Neuroscience

Astrocytic connexin43 phosphorylation contributes to seizure susceptibility after mild traumatic brain injury

1. Carmen Muñoz-Ballester
2. Owen Leitzel
3. Samantha Golf
4. Chelsea M Phillips
5. Michael J Zeitz
6. Rahul Pandit
7. Elizabeth Wash
8. Jenna V. Donohue
9. James W. Smyth
10. Samy Lamouille
11. Stefanie Robel

Reviewed by Review Commons

Endothelin B receptor inhibition rescues aging-dependent neuronal regenerative decline

1. Rui Feng
2. Sarah F Rosen
3. Irshad Ansari
4. Sebastian John
5. Michael B Thomsen
6. Oshri Avraham
7. Cedric G Geoffroy
8. Valeria Cavalli

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This important study examines the role of endothelin signaling in nerve regeneration, providing convincing evidence that it functions as a default brake on axon regrowth. Inhibiting endothelin signaling with Bosentan promotes regeneration and counteracts the decline in regenerative potential caused by aging. Since Bosentan is an FDA-approved drug, these findings could have therapeutic value in clinical settings where peripheral nerve regeneration is not adequate or seriously impaired, as is often the case in older individuals.

Reviewed by eLife

An applicable and efficient retrograde monosynaptic circuit mapping tool for larval zebrafish

1. Tian-Lun Chen
2. Qiu-Sui Deng
3. Kun-Zhang Lin
4. Xiu-Dan Zheng
5. Xin Wang
6. Yong-Wei Zhong
7. Xin-Yu Ning
8. Ying Li
9. Fu-Qiang Xu
10. Jiu-Lin Du
11. Xu-Fei Du

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This important study offers substantial technical advancements for neural circuit tracing in larval zebrafish, a model for systems and developmental neurobiology. The enhanced rabies virus-based retrograde transneuronal tracing improves efficiency and provides a method for combined structural and functional brain mapping. The supporting evidence is solid, and there is strong confidence in the technique's utility for neurobiologists working with zebrafish.

Reviewed by eLife

Working memory shapes neural geometry in human EEG over learning

1. Michał J Wójcik
2. Amy Li
3. Dante Wasmuht
4. Jake P Stroud
5. Mark G Stokes
6. Nicholas E Myers
7. Laurence T Hunt

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  The findings are valuable, given that they highlight the flexible and future-oriented nature of working memory. However, the evidence for the claims about context/color generalization, behavioural relevance of context decoding, dimensionality reduction, neural geometry, the XOR representation, and the specific contribution of working memory is incomplete. The work could be reframed in terms of prospective remapping.

Reviewed by eLife

The C. elegans gustatory receptor homolog LITE-1 is a chemoreceptor required for diacetyl avoidance

1. Alan Koh
2. Eduard Bokman
3. Alexey Gavrikov
4. Javier Rodriguez
5. Changchun Chen
6. Alon Zaslaver
7. André EX Brown

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  Avoidance of UV and blue light by the nematode C. elegans is mediated by the unusual transmembrane protein LITE-1, a non-canonical photoreceptor. In this valuable work, the authors provide convincing evidence that LITE-1 function is also required for avoidance of very high concentrations of the food-associated cue diacetyl, suggesting that it may also function as a diacetyl chemoreceptor. While the evidence for this idea is incomplete, these intriguing findings suggest an unexpected complexity in the function of this unusual photoreceptor.

Reviewed by eLife

Development of the axonal βII-spectrin periodic skeleton requires active cytoskeletal remodelling

1. Shivani Bodas
2. Ashish Mishra
3. Pramod Pullarkat
4. Aurnab Ghose

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This study examines how the neuronal cytoskeleton contributes to the formation of the axonal membrane-associated periodic skeleton (MPS) in embryonic dorsal root ganglia (DRG) neurons, using STED imaging. Conclusions are supported by convincing methods, data, and analyses. This useful work confirms previous data and improves our understanding of the roles of microtubules and actin dynamics in the chronological recruitment of MPS components.

Reviewed by eLife

Paraventricular Thalamus Hyperactivity Mediates Stress-Induced Sensitization of Unlearned Fear but Not Stress-Enhanced Fear Learning (SEFL)

1. Kenji J Nishimura
2. Denisse Paredes
3. Nathaniel A Nocera
4. Dhruv Aggarwal
5. Michael R Drew

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  These findings are among some of the first to identify a behavioral and neurobiological substrate that disentangles nonassociative from associative fear responses following stress, providing a fundamental push forward in the field. The evidence supporting this is convincing and uses a variety of conceptual and technological approaches. This investigation will be of interest to neuroscientists and behaviourists broadly, as well as clinicians for its relevance to post-traumatic stress disorder.

Reviewed by eLife

Economic and Social Modulations of Innate Decision-Making in Mice Exposed to Visual Threats

1. Zhe Li
2. Jiahui Wang
3. Yidan Sun
4. Jialin Li
5. Ling-yun Li
6. Ya-tang Li

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  The authors show that innate defensive behavior in mice is shaped by threat intensity, reward value, and social hierarchy, highlighting how value and social context influence instinctive decisions. The authors provide useful behavioural findings supported by strong data, yet the evidence is incomplete due to ambiguities about methodology and the computational model that remains largely descriptive.

Reviewed by eLife

A theory and recipe to construct general and biologically plausible integrating continuous attractor neural networks

1. Federico Claudi
2. Sarthak Chandra
3. Ila R Fiete

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This valuable study presents a theoretical framework for building continuous attractor networks that integrate with a wide range of topologies, which are of increasing relevance to neuroscientists. While the work offers solid evidence for most claims, the evidence supporting biological plausibility and key claims - such as the existence of a continuum of stable states and robustness across geometries - is currently incomplete and would benefit from further analysis or discussion. The study will be of interest to computational and systems neuroscientists working on neural dynamics and network models of cognition.

Reviewed by eLife

A neural mechanism for compositional generalization of structure in humans

1. Lennart Luettgau
2. Nan Chen
3. Tore Erdmann
4. Sebastijan Veselic
5. Zeb Kurth-Nelson
6. Rani Moran
7. Raymond J Dolan

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This study provides valuable insights into humans' ability to generalize knowledge of learned graph structures to new experiences that share the same structure but are built from different stimuli. However, the evidence for the authors' claims is incomplete, with the main claims of structural generalization and compositionality only partially supported by MEG and behavioral data. This study will be of interest to cognitive neuroscientists studying structure learning and generalization.

Reviewed by eLife