Neuroscience

Elevated DNA Damage without signs of aging in the short-sleeping Mexican Cavefish

1. Evan Lloyd
2. Fanning Xia
3. Kinsley Moore
4. Carolina Zertuche
5. Aakriti Rastogi
6. Rob Kozol
7. Olga Kenzior
8. Wesley Warren
9. Lior Appelbaum
10. Rachel L. Moran
11. Chongbei Zhao
12. Erik Duboue
13. Nicolas Rohner
14. Alex C. Keene

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  Lloyd et al. used an evolutionary comparative approach to study DNA damage repair in response to sleep deprivation in Astyanax mexicanus, highlighting how the cavefish population has evolved a reduced DNA damage response compared to the surface-dwelling population. The cavefish have elevated expression of signals commonly associated with aging but do not show evidence of reduced life span nor increased aged-linked pathology, a potentially valuable finding for the field of aging research. A link to alterations in sleep behaviour is outlined, but the evidence for such a link is incomplete.

Reviewed by eLife

Sequential Temporal Anticipation Characterized by Neural Power Modulation and in Recurrent Neural Networks

1. Xiangbin Teng
2. Ru-Yuan Zhang

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This valuable study provides insights into how the brain learns to better detect a target by predicting when the target may appear. Overall, solid evidence is provided that the power fluctuations of alpha- and beta-band oscillations can reflect the predicted occurrence time of the target, but some conclusions, especially ones related to the neural-network model and temporal gain control account, need further consideration. The study highlights an advanced EEG analysis approach as well as a close combination of human EEG analysis and computational modeling using recurrent neural networks.

Reviewed by eLife

Tonotopy is not preserved in a descending stage of auditory cortex

1. Miaoqing Gu
2. Shanshan Liang
3. Jiahui Zhu
4. Ruijie Li
5. Ke Liu
6. Xuanyue Wang
7. Frank Ohl
8. Yun Zhang
9. Xiang Liao
10. Chunqing Zhang
11. Hongbo Jia
12. Yi Zhou
13. Jianxiong Zhang
14. Xiaowei Chen

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This is an important characterization of mouse auditory cortex receptive field organization, using two-photon imaging of specific subpopulations. They demonstrate a degradation of tonotopic organization from the input to output neurons. The strength of the evidence is solid, but some controls are needed to further strengthen the conclusion.

Reviewed by eLife

Sexually dimorphic role of diet and stress on behavior, energy metabolism, and the ventromedial hypothalamus

1. Sanutha Shetty
2. Samuel J. Duesman
3. Sanil Patel
4. Pacific Huyhn
5. Sanjana Shroff
6. Anika Das
7. Disha Chowhan
8. Robert Sebra
9. Kristin Beaumont
10. Cameron S. McAlpine
11. Prashant Rajbhandari
12. Abha K. Rajbhandari

Reviewed by preLights

Mapping Serotonergic Dynamics using Drug-Modulated Molecular Connectivity

1. Tudor M Ionescu
2. Mario Amend
3. Rabikul Hafiz
4. Andreas Maurer
5. Bharat Biswal Biswal
6. Hans F Wehrl
7. Kristina Herfert

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This important paper on measuring molecular connectivity using combined serotonin PET and resting-state fMRI provides both novel methods for studying the brain as well as insights into the effects of ecstasy administration. The methods are solid, with a few doubts that need to be dispelled surrounding the high anaesthetic dose used.

Reviewed by eLife

Chronic hyperactivation of midbrain dopamine neurons causes preferential dopamine neuron degeneration

1. Katerina Rademacher
2. Zak Doric
3. Dominik Haddad
4. Aphroditi Mamaligas
5. Szu-Chi Liao
6. Rose B. Creed
7. Kohei Kano
8. Zac Chatterton
9. Yuhong Fu
10. Joseph H. Garcia
11. Victoria Vance
12. Yoshitaka Sei
13. Anatol Kreitzer
14. Glenda M Halliday
15. Alexandra B. Nelson
16. Elyssa B. Margolis
17. Ken Nakamura

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  Rademacher and colleagues examined the effect of a chemogenetic approach on the integrity of the dopamine system in mice with chronically stimulated dopamine neurons. These findings are important: 1) This approach led to an axon-first degeneration over a time course of 2-4 weeks; 2) The finding that direct excitation of dopaminergic neurons causes differential degeneration sheds light on dopaminergic neuron selective vulnerability mechanisms. Overall, the strength of the evidence is solid, but the behavior experiments that do not include a CNO control provide incomplete support for the findings.

