Neuroscience

Neural excitability and sensory input determine intensity perception with opposing directions in initial cortical responses

1. Tilman Stephani
2. Alice Hodapp
3. Mina Jamshidi Idaji
4. Arno Villringer
5. Vadim V Nikulin

• Curated by eLife

  Evaluation Summary:

  Stephani et al. address the question of how ongoing fluctuations in neuronal excitability, as well as stimulus strength, impact the perception of above-threshold tactile stimuli and the subsequent stimulus-evoked brain activity. The results are puzzling in an interesting way, and while the authors provide a nicely parsimonious explanation rooted in the underlying neurophysiology, editors and reviewers think this study has the potential to further motivate many lines of investigation. This manuscript will be of interest mainly to researchers using electrophysiological methods (EEG, MEG, ECoG etc.), as the authors have produced a very high-quality EEG data-set (including uncommon peripheral measurements).

  (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

Disrupting cortico-cerebellar communication impairs dexterity

1. Jian-Zhong Guo
2. Britton A Sauerbrei
3. Jeremy D Cohen
4. Matteo Mischiati
5. Austin R Graves
6. Ferruccio Pisanello
7. Kristin M Branson
8. Adam W Hantman

• Curated by eLife

  Evaluation Summary:

  The present paper investigated the role of cortico-cerebellar loops in motor control with high density physiological recordings and by using optogenetics to perturb responses of precerebellar neurons in the pontine nuclei during reaching. The study adds to a long line of work supporting the view that the cortico-cerebellar pathway is required for fine motor control. The experiments are well performed, but a number of revisions in analysis and presentation are required.

  (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

Cellular, circuit and transcriptional framework for modulation of itch in the central amygdala

1. Vijay K Samineni
2. Jose G Grajales-Reyes
3. Gary E Grajales-Reyes
4. Eric Tycksen
5. Bryan A Copits
6. Christian Pedersen
7. Edem S Ankudey
8. Julian N Sackey
9. Sienna B Sewell
10. Michael R Bruchas
11. Robert W Gereau

• Curated by eLife

  Evaluation Summary:

  This work will be of general interest to neuroscientists, especially those studying how the brain processes itch stimuli and controls itch-related behavior. The authors show that specific cells in the central amygdala (and their communication with other parts of the brain) play an important role in itching (pruritic) behavior. Overall, the authors provides several lines of evidence to support their conclusions.

  (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 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.)

Reviewed by eLife

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.)

Reviewed by eLife

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.)

Reviewed by eLife

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.)

Reviewed by eLife

Constructing an adult orofacial premotor atlas in Allen mouse CCF

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

Reviewed by eLife