Neuroscience

SARS-CoV-2 infection and viral fusogens cause neuronal and glial fusion that compromises neuronal activity

1. Ramón Martínez-Mármol
2. Rosina Giordano-Santini
3. Eva Kaulich
4. Ann-Na Cho
5. Magdalena Przybyla
6. Md Asrafuzzaman Riyadh
7. Emilija Robinson
8. Keng Yih Chew
9. Rumelo Amor
10. Frédéric A. Meunier
11. Giuseppe Balistreri
12. Kirsty R. Short
13. Yazi D. Ke
14. Lars M. Ittner
15. Massimo A. Hilliard

Reviewed by ScreenIT

Profiling sensory neuron microenvironment after peripheral and central axon injury reveals key pathways for neural repair

1. Oshri Avraham
2. Rui Feng
3. Eric Edward Ewan
4. Justin Rustenhoven
5. Guoyan Zhao
6. Valeria Cavalli

• Curated by eLife

  Evaluation Summary:

  Using single cell RNA seq, the authors characterize the sensory neuron microenvironment in dorsal root ganglia after sciatic nerve crush, dorsal root crush and dorsal column transection spinal cord injury 3 days after injury. The data revealed differentially expressed genes and pathways with sciatic nerve and dorsal root crushes co-clustering, whereas spinal cord injury largely co-clusters with uninjured. The results reveal influences of the tissue microenvironment and neuron extrinsic factors on axonal regeneration and also provide new insights into the role of PPARa signaling in regeneration after dorsal root crush. This is an impressive data collection effort across multiple cell types that will be of importance for generating new hypotheses in the field. The impact could be further broadened by increased attention to functional validation of the findings.

  (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

Simultaneous brain, brainstem, and spinal cord pharmacological-fMRI reveals involvement of an endogenous opioid network in attentional analgesia

1. Valeria Oliva
2. Ron Hartley-Davies
3. Rosalyn Moran
4. Anthony E Pickering
5. Jonathan CW Brooks

• Curated by eLife

  Evaluation Summary:

  This paper will be of great interest to researchers interested in cognitive modulations of sensory processing as well as in the brain mechanisms of pain. It shows that attentional modulations of pain are associated with changes in neural communication between cortical areas, brainstem and spinal cord which are sensitive to opioidergic but not to noradrenergic modulations. These findings are conclusively supported by state-of-the-art simultaneous pharmacological fMRI of the brain and the spinal cord.

  (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

The nematode worm C. elegans chooses between bacterial foods as if maximizing economic utility

1. Abraham Katzen
2. Hui-Kuan Chung
3. William T Harbaugh
4. Christina Della Iacono
5. Nicholas Jackson
6. Elizabeth E Glater
7. Charles J Taylor
8. Stephanie K Yu
9. Steven W Flavell
10. Paul W Glimcher
11. James Andreoni
12. Shawn R Lockery

• Curated by eLife

  Evaluation Summary:

  This paper establishes a behavioural paradigm to study concepts developed in the field of economic decision making using the tractable model organisms C. elegans. It is therefore interesting to scientists studying the neuronal mechanisms of decision making and animal cognition.

  (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

Humans actively sample evidence to support prior beliefs

1. Paula Kaanders
2. Pradyumna Sepulveda
3. Tomas Folke
4. Pietro Ortoleva
5. Benedetto De Martino

• Curated by eLife

  Evaluation Summary:

  Kaanders et al. investigate how the sampling of visual information by human subjects is biased toward their previous choice. The novel experiments and rigorous analyses largely support the presence of a 'confirmation bias' when information sampling is under the subjects' control. After ruling out some remaining alternative explanations of the observed behavior the paper will be of broad interest in cognitive neuroscience.