Reviewed by eLife

Distinct release properties of glutamate/GABA co-transmission serve as a frequency-dependent filtering of supramammillary inputs

1. Himawari Hirai
2. Kohtarou Konno
3. Miwako Yamasaki
4. Masahiko Watanabe
5. Takeshi Sakaba
6. Yuki Hashimotodani

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This important work provides evidence that glutamate and GABA are released from different synaptic vesicles at supramammillary axon terminals onto granule cells of the dentate gyrus. The study uses complementary electrophysiological and anatomical experimental approaches. Together, these provide solid evidence that the co-release of glutamate and GABA from different vesicles within the same terminal could modulate granule cell firing in a frequency-dependent manner, although thorough elimination of alternative mechanisms would have strengthened the study. The work will be of interest to neuroscientists investigating co-release of neurotransmitters in various synapses in the brain and those interested in subcortical control of hippocampal function.

Reviewed by eLife

Remote automated delivery of mechanical stimuli coupled to brain recordings in behaving mice

1. Justin Burdge
2. Anissa Jhumka
3. Simon Ogundare
4. Nicholas Baer
5. Sasha Fulton
6. Brittany Bistis
7. William Foster
8. Andre Toussaint
9. Miao Li
10. Yosuke M Morizawa
11. Leah Yadessa
12. Ashar Khan
13. Abednego Delinois
14. Wadzanayi Mayiseni
15. Noah Loran
16. Guang Yang
17. Ishmail Abdus-Saboor

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This study describes the development and validation of an Automated Reproducible Mechano-stimulator (ARM), a valuable tool for standardizing and automating somatosensory behavior experiments. The data supporting the use of the ARM system are compelling, though the determination of whether that device emits any sounds, including in the ultrasonic range when in operation or when at rest, would add value to the study. Nevertheless, the ARM system is anticipated to be popular amongst somatosensory and pain researchers.

Reviewed by eLife

Probing PAC1 receptor activation across species with an engineered sensor

1. Reto B Cola
2. Salome N Niethammer
3. Preethi Rajamannar
4. Andrea Gresch
5. Musadiq A Bhat
6. Kevin Assoumou
7. Elyse T Williams
8. Patrick Hauck
9. Nina Hartrampf
10. Dietmar Benke
11. Miriam Stoeber
12. Gil Levkowitz
13. Sarah Melzer
14. Tommaso Patriarchi

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This fundamental paper reports a new biosensor to study G protein-coupled receptor activation by the pituitary adenylyl cyclase-activating polypeptide (PACAP) in cell culture, ex vivo (mouse brain slices), and in vivo (zebrafish, mouse). Convincing data are presented that show the new sensor works with high affinity in vitro, while requiring very high (non-physiological) concentrations of exogenous PACAP when applied to intact tissues. The sensor has not yet been used to detect endogenously released PACAP, raising questions about whether the sensor can be used for its intended purpose. While further work must be pursued to achieve broad in vivo applications under physiological conditions, the new tool will be of interest to cell biologists, especially those studying the large and significant GPCR family.

Reviewed by eLife

Combining array tomography with electron tomography provides insights into leakiness of the blood-brain barrier in mouse cortex

1. Georg Kislinger
2. Gunar Fabig
3. Antonia Wehn
4. Lucia Rodriguez
5. Hanyi Jiang
6. Cornelia Niemann
7. Andrey S Klymchenko
8. Nikolaus Plesnila
9. Thomas Misgeld
10. Thomas Müller-Reichert
11. Igor Khalin
12. Martina Schifferer

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  The present paper describes an important methodological development that combines light (confocal) microscopy with scanning and transmission EM and EM tomography. The method expands the level of structural detail accessible to large-volume EM studies and thus represents an approach to integrate analyses of cellular and sub-cellular structures in biological samples. The study, which provides a compelling proof-of-principle, will be of particular value to cell biologists interested in the in-depth interpretation of high-resolution ultrastructural information from sparsely distributed targets - at multiple scales and in diverse biological structures.

Reviewed by eLife