Neuroscience

LRRK2 regulates synaptic function through modulation of actin cytoskeletal dynamics

1. Giulia Tombesi
2. Shiva Kompella
3. Giulia Favetta
4. Chuyu Chen
5. Marta Ornaghi
6. Yibo Zhao
7. Ester Morosin
8. Martina Sevegnani
9. Adriano Lama
10. Antonella Marte
11. Ilaria Battisti
12. Lucia Iannotta
13. Nicoletta Plotegher
14. Laura Civiero
15. Franco Onofri
16. Britta J Eickholt
17. Giovanni Piccoli
18. Giorgio Arrigoni
19. Dayne Beccano-Kelly
20. Claudia Manzoni
21. Loukia Parisiadou
22. Elisa Greggio

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This important work begins to understand how BDNF regulates the phosphorylation and activity of LRRK2. The overall strength of evidence has been assessed as compelling, though some claims are only partially supported. The work will be of interest for those that might pursue specific LRRK2 interactions and mutational effects on these pathways as the work continues to develop.

Reviewed by eLife

Cross-species standardised cortico-subcortical tractography

1. Stephania Assimopoulos
2. Shaun Warrington
3. Davide Folloni
4. Katherine Bryant
5. Ali-Reza Mohammadi-Nejad
6. Wei Tang
7. Saad Jbabdi
8. Sarah R Heilbronner
9. Rogier B Mars
10. 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 and accelerate progress in a biologically critical but methodologically challenging area.

Reviewed by eLife

Drosophila learn to prefer immobile spherical objects through repeated physical interaction

1. Kenichi Iwasaki
2. Sena Kawano
3. Ashnu Cassod
4. Charles Neuhauser
5. Aleksandr Rayshubskiy

Reviewed by PREreview

Single-cell transcriptome sequencing for opening the blood-brain barrier through specific mode electroacupuncture stimulation

1. Congcong Ma
2. Zhaoxing Jia
3. Tianxiang Jiang
4. Qian Cai
5. Jinding Yang
6. Lin Gan
7. Kecheng Qian
8. Zixin Pan
9. Qinyu Ye
10. Mengyuan Dai
11. Xianming Lin

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This study presents a valuable finding that the blood-brain barrier (BBB) may be modulated through specific modes of electroacupuncture stimulation. The data were collected and analyzed using a solid and validated methodology, and can be used as a starting point for functional studies of the BBB for drug delivery across healthy and diseased states. The work will be of broad interest to scientists working in the field of drug delivery and drug development.

Reviewed by eLife

Synaptic mechanisms modulate the spatiotemporal dynamics of striatal direct pathway neurons and motor output

1. John J Marshall
2. Jian Xu
3. Nai-Hsing Yeh
4. Seongsik Yun
5. Toshihiro Nomura
6. John N Armstrong
7. Jones G Parker
8. Anis Contractor

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  Marshall et al describe the effects of altering metabotropic glutamate receptor 5 activity on activity of D1 receptor expressing spiny projection neurons in dorsolateral striatum focusing on two states - locomotion and rest. The authors examine effects of dSPN-specific constitutive mGlu5 deletion in several motor tests to arrive at this finding. Effects of inhibiting the degradation of the endocannabinoid 2-arachidonoyl glycerol are also examined. Overall, this is a valuable study that provides solid new information of relevance to movement disorders and possibly psychosis.

Reviewed by eLife

The resource elasticity of control

1. Levi Solomyak
2. Aviv Emanuel
3. Eran Eldar

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This study makes the valuable claim that people track, specifically, the elasticity of control (that is, the degree to which outcome depends on how many resources - such as money - are invested), and that control elasticity is impaired in certain types of psychopathologies. A novel task is introduced that provides solid evidence that this learning process occurs and that human behavior is sensitive to changes in the elasticity of control. Evidence that elasticity inference is distinct from more general learning mechanisms and is related to psychopathology remains incomplete.

Reviewed by eLife

Social experience shapes fighting strategies in Drosophila

1. Can Gao
2. Mingze Ma
3. Jie Chen
4. Xiaoxiao Ji
5. Qionglin Peng
6. Yufeng Pan

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  The important paper presents a new behavioral assay for Drosophila aggression and demonstrates that social experience influences fighting strategies, with group-housed males favoring high-intensity but low-frequency tussling over aggressive lunging observed in isolated males. The experiments are solid and the conclusions are of interest to researchers studying the impact of social isolation on aggression.

Reviewed by eLife

Visual experience shapes functional connectivity between occipital and non-visual networks

1. Mengyu Tian
2. Xiang Xiao
3. Huiqing Hu
4. Rhodri Cusack
5. Marina Bedny

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This important study provides evidence supporting the idea that postnatal experience plays an instructive role in shaping the patterns of functional connectivity between extrastriate visual cortex and frontal regions during development, by comparing neonates, blind and sighted adults. The evidence supporting the authors' claim is solid. Nevertheless, substantial weaknesses remain in mechanistic interpretation and alignment with relevant developmental frameworks. This study will be of significant interest to neuroscientists and neuroimaging researchers focused on vision, plasticity and development.

Reviewed by eLife

Altered cognitive processes shape tactile perception in autism

1. Ourania Semelidou
2. Mathilde Tortochot-Megne Fotso
3. Adinda Winderickx
4. Andreas Frick

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This study provides valuable insights with solid evidence into altered tactile perception in a mouse model of ASD (Fmr1 mice), paralleling sensory abnormalities in Fragile X and autism. Its main strength lies in the use of a novel tactile categorization task and the careful dissection of behavioral performance across training and difficulty levels, suggesting that deficits may stem from an interaction between sensory and cognitive processes. However, while the experiments are well executed, the reported effects are subtle and sometimes non-significant. The interpretation of results may be over-extended given the nature of the data (solely behavioral) and the absence of mechanistic, causal, or computational approaches limits the strength of the broader conclusions. The work will be relevant to those interested in autism, cognition, and/or sensory processing.

Reviewed by eLife

Fitting bifurcation structure, not voltage traces: A biophysically inspired derivation of reduced neuron models exemplified by potassium dynamics

1. Louisiane Lemaire
2. Mahraz Behbood
3. Jan-Hendrik Schleimer
4. Susanne Schreiber

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This work demonstrates an objective way to select parameter values for a quadratic integrate-and-fire model so that its bifurcation diagram matches a specific target diagram, generated from the Wang-Buzsaki model. The method is useful for the field and is presented with convincing evidence. The method is currently limited in its ability to be applied to data, but improves our mathematical tools to treat a rarely studied type of bifurcation.

Reviewed by eLife