Neuroscience

Non-neuronal expression of SARS-CoV-2 entry genes in the olfactory system suggests mechanisms underlying COVID-19-associated anosmia

1. David H. Brann
2. Tatsuya Tsukahara
3. Caleb Weinreb
4. Marcela Lipovsek
5. Koen Van den Berge
6. Boying Gong
7. Rebecca Chance
8. Iain C. Macaulay
9. Hsin-jung Chou
10. Russell Fletcher
11. Diya Das
12. Kelly Street
13. Hector Roux de Bezieux
14. Yoon-Gi Choi
15. Davide Risso
16. Sandrine Dudoit
17. Elizabeth Purdom
18. Jonathan S. Mill
19. Ralph Abi Hachem
20. Hiroaki Matsunami
21. Darren W. Logan
22. Bradley J. Goldstein
23. Matthew S. Grubb
24. John Ngai
25. Sandeep Robert Datta

Reviewed by ScreenIT, preLights

An oscillating computational model can track pseudo-rhythmic speech by using linguistic predictions

1. Sanne ten Oever
2. Andrea E Martin

• Curated by eLife

  Evaluation Summary:

  The topic is highly interesting and provides new insights to the ongoing debate about the role of oscillations and predictability in speech recognition. The manuscript is of broad interest to readers in the field of speech recognition and neuronal oscillations. Particularly, the authors provide a computational model which additionally to feedforward acoustic input incorporates linguistic predictions as feedback, allowing a fixed oscillator to process non-isochronous speech. The model is tested extensively by applying it to a linguistic corpus, EEG and behavioral data. It explains variations in speech duration based on linguistic predictability, and recently reported phase-dependency of speech perception, supporting the authors claims. The reviewers agreed that this study provides new insights in the current debate about the role of neural oscillations and top-down predictability in speech recognition, and that it represents an important contribution to the field of language neurobiology. Although they thought that the results support the authors' conclusions, the reviewers each raised a number of questions about the modelling and stated that greater clarity is needed in describing this.

  (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 names with the authors.)

Reviewed by eLife

Slow oscillation–spindle coupling strength predicts real-life gross-motor learning in adolescents and adults

1. Michael A Hahn
2. Kathrin Bothe
3. Dominik Heib
4. Manuel Schabus
5. Randolph F Helfrich
6. Kerstin Hoedlmoser

Reviewed by eLife

Decoding the brain state-dependent relationship between pupil dynamics and resting state fMRI signal fluctuation

1. Filip Sobczak
2. Patricia Pais-Roldán
3. Kengo Takahashi
4. Xin Yu

• Curated by eLife

  Evaluation Summary:

  Pupil diameter is used as an index of the brain's arousal system, and has traditionally thought to be a non-invasive index of specific neuromodulatory activity. It is therefore been heavily used as a measure in neuroscience. More recent data suggests a more complex picture whereby a pupil dilation might track cocktail of different neuromodulators. This paper provides firm data supporting this view, and introduces the new view that the make-up of this cocktail changes significantly over time. Pupil dynamics are linked with different neuromodulatory centers over different intervals of time. This is clearly important data across a broad range of human and animal systems 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 #1 agreed to share their name with the authors.)

Reviewed by eLife

Motor planning under uncertainty

1. Laith Alhussein
2. Maurice A Smith

• Curated by eLife

  Evaluation Summary:

  This study addresses an important debate in the field of motor control: Can motor commands generated under uncertain conditions be better explained as an average of different candidate motor programs, or by a single motor plan that minimizes the expected costs? The paper provides evidence for the latter hypothesis. Previous studies have provided clear evidence against the motor averaging hypothesis, however the present study provides the most elegant and conclusive examination of these two ideas to date. While some of the interpretation, especially of Experiment 2, requires more nuanced consideration, overall we thought the evidence presented supported the key conclusion.

