Neuroscience

eLife Assessment

Wittkamp et al. investigated the spatiotemporal dynamics of expectation of pain using an original fMRI-EEG approach. The methods are solid and the evidence for a substantially different neural representation between the anticipatory and the actual pain period is convincing. These important findings are discussed within a general framework that encompasses their research questions, hypotheses, and analysis of results. Although the choice of conditions and their influence on the results might accept different interpretations, the manuscript is strong and contributes beneficial insights to the field.

eLife Assessment

This valuable study provides convincing evidence that white matter diffusion imaging of the right superior longitudinal fasciculus might help to develop a predictive biomarker of chronic back pain chronicity. The results are based on a discovery-replication approach with different cohorts, but the sample size is limited. The findings will interest researchers interested in the brain mechanisms of chronic pain and in developing brain-based biomarkers of chronic pain.

eLife Assessment

This work shows that newborn Thbs4-positive astrocytes generated in the adult subventricular zone (SVZ) respond to middle carotid artery occlusion (MCAO) by secreting hyaluronan at the lesion penumbra, and that hyaluronin is a chemoattractant to SVZ astrocytes. These findings are important, despite mostly descriptive, as they point to a relevant function of SVZ newborn astrocytes in the modulation of the glial scar after brain ischemia. The methods, data and analyses are convincing and broadly support the claims made by the authors with only some weaknesses.

eLife Assessment

This study describes a useful technique to improve imaging depth using confocal microscopy for imaging large, cleared samples. It is as yet unclear if their proposed technique presents a significant advance to the field since their comparisons to existing techniques remain incomplete. However, the work will be of broad interest to many researchers in different fields.

eLife Assessment

This valuable study investigates how biologically plausible learning mechanisms can support assembly formation that encodes statistics of the environment, by enabling neural sampling that is based on within-assembly connectivity strength. It convincingly shows that assembly formation can emerge from predictive plasticity in excitatory synapses, while two types of plasticity in inhibitory synapses are required: inhibitory homeostatic (predictive) plasticity and inhibitory competitive (anti-predictive) plasticity.

eLife Assessment

This timely and important study used functional near-infrared spectroscopy hyperscanning to examine the neural correlates of how group identification influences collective behavior. The work provides incomplete evidence to indicate that the synchronization of brain activity between different people underlies collective performance and that changes in brain activity patterns within individuals may, in turn, underlie this between-person synchrony. This study will be of interest to researchers investigating the neuroscience of social behaviour.

eLife Assessment

By combining psychophysics and computational modelling based on the Theory of Visual Attention, this study examines the mechanisms underlying self-prioritization by revealing the influence of self-associations on early attentional selection. While the findings are important, the experimental evidence is incomplete. The relationship between consciousness (awareness) and attention, the potential contamination by arousal, the inconsistent and unexpected results, and the distinguishing between social and perceptual tasks need to be addressed or improved. The work will be of interest to researchers in psychology, cognitive science, and neuroscience.

eLife Assessment

This valuable study investigates both online responses to, and offline replay of, visual motion sequences. Sophisticated EEG analyses provide solid evidence for both feature-specific and non-specific sequence representations, though the explanation of the statistical methods used is currently incomplete.

eLife Assessment

This important study advances our understanding of the role of dopamine in modulating pair bonding in mandarin voles by examining dopamine signaling within the nucleus accumbens across various social stimuli using state-of-the-art causal perturbations. The evidence supporting the findings is compelling, particularly cutting-edge approaches for measuring dopamine release as well as the activity of dopamine receptor populations during social bonding. However, statistical analyses were found to lack rigor and clarity, and the lack of complementary experiments in females was noted as a weakness. Additionally, the manuscript would be strengthened by placing findings within a broader framework, such as by highlighting similarities and/or differences between mandarin and prairie voles.

eLife Assessment

This work is of fundamental significance and has an exceptional level of evidence for a new population that protects against obesity-induced hypothalamic inflammation. This topic will attract attention from a broad base of readers, from hypothalamic neuroscientists to immunologists with an interest in metabolism.