Neuroscience

A transcriptional constraint mechanism limits the homeostatic response to activity deprivation in mammalian neocortex

1. Vera Valakh
2. Derek Wise
3. Xiaoyue Aelita Zhu
4. Mingqi Sha
5. Jaidyn Fok
6. Stephen D Van Hooser
7. Robin Schectman
8. Isabel Cepeda
9. Ryan Kirk
10. Sean M O'Toole
11. Sacha B Nelson

• Curated by eLife

  Evaluation Summary:

  Homeostatic plasticity helps to confine neural network activity within limits. In this study, the authors show that loss of PAR bZIP family of transcription factors leads to overcompensation of excitatory synaptic transmission and average network activity upon sustained activity deprivation. The work identifies an endogenous transcriptional program that constrains upward homeostatic response and whose activity is implicated in preventing aberrant network activity associated with epilepsy and other brain disorders. These are exciting results that address the question of broad importance. While most arguments are supported by data of high quality, further experiments would strengthen the claims about the relative contribution of excitatory and inhibitory mechanisms and clarify the nature of compensation.

  (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

Human interictal epileptiform discharges are bidirectional traveling waves echoing ictal discharges

1. Elliot H Smith
2. Jyun-you Liou
3. Edward M Merricks
4. Tyler Davis
5. Kyle Thomson
6. Bradley Greger
7. Paul House
8. Ronald G Emerson
9. Robert Goodman
10. Guy M McKhann
11. Sameer Sheth
12. Catherine Schevon
13. John D Rolston

• Curated by eLife

  Evaluation Summary:

  Smith et al. describes the propagation patterns of electrical activity in the brains of human epileptic patients. The authors demonstrate that interictal spikes, commonly observed electrical events in epileptic patients, propagate in a similar manner to seizures. This suggests that interictal spikes could be used in surgical planning, which would be of great interest to neurosurgeons and neurologists treating patients with medication refractory epilepsy.

  (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

Respiration aligns perception with neural excitability

1. Daniel S Kluger
2. Elio Balestrieri
3. Niko A Busch
4. Joachim Gross

• Curated by eLife

  Evaluation Summary:

  Kluger and colleagues investigated the influence of respiration on visual sensory perception in a near-threshold task and argue that the detected correlation between respiration phase and detection precision is liked to alpha power, which in turn is modulated by the phase of respiration. The main finding - that the moment-to-moment relationship between excitability and perception is coupled to the body's slower respiratory oscillation - poses a potentially important advance for advancing our understanding of how the brain-body system works as a whole.

  (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

Mechanisms of distributed working memory in a large-scale network of macaque neocortex

1. Jorge F Mejías
2. Xiao-Jing Wang

• Curated by eLife

  Evaluation Summary:

  Mejias and Wang propose here the first large-scale model of the brain that actually performs a cognitive task. Previous models have focused on neural dynamics during the so-called "resting state", in which subjects are not performing any cognitive task - thus, resting. This study is therefore an important improvement in the field of large-scale modelling and will certainly become an influential reference for future modelling efforts.

  (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

Sensing complementary temporal features of odor signals enhances navigation of diverse turbulent plumes

1. Viraaj Jayaram
2. Nirag Kadakia
3. Thierry Emonet

• Curated by eLife

  Evaluation Summary:

  This manuscript by Jayaram and colleagues uses computational modeling approaches to examine how temporal filtering of an odor signal contributes to navigation success in different odor environments. The manuscript advances the literature in considering how different algorithms may be optimal for different environments. Further evidence is required to more convincingly prove the intriguing trade-off between frequency and "intermittency" sensing described here.

