Neuroscience

Modified self-amplifying RNA mediates robust and prolonged gene expression in the mouse and ex vivo human brain

1. Jennifer Freire
2. Joshua E. McGee
3. Max Heinrich
4. Elijah Hammarlund
5. Sicheng Pang
6. Dana Shaw
7. Yuxin Zhou
8. Yangyang Wang
9. Colin Porter
10. Lauren Dang
11. Erynne San Antonio
12. Ziqing Yu
13. Kexin Li
14. Scellig Stone
15. Hart Lidov
16. Jordan Farrell
17. Emily K. Osterweil
18. Wilson W. Wong
19. Mark W. Grinstaff
20. Xue Han

Reviewed by Arcadia Science

Dorsal hippocampus mediates light–tone associations in male mice

1. Julia S Pinho
2. Carla Ramon-Duaso
3. Irene Manzanares-Sierra
4. Arnau Busquets-Garcia

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  Pinho et al use in vivo calcium imaging and chemogenetic approaches to examine the involvement of hippocampal sub-regions across the different stages of a sensory preconditioning task in mice. They find evidence for sensory preconditioning in male mice. They also find that, in these mice, CaMKII-positive neurons in the dorsal hippocampus encode the audio-visual association that forms in stage 1 of the task. The evidence in support of these findings is convincing. The important study will be of interest to researchers in the fields of learning and memory and/or hippocampus function.

Reviewed by eLife

Neural correlates and reinstatement of recent and remote memory in children and young adults

1. Iryna Schommartz
2. Philip F Lembcke
3. Javier Ortiz-Tudela
4. Martin Bauer
5. Angela M Kaindl
6. Claudia Buss
7. Yee Lee Shing

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This paper provides potentially valuable insight into why memory consolidation may differ between children (5-7 years of age) and adults. The work hints at developmental differences in neural engagement during the retrieval of recent and remote memories. However, there are several major concerns with the analyses not alleviated by included controls, and as such the evidence supporting the authors' main claims remains incomplete.

Reviewed by eLife

The inevitability and superfluousness of cell types in spatial cognition

1. Xiaoliang Luo
2. Robert M Mok
3. Bradley C Love

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This important study demonstrates that some degree of spatial tuning (e.g., place cells) and ability to decode spatial location emerges in sufficiently complex systems trained to process visual information. This intriguing observation challenges existing approaches and findings used in the study of spatial navigation. However, the strength of evidence regarding the nature and quality of spatial tuning, its compatibility with experimental data, and the overall interpretation of the study remains incomplete. This work will be of interest to the research community of spatial navigation.

Reviewed by eLife

Cross-modal interaction of human alpha activity does not reflect inhibition of early sensory processing in a frequency-tagging study using EEG and MEG

1. Marion Brickwedde
2. Rupali Limachya
3. Roksana Markiewicz
4. Emma Sutton
5. Christopher Postzich
6. Kimron Shapiro
7. Ole Jensen
8. Ali Mazaheri

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This valuable manuscript provides solid evidence regarding the role of alpha oscillations in sensory gain control. The authors use an attention-cuing task in an initial EEG study followed by a separate MEG replication study to demonstrate that whilst (occipital) alpha oscillations are increased when anticipating an auditory target, so is visual responsiveness as assessed with frequency tagging. The findings offer a re-interpretation of the inhibitory role of the alpha rhythm, supporting that alpha oscillations contribute to interareal communication.

Reviewed by eLife

Extracting Value Coding Features from Individual Serotonin Neurons

1. Emerson F Harkin
2. Jean-Claude Béïque
3. Richard Naud

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  The authors used a Bayesian modeling framework to fit behavior and serotonin neuron activity to reward history across multiple timescales. A key goal was to distinguish value coding from other influences, particularly thirst, by comparing model fits across neurons. Although the question and approach are valuable, several limitations of the current manuscript mean that support for the conclusions is incomplete.

Reviewed by eLife

Sub-surface deformation of individual fingerprint ridges during tactile interactions

1. Giulia Corniani
2. Zing S Lee
3. Matt J Carré
4. Roger Lewis
5. Benoit P Delhaye
6. Hannes P Saal

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  By leveraging optical coherence tomography this study provides important insight into the deformation of human fingertip ridges when contacting raised features such as edges and contours. The study provides compelling evidence that such features tend to cause deformation and relative movement of what the authors term ridge flanks rather than bending of the ridges themselves.

Reviewed by eLife

Synaptic density and relative connectivity conservation maintain circuit stability across development

1. Ingo Fritz
2. Feiyu Wang
3. Ricardo Chirif
4. Nikos Malakasis
5. Julijana Gjorgjieva
6. André Ferreira Castro

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  The authors have performed a potentially valuable new kind of analysis in connectomics, mapping to an interesting developmental problem of synaptic input to sensory neurons. While the analysis itself is solid, the authors have drawn broader conclusions than are directly supported by the presented data. With more measured claims and greater clarity and explanations for the analysis, the study could potentially become stronger.

Reviewed by eLife

Comparing electromyography, accelerometry, and visual inspection to assess the resting motor threshold for transcranial magnetic stimulation

1. Gautier Hamoline
2. Antoine E Lunardi
3. Marcos Moreno-Verdú
4. Baptiste M Waltzing
5. Elise E Van Caenegem
6. Siobhan MacAteer
7. Robert M Hardwick

Reviewed by Peer Community in Neuroscience

On CA1 ripple oscillations in rats and the reassessment of asynchronicity evidence

1. Robson Scheffer-Teixeira
2. Adriano BL Tort

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This important study provides new insights into the synchronization of ripple oscillations in the hippocampus, both within and across hemispheres. Using carefully designed statistical methods, it presents compelling evidence that synchrony is significantly higher within a hemisphere than across. This study will be of interest to neuroscientists studying the hippocampus and memory.

Reviewed by eLife