Neuroscience

Higher-order olfactory neurons in the lateral horn support odor valence and odor identity coding in Drosophila

1. Sudeshna Das Chakraborty
2. Hetan Chang
3. Bill S Hansson
4. Silke Sachse

• Curated by eLife

  Evaluation Summary:

  Information about the environment obtained through sensory organs is processed and utilized at multiple levels in the brain. In this study, the authors use a variety of modern genetic and optophysiological tools to uncover the function and connectivity of glutamatergic neurons in a higher brain center of Drosophila - the lateral horn. They find that these neurons do not only encode chemical odor identity, but also the hedonic value (attractive or repulsive) of odors. This advances our understanding of how odors are represented in the brain will be of value to those who are interested in odour coding and behavioural valence of various odours.

  (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.)

Reviewed by eLife

Early detection of cerebrovascular pathology and protective antiviral immunity by MRI

1. Li Liu
2. Steve Dodd
3. Ryan D Hunt
4. Nikorn Pothayee
5. Tatjana Atanasijevic
6. Nadia Bouraoud
7. Dragan Maric
8. E Ashley Moseman
9. Selamawit Gossa
10. Dorian B McGavern
11. Alan P Koretsky

• Curated by eLife

  Evaluation Summary:

  The manuscript by Liu et al., aims to develop a novel MRI-based approach to monitor virus specific CD8+ T cells and their relationship to cerebrovascular pathology in living brains. Using a mouse model of VSV brain infection, they show that MRI approaches can be used to identify microbleeds in the brain, and these microbleeds occur independent of immune cell influx. Furthermore, the transfer of low numbers of virus specific CD8+ T cells can reduce cerebrovascular bleeding. The capacity to track virus specific T cells and cerebrovascular pathology in real time in living brains would be a major technological advance.

  (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.)

Reviewed by eLife

Modified viral-genetic mapping reveals local and global connectivity relationships of ventral tegmental area dopamine cells

1. Kevin Beier

• Curated by eLife

  Evaluation Summary:

  By addressing shortcomings in rabies viral-mediated labeling of monosynaptic inputs to ventral tegmental area dopamine neurons, this study provides a previously unattained precision local inputs to VTA dopamine neurons. Main findings include the preservation of a medial to lateral topography in the projection patterns within VTA microcircuitry, prominence of inhibition of DA neurons from the substantial nigra pars reticulata (SNr), DA-DA transmission, and inputs from raphe serotonin neurons. The precise local VTA connectivity described here is important for identifying how dopamine neurons compute reward, prediction, and movement-related signals during behavior, and thus is likely to be of interest to neuroscientists interest in those processes and the midbrain dopamine system.

  (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.)

Reviewed by eLife

Imaging of the pial arterial vasculature of the human brain in vivo using high-resolution 7T time-of-flight angiography

1. Saskia Bollmann
2. Hendrik Mattern
3. Michaël Bernier
4. Simon D Robinson
5. Daniel Park
6. Oliver Speck
7. Jonathan R Polimeni

• Curated by eLife

  Evaluation Summary:

  This article revisits a classical magnetic resonance imaging technique to image the brain's vasculature, showing that small blood vessels, deemed too difficult to image, could be targeted effectively with extremely high resolution imaging. This proof-of-concept, both theoretical and experimental, may be of use to build detailed models of brain physiology and detect fine alterations of the vessels in disease.

  (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.)

Reviewed by eLife

Repeated ethanol exposure and withdrawal alters angiotensin‐converting enzyme 2 expression in discrete brain regions: Implications for SARS‐CoV ‐2 neuroinvasion

1. Nagalakshmi Balasubramanian
2. Thomas D. James
3. Govindhasamy Pushpavathi Selvakumar
4. Jessica Reinhardt
5. Catherine A. Marcinkiewcz

Reviewed by ScreenIT

Heritability and cross-species comparisons of human cortical functional organization asymmetry

1. Bin Wan
2. Şeyma Bayrak
3. Ting Xu
4. H Lina Schaare
5. Richard AI Bethlehem
6. Boris C Bernhardt
7. Sofie L Valk

• Curated by eLife

  Evaluation Summary:

  This is an interesting paper that tries to quantify brain asymmetry in connectivity, looks at the heritability of this asymmetry, and compares it between humans and monkeys. The approach taken here is to first project the connectivity information into a low dimensional sub-space and then to quantify brain asymmetry in this low dimensional representation. The benefit of this approach is that it simplifies the problem to looking at scalar indices rather than matrices, and that it allows comparisons between subjects and species in connectivity space. This work should be of interest to the field of brain asymmetry and evolution. However, there are fundamental issues with the method, as outlined in the review. The paper would also benefit from a stronger focus on the biological interpretation. At present, the main contribution of this work is providing interesting 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.)

