Neuroscience

Involuntary feedback responses reflect a representation of partner actions

1. Seth R Sullivan
2. John H Buggeln
3. Jan A Calalo
4. Truc T Ngo
5. Jennifer A Semrau
6. Michael J Carter
7. Joshua GA Cashaback

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This important study combines a two-person joint hand-reaching paradigm with game-theoretical modeling to examine whether, and how, one's reflexive visuomotor responses are modulated by a partner's control policy and cost structure. The study provides a solid and novel set of behavioral findings suggesting that involuntary visuomotor feedback is indeed modulated in the context of interpersonal coordination. The work will be of interest to cognitive scientists studying the motoric and social aspects of action control.

Reviewed by eLife

Concurrent category-selective neural activity across the ventral occipito-temporal cortex supports a non-hierarchical view of human visual recognition

1. Corentin Jacques
2. Jacques Jonas
3. Sophie Colnat-Coulbois
4. Bruno Rossion

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This important study addresses a classic debate in visual processing, using a strong method applied to a rare clinical population to evaluate hierarchical models of visual object perception. The paper finds only partial support for the hierarchical model: as expected, neural responses in ventral visual cortex show increased representational selectivity for faces along the posterior-anterior axes, but the onsets of the signals do not show a temporal hierarchy, indicating more parallel processing. The iEEG dataset is impressive, but the evidence for lack of temporal hierarchy is incomplete: essential quality checks need to be performed, and statistical analyses adapted to ensure that the data and analyses would be able to reveal temporal hierarchy if it were present in the data.

Reviewed by eLife

Subregional activity in the dentate gyrus is amplified during elevated cognitive demands

1. Charlotte CM Castillon
2. Shintaro Otsuka
3. John N Armstrong
4. Anis Contractor

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This manuscript presents a valuable study of the activity and functional relevance of different circuits in the dentate gyrus of mice performing a pattern separation task. The study is likely to be of interest to those studying the subregional organization and cell type-specific functions of the dentate gyrus. However, the strength of evidence for the study's conclusions is currently incomplete.

Reviewed by eLife

Improved inference of latent neural states from calcium imaging data

1. Stephen Keeley
2. David Zoltowski
3. Adam Charles
4. Jonathan Pillow

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This valuable study provides a practical computational framework for inferring latent neural states directly from calcium fluorescence recordings, bypassing the traditional need for a separate spike deconvolution step. The evidence supporting the method is solid, featuring rigorous validation across multiple latent variable model families (including HMM, GPFA, and LFADS) using both simulated and experimental data. However, the assessment of the method's generality would be further strengthened by application to a broader range of experimental datasets, such as recordings from different brain regions or using different calcium indicators.

Reviewed by eLife

Dual-feature selectivity enables bidirectional coding in visual cortical neurons

1. Katrin Franke
2. Nikos Karantzas
3. Konstantin Willeke
4. Maria Diamantaki
5. Kandan Ramakrishnan
6. Hasan Atakan Bedel
7. Pavithra Elumalai
8. Kelli Restivo
9. Paul Fahey
10. Cate Nealley
11. Tori Shinn
12. Gabrielle Garcia
13. Saumil Patel
14. Alexander Ecker
15. Edgar Y Walker
16. Emmanouil Froudarakis
17. Sophia Sanborn
18. Fabian H Sinz
19. Andreas Tolias

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  The authors combine a modeling approach, using a digital twin, with electrophysiological evidence in two species to assess the role of inhibition in shaping selectivity in the visual cortex. The results provide an important advance beyond the classic view of sensory coding by proving compelling evidence that many neurons in visual areas exhibit dual-feature selectivity. Overall, the work exceptionally showcases how in silico experiments can generate concrete hypotheses about neuronal coding that are difficult to discover experimentally.

Reviewed by eLife

Distinct goal location beta frequency dynamics in hippocampus and prefrontal cortex across learning

1. Glingna Wang
2. Nan Zhou
3. Zachary M Leveroni
4. Jai Y Yu

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This paper represents a valuable contribution to our understanding of how LFP oscillations and beta band coordination between the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex of rats may relate to learning. Enthusiasm for the reported results was moderated by the concern that some key analyses need to be done, and highly relevant details about task, data, and statistics were missing. Consequently, the reviewers considered the evidence to be incomplete in this version of the manuscript.

Reviewed by eLife

Trisomy 21 impairs synchronized activity and connectivity in developing human down syndrome cortical excitatory neuron networks

1. Manuel Peter
2. Raquel Real
3. Alessio Strano
4. Hugh P. C. Robinson
5. Mark A. Smith
6. Samuel J. Barnes
7. Vincenzo de Paola
8. Frederick J. Livesey

Reviewed by Review Commons

A forebrain hub for cautious actions via the midbrain

1. Ji Zhou
2. Muhammad Sarmad Sajid
3. Sebastian Hormigo
4. Manuel A Castro-Alamancos

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This valuable study uses fiber photometry, implantable lenses, and optogenetics, to show that a subset of subthalamic nucleus neurons are active during movement, and that active but not passive avoidance depends in part on STN projections to substantia nigra. The strength of the evidence for these claims is solid and this paper may be of interest to basic and applied behavioural neuroscientists working on movement or avoidance.

Reviewed by eLife

Disruption of theta-timescale spiking impairs learning but spares hippocampal replay

1. Abhilasha Joshi
2. Alison E Comrie
3. Samuel Bray
4. Abhijith Mankili
5. Jennifer A Guidera
6. Rhino Nevers
7. Xulu Sun
8. Emily Monroe
9. Viktor Kharazia
10. Ryan Ly
11. Daniela Astudillo Maya
12. Denisse Morales-Rodriguez
13. Jai Yu
14. Anna Kiseleva
15. Victor Perez
16. Loren M Frank

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This important study employs a closed-loop, theta-phase-specific optogenetic manipulation of medial septal parvalbumin-expressing neurons in rats and reports that disrupting theta-timescale coordination impairs performance of challenging aspects of spatial behaviors, while sparing hippocampal replay and spatial coding in hippocampal place cells. The findings are expected to advance theoretical understanding of learning and memory operations and to provide practical implications for the application of similar optogenetic approaches. The experiments were viewed as technically rigorous, but the strength of evidence provided in the current version of the manuscript was viewed as incomplete, mostly due to limited analyses and the descriptions of some of the experimental protocols.

Reviewed by eLife

Large-scale bidirectional arrayed genetic screens identify OXR1 and EMC4 as modifiers of α-synuclein aggregation

1. Sandesh Neupane
2. Lea Nikolić
3. Lorenzo Maraio
4. Thomas Goiran
5. Nathan Karpilovsky
6. Stefano Sellitto
7. Vangelis Bouris
8. Jiang-An Yin
9. Ronald Melki
10. Edward A. Fon
11. Elena De Cecco
12. Adriano Aguzzi

Reviewed by Review Commons