Neuroscience

UP-DOWN states and ripples differentially modulate membrane potential dynamics across DG, CA3, and CA1 in awake mice

1. Koichiro Kajikawa
2. Brad K Hulse
3. Athanassios G Siapas
4. Evgueniy V Lubenov

• Curated by eLife

  Evaluation Summary:

  This study uses dual intracellular and extracellular recordings in different subfields of the hippocampus in awake mice during immobility to investigate the initiation of sharp wave-ripples, synchronous bursts of hippocampal activity thought to be important for memory formation. It provides unique data obtained in vivo across a diversity of hippocampal cell types. Specifically, these findings lead to a model where inhibition of CA3 pyramidal cells is permissive to ripple generation.

  (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 name with the authors.)

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Dnmt3a knockout in excitatory neurons impairs postnatal synapse maturation and increases the repressive histone modification H3K27me3

1. Junhao Li
2. Antonio Pinto-Duarte
3. Mark Zander
4. Michael S Cuoco
5. Chi-Yu Lai
6. Julia Osteen
7. Linjing Fang
8. Chongyuan Luo
9. Jacinta D Lucero
10. Rosa Gomez-Castanon
11. Joseph R Nery
12. Isai Silva-Garcia
13. Yan Pang
14. Terrence J Sejnowski
15. Susan B Powell
16. Joseph R Ecker
17. Eran A Mukamel
18. M Margarita Behrens

• Curated by eLife

  Evaluation Summary:

  In this manuscript the authors conditionally knock out the DNA methyltransferase Dnmt3a in developing excitatory cortical neurons to determine the consequences for chromatin regulation, gene expression, and neuron function. As expected they find widespread loss of DNA methylation at CpA dinucleotides but also an increase in histone methylation (H3K27me3) at many similar regions of the genome, which they speculate may be a mechanism of functional compensation. Overall this study offers new insights into the gene regulatory and neuronal cellular functions of an important chromatin regulatory protein.

  (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.)

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Distinct representation of cue-outcome association by D1 and D2 neurons in the ventral striatum’s olfactory tubercle

1. Nuné Martiros
2. Vikrant Kapoor
3. Spencer E Kim
4. Venkatesh N Murthy

• Curated by eLife

  Evaluation Summary:

  In this manuscript the authors carefully describe the activity of individual neurons within the mouse olfactory tubercle, comprised of the two principal cell types, in the context of odor and tone associative learning. The use of 2-photon microscopy to monitor activity of the neurons is a major step forward and unveiled new insights into the dynamics of these neurons. This manuscript will be of interest to a wide range of readers, including those interested in affective circuits, learning, and sensory processing.

  (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.)

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Neocortical pyramidal neurons with axons emerging from dendrites are frequent in non-primates, but rare in monkey and human

1. Petra Wahle
2. Eric Sobierajski
3. Ina Gasterstädt
4. Nadja Lehmann
5. Susanna Weber
6. Joachim HR Lübke
7. Maren Engelhardt
8. Claudia Distler
9. Gundela Meyer

• Curated by eLife

  Evaluation Summary:

  Wahle and colleagues investigate the pervasiveness of the non-canonical arrangement of axons emerging from dendrites rather than the soma of neocortical pyramidal cells of different mammalian species. Using a variety of anatomical techniques, the authors demonstrate that axons can originate directly from pyramidal cell dendrites in species as diverse as rodents, ferret, cats, pigs and primates. Cross-species comparisons indicate that non-primate brains have a higher proportion of axon-carrying-dendrites (AcD) than did brains of macaques or humans. This paper is of potential interest to a broad range of neuroscientists in reporting the distribution of this non-canonical structure and indicating that primate brains may potentially feature axons emanating from dendrites less commonly.

  (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, Reviewer #2 and Reviewer #3 agreed to share their names with the authors.)

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A Quantum Dot Biomimetic for SARS-CoV-2 to Interrogate Dysregulation of the Neurovascular Unit Relevant to Brain Inflammation

1. Wesley Chiang
2. Angela Stout
3. Francine Yanchik-Slade
4. Herman Li
5. Bradley Nilsson
6. Harris Gelbard
7. Todd Krauss

Reviewed by ScreenIT

The geometry of robustness in spiking neural networks

1. Nuno Calaim
2. Florian A Dehmelt
3. Pedro J Gonçalves
4. Christian K Machens

• Curated by eLife

  Evaluation Summary:

  The article introduces a geometrical interpretation for the dynamics and function of certain spiking networks, based on earlier work of Machens and Deneve. Given that spiking networks are notoriously hard to understand, the approach could prove useful for many computational neuroscientists. Here, that visualization tool serves to assess how fragile the network is to perturbation of its parameters, such as neuronal death, or spurious noise in excitation and inhibition.

  (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 and Reviewer #3 agreed to share their name with the authors.)

Reviewed by eLife

Flexible utilization of spatial- and motor-based codes for the storage of visuo-spatial information

1. Margaret M Henderson
2. Rosanne L Rademaker
3. John T Serences

• Curated by eLife

  Evaluation Summary:

  This rigorous, carefully designed and executed functional magnetic-resonance imaging study provides compelling evidence against a rigid, fixed model for how working-memory representations are maintained in the human brain. By analyzing patterns and strength of brain activity, the authors show that networks for maintaining contents in mind vary depending on the task demands and foreknowledge of anticipated responses. This manuscript will be of interest to scientists studying working memory, both in humans and in non-human primates.

  (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.)

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Decomposing the role of alpha oscillations during brain maturation

1. Marius Tröndle
2. Tzvetan Popov
3. Sabine Dziemian
4. Nicolas Langer

• Curated by eLife

  Evaluation Summary:

  This manuscript will be of interest to cognitive and developmental neuroscientists who are interested in brain oscillations and their changes with development. This study decomposes the EEG alpha power, demonstrating the confound of aperiodic activity in true oscillatory power and elucidating opposing relation of periodic and aperiodic components with age. The main approach of this paper is well motivated, and the main conclusions are supported by the analysis, which is applied to multiple large datasets, though there are some minor issues with some of the follow up analyses. Overall, this manuscript makes a timely and important case for the consideration of aperiodic signals in future research.

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

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Persistent post-COVID-19 smell loss is associated with inflammatory infiltration and altered olfactory epithelial gene expression

1. John B. Finlay
2. David H. Brann
3. Ralph Abi-Hachem
4. David W. Jang
5. Allison D. Oliva
6. Tiffany Ko
7. Rupali Gupta
8. Sebastian A. Wellford
9. E. Ashley Moseman
10. Sophie S. Jang
11. Carol H. Yan
12. Hiroaki Matusnami
13. Tatsuya Tsukahara
14. Sandeep Robert Datta
15. Bradley J. Goldstein

Reviewed by ScreenIT

Flexible and efficient simulation-based inference for models of decision-making

1. Jan Boelts
2. Jan-Matthis Lueckmann
3. Richard Gao
4. Jakob H Macke

• Curated by eLife

  Evaluation Summary:

  This paper provides a new approach, Mixed Neural Likelihood Estimator (MNLE) to build likelihood emulators for simulation-based models where the likelihood is unavailable. The authors show that the MNLE approach is equally accurate but orders of magnitude more efficient than a recent proposal, likelihood approximation networks (LAN), on two variants of the drift-diffusion model (a widely used model in cognitive neuroscience). The comparison between LAN and MNLE approaches could be improved to strengthen the merits of the proposed approach over existing alternatives.

  (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