  (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

Memory recall involves a transient break in excitatory-inhibitory balance

1. Renée S Koolschijn
2. Anna Shpektor
3. William T Clarke
4. I Betina Ip
5. David Dupret
6. Uzay E Emir
7. Helen C Barron

• Curated by eLife

  Evaluation Summary:

  Koolschijn and colleagues present a novel and timely investigation of the balance between excitation and inhibition to explore the role of glutamate and GABA during memory retrieval. The innovative use of rapidly interleaved fMRI and fMRS provides a compelling link between successful retrieval effects in hippocampus and inhibitory/excitatory dynamics in visual cortex. The study itself is well-motivated and well executed, complementing prior cross-species work, and provides an intriguing set of results to support the major claims. This paper will be noteworthy to those interested in hippocampus-mediated cortical dynamics during memory retrieval. The rigorous methodology also demonstrates the utility of fMRS in investigating complex cognitive processes.

  (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.)

Reviewed by eLife

Schema representations in distinct brain networks support narrative memory during encoding and retrieval

1. Rolando Masís-Obando
2. Kenneth A Norman
3. Christopher Baldassano

• Curated by eLife

  Evaluation Summary:

  This paper reports a methodologically rigorous investigation into the neural mechanisms supporting encoding and retrieval of specific and general information in the context of memory schemas for events, or "scripts." Its findings will be of general interest to neuroscientists and cognitive psychologists who work both with typical young adults (as studied int he present works) and in particular populations (e.g., development and/or aging; patients with brain damage). The work is particularly comprehensive in how it links both specific and general narrative representation at both encoding and retrieval with later memory behavior, which is a notable strength.

  (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

Hippocampal sharp wave-ripples and the associated sequence replay emerge from structured synaptic interactions in a network model of area CA3

1. András Ecker
2. Bence Bagi
3. Eszter Vértes
4. Orsolya Steinbach-Németh
5. Mária R Karlócai
6. Orsolya I Papp
7. István Miklós
8. Norbert Hájos
9. Tamás F Freund
10. Attila I Gulyás
11. Szabolcs Káli

• Curated by eLife

  Evaluation Summary:

  The theoretical study by Ecker et al. designs a minimal yet biologically plausible spiking neural network model for hippocampal region CA3 in order to pinpoint the mechanistic sources of important features of population activity (namely sharp wave ripples and replay) observed in vivo. It reproduces many properties of these network events and offers explanations for the observed dynamics. In doing so it demonstrates that the synaptic connectivity patterns formed during spatial exploration may be crucial to the occurrence of these phenomena. The study will be of interest primarily to theoretical researchers because of the many innovative approaches fielded to design the network and analyse its dynamics, and potentially also to experimentalists investigating the hippocampus.

  (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.)

Reviewed by eLife

Finger somatotopy is preserved after tetraplegia but deteriorates over time

1. Sanne Kikkert
2. Dario Pfyffer
3. Michaela Verling
4. Patrick Freund
5. Nicole Wenderoth

• Curated by eLife

  Evaluation Summary:

  This paper investigates the stability of the somatotopic organization of somatosensory cortex after spinal cord injury that results in tetraplegia. The findings suggest that somatotopic maps are preserved, degrading very slowly over decades, but that the amount of spared function is a poor predictor of somatotopic stability. These findings contribute to a developing story on how sensory representations are formed and maintained and has implications for the development of brain-machine interfaces for individuals with tetraplegia. The study is interesting and the manuscript is well-written. There remain concerns about some choices taken in the analyses.

  (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

NMDA receptors in visual cortex are necessary for normal visuomotor integration and skill learning

1. Felix C Widmer
2. Sean M O'Toole
3. Georg B Keller

• Curated by eLife

  Evaluation Summary:

  This study examined the mechanism underlying the development of prediction-error related responses of neurons in the primary visual cortex (V1) evoked by the mismatch between self-generated locomotor movement and visual feedback. The authors show that unilateral gene knockout of NMDA receptors or CaMKII in the primary visual cortex impaired the mismatch-related responses in V1. The experiments are well thought out and the paper is well presented. The results suggesting a role for local plasticity in V1 will be of great interest to those researchers interested in neural circuit development as well as cortical functions.

  (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