Neuroscience

The structural connectome constrains fast brain dynamics

1. Pierpaolo Sorrentino
2. Caio Seguin
3. Rosaria Rucco
4. Marianna Liparoti
5. Emahnuel Troisi Lopez
6. Simona Bonavita
7. Mario Quarantelli
8. Giuseppe Sorrentino
9. Viktor Jirsa
10. Andrew Zalesky

• Curated by eLife

  Evaluation Summary:

  The present paper addresses the relationship between the electrophysiological and the anatomical connectomes, utilising a method to describe avalances of activity. The editors feel that this work might be pushing the limits of MEG as a modality, since it implies more spatial precision that most would assume possible, which makes the manuscript particularly interesting to M/EEG researchers. While all reviewers agree that the paper has broad interest and the method is promising, some potential concerns have however been raised that compromise the validity of the results. Most importantly: the issue of volume conduction (proximity) driving the results as opposed to anatomical connectivity, which in the worst case could deemed the results trivial. Other confounds, such as the size of the parcels and their SNR, would also require major review.

  (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

Stress diminishes outcome but enhances response representations during instrumental learning

1. Jacqueline Katharina Meier
2. Bernhard P Staresina
3. Lars Schwabe

• Curated by eLife

  Evaluation Summary:

  The authors used EEG-based multivariate pattern analysis and acute stress induction to assess the neural representations mediating a previously demonstrated influence of stress on the balance between goal-directed and habitual responding. While the results should be of interest to a wide range of neuroscientists, the temporal alignment of clinical, behavioral, and neural measures somewhat obscures the underlying causal mechanisms.

  (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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Fully autonomous mouse behavioral and optogenetic experiments in home-cage

1. Yaoyao Hao
2. Alyse Marian Thomas
3. Nuo Li

• Curated by eLife

  Evaluation Summary:

  This manuscript describes extensively a fully automated procedure to train mice to perform voluntary head-fixation, and a whisker-based tactile discrimantion task. In addition the authors demonstrate that with this procedure, light illumination of red-shifted opsins expressed in inhibitory neurons can be used to selectively silence targeted brain regions during the task in a non-invasive manner. Together, although volontary head-fixation training and automated behavior has been readily implemented in different contexts, this study elegantly delineates important steps to boost the acceptancy and duration of head-fixations and thereby train more complex tasks. The demonstration of transcranial optogenetics in this context also opens the possibility to perform precise brain inactivations during well-controlled sensory stimulations, in self-initiated 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 #3 agreed to share their names with the authors.)

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Increased theta/alpha synchrony in the habenula-prefrontal network with negative emotional stimuli in human patients

1. Yongzhi Huang
2. Bomin Sun
3. Jean Debarros
4. Chao Zhang
5. Shikun Zhan
6. Dianyou Li
7. Chencheng Zhang
8. Tao Wang
9. Peng Huang
10. Yijie Lai
11. Peter Brown
12. Chunyan Cao
13. Huiling Tan

• Curated by eLife

  Evaluation Summary:

  Since DBS of the habenula is a new treatment, these are the first data of its kind and potentially of high interest to the field. Although the study mostly confirms findings from animal studies rather than bringing up completely new aspects of emotion processing, it certainly closes a knowledge gap. This paper is of interest to neuroscientists studying emotions and clinicians treating psychiatric disorders. Specifically the paper shows that the habenula is involved in processing of negative emotions and that it is synchronized to the prefrontal cortex in the theta band. These are important insights into the electrophysiology of emotion processing in the human brain.

  (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.)

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Metal microdrive and head cap system for silicon probe recovery in freely moving rodent

1. Mihály Vöröslakos
2. Peter C. Petersen
3. Balázs Vöröslakos
4. György Buzsáki

• Curated by eLife

  Evaluation Summary:

  The manuscript describes an improved methodology for performing electrophysiological experiments (involving recording of the activity of tens or hundreds of neurons in the brain simultaneously) in freely behaving mice and rats using silicon probes. By providing a versatile microdrive and head cap design for rodents, this paper may contribute to ease silicon probe chronic recording and recovery, thus reducing experimental costs and making the technique more accessible. The paper is expected to appeal to a broad range of systems neuroscientists who seek to understand how the brain commands movement and 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 #3 agreed to share their names with the authors.)

