Neuroscience

Sequence action representations contextualize during early skill learning

1. Debadatta Dash
2. Fumiaki Iwane
3. William Hayward
4. Roberto F Salamanca-Giron
5. Marlene Bönstrup
6. Ethan R Buch
7. Leonardo G Cohen

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This valuable study asks how the neural representation of individual finger movements changes during the early periods of sequence learning. By combining a new method for extracting features from human magnetoencephalography data and decoding analyses, the authors provide solid evidence of an early, swift change in the brain regions correlated with sequence learning, including a set of previously unreported frontal cortical regions. The authors also show that offline contextualization during short rest periods is the basis for improved performance. Further confirmation of these results on multiple movement sequences would further strengthen the key claims.

Reviewed by eLife

Acquisition phase-specific contribution of climbing fiber transmission to cerebellum-dependent motor memory in mice

1. Jewoo Seo
2. Seung Ha Kim
3. Jaegeon Lee
4. Min Seok Kim
5. Yong-Seok Lee
6. Sang Jeong Kim

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This study presents potentially valuable insights into the role of climbing fibers in cerebellar learning. The main claim is that climbing fiber activity is necessary for optokinetic reflex adaptation, but is dispensable for its long-term consolidation. There is evidence to support the first part of this claim, though it requires a clearer demonstration of the penetrance and selectivity of the manipulation. However, support for the latter part of the claim is incomplete owing to methodological concerns, including the robustness of the CF marking and manipulation approach and the unclear efficacy of longer-duration climbing fiber activity suppression.

Reviewed by eLife

Establishing synthetic ribbon-type active zones in a heterologous expression system

1. Rohan Kapoor
2. Thanh Thao Do
3. Niko Schwenzer
4. Arsen Petrovic
5. Thomas Dresbach
6. Stephan E Lehnart
7. Rubén Fernández-Busnadiego
8. Tobias Moser

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  The authors take a synthetic approach by introducing synaptic ribbon proteins into HEK cells to analyze how these assemblies cluster calcium channels at the active zone. Using a synapse-naive heterologous expression system and overexpression-based strategy is valuable, as it establishes a promising model for studying molecular interactions at the active zone. The study is built on a solid combination of super-resolution microscopy and electrophysiology, though it currently falls short of replicating the full functional properties of native ribbon synapses and instead resembles a multiprotein complex that partially mimics ribbon-type active zones.

Reviewed by eLife

Growing Minds, Integrating Senses: Neural and Computational Insights into Age-related Changes in Audio-Visual and Tactile-Visual Learning in Children

1. Nina Raduner
2. Carmen Providoli
3. Sarah V. Di Pietro
4. Maya Schneebeli
5. Iliana I. Karipidis
6. Ella Casimiro
7. Saurabh Bedi
8. Michael von Rhein
9. Nora M. Raschle
10. Christian C. Ruff
11. Silvia Brem

Reviewed by preLights

Induction of Human Pruriceptors from Pluripotent Stem Cells via Transcription Factors

1. Hisato Iriki
2. Ruiqi Hu
3. Xu Li
4. Erdene Baljinnyam
5. Carina Habich
6. Ichiro Imanishi
7. Loan Miller
8. Kavya Chegireddy
9. Laraib Iqbal Malik
10. Daniel Yassky
11. Aaron Ver Heul
12. Kathleen M. Smith
13. Eric R. Goedken
14. Peter Reinhardt
15. Brian S. Kim
16. Samuele G. Marro

Reviewed by Arcadia Science

Cross-species comparative connectomics reveals the evolution of an olfactory circuit

1. Ruairí J.V. Roberts
2. Christoph Giez
3. Serene Dhawan
4. Song Pang
5. Nadine Randel
6. Zhiyuan Lu
7. Hui Gong
8. Léonard Dekens
9. James Di Frisco
10. C. Shan Xu
11. Harald F. Hess
12. Marta Zlatic
13. Albert Cardona
14. Lucia L. Prieto-Godino

Reviewed by Arcadia Science

Microglia replacement by ER-Hoxb8 conditionally immortalized macrophages provides insight into Aicardi-Goutières Syndrome neuropathology

1. Kelsey M Nemec
2. Genevieve Uy
3. V Sai Chaluvadi
4. Freddy S Purnell
5. Bilal Elfayoumi
6. Leila Byerly
7. Micaela L O’Reilly
8. Carleigh A O’Brien
9. William H Aisenberg
10. Sonia I Lombroso
11. Xinfeng Guo
12. Niklas Blank
13. Chet Huan Oon
14. Fazeela Yaqoob
15. Brian Temsamrit
16. Priyanka Rawat
17. Christoph A Thaiss
18. Will Bailis
19. Adam P Williamson
20. Qingde Wang
21. Mariko L Bennett
22. F Chris Bennett

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This revised study describes an important new model for in vivo manipulation of microglia, exploring how mutations in the Adar1 gene within microglia contribute to Aicardi-Goutières Syndome. The methodology is validated with exceptional data, supporting the authors' conclusions. The paper underscores both the advantages and limitations of using transplanted cells as a surrogate for microglia, making it a resource that is of value for biologists studying macrophages and microglia.

Reviewed by eLife

On-Demand Seizures Facilitate Rapid Screening of Therapeutics for Epilepsy

1. Yuzhang Chen
2. Brian Litt
3. Flavia Vitale
4. Hajime Takano

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  The authors modified a common method to induce epilepsy in mice to provide an improved approach to screen new drugs for epilepsy. This is important because of the need to develop new drugs for patients who are refractory to current medications. The authors' method evokes seizures to circumvent a low rate of spontaneous seizures and the approach was validated using two common anti-seizure medications. The strength of evidence was solid, making the study invaluable, but there were some limitations to the approach and methods.

Reviewed by eLife

3D directional tuning in the orofacial sensorimotor cortex during natural feeding and drinking

1. Victoria B Hosack
2. Fritzie Arce-McShane

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This study characterises motor and somatosensory cortex neural activity during naturalistic eating and drinking tongue movement in nonhuman primates. The data, which include electrophysiology, three-dimensional tracking of tongue movements, and nerve block manipulations, are valuable to neuroscientists and neural engineers interested in tongue use. Although the current analyses provide a solid description of single neuron activity in these areas, both the population level analyses and the characterisation of activity changes following nerve block could be improved.

Reviewed by eLife

A novel mouse model for LAMA2-related muscular dystrophy with analysis of molecular pathogenesis and clinical phenotype

1. Dandan Tan
2. Yidan Liu
3. Huaxia Luo
4. Qiang Shen
5. Xingbo Long
6. Luzheng Xu
7. Jieyu Liu
8. Nanbert A Zhong
9. Hong Zhang
10. Hui Xiong

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This useful manuscript reports on a new mouse model for LAMA2-MD, a rare but very severe congenital muscular dystrophy. The knockout mice were generated by removing exon3 in the Lama2 gene, which results in a frameshift in exon4 and a premature stop codon. These animals lack any laminin-alpha2 protein and confirm results from previous Lama2 knockout models. Additionally, this study includes weak transcriptomics data that might be a good resource for the field. However, experimental evidence, methods, and data analyses supporting the main claims of the manuscript are incomplete.

Reviewed by eLife