Reviewed by eLife

Rescue of behavioral and electrophysiological phenotypes in a Pitt-Hopkins syndrome mouse model by genetic restoration of Tcf4 expression

1. Hyojin Kim
2. Eric B Gao
3. Adam Draper
4. Noah C Berens
5. Hanna Vihma
6. Xinyuan Zhang
7. Alexandra Higashi-Howard
8. Kimberly D Ritola
9. Jeremy M Simon
10. Andrew J Kennedy
11. Benjamin D Philpot

• Curated by eLife

  Evaluation Summary:

  This manuscript by Kim et al. validates the previously generated Tcf4 LGSL mouse model (developed by the authors' group; Kim et al. 2020) for Pitt-Hopkins syndrome (PHS) by normalizing the Tcf4 expression level. They found that reinstating Tcf4 expression improves a subset of behavioral abnormalities, including anxiety-like behavior, activity level, innate behaviors and memory. Moreover, neonatal ICV injection of Cre mediating restoration of gene expression also improved the behavioral abnormalities and altered LFP spectra, and partially recovered the expression level of downstream target genes for Tcf4. This provides a proof-of-concept for therapeutic interventions against PHS. The writing and data quality are excellent, and clear limitations of current study are well described. However, there are some areas for further improvement.

  (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.)

Reviewed by eLife

Non-rapid eye movement sleep and wake neurophysiology in schizophrenia

1. Nataliia Kozhemiako
2. Jun Wang
3. Chenguang Jiang
4. Lei A Wang
5. Guanchen Gai
6. Kai Zou
7. Zhe Wang
8. Xiaoman Yu
9. Lin Zhou
10. Shen Li
11. Zhenglin Guo
12. Robert Law
13. James Coleman
14. Dimitrios Mylonas
15. Lu Shen
16. Guoqiang Wang
17. Shuping Tan
18. Shengying Qin
19. Hailiang Huang
20. Michael Murphy
21. Robert Stickgold
22. Dara Manoach
23. Zhenhe Zhou
24. Wei Zhu
25. Mei-Hua Hal
26. Shaun M Purcell
27. Jen Q Pan

• Curated by eLife

  Evaluation Summary:

  This study, one of the largest of its kind, replicate previous findings regarding impairment of sleep rhythms in patients with schizophrenia relative to healthy controls. Specifically, slow but not fast sleep spindles are correlated with the severity of the symptoms.

  (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.)

Reviewed by eLife

In silico transcriptomics identifies FDA-approved drugs and biological pathways for protection against cisplatin-induced hearing loss

1. Pezhman Salehi
2. Marisa Zallocchi
3. Sarath Vijayakumar
4. Madeleine Urbanek
5. Kimberlee P. Giffen
6. Yuju Li
7. Santanu Hati
8. Jian Zuo

• Curated by eLife

  Evaluation Summary:

  In this report, the authors have combined analysis of the Connectivity Map with small molecule screens in zebrafish to identify compounds that may spare ototoxicity induced from cisplatin. This is an important limitation of this effective and widely used chemotherapeutic agent and has the potential to create approaches to limit the neurotoxicity induced by cisplatin.

  (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.)

Reviewed by eLife

Shank promotes action potential repolarization by recruiting BK channels to calcium microdomains

1. Luna Gao
2. Jian Zhao
3. Evan Ardiel
4. Qi Hall
5. Stephen Nurrish
6. Joshua M Kaplan

• Curated by eLife

  Evaluation Summary:

  The authors use C. elegans to explore the relationship between shank (an Autism-associated gene orthologue), CaV1 (Ca) channels, and BK (slo) calcium-dependent K channels in controlling muscle excitability. The data annotate a novel activity of Shank as an organizer of ion channel domains with potential relevance to human disease.

  (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.)

Reviewed by eLife