Neuroscience

Coordinated spinal locomotor network dynamics emerge from cell-type-specific connectivity patterns

1. F David Wandler
2. Benjamin K Lemberger
3. David L McLean
4. James M Murray

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  In this valuable study, Wandler et al. provide convincing theoretical evidence for alternate mechanisms of rhythm generation by CPGs. Their model shows that cell-type-specific connectivity and a dominant inhibitory drive could underlie rhythm generation. Excitatory input could act to enhance the frequency range of these rhythms. This modeling study could motivate further experimental investigation of these mechanisms to understand CPG rhythmogenesis.

Reviewed by eLife

Neuroanatomical foundations of social tolerance across macaque species

1. Sarah Silvère
2. Julien Lamy
3. Christelle Po
4. Mathieu Legrand
5. Jerome Sallet
6. Sebastien Ballesta

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This important work compares the size of two brain areas, the amygdala and the hippocampus, across 12 species belonging to the Macaca genus. The authors find, using a convincing methodological approach, that amygdala - but not hippocampal - volume varies with social tolerance grade, with high tolerance species showing larger amygdala than low tolerance species of macaques. Interestingly, their findings also suggest an inverted developmental effect, with intolerant species showing an increase in amygdala volume across the lifespan, compared to tolerant species exhibiting the opposite trend. Overall, this paper offers new insights into the neural basis of social and emotional processing.

Reviewed by eLife

How sleeping minds decide: state-specific reconfigurations of lexical decision-making

1. Tao Xia
2. Chuan-Peng Hu
3. Basak Türker
4. Esteban Munoz Musat
5. Lionel Naccache
6. Isabelle Arnulf
7. Delphine Oudiette
8. Xiaoqing Hu

Reviewed by preLights

Disentangling acute motor deficits and adaptive responses evoked by the loss of cerebellar output

1. Nirvik Sinha
2. Sharon Israely
3. Ora Ben Harosh
4. Ran Harel
5. Julius PA Dewald
6. Yifat Prut

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  Using a unique cerebellar disruption approach in non-human primates, this study provides valuable new insight into how cerebellar inputs to the motor cortex contribute to reaching. The findings convincingly demonstrate that reaching movements following cerebellar disruption slow down because of both an acute deficit in producing muscle activity as well as a progressive decline in compensating for limb dynamics. This work will be of interest to neuroscientists and clinicians interested in cerebellar function and pathology.

Reviewed by eLife

Neural dynamics of visual working memory representation during sensory distraction

1. Jonas Karolis Degutis
2. Simon Weber
3. Joram Soch
4. John-Dylan Haynes

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This important study reports a reanalysis of one experiment of a previously-published report to characterize the dynamics of neural population codes during visual working memory in the presence of distracting information. This paper presents solid evidence that working memory representations are dynamic and distinct from sensory representations of intervening distractions. This research will be of interest to cognitive neuroscientists working on the neural bases of visual perception and memory.

Reviewed by eLife

Striatal cholinergic interneuron pause response requires Kv1 channels, is absent in dyskinetic mice, and is restored by dopamine D5 receptor inverse agonism

1. Cecilia Tubert
2. Rodrigo Manuel Paz
3. Agostina Mónica Stahl
4. Kianny Miroslava Sanchez Armijos
5. Lorena Rela
6. Mario Gustavo Murer

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  The authors investigated the mechanisms underlying the pause in striatal cholinergic interneurons (SCINs) induced by thalamic input, identifying that Kv1 channels play a key role in this burst-dependent pause. The experimental evidence is convincing.
  The study provides important mechanistic insights into how burst activity in SCINs leads to a subsequent pause, highlighting the involvement of D1/D5 receptors.

Reviewed by eLife

Group identification drives brain integration for collective performance

1. Enhui Xie
2. Shuyi Zha
3. Yiyang Xu
4. Xianchun Li

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This timely and important study used functional near-infrared spectroscopy hyperscanning to examine the neural correlates of how group identification influences collective behavior. The work provides solid evidence to indicate that the synchronization of brain activity between different people underlies collective performance and that changes in brain activity patterns within individuals may, in turn, underlie this between-person synchrony, although the order in which different task stages were completed could not be counter-balanced. This study will be of interest to researchers investigating the neuroscience of social behaviour.

Reviewed by eLife

Differential roles of NaV1.2 and NaV1.6 in neocortical pyramidal cell excitability

1. Joshua D Garcia
2. Chenyu Wang
3. Ryan PD Alexander
4. Emmie Banks
5. Timothy Fenton
6. Jean-Marc DeKeyser
7. Tatiana V Abramova
8. Alfred L George
9. Roy Ben-Shalom
10. David H Hackos
11. Kevin J Bender

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This manuscript presents a clever and powerful approach to examining differential roles of Nav1.2 and Nav1.6 channels in excitability of neocortical pyramidal neurons, by engineering mice in which a sulfonamide inhibitor of both channels has reduced affinity for one or the other channels. Overall, the results in the manuscript are compelling and give important information about differential roles of Nav1.6 and Nav1.2 channels. Activity-dependent inactivation of NaV1.6 was also found to attenuate seizure-like activity in cells, demonstrating the promise of activity-dependent NaV1.6-specific pharmacotherapy for epilepsy.

Reviewed by eLife

A neuromorphic model of active vision shows how spatiotemporal encoding in lobula neurons can aid pattern recognition in bees

1. HaDi MaBouDi
2. Mark Roper
3. Marie-Geneviève Guiraud
4. Mikko Juusola
5. Lars Chittka
6. James AR Marshall

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  Inspired by bee's visual behavior, the goal of the manuscript is to develop a model of visual scanning, visual processing and learning to recognize visual patterns. In this model, pre-training with natural images leads to the formation of spatiotemporal receptive fields that can support associative learning. Due to an incomplete test of the necessity and sufficiency of the features included in the model, it cannot be concluded that the model is either the "minimal circuit" or the most biologically plausible circuit of this system. With a more in-depth analysis, the work has the potential of being important and very valuable to both experimental and computational neurobiologists.

Reviewed by eLife

A causal role of the NMDA receptor in recurrent processing during perceptual integration

1. Samuel Noorman
2. Timo Stein
3. Jasper Zantvoord
4. Johannes Fahrenfort
5. Simon van Gaal

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This study presents a new, fundamental finding to the field interested in recurrent processing and its neuromodulatory underpinnings, finding unexpectedly that memantine (blocking NMDA-receptors) enhances the decoding of features thought to rely on NMDA-receptors. This interesting, compelling result identifies new directions for researchers studying consciousness, sensory processing, attention, and neurotransmitters.

Reviewed by eLife