Neuroscience

eLife assessment

This work is an important contribution to the development of a biologically plausible theory of statistical modeling of spiking activity. The authors convincingly implemented the statistical inference of input likelihood in a simple neural circuit, demonstrating the relationship between synaptic homeostasis, neural representations, and computational accuracy. This work will be of interest to neuroscientists, both theoretical and experimental, who are exploring how statistical computation is implemented in neural networks. There are questions about the performance of the methods in the case where other biologically significant parameters, such as firing rate and thresholds, are optimized together with the synaptic weights.

eLife assessment

Using electrophysiological recordings in freely moving rats, this valuable study investigates the role of different gamma frequency bands in the development of spatial representations in the hippocampus. However, the evidence is incomplete as the methods and data analysis need significant improvement. Critically, alternative interpretations and analyses must be provided, especially regarding the nature of gamma oscillations in the hippocampus and their interaction with neuronal firing dynamics and theta sequence features. This study will be of interest to neuroscientists working in the field of spatial navigation and neuronal dynamics.

eLife assessment

This study provides important information about the formation of ribbon synapses in mouse cochlear hair cells, which facilitate the temporally-precise transmission of acoustic information to the auditory nerve. Live-cell imaging provides compelling evidence that ribbon precursor volume is dynamically modified by fission and fusion events on microtubules, but some of the other evidence included, particularly in relation to the directed transport of these precursors to the hair cell active zone is incomplete. These findings will be of interest to neuroscientists studying synapse formation and function and should inspire further research into the molecular basis for synaptic ribbon maturation.

eLife assessment

This valuable study investigates the brain representations of Braille letters in blind participants and provides convincing evidence using EEG and fMRI that the decoding of letter identity across the reading hand takes place in the visual cortex. The evidence supporting the claims of the authors is solid, although the inclusion of a sighted control group and additional analyses would have strengthened the study. The work will be of interest to neuroscientists working on brain plasticity.

eLife assessment

This valuable study uses recently developed EEG analysis methods to investigate spatial distractor suppression in a combined visual search/working memory task. While the reported results are convincing, the combined task design leaves open alternative interpretations than those currently discussed in the manuscript, potentially limiting the generalisability of the findings to other task settings. The study will be of interest to cognitive neuroscientists and psychologists working on visual attention and memory.

eLife assessment

Approaches for quantifying synaptic activity events are currently limited, and recent advances in AI and deep learning provide an opportunity to develop powerful new ways to automate this process. In this study, the authors have generated a valuable tool, miniML, that uses open-source software that convincingly enables rapid, automated, and accurate quantification of synaptic events from a variety of systems and approaches. This software will be of significant utility to a variety of neuroscience researchers.

eLife assessment

This study compiles a wide range of results on the connectivity, stimulus selectivity, and potential role of the claustrum in sensory behavior. While most of the connectivity results confirm earlier studies, this valuable work provides incomplete evidence that the claustrum responds to multimodal stimuli and that local connectivity is reduced across cells that have similar long-range connectivity. The conclusions drawn from the behavioral results are weakened by the animals' poor performance on the designed task.This study has the potential to be of interest to neuroscientists.

eLife assessment

Abbasi and colleagues use Granger causality to explore the cortico-subcortical dynamics during speaking and listening. They find valuable evidence for bi-directional connectivity in distinct frequency bands as a function of behaviour, but currently offer incomplete support for the validity of their analyses and the predictive coding interpretation of their results.

eLife assessment

This important work offers a thorough exploration of the molecular features of different cell types within the mouse vomeronasal organ, including the expression of chemosensory receptors, using single-cell transcriptomics. The data are thoughtfully analyzed and presented, although the evidence is incomplete and only partially supports some of the claims made by the authors.

eLife assessment

Chang et al. provide glutamate co-expression profiles in the central noradrenergic system and test the requirement of Vglut2-based glutamatergic release in respiratory and metabolic activity under physiologically relevant gas challenges. Their experiments provide compelling evidence that conditional deletion of vesicular glutamate transporters from noradrenergic neurons does not impact steady-state breathing or metabolic activity in room air, hypercapnia, or hypoxia. This study provides an important contribution to our understanding of how noradrenergic neurons regulate respiratory homeostasis in conscious adult mice.