  (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

Multiphasic value biases in fast-paced decisions

1. Elaine A Corbett
2. L Alexandra Martinez-Rodriguez
3. Cian Judd
4. Redmond G O'Connell
5. Simon P Kelly

• Curated by eLife

  Evaluation Summary:

  Corbett and colleagues developed a novel experimental framework to account for value biases in fast-paced decisions. For this purpose, they developed detailed computational models of how value biases can alter the decision-making process and used EEG data to constrain the estimation of model parameters and their comparison. In contrast to existing accounts which describe value biases using a single bias mechanism, they found that a more complex and dynamic pattern of mechanisms best explains the EEG and behavioral data.

  (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

Organelle calcium-derived voltage oscillations in pacemaker neurons drive food-seeking behavior in Aplysia

1. Alexis Bédécarrats
2. Laura Puygrenier
3. John Castro O’Byrne
4. Quentin Lade
5. John Simmers
6. Romuald Nargeot

• Curated by eLife

  Evaluation Summary:

  In this report the authors demonstrate convincingly that rhythmic activity in neurons that are part of the feeding CPG in Aplysia is generated via an unusual mechanism, organelle-derived intracellular calcium fluxes. The neurons that are studied (B63 neurons) play an important role in triggering cycles of motor activity and previous work from this group has demonstrated that activity in these neurons can be modified by operant conditioning. The paper was very well received by the reviewers who were impressed by the novelty of the mechanism uncovered as a driver of a fictive motor program and thus likely 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 and Reviewer #2 agreed to share their names with the authors.)

Reviewed by eLife

The human cerebellum is essential for modulating perceptual sensitivity based on temporal expectations

1. Assaf Breska
2. Richard B. Ivry

• Curated by eLife

  Evaluation Summary:

  This study provides evidence that individuals with cerebellar degeneration show reduced effects of temporal expectation on perceptual discriminability with interval timing cues, but intact effects with rhythmic cues. The authors compare individuals with cerebellar degeneration to controls, and find a selective impairment of the individuals with cerebellar degeneration to use interval-based temporal predictions to facilitate visual discrimination, whereas rhythm-based performance benefits are spared. This study is of interest to psychologists and neuroscientists investigating prediction, perception, attention, and motor control, as it demonstrates a key role for the cerebellum in mediating the effects of interval-based temporal expectation on perception.

  (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

Paradoxical neuronal hyperexcitability in a mouse model of mitochondrial pyruvate import deficiency

1. Andres De La Rossa
2. Marine H Laporte
3. Simone Astori
4. Thomas Marissal
5. Sylvie Montessuit
6. Preethi Sheshadri
7. Eva Ramos-Fernández
8. Pablo Mendez
9. Abbas Khani
10. Charles Quairiaux
11. Eric B Taylor
12. Jared Rutter
13. José Manuel Nunes
14. Alan Carleton
15. Michael R Duchen
16. Carmen Sandi
17. Jean-Claude Martinou

Reviewed by Review Commons

Increasing stimulus similarity drives nonmonotonic representational change in hippocampus

1. Jeffrey Wammes
2. Kenneth A Norman
3. Nicholas Turk-Browne

• Curated by eLife

  Evaluation Summary:

  This paper reports a timely, computationally-inspired fMRI analysis of how hippocampus-dependent memory handles overlap in the timing and visual characteristics of objects we encounter. The findings speak to discrepancies in the field over how the hippocampus responds to similarity in memories and will be of broad interest to memory researchers and computational neuroscientists. The elegant experimental approach directly tests the predictions of a theoretical framework by parametrically manipulating visual overlap between associated stimuli. The analyses are clearly reported and directly address the hypothesis. The conclusions are sound. However, these findings may not yet generalize beyond visual similarity in the context of temporal co-occurrence or statistical learning, and some concern is raised over the theoretical groundwork for hippocampal subregion predictions and how context and overlap are considered in their memory network model.

  (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