Neuroscience

Evaluation Summary:

This work investigates how prestimulus alpha neural oscillations differentially modulate sensory signal and noise during visual detection and demonstrates that alpha power correlates with the subject's perceptual discriminability but not with decision criterion, supporting that alpha power modulates sensory signals more strongly than noise. The key conceptual claim is directly related to existing claims in the literature, although this is an unusually elegant experimental demonstration of the phenomenon.

(This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the public reviews from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript. The reviewers remained anonymous to the authors.)

Evaluation Summary:

In this study, the authors investigated how predictions modulate performance using a combination of pharmacological experiments, high-density EEG, Bayesian modeling, and machine learning. This is an interesting study with a complex set of analyses. The detailed assessment and interpretation of all the findings could be strengthened by providing a more unified and hypotheses-driven approach.

(This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the public reviews from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript. The reviewers remained anonymous to the authors.)

Evaluation Summary:

This study identifies a novel Shank3 mutation from individuals with ADHD-like syndrome and tests the impacts of this mutation together with other known Shank3 mutations on inter- and intramolecular protein-protein interactions of Shank3 involving the N-terminal SPN and Ank repeats. The results indicate that Shank3 mutations have diverse impacts on the intramolecular SPN-Ank domains and the interaction of Shank3 with other proteins including delta-catenin, fodrin, and CaMKIIa. Overall, the results of the study are novel and of high quality. Considering the lack of detailed biochemical understanding on various Shank3 mutations associated with PMS, ASD, and schizophrenia, this study is a meaningful step forward in the basic understanding of Shank3 functions and related pathophysiology.

(This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the public reviews from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript. The reviewers remained anonymous to the authors.)

Evaluation Summary:

Park and colleagues examined the activity and function of different projection neuron types, pyramidal tract (PT) and intratelencephalic (IT) neurons, in the primary motor cortex using a joystick manipulation task in mice. During forelimb movements, the activity of IT neurons was more correlated with movement kinematics than that of PT neurons was, and inactivation of IT neurons caused larger effects on movement kinematics (amplitude and velocity). The results highlight different activity patterns and functions between PT and IT neurons. Discussion among reviewers focused on two main issues. One centered on the interpretation of the PT neural activity; the second on the evidence underlying the claim of a dissociation between the PT and IT neurons.

“(This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the public reviews from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript. Reviewer #1 agreed to share their name with the authors.)”

Evaluation Summary

This paper describes the development and validation of an automatic approach that leverages machine vision and learning techniques to quantify dynamic facial expressions of emotion. The potential clinical and translational significance of this automated approach is then examined in a "proof-of-concept" follow-on study, which leveraged video recordings of depressed individuals watching humorous and sad video clips.

(This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the public reviews from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript. Reviewer #1 and Reviewer #2 agreed to share their name with the authors.)

Evaluation Summary:

This study will be of interest to scientists studying neuroinflammation and searching for potential therapeutic targets. The findings here have revealed the effects of an anti-inflammatory cytokine, human IL-37 (hIL-37), in the central nervous system of mice. The data support the conclusions within the current mouse models. Since hIL-37 is not naturally expressed in mice, more evidence related to human cells or tissues would strengthen the physiological significance.

This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the public reviews from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript. The reviewers remained anonymous to the authors.

Evaluation Summary:

Rabies-mediated monosynaptic retrograde tracing is a powerful method to characterize the connectivity of neural circuits. The CVS-N2c strain of rabies virus shows significantly higher efficiency of transsynaptic spread and less toxicity than the more commonly used SAD B19 strain but has been limited in use by an arduous and lengthy packaging process and low resultant titers. Here, Sumser et al. present a method that significantly speeds up the production process while reducing off-target expression. They also introduce a suite of novel reagents (34 novel plasmids) for monosynaptic tracing with the CVS-N2c strain that they commendably, have already deposited with Addgene. The work is an important advance that will reinvigorate rabies-mediated circuit tracing.

(This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the public reviews from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript. Reviewer #2 agreed to share their name with the authors.)

Evaluation Summary:

Overall, this study will make significant contributions to developmental neuroscience and vision science as they attempt to study how prenatal and postnatal maturation influence structural-functional measurements in the early and high-level visual cortex. These results will be of broad interest as it is a novel attempt to study processes that might be innate or genetically wired and those that emerge due to worldly experiences within the sensory systems. The authors are addressing an important and timely question based on a large and impressive infant database.

(This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the public reviews from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript. Reviewer #2 agreed to share their name with the authors.)

Evaluation Summary:

This paper demonstrates that artificial neural networks can be used to accurately predict the responses of biologically-detailed neuron models to synaptic inputs, and hence to approximate the behaviour of networks of such neurons. This study potentially opens the door to massively reduced simulation times for biologically-detailed neuronal network simulations without recourse to supercomputers and hence will be of broad interest to computational neuroscientists.

(This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the public reviews from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript. Reviewer #3 agreed to share their name with the authors.)

Evaluation Summary:

This paper describes novel insights into the potential function of innexin proteins, which are electrical synapse-forming proteins with often quite enigmatic in vivo functions. The authors describe here potential functions in synapse tiling. The paper should be of interest to researchers with interests in molecular mechanisms governing nervous system development.

(This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the public reviews from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript. Reviewer #3 agreed to share their name with the authors.)