Neuroscience

Alcohol attenuates CRF-induced excitatory effects from the extended amygdala to dorsostriatal cholinergic interneurons

1. Amanda Essoh
2. Xueyi Xie
3. Himanshu Gangal
4. Zhenbo Huang
5. Ruifeng Chen
6. Ziyi Li
7. Xuehua Wang
8. Valerie Vierkant
9. Miguel A Garza
10. Lierni Ugartemendia
11. Maria E Secci
12. Nicholas W Gilpin
13. Nicholas J Justice
14. Robert O Messing
15. Jun Wang

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This important work shows that corticotrophin-releasing factor is delivered monosynaptically to dorsal striatal cholinergic interneurons from the central amygdala and bed nucleus of the stria terminalis. CRF increases cholinergic interneuron firing and release of acetylcholine, and this action is attenuated by pre-exposure to ethanol, suggesting a potential role in stress- and alcohol use disorders. This revision addressed prior concerns, presented convincing evidence supporting the conclusions, and set the stage for additional studies.

Reviewed by eLife

Synaptic Encoding of Time in Working Memory

1. Gianluigi Mongillo
2. Misha Tsodyks

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This paper develops a fundamental theory that explains how the brain can hold in working memory not only the identity but also the order of presented stimuli. Previous theories did not explain the ability of people to immediately recall the correct order of the stimulus presentation. The authors present compelling evidence that this can be achieved through synaptic augmentation, an experimentally observed phenomenon with a time scale of tens of seconds.

Reviewed by eLife

Multi-talker speech comprehension at different temporal scales in listeners with normal and impaired hearing

1. Jixing Li
2. Qixuan Wang
3. Qian Zhou
4. Lu Yang
5. Yutong Shen
6. Shujian Huang
7. Shaonan Wang
8. Liina Pylkkänen
9. Zhiwu Huang

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This valuable study a computational language model, i.e., HM-LSTM, to quantify the neural encoding of hierarchical linguistic information in speech, and addresses how hearing impairment affects neural encoding of speech. Overall the evidence for the findings is solid, although the evidence for different speech processing stages could be strengthened by a more rigorous temporal response function (TRF) analysis. The study is of potential interest to audiologists and researchers who are interested in the neural encoding of speech.

Reviewed by eLife

Improved inference of latent neural states from calcium imaging data

1. Stephen Keeley
2. David Zoltowski
3. Adam Charles
4. Jonathan Pillow

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This valuable study provides a practical computational framework for inferring latent neural states directly from calcium fluorescence recordings, bypassing the traditional need for a separate spike deconvolution step. The evidence supporting the method is solid, featuring rigorous validation across multiple latent variable model families (including HMM, GPFA, and LFADS) using both simulated and experimental data. However, the assessment of the method's generality would be further strengthened by application to a broader range of experimental datasets, such as recordings from different brain regions or using different calcium indicators.

Reviewed by eLife

Distinct goal location beta frequency dynamics in hippocampus and prefrontal cortex across learning

1. Glingna Wang
2. Nan Zhou
3. Zachary M Leveroni
4. Jai Y Yu

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This paper represents a valuable contribution to our understanding of how LFP oscillations and beta band coordination between the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex of rats may relate to learning. Enthusiasm for the reported results was moderated by the concern that some key analyses need to be done, and highly relevant details about task, data, and statistics were missing. Consequently, the reviewers considered the evidence to be incomplete in this version of the manuscript.

Reviewed by eLife

Trisomy 21 Impairs Synchronized Activity in Human Down Syndrome Cortical Excitatory Neuron Networks

1. Manuel Peter
2. Raquel Real
3. Alessio Strano
4. Hugh P. C. Robinson
5. Mark A. Smith
6. Samuel J. Barnes
7. Tania Dutta
8. Vincenzo De Paola
9. Frederick J. Livesey

Reviewed by Review Commons