Neuroscience

Molecular reconstruction of recurrent evolutionary switching in olfactory receptor specificity

1. Lucia L Prieto-Godino
2. Hayden R Schmidt
3. Richard Benton

• Curated by eLife

  Evaluation Summary:

  This study investigates evolutionary changes in ligand preference that occur in an olfactory receptor (IR75a) across the Drosophila phylogeny. The authors find that IR75a displays different odor preferences, for acetic acid or butyric acid, across Drosophila species, and link odor preference to particular protein mutations in the receptor. Reconstruction of a putative ancestral IR75a revises the timeline for IR75a evolution, and structural modeling suggests how mutations alter odor preference.

  (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

The anterior cingulate cortex and its role in controlling contextual fear memory to predatory threats

1. Miguel Antonio Xavier de Lima
2. Marcus Vinicius C Baldo
3. Fernando A Oliveira
4. Newton Sabino Canteras

• Curated by eLife

  Evaluation Summary:

  The manuscript used a naturalistic task where mice were fear conditioned to a context using a live predator (cat) and a variety of behavioural measures including freezing, risk assessment, and exploration. The identification of anterior cingulate cortex and its input and outputs in contextual fear acquisition and expression to predator threat is an important contribution to our understanding of neural mechanism related to fear processing. The paper will be of interest to researchers interested in using naturalistic threats in the lab, and to a more broad audience interested in learning and the related fear circuits.

  (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

Social selectivity and social motivation in voles

1. Annaliese K Beery
2. Sarah A Lopez
3. Katrina L Blandino
4. Nicole S Lee
5. Natalie S Bourdon

• Curated by eLife

  Evaluation Summary:

  This paper introduces a new method to measure motivation to engage with familiar or unfamiliar individuals in prairie voles, a widely used animal model system for studying social relationships. The authors show that female prairie voles will work harder to access both familiar pair-bonded males or familiar females. In contrast, male prairie voles will work to access both pair-bonded females as well as unfamiliar females. These results cast a new light on decades of work based partner-preference tests that assess pair bonds that do not assess the role of motivation.

  (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

Chemoreceptor co-expression in Drosophila melanogaster olfactory neurons

1. Darya Task
2. Chun-Chieh Lin
3. Alina Vulpe
4. Ali Afify
5. Sydney Ballou
6. Maria Brbic
7. Philipp Schlegel
8. Joshua Raji
9. Gregory SXE Jefferis
10. Hongjie Li
11. Karen Menuz
12. Christopher J Potter

• Curated by eLife

  Evaluation Summary:

  A combination of methods. including a new method for tagging genes, demonstrates that the chemosensory co-receptors of Drosophila melanogaster (Orco, IR8a, IR25a, IR76b) are expressed widely and highly overlapping. These findings challenge a long-standing dogma in the field and suggest that different types of receptors, i.e. olfactory and ionotropic receptors, can be co-expressed in the same chemosensory neuron. Moreover, optogenetics and single sensillum recordings provide evidence that IR25a co-receptor might modulate the activity of typical Orco-dependent olfactory sensory neurons.

  (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

Wnt signaling mediates acquisition of blood–brain barrier properties in naïve endothelium derived from human pluripotent stem cells

1. Benjamin D Gastfriend
2. Hideaki Nishihara
3. Scott G Canfield
4. Koji L Foreman
5. Britta Engelhardt
6. Sean P Palecek
7. Eric V Shusta

• Curated by eLife

  Evaluation Summary:

  The manuscript by Gastfriend et al. establishes a novel protocol for the differentiation of blood-brain barrier endothelial cells by activating Wnt/β-catenin signaling in human pluripotent stem cells at a critical stage of naïve endothelial progenitors. The characterization of naïve endothelial progenitors and the novel model has potential impact on basic research approaches as well as on the use of in vitro models in drug development and pharmacology. The strength of the study is the comprehensive analysis of the differentiated blood-brain barrier endothelial cells, whereas weaknesses are present in some experimental setups and data conclusion, requiring additional experimental support.

  (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

Urgency forces stimulus-driven action by overcoming cognitive control

1. Christian H Poth

• Curated by eLife

  Evaluation Summary:

  It has been shown previously that saccades are obligatorily directed to visual stimuli if they are generated under time pressure, indicating that cognitive control is reduced briefly after a stimulus onset. The present study demonstrates this temporary impairment in cognitive control is present for manual responses, can occur when the conflict arises from non-spatial features of stimuli, and therefore is more general than previously thought. The data conclusively support the conclusions of the paper.

  (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

Effects of arousal and movement on secondary somatosensory and visual thalamus

1. Gordon H Petty
2. Amanda K Kinnischtzke
3. Y Kate Hong
4. Randy M Bruno

• Curated by eLife

  Evaluation Summary:

  The authors show that secondary thalamic region POm provides information on slow as opposed to rapid changes in whisker angular position; these appear to be secondary to changes in the animal's behavioral state. The authors find similar state dependent activity in LP, a higher level visual thalamic nucleus. This is a timely study in that many labs have observed state-dependent activity throughout the cortex and thalamus, but the mechanisms of this activity are incompletely understood. This study brings us closer to revealing the source of this signal by ruling out some of the likely candidates, such as reafferent signals and cortical feedback.

  (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

Specialized neurons in the right habenula mediate response to aversive olfactory cues

1. Jung-Hwa Choi
2. Erik R Duboue
3. Michelle Macurak
4. Jean-Michel Chanchu
5. Marnie E Halpern

• Curated by eLife

  Evaluation Summary:

  The three reviewers have appreciated the novelty and originality of the study, but note that improved visualization, quantifications and statistical analyses will be necessary to fully support the conclusions of the manuscript. Without performing these quantifications and statistical tests for all figures as detailed below, the magnitude and significance of reported effects are not clear, nor do they take into account the variability of the measures and the dependence of some of the measures.

  (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 and Reviewer #3 agreed to share their names with the authors.)

Reviewed by eLife

An Algorithmic Barrier to Neural Circuit Understanding

1. Venkatakrishnan Ramaswamy

Reviewed by eLife