  (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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A novel histone deacetylase inhibitor‐based approach to eliminate microglia and retain astrocyte properties in glial cell culture

1. Xi‐Biao He
2. Yi Wu
3. Haozhi Huang
4. Fang Guo

Reviewed by ScreenIT

Prolonged and extended impacts of SARS-CoV-2 on the olfactory neurocircuit

1. Megumi Kishimoto-Urata
2. Shinji Urata
3. Ryoji Kagoya
4. Fumiaki Imamura
5. Shin Nagayama
6. Rachel A. Reyna
7. Junki Maruyama
8. Tatsuya Yamasoba
9. Kenji Kondo
10. Sanae Hasegawa-Ishii
11. Slobodan Paessler

Reviewed by ScreenIT

Partial connectomes of labeled dopaminergic circuits reveal non-synaptic communication and axonal remodeling after exposure to cocaine

1. Gregg Wildenberg
2. Anastasia Sorokina
3. Jessica Koranda
4. Alexis Monical
5. Chad Heer
6. Mark Sheffield
7. Xiaoxi Zhuang
8. Daniel McGehee
9. Bobby Kasthuri

• Curated by eLife

  Evaluation Summary:

  This study investigates the morphological features of dopaminergic (DA) axons in the Nucleus Accumbens using serial electron microscopy (EM) reconstructions of genetically labelled DA axons. The authors report that DA axons (1) show extremely sparse classical synapses, (2) have varicosities with highly diverse vesicle content, and (3) undergo strong remodelling upon exposing mice to cocaine. The volume EM data set on DA axons presented is valuable. The present findings are suggestive of a mode of dopamine signaling that does not involve classical synapses and are potentially important for understanding the biology of DA neurons, whose dysfunctions have consequences on neurological disorders from Parkinson's disease to schizophrenia.

  (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

Chandelier cell anatomy and function reveal a variably distributed but common signal

1. Casey M. Schneider-Mizell
2. Agnes L. Bodor
3. Forrest Collman
4. Derrick Brittain
5. Adam A. Bleckert
6. Sven Dorkenwald
7. Nicholas L. Turner
8. Thomas Macrina
9. Kisuk Lee
10. Ran Lu
11. Jingpeng Wu
12. Jun Zhuang
13. Anirban Nandi
14. Brian Hu
15. JoAnn Buchanan
16. Marc M. Takeno
17. Russel Torres
18. Gayathri Mahalingam
19. Daniel J. Bumbarger
20. Yang Li
21. Tom Chartrand
22. Nico Kemnitz
23. William M. Silversmith
24. Dodam Ih
25. Jonathan Zung
26. Aleksandar Zlateski
27. Ignacio Tartavull
28. Sergiy Popovych
29. William Wong
30. Manuel Castro
31. Chris S. Jordan
32. Emmanouil Froudarakis
33. Lynne Becker
34. Shelby Suckow
35. Jacob Reimer
36. Andreas S. Tolias
37. Costas Anastassiou
38. H. Sebastian Seung
39. R. Clay Reid
40. Nuno Maçarico da Costa

• Curated by eLife

  Evaluation Summary:

  This paper will be of high interest to a broad audience of neuroscientists, as it provides a major advancement of our understanding of cortical circuits. The quality and quantitative nature of the neuroanatomical reconstructions at synaptic resolution are remarkable. Complementing the reconstructions with computational modeling and activity measurements, the study proposes a likely circuit function for a specific inhibitory cell type during behavior.

  (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 name with the authors.)

Reviewed by eLife

Differential adhesion regulates neurite placement via a retrograde zippering mechanism

1. Titas Sengupta
2. Noelle L Koonce
3. Nabor Vázquez-Martínez
4. Mark W Moyle
5. Leighton H Duncan
6. Sarah E Emerson
7. Xiaofei Han
8. Lin Shao
9. Yicong Wu
10. Anthony Santella
11. Li Fan
12. Zhirong Bao
13. William A Mohler
14. Hari Shroff
15. Daniel A Colón-Ramos

• Curated by eLife

  Evaluation Summary:

  This is a very interesting manuscript describing the changes of neurite position in a complex neuropil during development. The experimental system is well chosen because AIB's function within the circuit requires its neurite to be in two different neuropil "neighborhoods". The manuscript includes some technically difficult experiments of imaging neurite outgrowth in C. elegans embryos. The surprising finding here is that neurite position is not solely dependent on its growth cone navigation. In the case of the AIB neuron, the growth cone is anchored after it reaches its destination point and then a segment of the neurite shifts direction towards its final position through a zippering action. They also show that this shift in position is driven by adhesion molecules SYG-1 and SYG-2.

  (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