Neuroscience

Acute aerobic exercise intensity does not modulate pain potentially due to differences in fitness levels and sex effects: results from a pharmacological fMRI study

1. Janne Ina Nold
2. Tahmine Fadai
3. Christian Büchel

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  In this valuable study, Nold et al. examined exercise-induced pain modulation in a pharmacological within-subject fMRI study using the opioid-antagonist naloxone and different levels of aerobic exercise intensity and pain. This investigation provides solid evidence to show that the intensity of exercise does not seem to impact the hypoalgesic effect. Moreover, exploratory analysis identified that fitness level and sex may potentially play a role in exercise-induced hypoalgesia, and that further confirmatory studies are required in order to verify these findings.

Reviewed by eLife

Midbrain somatostatin-expressing cells control pain-suppression during defensive states

1. Nanci Winke
2. Frank Aby
3. Daniel Jercog
4. Thomas Bienvenu
5. Coline Riffault
6. Rabia Bouali-Benazzouz
7. Juliette Viellard
8. Delphine Girard
9. Zoé Grivet
10. Marc Landry
11. Laia Castell
12. Emmanuel Valjent
13. Stephane Valerio
14. Pascal Fossat
15. Cyril Herry

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  The study is a timely and important contribution to our knowledge of the circuit mechanisms of fear analgesia. The novel cue-induced analgesia paradigm allowed a compelling identification of a brainstem circuit element, i.e., somatostatin-expressing neurons within the ventrolateral periaqueductal grey that project to the rostroventral medulla, in mediating fear analgesia. The vlPAG is a known region of pain modulation, and this study adds key insight to the circuit involved in fear-associated analgesia. This work will be of interest to systems and behavioral neuroscientists, especially those interested in emotional behavior, pain, and/or brainstem function.

Reviewed by eLife

Ultraslow serotonin oscillations in the hippocampus delineate substates across NREM and waking

1. Claire Cooper
2. Daniel Parthier
3. Jeremie Sibille
4. John J Tukker
5. Nicolas Tritsch
6. Dietmar Schmitz

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This important study demonstrates that slow fluctuations in serotonin release during wakefulness and non-REM sleep correspond to periods of heightened arousal or enhanced offline information processing. The evidence supporting this claim is convincing, and the methodology is robust and broadly applicable, likely to benefit many researchers in the field. This work will be of significant interest to neuroscientists studying sleep, memory, and neuromodulation.

Reviewed by eLife

Inference technique for the synaptic conductances in rhythmically active networks and application to respiratory central pattern generation circuits

1. Yaroslav Molkov
2. Anke Borgmann
3. Hidehiko Koizumi
4. Noriyuki Hama
5. Ruli Zhang
6. Jeffrey Smith

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This work describes an inference technique for extracting information about relative contributions of excitatory and inhibitory synaptic drive onto single neurons in neural networks. The electrophysiological techniques and results are of high quality, and the analytical work is novel and potentially powerful, yet with several untested assumptions underlying the approach. This is nevertheless solid work that will be valuable to neuroscience labs interested in exploring alternative approaches to studies of integrated synaptic connectivity.

Reviewed by eLife

Genome-wide consensus transcriptional signatures identify synaptic pruning linking Alzheimer’s disease and epilepsy

1. Huihong Li
2. Zhiran Xie
3. Yuxuan Tian
4. Ruoyin Zhou
5. Yaxi Yang
6. Bingying Lin
7. Si Chen
8. Jie Wu
9. Zihan Deng
10. Jianwei Li
11. Mingjie Chen
12. Xueke Liu
13. Yushan Sun
14. Bing Huang
15. Naili Wei
16. Xiaoyu Ji

Reviewed by PREreview

Uncovering the electrical synapse proteome in retinal neurons via in vivo proximity labeling

1. Stephan Tetenborg
2. Eyad Shihabeddin
3. Elizebeth Olive Akansha Manoj Kumar
4. Crystal L Sigulinsky
5. Karin Dedek
6. Ya-Ping Lin
7. Fabio A Echeverry
8. Hannah Hoff
9. Alberto E Pereda
10. Bryan W Jones
11. Christophe P Ribelayga
12. Klaus Ebnet
13. Ken Matsuura
14. John O’Brien

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This is an important study that characterized proteins associated with electrical synapses in zebrafish and mouse retinal neurons using proximity labeling approaches, complemented by biochemical and histological validations. The resulting protein interactome datasets are convincing and reveal novel scaffold proteins at the electrical synapse. Additional quantification and validation would strengthen the work further.

Reviewed by eLife

Ultrastructural sublaminar-specific diversity of excitatory synaptic boutons in layer 1 of the adult human temporal lobe neocortex

1. Astrid Rollenhagen
2. Akram Sadeghi
3. Bernd Walkenfort
4. Claus C Hilgetag
5. Kurt Sätzler
6. Joachim HR Lübke

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This study provides important information on the ultrastructural organization of layer 1 of the human neocortex. The quantitative assessment of various synaptic parameters, astrocytic coverage and mitochondrial morphology is based on convincing experimental approaches. These data provide new information on the detailed morphology of human neocortical tissue that will be of interest to neuroscientists working on different network functions.

Reviewed by eLife

Molecular characterization of gustatory second-order neurons reveals integrative mechanisms of gustatory and metabolic information

1. Rubén Mollá-Albaladejo
2. Manuel Jiménez-Caballero
3. Juan Antonio Sanchez-Alcaniz

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This study provides valuable insights into the organization of second-order circuits of gustatory neurons, particularly in how these circuits integrate opposing taste inputs and are modulated by metabolic state to regulate feeding behavior. Through an elegant combination of complementary techniques, the authors identify the target neurons involved in gustatory integration. The evidence supporting their conclusions is convincing.

Reviewed by eLife

Mental Effort and Counterfactuals Modulate Language Understanding: ERP Evidence in Older Adults

1. José Luis Salas-Herrera
2. Mabel Urrutia Martínez
3. Nicolás Andrés Hinrichs

Reviewed by PREreview

Local Inhibitory Dynamics Underpin Temporal Integration and Functional Segregation between Barrels and Septa in the Mouse Barrel Cortex

1. Ali Özgür Argunşah
2. Tevye Jason Stachniak
3. Jenq-Wei Yang
4. Linbi Cai
5. Alexander van der Bourg
6. Rahel Kastli
7. Theofanis Karayannis

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  Argunşah et al. investigate the mechanisms underlying the differential response dynamics of barrel vs septa domains in shaping the responses to single vs multiple whiskers. Based on the observation of a higher density of SST+ interneurons in the septa, the authors investigate the hypothesis that Elfn1-dependent short-term plasticity shapes these responses. This important study is, however, supported by incomplete evidence; factors restricting the strength of evidence are the limited spatial resolution of the multi-unit activity, as well as the lack of a mechanistic explanation. This provocative and intellectually stimulating hypothesis provides a contribution to work on how different cell types shape cortical representation.

Reviewed by eLife