. Shan Xu
11. Harald F. Hess
12. Marta Zlatic
13. Albert Cardona
14. Lucia L. Prieto-Godino

Reviewed by Arcadia Science

Microglia replacement by ER-Hoxb8 conditionally immortalized macrophages provides insight into Aicardi-Goutières Syndrome neuropathology

1. Kelsey M Nemec
2. Genevieve Uy
3. V Sai Chaluvadi
4. Freddy S Purnell
5. Bilal Elfayoumi
6. Leila Byerly
7. Micaela L O’Reilly
8. Carleigh A O’Brien
9. William H Aisenberg
10. Sonia I Lombroso
11. Xinfeng Guo
12. Niklas Blank
13. Chet Huan Oon
14. Fazeela Yaqoob
15. Brian Temsamrit
16. Priyanka Rawat
17. Christoph A Thaiss
18. Will Bailis
19. Adam P Williamson
20. Qingde Wang
21. Mariko L Bennett
22. F Chris Bennett

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This revised study describes an important new model for in vivo manipulation of microglia, exploring how mutations in the Adar1 gene within microglia contribute to Aicardi-Goutières Syndome. The methodology is validated with exceptional data, supporting the authors' conclusions. The paper underscores both the advantages and limitations of using transplanted cells as a surrogate for microglia, making it a resource that is of value for biologists studying macrophages and microglia.

Reviewed by eLife

On-Demand Seizures Facilitate Rapid Screening of Therapeutics for Epilepsy

1. Yuzhang Chen
2. Brian Litt
3. Flavia Vitale
4. Hajime Takano

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  The authors modified a common method to induce epilepsy in mice to provide an improved approach to screen new drugs for epilepsy. This is important because of the need to develop new drugs for patients who are refractory to current medications. The authors' method evokes seizures to circumvent a low rate of spontaneous seizures and the approach was validated using two common anti-seizure medications. The strength of evidence was solid, making the study invaluable, but there were some limitations to the approach and methods.

Reviewed by eLife

3D directional tuning in the orofacial sensorimotor cortex during natural feeding and drinking

1. Victoria B Hosack
2. Fritzie I Arce-McShane

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This useful study characterises motor and somatosensory cortex neural activity during naturalistic eating and drinking tongue movement in nonhuman primates. The data, which include both electrophysiology and nerve block manipulations, will be of value to neuroscientists and neural engineers interested in tongue use. Although the current analyses provide a solid description of single neuron activity in these areas, both the population level analyses and the characterisation of activity changes following nerve block could be improved.

Reviewed by eLife

A Novel Mouse Model for LAMA2-Related Muscular Dystrophy: Analysis of Molecular Pathogenesis and Clinical Phenotype

1. Dandan Tan
2. Yidan Liu
3. Huaxia Luo
4. Qiang Shen
5. Xingbo Long
6. Luzheng Xu
7. Jieyu Liu
8. Nanbert Zhong
9. Hong Zhang
10. Hui Xiong

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This useful manuscript reports on a new mouse model for LAMA2-MD, a rare but very severe congenital muscular dystrophy. The knockout mice were generated by removing exon3 in the Lama2 gene, which results in a frameshift in exon4 and a premature stop codon. These animals lack any laminin-alpha2 protein and confirm results from previous Lama2 knockout models. Additionally, this study includes weak transcriptomics data that might be a good resource for the field. However, experimental evidence, methods, and data analyses supporting the main claims of the manuscript are incomplete.

Reviewed by eLife

Altered reactivity to threatening stimuli in Drosophila models of Parkinson’s disease, revealed by a trial-based assay

1. Márton Kajtor
2. Viktor A Billes
3. Bálint Király
4. Patricia Karkusova
5. Tibor Kovács
6. Hannah Stabb
7. Katalin Sviatkó
8. Andor Vizi
9. Eszter Ujvári
10. Diána Balázsfi
11. Sophie E Seidenbecher
12. Duda Kvitsiani
13. Tibor Vellai
14. Balázs Hangya

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  The authors present useful findings on the use of a single-fly behavioral paradigm for assessing different Drosophila genetic models of neurodegeneration. The experimental design and analyses are solid and can be used for quick behavioral assessment in fly models of various neurodegenerative diseases, especially those having an impact on locomotion. The work will be of interest to Drosophila biologists using behavior as a readout for their studies.

Reviewed by eLife

When do measured representational distances reflect the neural representational geometry?

1. Veronica Bossio Botero
2. Nikolaus Kriegeskorte

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This manuscript makes important contributions to the methodology commonly used to assess representational structures in human and animal brain activity recorded using various techniques (especially fMRI). The evidence in the form of mathematical analysis and simulations is solid. The impact of this contribution could be improved by extending the simulations to assess the effects of violations of explicit and implicit assumptions.

Reviewed by eLife

Perinatal environmental enrichment affects murine neonates’ brain structure before their active engagement with environment

1. Malte S Kaller
2. Clémence Ligneul
3. Rylan Allemang-Grand
4. Tie Yuan Zhang
5. Jacob Ellegood
6. Michael Meaney
7. Jason P Lerch

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This is an important study that combines replications of findings and novel detailed MRI investigations to assess the impact of environmental enrichment and maternal behavior on mice brain structure at different stages of development. The results and evidence supporting the conclusions are convincing, but in detail, the interpretation is challenging, in particular due to inter-individual and inter-litter variability. The extent to which maternal care mediates the impact of enrichment on brain development during the perinatal period also remains unclear because behavior was observed only during short periods, and the performed analyses are still incomplete. This study will nevertheless be of significant interest to neuroscientists and researchers interested in neurodevelopment in relation to environmental factors because of its in-depth use of MRI to study brain plasticity in mice.

Reviewed by eLife