Neuroscience

Evaluation Summary:

The authors report on the coordination mechanisms between oscillations recorded in the CA1 subfield of the hippocampus, prefrontal cortex, and olfactory bulb and cell ensemble activity in CA1 and prefrontal cortex that are associated with odor-cued decision making. The findings support the hypothesis that the beta rhythm plays a role in coordinating CA1-prefrontal cortex ensembles associated with an animal's accurate decisions. Sensory-guided decision-making is of broad significance to many readers who are studying executive functions and cognitive behaviors, and the observations reported in this manuscript provide insights into mechanisms that may support these functions and behaviors.

(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:

Houy and co-workers investigated the function of Munc13-1 and ubMunc13-2 in chromaffin cells and the interaction with phorbol esters (PMA). They combined calcium uncaging, capacitance measurements, amperometry, and activity-dependent movements of the EGFP-labeled Munc13 proteins. This study reveals that phorbolesters have a stimulatory effect via ubMunc13-2 but an inhibitory effect via Munc13-1. These opposing effects of the two Munc13 paralogs are surprising considering the closely related domain architectures.

(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 manuscript, the authors specifically look at the interaction between epidural stimulation of the spinal cord and the descending input evoked voluntarily in 2 intact monkeys. The results show that spinal stimulation could facilitate or suppress voluntarily evoked EMG and wrist torque, depending on voluntarily evoked activity as well as the stimulation parameters. This shows that spinal stimulation could enhance the descending inputs in cases of partial lesions. The conclusions of this paper are well supported by data, although they could be made stronger with additional analysis and clarification.

(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 manuscript by Fox, Birman, and Gardner combines human behavioral experiments with spatial attention manipulation and computational modeling (image-computable convolutional neural network models) to investigate the computational mechanisms that may underlie improvements in behavioral performance when deploying spatial attention. Through carefully controlled manipulations of computational architecture and parameters, the authors dissociate the effects of different tuning properties (e.g. tuning gain vs. tuning shifts) and conclude that increases in gain are the primary means by which attention improves behavioral performance. The analyses and results are technically sound and clearly presented, but the generality of the conclusions is limited by certain modeling/task choices made in the work.

(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 names with the authors.)

Evaluation Summary:

This paper analyses the synaptic connections of two subsets of clock neurons in the Drosophila brain, the small ventral lateral neurons and the dorsal lateral neurons that control the sleep-wake behavior. The study reveals interesting features of the clock network, including the high heterogeneity of the LNd subset and the existence of non-clock cells that are predicted to act as "inter-clock neurons". The manuscript will be of interest to chronobiologists and neuroscientists working on neuronal networks, and it provides new insights into circadian clock network organization that may be of general value. The data analysis is rigorous, and the conclusions are justified by the data.

(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 manuscript will be of interest to stem cell and developmental biologists who aim to use newly emerging brain organoid models to understand the structure and function of the developing human brain. It presents a technological advance in imaging and describes an innovative method for labeling and tracking of cells within organoids to enable the assessment of dynamic processes within the intact organoid. The method is validated in a disease model and addresses a challenge in the field of human stem cell modeling of assessing cells within the 3D structure.

(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 combines behavioral data from guinea pigs and data from a classifier model to ask what auditory features are important for classifying vocalisations. This study is likely to be of interest to both computational and experimental neuroscientists, in particular auditory neurophysiologists and cognitive and comparative neuroscientists. A strength of this work is that a model trained on natural calls was able to predict some aspects of responses to temporally and spectrally altered cues. However, additional data, analysis, or modelling would be required to support some of the stronger claims.

(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 #3 agreed to share their names with the authors.)

Evaluation Summary:

This manuscript puts forward a new toolkit of viruses for manipulation and visualization of zebrafish neural circuits. The authors overcome several challenges in the field and present a set of resources likely to be of high value to the zebrafish community.

(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 is of interest to neuroscientists studying the interaction between working memory, decision making, cell types, and neural oscillations. It introduces a detailed model of different brain areas which interact giving rise to the complex pattern of oscillations that are observed during a visual attention task. Additionally, the model reproduces the phase-dependent behavioral performance observed experimentally during such a task. This provides a new level of precision in our understanding of how rhythmic attention works in the brain.

(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 paper is of interest to scientists interested in the functions of the hippocampus, as well as those in the field of sensorimotor timing. The reported data and findings point towards the possibility that the hippocampus supports specific and generalized learning of short time intervals relevant to behavior. While the conclusions are mostly supported by the evidence, further clarification of methodology as well as additional analyses and discussion would strengthen the authors' conclusions.

(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.)