Neuroscience

Inhibitory circuits generate rhythms for leg movements during Drosophila grooming

1. Durafshan Sakeena Syed
2. Primoz Ravbar
3. Julie H Simpson

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  Using a combination of connectomics, optogenetics, behavioral analysis, and modeling, this study provides important findings on the role of two populations of inhibitory neurons in the generation of leg grooming movements in Drosophila. The data as presented provide incomplete evidence that the identified neuronal populations contribute to the alternation of flexion and extension by inhibiting specific sets of motor neurons while disinhibiting their counterparts. While the manuscript provides comprehensive details about the 13A/B neuronal populations involved in grooming control, updates on statistics, and explicit mentioning of experimental/modeling caveats would strengthen the study. The work will interest neuroscientists, and particularly those working on motor control.

Reviewed by eLife

Deployment of endocytic machinery to periactive zones of nerve terminals is independent of active zone assembly and evoked release

1. Javier Emperador-Melero
2. Steven J Del Signore
3. Kevin M De León González
4. Pascal S Kaeser
5. Avital A Rodal

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This is a valuable and rigorous study that addresses the question of what determines the spatial organization of endocytic zones at synapses. The authors use compelling approaches, in both Drosophila and rodent model systems, to define the role of activity and active zone structure on the organization of the peri-active zone. While the findings are primarily negative, they are carefully executed and contribute to the field by refining existing models of presynaptic organization.

Reviewed by eLife

Dynamic fMRI networks of emotion

1. Niels Janssen
2. Uriel KA Elvira
3. Joost Janssen
4. Theo GM van Erp

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This manuscript provides valuable information on the neurodynamics of emotional processing while participants were watching movie clips. The methods and results were solid in deciphering the temporal-spatial dynamics of emotional processing. This work will be of interest to affective neuroscientists.

Reviewed by eLife

Gamma Synchrony Mediates Figure-Ground Perception

1. Maryam Karimian
2. Mark J Roberts
3. Peter De Weerd
4. Mario Senden

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  Karimian et al. present a valuable new model to explain how gamma-band synchrony (30-80 Hz) can support human visual feature binding by selectively grouping image elements, countering recent criticisms that the stimulus dependence of gamma oscillations limits their functional role. Grounded in the theory of weakly coupled oscillators and informed by primate electrophysiology, the model captures behavioural patterns observed in human psychophysics, offering support for the potential role of synchrony-based mechanisms, but incomplete evidence for a specific role of gamma oscillations. This work could be strengthened by more direct evidence for the proposed mechanism, and expanding beyond figure-only model inputs with limited ecological validity.

Reviewed by eLife

A temporally restricted function of the dopamine receptor Dop1R2 during memory formation

1. Jenifer C Kaldun
2. Emanuele Calia
3. Ganesh Chinmai Bangalore Mukunda
4. Cornelia Fritsch
5. Nikita Komarov
6. Simon G Sprecher

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  The authors design and implement an elegant strategy to delete genomic sequences encoding the dopamine receptor dop1R2 from specific subsets of mushroom body neurons (ab, a'b' and gamma) and show that while none of these manipulations affect short term appetitive or aversive memory, loss of dop1R2 from ab or a'b' block the ability of flies to display measurable forms of longer forms of memory. These findings are important in confirming and extending prior observations, and well supported by convincing evidence that build on precise techniques for genetic perturbation.

Reviewed by eLife

Acute aerobic exercise intensity does not modulate pain potentially due to differences in fitness levels and sex effects: results from a pharmacological fMRI study

1. Janne Ina Nold
2. Tahmine Fadai
3. Christian Büchel

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  In this valuable study, Nold et al. examined exercise-induced pain modulation in a pharmacological within-subject fMRI study using the opioid-antagonist naloxone and different levels of aerobic exercise intensity and pain. This investigation provides solid evidence to show that the intensity of exercise does not seem to impact the hypoalgesic effect. Moreover, exploratory analysis identified that fitness level and sex may potentially play a role in exercise-induced hypoalgesia, and that further confirmatory studies are required in order to verify these findings.

Reviewed by eLife

Midbrain somatostatin-expressing cells control pain-suppression during defensive states

1. Nanci Winke
2. Frank Aby
3. Daniel Jercog
4. Thomas Bienvenu
5. Coline Riffault
6. Rabia Bouali-Benazzouz
7. Juliette Viellard
8. Delphine Girard
9. Zoé Grivet
10. Marc Landry
11. Laia Castell
12. Emmanuel Valjent
13. Stephane Valerio
14. Pascal Fossat
15. Cyril Herry

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  The study is a timely and important contribution to our knowledge of the circuit mechanisms of fear analgesia. The novel cue-induced analgesia paradigm allowed a compelling identification of a brainstem circuit element, i.e., somatostatin-expressing neurons within the ventrolateral periaqueductal grey that project to the rostroventral medulla, in mediating fear analgesia. The vlPAG is a known region of pain modulation, and this study adds key insight to the circuit involved in fear-associated analgesia. This work will be of interest to systems and behavioral neuroscientists, especially those interested in emotional behavior, pain, and/or brainstem function.

Reviewed by eLife

Ultraslow serotonin oscillations in the hippocampus delineate substates across NREM and waking

1. Claire Cooper
2. Daniel Parthier
3. Jeremie Sibille
4. John J Tukker
5. Nicolas Tritsch
6. Dietmar Schmitz

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This important study demonstrates that slow fluctuations in serotonin release during wakefulness and non-REM sleep correspond to periods of heightened arousal or enhanced offline information processing. The evidence supporting this claim is convincing, and the methodology is robust and broadly applicable, likely to benefit many researchers in the field. This work will be of significant interest to neuroscientists studying sleep, memory, and neuromodulation.

Reviewed by eLife

Inference technique for the synaptic conductances in rhythmically active networks and application to respiratory central pattern generation circuits

1. Yaroslav Molkov
2. Anke Borgmann
3. Hidehiko Koizumi
4. Noriyuki Hama
5. Ruli Zhang
6. Jeffrey Smith

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This work describes an inference technique for extracting information about relative contributions of excitatory and inhibitory synaptic drive onto single neurons in neural networks. The electrophysiological techniques and results are of high quality, and the analytical work is novel and potentially powerful, yet with several untested assumptions underlying the approach. This is nevertheless solid work that will be valuable to neuroscience labs interested in exploring alternative approaches to studies of integrated synaptic connectivity.

Reviewed by eLife

Genome-wide consensus transcriptional signatures identify synaptic pruning linking Alzheimer’s disease and epilepsy

1. Huihong Li
2. Zhiran Xie
3. Yuxuan Tian
4. Ruoyin Zhou
5. Yaxi Yang
6. Bingying Lin
7. Si Chen
8. Jie Wu
9. Zihan Deng
10. Jianwei Li
11. Mingjie Chen
12. Xueke Liu
13. Yushan Sun
14. Bing Huang
15. Naili Wei
16. Xiaoyu Ji

Reviewed by PREreview