Neuroscience

Uncovering the electrical synapse proteome in retinal neurons via in vivo proximity labeling

1. Stephan Tetenborg
2. Eyad Shihabeddin
3. Elizebeth Olive Akansha Manoj Kumar
4. Crystal L Sigulinsky
5. Karin Dedek
6. Ya-Ping Lin
7. Fabio A Echeverry
8. Hannah Hoff
9. Alberto E Pereda
10. Bryan W Jones
11. Christophe P Ribelayga
12. Klaus Ebnet
13. Ken Matsuura
14. John O’Brien

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This is an important study that characterized proteins associated with electrical synapses in zebrafish and mouse retinal neurons using proximity labeling approaches, complemented by biochemical and histological validations. The resulting protein interactome datasets are convincing and reveal novel scaffold proteins at the electrical synapse. Additional quantification and validation would strengthen the work further.

Reviewed by eLife

Progressive remote memory decline coincides with parvalbumin interneuron hyperexcitability and enhanced inhibition of cortical engram cells in a mouse model of Alzheimer’s disease

1. Julia J van Adrichem
2. Rolinka J van der Loo
3. August B Smit
4. Michel C van den Oever
5. Ronald E van Kesteren

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This valuable study explores changes in remote memory impairment in an amyloid pathology mouse model, demonstrating that progressive deficits coincide with inhibitory interneuron alterations. While the findings shed light on circuit remodeling in this model, the mechanistic links between heightened inhibition and memory loss are currently incomplete. Additional data and deeper analysis may be needed to fully substantiate the authors' interpretations.

Reviewed by eLife

Ultrastructural sublaminar-specific diversity of excitatory synaptic boutons in layer 1 of the adult human temporal lobe neocortex

1. Astrid Rollenhagen
2. Akram Sadeghi
3. Bernd Walkenfort
4. Claus C Hilgetag
5. Kurt Sätzler
6. Joachim HR Lübke

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This study provides important information on the ultrastructural organization of layer 1 of the human neocortex. The quantitative assessment of various synaptic parameters, astrocytic coverage and mitochondrial morphology is based on convincing experimental approaches. These data provide new information on the detailed morphology of human neocortical tissue that will be of interest to neuroscientists working on different network functions.

Reviewed by eLife

Molecular characterization of gustatory second-order neurons reveals integrative mechanisms of gustatory and metabolic information

1. Rubén Mollá-Albaladejo
2. Manuel Jiménez-Caballero
3. Juan Antonio Sanchez-Alcaniz

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This study provides valuable insights into the organization of second-order circuits of gustatory neurons, particularly in how these circuits integrate opposing taste inputs and are modulated by metabolic state to regulate feeding behavior. Through an elegant combination of complementary techniques, the authors identify the target neurons involved in gustatory integration. The evidence supporting their conclusions is convincing.

Reviewed by eLife

Mental Effort and Counterfactuals Modulate Language Understanding: ERP Evidence in Older Adults

1. José Luis Salas-Herrera
2. Mabel Urrutia Martínez
3. Nicolás Andrés Hinrichs

Reviewed by PREreview

Local Inhibitory Dynamics Underpin Temporal Integration and Functional Segregation between Barrels and Septa in the Mouse Barrel Cortex

1. Ali Özgür Argunşah
2. Tevye Jason Stachniak
3. Jenq-Wei Yang
4. Linbi Cai
5. Alexander van der Bourg
6. Rahel Kastli
7. Theofanis Karayannis

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  Argunşah et al. investigate the mechanisms underlying the differential response dynamics of barrel vs septa domains in shaping the responses to single vs multiple whiskers. Based on the observation of a higher density of SST+ interneurons in the septa, the authors investigate the hypothesis that Elfn1-dependent short-term plasticity shapes these responses. This important study is, however, supported by incomplete evidence; factors restricting the strength of evidence are the limited spatial resolution of the multi-unit activity, as well as the lack of a mechanistic explanation. This provocative and intellectually stimulating hypothesis provides a contribution to work on how different cell types shape cortical representation.

Reviewed by eLife

The distinct role of human PIT in attention control

1. Siyuan Huang
2. Lan Wang
3. Sheng He

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This important study reports that the human posterior inferotemporal cortex (hPIT) functions as an attentional priority map, integrating both top-down and bottom-up attentional signals rather than serving solely as an object-processing region. The experiments and analyses are well conducted and provide convincing evidence that hPIT bridges dorsal and ventral attention networks and is robustly modulated by attention across diverse visual tasks. The study will be relevant for researchers investigating visual attention, high-level visual cortex, and the neural mechanisms that integrate endogenous and exogenous attentional control.

Reviewed by eLife

Behavioural and neurogenetic evidence for emotion primitives in the fruit fly Drosophila: insights from the Open Field Test

1. Yi Lueningschroer-Wang
2. Emilia Derksen
3. Maria Steigmeier
4. Christian Wegener

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This useful study reports findings that support the use of the Open Field Test in Drosophila as a model to study "emotion-like states", which are behavioral responses to several stressful or aversive treatments, and resilience upon their subsequent removal. Behavioral data, by employing established stress-causing treatments and genetic manipulations, are solid. While the results and conceptual framework of this work will be of interest to behaviorists regardless of animal models, the novelty of this work over previous studies could have been clearer.

Reviewed by eLife

Biologically informed cortical models predict optogenetic perturbations

1. Christos Sourmpis
2. Carl CH Petersen
3. Wulfram Gerstner
4. Guillaume Bellec

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This important study demonstrates the significance of incorporating biological constraints in training neural networks to develop models that make accurate predictions under novel conditions. By comparing standard sigmoid recurrent neural networks (RNNs) with biologically constrained RNNs, the manuscript offers compelling evidence that biologically grounded inductive biases enhance generalization to perturbed conditions. This manuscript will appeal to a wide audience in systems and computational neuroscience.

Reviewed by eLife

Cross-species Standardised Cortico-Subcortical Tractography

1. Stephania Assimopoulos
2. Shaun Warrington
3. Davide Folloni
4. Katherine Bryant
5. Wei Tang
6. Saad Jbabdi
7. Sarah Heilbronner
8. Rogier B Mars
9. Stamatios N Sotiropoulos

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This important study provides a novel approach for delineating subcortical-cortical white matter bundles. The authors provide convincing evidence by harnessing state-of-the-art methods and cross-species data. Together, this effort will be of interest to scientists across multiple subfields.

Reviewed by eLife