Neuroscience

Evaluation Summary:

This study uses the approach of labeling neurons with distinct birthdates so they can be differentiated in experiments performed later in development. The authors then test morphological, functional and circuit inputs/outputs patterns of these neurons by using immunohistochemistry, slice electrophysiology, retrograde labelling, morphological reconstructions and behavioral assays. The manuscript is likely to make a strong impact in the field of developmental neuroscience and a good impact related to more general cellular and molecular 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.)

Evaluation Summary:

This study reports that calsyntenin-3, a synaptic adhesion molecule, is expressed in cerebellar Purkinje cells and that acute knockout of calsyntenin-3 increases excitatory synapse density and decreases inhibitory synapse density. The manuscript provides compelling evidence that elimination of calsyntenin-3 from cells in the cerebellar cortex alters the E/I balance for Purkinje cells by increasing the strength of excitatory parallel fiber inputs and decreasing the strength of inhibitory inputs. However, it would have been far better to selectively target Purkinje cells, but that was not done. This is the first study showing that a particular synaptic adhesion molecule regulates excitatory and inhibitory synapse in opposite directions.

(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.)

Evaluation Summary:

The authors present the first digital adult zebrafish brain anatomy atlas that includes ten highly informative markers for different brain regions and cell types. The authors utilize new clearing techniques to enable staining of the whole fixed zebrafish adult brains, and light sheet microscopy fluorescent imaging to obtain high resolution three-dimensional data. Several individual dataset for each marker are registered and aligned to an anatomical model using fluorescent cell nuclei and autofluorescence patterns by state of the art volume registration algorithms. The results appear to be of high quality. The authors also provide a detailed and state-of-the-art anatomical annotation of brain regions. Using ten different antibodies to fluorescently label different neuron types, stem cells and glia, proliferation zones, and some specific anatomical regions, the authors demonstrate the utility of their database. This will be a valuable resource for neurobiology research in zebrafish.

(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.)

Evaluation Summary:

This study will be of interest to scientists involved in high-level vision. The data provide a compelling demonstration of the causal role of three key visual areas in context-based object recognition. The key claims of the manuscript are supported by the data, and are strengthened by the pre-registration of each of the three experiments.

(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.)

Evaluation Summary:

This study, which will be of interest to neuroscientists in the fields of learning and memory, somatosensation, and motor behavior, uses systems neuroscience tools to expand our view how the postero-medial (POm) nucleus of the thalamus contributes to goal-directed behavior. The reviewers suggested additional ontogenetic experiments to clarify the nature and specificity of those roles. They also indicated that certain alternative explanations to the experimental observations could be addressed for a more balanced presentation and interpretation of the results.

(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.)

Evaluation Summary:

This paper compares the properties of UV cone output synapses in different regions of the zebrafish retina using a combination of electron microscopy, quantitative imaging and computational modeling. They relate these differences to ultrastructural differences in synaptic ribbons and evaluate them using a previously-developed biophysical model for the operation of the synapse. The finding of regional differences in ribbon behavior is novel and suggests an under-appreciated degree of control of release by ribbon structure and behavior. The presentation of some of the results, particularly the model, could be strengthened.

(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.)

Evaluation Summary:

The authors assessed multivariate relations between a dimensionality-reduced symptom space and brain imaging features, using a large database of individuals with psychosis-spectrum disorders (PSD). Demonstrating both high stability and reproducibility of their approaches, this work showed a promise that diagnosis or treatment of PSD can benefit from a proposed data-driven brain-symptom mapping framework. It is therefore of broad potential interest across cognitive and translational 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. The reviewers remained anonymous to the authors.)

Evaluation Summary:

Cohen and Baldassano present analyses of a large publicly available set of neuroimaging data from children and adolescents watching an animated movie, and is likely be of interest to neuroscientists interested in methods for analyzing naturalistic neuroimaging data, or those interested in the development of narrative processing in the brain. The results are not embedded in a strong theoretical framework and it is not yet clear which hypotheses are supported and which are refuted. However, the methodological approach developed here is a valuable addition to the repertoire of developmental 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, Reviewer #2 and Reviewer #3 agreed to share their names with the authors.)

Evaluation Summary:

Vinbert et al. provide a conceptual replication on individual differences in conditioned skin conductance response during fear acquisition training and BOLD fMRI in a large sample (N=285) of healthy individuals (mono- and dizygotic twins). The authors report results that are in line with previous work and new results from a whole-brain analysis and suggest unique and shared contributions of individual brain regions. This is a timely and well-conducted replication study, the sample size is large for this area, and there are robustness (multiverse) analyses in place to ensure that findings are not driven by particular analysis choices.

(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.)

Evaluation Summary:

This article is of general interest to scientists who perform two-photon calcium imaging in vivo and explore the link between function and structure in real neural networks. The development of efficient approaches to estimate true correlations between large sets of noisy individual neurons based on realistic and thus limited observation time is a key to better understand functional local circuits. The effectiveness of the proposed method is illustrated by simulations and applied on real data, but several steps in its procedure remain to be clarified in the current form of the manuscript to be usable by a wide range of users.

(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.)