Reviewed by eLife

Evidence for a deep, distributed and dynamic code for animacy in human ventral anterior temporal cortex

1. Timothy T Rogers
2. Christopher R Cox
3. Qihong Lu
4. Akihiro Shimotake
5. Takayuki Kikuchi
6. Takeharu Kunieda
7. Susumu Miyamoto
8. Ryosuke Takahashi
9. Akio Ikeda
10. Riki Matsumoto
11. Matthew A Lambon Ralph

• Curated by eLife

  Evaluation Summary:

  This manuscript will be of interest to neuroscientists and psychologists interested in how semantic information is encoded in the brain. It provides a framework for a model driven comparison of semantic encoding in recurrent neural networks and neural data. Limitations in the ways the neural data are analyzed and compared to the model provide only limited support for the major claim regarding the nature of the semantic code in human anterior temporal lobe.

  (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.)

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Constructing An Adult Orofacial Premotor Atlas In Allen Mouse CCF

1. Jun Takatoh
2. Jae Hong Park
3. Jinghao Lu
4. Shun Li
5. P. M. Thompson
6. Bao-Xia Han
7. Shengli Zhao
8. David Kleinfeld
9. Beth Friedman
10. Fan Wang

Reviewed by eLife

Differential dopaminergic modulation of spontaneous cortico–subthalamic activity in Parkinson’s disease

1. Abhinav Sharma
2. Diego Vidaurre
3. Jan Vesper
4. Alfons Schnitzler
5. Esther Florin

• Curated by eLife

  Evaluation Summary:

  This manuscript is of broad interest to readers in the field of clinical neuroscience and movement disorders. The identification and characterization of dynamic networks that are differentially affected by dopaminergic medication in patients with Parkinson's disease is an important contribution to our understanding of physiologic and pathologic brain activities. The used methods provide the potential to uncover spectral, local, and temporal properties of dynamic neural systems. Overall, the data are properly analyzed, although many aspects of reporting the results could be worked out better.

  (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

Psychomotor Impairments and Therapeutic Implications Revealed by a Mutation Associated with Infantile Parkinsonism-Dystonia

1. Jenny I. Aguilar
2. Mary Hongying Cheng
3. Josep Font
4. Alexandra C. Schwartz
5. Kaitlyn Ledwitch
6. Amanda Duran
7. Samuel J. Mabry
8. Andrea N. Belovich
9. Yanqi Zhu
10. Angela M. Carter
11. Lei Shi
12. Manju A. Kurian
13. Cristina Fenollar-Ferrer
14. Jens Meiler
15. Renae M. Ryan
16. Hassane S. Mchaourab
17. Ivet Bahar
18. Heinrich J. G. Matthies
19. Aurelio Galli

• Curated by eLife

  Evaluation Summary:

  Infantile parkinsonism-dystonia is a rare but devastating condition that leads to early mortality. Mutations in the dopamine transporter that decrease its transport activity or cell surface expression have been identified as potential causes of this disease. Here, Aguilar et al perform a series of experiments to examine the effect of one of the mutations, R445C, on properties of the transporter in cell culture and on motor function in newly generated transgenic flies. They also explore structure function relationships of the mutation using X-ray crystallography of LeuT, a bacterial homolog, and molecular modeling. Lastly, they show blocking lysosomal degradation rescues a motor deficit in the flies. Insights from the work could lead to new approaches to specifically modulate the transporter structure to restore surface expression and function of the mutant dopamine transporter in this disorder. This elegant and technically sophisticated analysis is of interest to readers in the fields of neurobiology, behavior, and movement disorders, as the work provides an excellent example of using a variety of different approaches to determine the relationship between transporter structure and activity and potentially underlying pathology in human disease.

  (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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Evidence accumulation, not ‘self-control’, explains dorsolateral prefrontal activation during normative choice

1. Cendri A Hutcherson
2. Anita Tusche

• Curated by eLife

  Evaluation Summary:

  This paper will be of interest to neuroscientists studying decision-making and the frontal lobe. The paper combines computational modeling with brain imaging across several datasets to better understand the role of brain regions previously implicated in self-control during normative behavior (generosity, healthy eating). On balance, the data provide more support for the view that dorsolateral prefrontal cortex is involved in reading out the evidence in favor of different choice alternatives than the view that this region implements control processes that bias choices towards normative goals.

  (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