Neuroscience

Assemblies, synapse clustering, and network topology interact with plasticity to explain structure-function relationships of the cortical connectome

1. András Ecker
2. Daniela Egas Santander
3. Marwan Abdellah
4. Jorge Blanco Alonso
5. Sirio Bolaños-Puchet
6. Giuseppe Chindemi
7. Dhuruva Priyan Gowri Mariyappan
8. James B Isbister
9. James King
10. Pramod Kumbhar
11. Ioannis Magkanaris
12. Eilif B Muller
13. Michael W Reimann

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This useful study presents a biologically realistic, large-scale cortical model of the rat's non-barrel somatosensory cortex, investigating synaptic plasticity of excitatory connections under varying patterns of external activations and characterizing relations between network architecture and plasticity outcomes. The model offers an impressive level of biological detail, addressing many aspects of the cellular and network anatomy and properties, and investigating their relationships to the biologically plausible plasticity. The numerical simulations appear to be well executed and documented, providing an excellent resource to the community. The evidence supporting the main conclusions is solid with results being more observational in nature, and minor weaknesses relating to the lack of explanatory power of causal relationships and mechanisms.

Reviewed by eLife

Cross-modal interaction of Alpha Activity does not reflect inhibition of early sensory processing: A frequency tagging study using EEG and MEG

1. Marion Brickwedde
2. Rupali Limachya
3. Roksana Markiewicz
4. Emma Sutton
5. Christopher Postzich
6. Kimron Shapiro
7. Ole Jensen
8. Ali Mazaheri

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This manuscript addresses the role of alpha oscillations in sensory gain control. The authors use an attention-cuing task in an initial EEG study followed by a separate MEG replication study to demonstrate that whilst (occipital) alpha oscillations are increased when anticipating an auditory target, so is visual responsiveness as assessed with frequency tagging. The authors propose that their results demonstrate a general vigilance effect on sensory processing and offer a re-interpretation of the inhibitory role of the alpha rhythm. While some concerns remain about the interpretation of the alpha inhibition hypothesis, these results are valuable, and the provided evidence is solid.

Reviewed by eLife

Distinct neural bases of subcomponents of the attentional blink

1. Swagata Halder
2. Deepak Velgapuni Raya
3. Devarajan Sridharan

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This study provides an important contribution to our understanding of the mechanisms underlying the limited capacity to process rapid sequences of visual stimuli. It reports convincing evidence that the attentional blink affects neurally separable processes of visual detection and discrimination. The study will be of interest to neuroscientists and psychologists investigating perception and attention.

Reviewed by eLife

Probing the role of synaptic adhesion molecule RTN4RL2 in setting up cochlear connectivity

1. Nare Karagulyan
2. Maja Überegger
3. Yumeng Qi
4. Norbert Babai
5. Florian Hofer
6. Lejo Johnson Chacko
7. Fangfang Wang
8. Maria Luque
9. Rudolf Glueckert
10. Anneliese Schrott-Fischer
11. Yunfeng Hua
12. Tobias Moser
13. Christine Bandtlow

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  In this work, the authors characterize the synaptic adhesion molecule RTN4RL2, demonstrating its critical involvement in the development and function of auditory synapses between inner hair cells and spiral ganglion neurons. This study is important because it offers potential insights into therapeutic strategies for hearing loss associated with synaptic dysfunction. The findings are solid, because they are supported by the use of multiple advanced techniques, including FISH and SBEM imaging.

Reviewed by eLife

The replication principle revisited: a shared functional organization between pulvinar-cortical and cortico-cortical connectivity and its structural and molecular imaging correlates

1. Gianpaolo Antonio Basile
2. Augusto Ielo
3. Lilla Bonanno
4. Antonio Cerasa
5. Giuseppe Santoro
6. Demetrio Milardi
7. Giuseppe Pio Anastasi
8. Ambra Torre
9. Sergio Baldari
10. Riccardo Laudicella
11. Michele Gaeta
12. Marina Quartu
13. Maria Pina Serra
14. Marcello Trucas
15. Angelo Quartarone
16. Manojkumar Saranathan
17. Alberto Cacciola

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This study presents a useful characterisation of the topographical organisation of the human pulvinar, an associative thalamic subregion crucial for visual perception and attention. The evidence supporting the conclusions is solid given the multimodal validation and replication across datasets, although even higher-resolution imaging data would have strengthened the study. In their revised manuscript, the authors elaborated further on the motivation for their study and conducted several robustness checks. Nevertheless, there remains an opportunity for a more fully integrated interpretation of the findings. The work would be of interest to neuroscientists, neurologists, and neuropsychiatrists working on pulvinar functioning in health and disease.

Reviewed by eLife

Cerebellar Purkinje cell stripe patterns reveal a differential vulnerability and resistance to cell loss during normal aging in mice

1. Sarah G Donofrio
2. Cheryl Brandenburg
3. Amanda M Brown
4. Tao Lin
5. Hsiang-Chih Lu
6. Roy V Sillitoe

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This study presents valuable findings on the patterned loss of Purkinje cells in the mouse cerebellum during aging. Convincing evidence shows that Purkinje cell loss with aging occurs in a pattern of parasagittal stripes in relationship with the zebrin-II expression pattern. Further evidence supporting the Purkinje cell aging loss pattern as it relates to human cerebellar aging would strengthen the study.

Reviewed by eLife

Locus coeruleus modulation of single-cell representation and population dynamics in the mouse prefrontal cortex during attentional switching

1. Marco Nigro
2. Lucas Silva Tortorelli
3. Machhindra Garad
4. Natalie E Zlebnik
5. Hongdian Yang

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This study presents a valuable finding on how the locus coeruleus modulates the involvement of medial prefrontal cortex in set shifting using calcium imaging. The evidence supporting the claims was viewed as incomplete, although a more rigorous statistical comparison of intradimensional vs. extradimensional stages of the task, either in behavior or in the calcium imaging data, would help to address this concern. The work is of broad interest to those studying flexible cognition.

Reviewed by eLife

Evolution of lateralized gustation in nematodes

1. Marisa Mackie
2. Vivian Vy Le
3. Heather R Carstensen
4. Nicole R Kushnir
5. Dylan L Castro
6. Ivan M Dimov
7. Kathleen T Quach
8. Steven J Cook
9. Oliver Hobert
10. Sreekanth H Chalasani
11. Ray L Hong

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  Mackie and colleagues present a valuable comparison of lateralized gustation in two well-studied nematodes. Their results present convincing evidence that ASEL/R lateralization exists and is achieved by different means in P. pacificus compared to C. elegans. This work will be of interest to neurobiologists interested in how small nervous systems make sense of the environment, and how evolution can take multiple paths to asymmetry within a neuron class.

Reviewed by eLife

Topographically organized dorsal raphe activity modulates forebrain sensory-motor computations and adaptive behaviors

1. Aytac Kadir Mutlu
2. Bram Serneels
3. Christoph Wiest
4. Anh-Tuan Trinh
5. Ricarda Bardenhewer
6. Fabrizio Palumbo
7. Oda Bjørnevik Frisvold
8. Inger Kristine Fjeldskaar Aukrust
9. Anna Maria Ostenrath
10. Emre Yaksi

Reviewed by preLights

Cortical astrocyte activation triggers meningeal nociception and migraine-like pain

1. Dara Bree
2. Jun Zhao
3. Jennifer Stratton
4. Dan Levy

Reviewed by preLights