Neuroscience

Restoration of locomotor function following stimulation of the A13 region in Parkinson’s mouse models

1. Linda H Kim
2. Adam Lognon
3. Sandeep Sharma
4. Michelle A Tran
5. Cecilia Badenhorst
6. Taylor Chomiak
7. Stephanie Tam
8. Claire McPherson
9. Todd E Stang
10. Shane EA Eaton
11. Zelma HT Kiss
12. Patrick J Whelan

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This valuable study reveals the pro-locomotor effects of activating a deep brain region containing diverse range of neurons in both healthy and Parkinson's disease mouse models. While the findings are solid, mechanistic insights remain limited due to the small sample size. This research is relevant to motor control researchers and offers clinical perspectives.

Reviewed by eLife

Steady-state neuron-predominant LINE-1 encoded ORF1p protein and LINE-1 RNA increase with aging in the mouse and human brain

1. Tom Bonnifet
2. Sandra Sinnassamy
3. Olivia Massiani-Beaudoin
4. Philippe Mailly
5. Heloise Monnet
6. Damarys Loew
7. Berangere Lombard
8. Nicolas Servant
9. Rajiv L Joshi
10. Julia Fuchs

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  Bonnifet et al. present data on the expression and interacting partners of the transposable element L1 in the mammalian brain. The work includes important findings addressing the potential role of L1 in aging and neurodegenerative disease. The reviewers conclude that several aspects of the study are well done and most evidence is solid, with a noted concern related to the RNA-seq analysis.

Reviewed by eLife

Projection-specific integration of convergent thalamic and retrosplenial signals in the presubicular head direction cortex

1. Louis Richevaux
2. Dongkyun Lim
3. Mérie Nassar
4. Léa Dias Rodrigues
5. Constanze Mauthe
6. Ivan Cohen
7. Nathalie Sol-Foulon
8. Desdemona Fricker

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This valuable study combines anatomical tracing and slice physiology to examine how anterior thalamic and retrosplenial inputs converge in the presubiculum, a key region in the navigation circuit. The authors show that near-simultaneous co-activation of retrosplenial and thalamic inputs drives supra-linear presubiculum responses, revealing a potential cellular mechanism for anchoring the brain's head direction system to external visual landmarks. Their thorough experimental approach and analyses provide convincing evidence for the cellular basis of how the brain's internal compass may be anchored to the external world, laying the groundwork for future experimental testing in vivo.

Reviewed by eLife

Transcriptional responses to chronic oxidative stress require cholinergic activation of G-protein-coupled receptor signaling

1. Kasturi Biswas
2. Caroline Moore
3. Hannah Rogers
4. Khursheed A Wani
5. Read Pukkila-Worley
6. Daniel P Higgins
7. Amy K Walker
8. Gregory P Mullen
9. James B Rand
10. Michael M Francis

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This useful study advances our understanding of how organisms respond to chronic oxidative stress. Using the nematode C. elegans, the authors identified key neuronal signaling molecules and their receptors that are required for stress signaling and survival. The evidence supporting the conclusions is solid, with rigorous genetics, stress response analysis, and transcriptional profiling. This research will be of broad interest to neuroscientists and researchers working in the field of oxidative stress regulation.

Reviewed by eLife

Peripheral anatomy and central connectivity of proprioceptive sensory neurons in the Drosophila wing

1. Ellen Lesser
2. Anthony Moussa
3. John C Tuthill

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This important work by Lesser et al provides a first and comprehensive description of Drosophila wing proprioceptors at an EM resolution. By linking peripheral neurons with information on their morphology and connectivity in the central nervous system, the authors provide new hypotheses and tools to study proprioceptive motor control of the wing in the fruit fly. The evidence and techniques supporting this work are solid, and this resource will contribute to connectome-based modeling of fly behavior.

Reviewed by eLife

Comprehensive Neural Representations of Naturalistic Stimuli through Multimodal Deep Learning

1. Mingxue Fu
2. Guoqiu Chen
3. Yijie Zhang
4. Mingzhe Zhang
5. Yin Wang

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This study presents a valuable application of a video-text alignment deep neural network model to improve neural encoding of naturalistic stimuli in fMRI. The authors found that models based on multimodal and dynamic embedding features of audiovisual movies predicted brain responses better than models based on unimodal or static features. The evidence supporting the claims is generally solid, with clear benchmarking against baseline models. The work will be of interest to researchers in cognitive neuroscience and AI-based brain modeling.

Reviewed by eLife

NDR kinase SAX-1 controls dendrite branch-specific elimination during neuronal remodeling in C. elegans

1. Paola V. Figueroa-Delgado
2. Shaul Yogev

Reviewed by Review Commons

Representation of male features in the female mouse accessory olfactory bulb, and their stability during the estrus cycle

1. Oksana Cohen
2. Yoram Ben-Shaul

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This important work substantially advances our understanding of how accessory olfactory bulb neurons respond to social odor cues across the estrous cycle, showing that responses vary with the strain and sex of the odor source but display no consistent differences between estrous and non-estrous states. It employs a unique electrophysiology preparation that activates the vomeronasal organ pump via electric stimulation, enabling precise recordings of accessory olfactory bulb cell responses to different chemosignals in anesthetized mice. Overall, the study presents convincing findings on the stability and variability of accessory olfactory bulb response patterns, indicating that while accessory olfactory bulb detects social signals, it does not appear to interpret them based on reproductive state. This work will be of interest to those studying olfaction, social behavior, reproductive cycles, and systems neuroscience more broadly.

Reviewed by eLife

High cognitive violation of expectations is compromised in cerebellar ataxia

1. Leonardo Daniel
2. Eli Vakil
3. William Saban

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This valuable investigation provides new and solid evidence for a specific cognitive deficit in cerebellar degeneration patients. The authors use three tasks that modulate complexity and violations of cognitive expectations. They show specific slowing of reaction times in the presence of violations but not with task complexity. While some alternative interpretations of the results are possible and are discussed, the work provides a new, invaluable data point in describing the cognitive contribution of cerebellar processing.

Reviewed by eLife

Age and learning shapes sound representations in auditory cortex during adolescence

1. Benedikt Praegel
2. Feng Chen
3. Adria Dym
4. Amichai Lavi-Rudel
5. Shaul Druckmann
6. Adi Mizrahi

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This important study suggests that adolescent mice exhibit less accuracy than adult mice in a sound discrimination task when the sound frequencies are very similar. The evidence supporting this observation is solid and suggests that it arises from cognitive control differences between adolescent and adult mice. The adolescent period is largely understudied, despite its contribution to shaping the adult brain, which makes this study interesting for a broad range of neuroscientists.

Reviewed by eLife