Neuroscience

COVID ‐19 Infection Enhances Susceptibility to Oxidative Stress–Induced Parkinsonism

1. Richard J. Smeyne
2. Jeffrey B. Eells
3. Debotri Chatterjee
4. Matthew Byrne
5. Shaw M. Akula
6. Srinivas Sriramula
7. Dorcas P. O'Rourke
8. Peter Schmidt

Reviewed by ScreenIT

TREM2 regulates purinergic receptor-mediated calcium signaling and motility in human iPSC-derived microglia

1. Amit Jairaman
2. Amanda McQuade
3. Alberto Granzotto
4. You Jung Kang
5. Jean Paul Chadarevian
6. Sunil Gandhi
7. Ian Parker
8. Ian Smith
9. Hansang Cho
10. Stefano L Sensi
11. Shivashankar Othy
12. Mathew Blurton-Jones
13. Michael D Cahalan

• Curated by eLife

  Evaluation Summary:

  Microglia are a key cell type in the brain that clear debris following tissue injury, infections, or in neurodegenerative diseases. This role is influenced strongly by directed migration of microglia towards the regions of brain injury or infection. TREM2 is a myeloid protein expressed in microglia that has been linked to Alzheimer's Disease, but the mechanisms of how TREM2 loss-of-function mutations affect microglial function is unclear. Here, Jairaman and colleagues address this question using CRISPR-based knockout of TREM2 in human iPSC-derived microglia. The study finds that TREM2 KO microglia have greatly exaggerated ADP/ATP evoked Ca signals, which is found to arise from increases in P2Y12 and P2Y13 receptor expression and enhanced receptor-evoked Ca signaling. TREM2 KO microglia show alterations in cell migration, which include, on the one hand, increased cell motility, but also reduced turning, and importantly, markedly reduced directed migration. The experiments and analysis are carefully performed using appropriate controls and the results are novel and add to our understanding of how loss-of-function TREM2 mutations impact microglial migration and the ensuing microglia-mediated clearance of plaques and damage seen in AD. Several weaknesses cloud the interpretation, but if appropriately addressed, this could be an important paper for the field.

  (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 agreed to share their name with the authors.)

Reviewed by eLife

Self-organization of in vitro neuronal assemblies drives to complex network topology

1. Priscila C Antonello
2. Thomas F Varley
3. John Beggs
4. Marimélia Porcionatto
5. Olaf Sporns
6. Jean Faber

• Curated by eLife

  Evaluation Summary:

  This manuscript is of interest to readers working on neuronal network dynamics and development. It uses an in vitro model to characterize the emergence of complex topology in neuronal circuits. The presented mathematical tools for data analysis are sophisticated and supported by numerical simulations. However, further investigation is required to delineate the specific mechanisms of network formation.

  (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

Assessing functional connectivity differences and work-related fatigue in surviving COVID-negative patients

1. Rakibul Hafiz
2. Tapan Kumar Gandhi
3. Sapna Mishra
4. Alok Prasad
5. Vidur Mahajan
6. Benjamin H. Natelson
7. Xin Di
8. Bharat B. Biswal

Reviewed by ScreenIT

Endurance exercise ameliorates phenotypes in Drosophila models of spinocerebellar ataxias

1. Alyson Sujkowski
2. Kristin Richardson
3. Matthew V Prifti
4. Robert J Wessells
5. Sokol V Todi

• Curated by eLife

  Evaluation Summary:

  This is important work trying to decipher some of the potential benefits and pathways from exercise. SCA2 was most impacted by exercise, and this correlated with Sestrin increases that proportionally led to decreases in the disease causing SCA2 protein (but not SCA3 so much). Sestrin alone was able to affect the disease severity in SCA2 flies, via the interaction with mTOR and the autophagy pathway.

  (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 names with the authors.)

Reviewed by eLife

Intrinsic timescales as an organizational principle of neural processing across the whole rhesus macaque brain

1. Ana MG Manea
2. Anna Zilverstand
3. Kamil Ugurbil
4. Sarah R Heilbronner
5. Jan Zimmermann

• Curated by eLife

  Evaluation Summary:

  Neural activity measured in both electrophysiological and functional neuroimaging experiments are often temporally correlated, and the timescales of such correlation in ongoing neural activity, or intrinsic neural timescales, show a hierarchical pattern across the cortical surface. The present study establishes a close link between these timescales and functional connectivity in the brains of non-human primates, suggesting that temporal autocorrelation is an important organizing feature of large-scale neural activity.

  (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

Expansion and contraction of resource allocation in sensory bottlenecks

1. Laura R Edmondson
2. Alejandro Jiménez Rodríguez
3. Hannes P Saal

• Curated by eLife

  Evaluation Summary:

  The paper develops a mathematical approach to study the allocation of cortical area to sensory representations in the presence of resource constraints. The theory is applied to study sensory representations in the somatosensory system. This problem is largely unexplored, the results are novel and can be of interest to experimental and theoretical neuroscientists.

  (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 agreed to share their name with the authors.)

Reviewed by eLife

Id2 GABAergic interneurons comprise a neglected fourth major group of cortical inhibitory cells

1. Robert Machold
2. Shlomo Dellal
3. Manuel Valero
4. Hector Zurita
5. Ilya Kruglikov
6. John Hongyu Meng
7. Jessica L Hanson
8. Yoshiko Hashikawa
9. Benjamin Schuman
10. György Buzsáki
11. Bernardo Rudy

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This is a valuable contribution to the effort to provide genetic access to and characterization of the major classes of interneurons in the mammalian neocortex. The authors develop an improved strategy for intersectionally targeting a fourth (and final) major category of diverse interneurons in the mouse, including the previously studied neurogliaform cells. They provide a detailed characterization of these cells and show convincingly that their genetic strategy can be used to identify and manipulate these cells, both in vitro and in vivo.

Reviewed by eLife

Manganese-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging reveals light-induced brain asymmetry in embryo

1. Elena Lorenzi
2. Stefano Tambalo
3. Giorgio Vallortigara
4. Angelo Bifone

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This manuscript is important as it showed an establishment of a method for looking a neuronal activity in embryos which can support the previously reported laterality in chick thalamofugal system. However, the evidence the author provided was incomplete as no actual data was provided.

Reviewed by eLife

Drosulfakinin signaling modulates female sexual receptivity in Drosophila

1. Tao Wang
2. Biyang Jing
3. Bowen Deng
4. Kai Shi
5. Jing Li
6. Baoxu Ma
7. Fengming Wu
8. Chuan Zhou

• Curated by eLife

  Evaluation Summary:

  The manuscript by Wang and colleagues expands our understanding of the neural circuit mechanisms underpinning innate sexual behaviors in Drosophila. It exploits an arsenal of sophisticated tools to demonstrate that the neuropeptide Drosulfakinin (DSK) modulates female sexual receptivity via 71G01-neurons > Dsk-m-neurons > CCKLR-17D3 receptor expressing neurons. The study also introduces new transgenic tools that will be valuable for the community and will be of interest to neuroscientists exploring neuropeptide function and female sexual 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 agreed to share their name with the authors.)

Reviewed by eLife