Neuroscience

The transcription factor BCL11A restores differentiation potential to aged oligodendrocyte progenitor cells

1. Tanay Ghosh
2. Roey Baror
3. Chao Zhao
4. Amar Sharma
5. Nick Goldman
6. Robin JM Franklin

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This valuable study demonstrates molecular changes associated with age related impairment in oligodendrocyte differentiation and ability to myelinate. The identification of particular genes that are associated with this decline will provide potential future targets for therapeutic interventions. The reviewers felt that the quality of the evidence was solid while identifying some minor weaknesses that if addressed would enhance the rigor of the study.

Reviewed by eLife

ELECTROPHYSIOLOGICAL CORRELATES OF CONSCIOUS EXPERIENCES DURING SLEEP: LUCID DREAMS, SLEEP PARALYSIS, OUT-OF-BODY EXPERIENCES, AND FALSE AWAKENINGS

1. Nerea L. Herrero
2. Yohann Corfdir
3. Aylin A. Vázquez-Chenlo
4. Lucila Capurro
5. Cecilia Forcato

Reviewed by preLights

Ventral Hippocampal Temporoammonic and Schaffer Collateral Pathways Differentially Control Fear- and Anxiety-Related Behaviors

1. Maltesh Kambali
2. Muxiao Wang
3. Rajasekar Nagarajan
4. Jinrui Lyu
5. Howard Gritton
6. Uwe Rudolph

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  Kambali et al use optogenetic manipulations to examine whether the ventral hippocampal Schaffer collateral (vCA3-to-vCA1) and temporoammonic (EC-to-vCA1) pathways regulate anxiety- and fear-related behaviors in mice. They find that both pathways regulate the expression of fear (freezing) responses to a context and auditory conditioned stimulus paired with foot shock (trace conditioning protocol), but only the Schaffer collateral pathway regulates the expression of anxiety-related behaviors in the elevated plus maze, open field test, and Vogel conflict test. Overall, the study is valuable: it detects bidirectional effects of optogenetic excitation and inhibition in both pathways. However, the strength of the evidence in support of its main claims is incomplete.

Reviewed by eLife

Opposite and complementary roles of the two calcium thresholds for inducing LTP and LTD in models of striatal projection neurons

1. Daniel Trpevski

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This computational study constitutes an extension to prior work on biophysical calcium-based synaptic plasticity rules with metaplasticity, investigating how single neurons can learn to perform non-linear pattern classification. This important work presents a significantly simpler solution to the studied problem with potentially broad applicability, there is however incomplete evidence to support the core conclusions.

Reviewed by eLife

PSD-95 drives binocular vision maturation critical for predation

1. Subhodeep Bhattacharya
2. Livia JF Wilod Versprille
3. Cornelia Schöne
4. Oliver M Schlüter
5. Siegrid Löwel

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This valuable study describes significant differences in prey capture behavior between PSD-95 knock-out and wild-type mice, despite prior work by the same authors showing only modest visual deficits in the former. The data convincingly demonstrated prey capture performance in PSD-95 knock-out mice to improve under monocular viewing conditions. However, this finding alone was inadequate to support the interpretation of results as revealing a deficit in binocular visual integration, especially given the lack of eye and head tracking data or consideration of alternative explanations for the observed behavior.

Reviewed by eLife