Neuroscience

eLife Assessment

This valuable study investigates the selectivity of neuronal responses in the neocortex and thalamus to visual stimuli presented far outside their receptive fields. The study shows convincing evidence for a long-latency surround-induced response in primary visual cortex that is absent in the dorsal lateral geniculate nucleus and does not depend strongly on the visual characteristics of the surround stimulus. The paper should be of interest to neurophysiologists interested in vision and contextual modulations.

eLife Assessment

This study aims to clarify the effects of cochlear neural degeneration on auditory processing in listeners with normal audiograms (sometimes referred to as 'hidden hearing loss'). The authors provide important new data demonstrating associations between cochlear neural degeneration, non-invasive assays of auditory processing, and speech perception. Based on a cross-species comparison, the findings pose compelling evidence that cochlear synaptopathy is associated with a significant part of hearing difficulties in complex environments.

eLife Assessment

This study provides valuable findings on the effects of mating experience on sweet taste perception. The data as presented provide convincing evidence that the dopaminergic signaling-mediated reward system underlies this mating state-dependent behavioral modulation. The work will interest neuroscientists and particularly biologists working on neuromodulation and the effects of internal states on sensory perception.

eLife Assessment

Fallah et al carefully dissect projections from substantia nigra pars reticulata (SNr) and the globus pallidus externa (GPe) - two key basal ganglia nuclei - to the pedunculopontine nucleus (PPN), a brainstem nucleus that has a central role in motor control. They consider inputs from these two areas onto three types of downstream PPN neurons - GABAergic, glutamatergic, and cholinergic neurons - and carefully map connectivity along the rostrocaudal axis of the PPN. Overall, this important study provides convincing data on PPN connectivity with two key input structures that will provide a basis for further understanding PPN function.

eLife Assessment

This useful modeling study shows how spatial representations similar to experiment emerge in a recurrent neural network trained on a navigation task by requiring path integration and decodability, but without relying on grid cells. The network modeling results are solid, although the link to experimental data may benefit from further development.

eLife Assessment

This manuscript reports effects of a single dose of methamphetamine vs placebo on a probabilistic reversal learning task with different levels of noise, in a large group of young healthy volunteers. The paper is well written and the methods are rigorous. The findings are important and have theoretical or practical implications beyond a single a subfield. The strength of the evidence is convincing, with the methods, data, and analyses broadly supporting the claims in the paper, which are sufficiently qualified given the lack of a significant effect of the binary baseline performance variable, and the nonlinear effect of individual differences in baseline performance.

eLife Assessment

This fundamental study describes patterns of anatomical connectivity between the cortex and the thalamus using magnetic resonance imaging data in humans and non-human primates. The measures are related to numerous other modalities to develop a robust understanding of the organisation of the system. The authors provide convincing evidence that there is a difference between sensory and association cortices in terms of their connectivity with the thalamus, which may have downstream effects on brain function. This work will be of interest to neuroscientists interested in the organization and dynamics of cortico-thalamic circuits.

eLife Assessment

This paper shows that it is possible to optogenetically activate single retinal ganglion cells in vivo in monkeys. This is an important step towards towards causal tests of the role of specific ganglion cell types in visual perception. The paper presents convincing evidence for the promise of the approach but further work will be needed to full explore its limitations and specificity.

eLife Assessment

This is a valuable and rigorous study that addresses the question of what determines the spatial organization of endocytic zones at synapses. The authors use compelling approaches, in both Drosophila and rodent model systems, to define the role of activity and active zone structure on the organization of the peri-active zone. While the findings are primarily negative, they are carefully executed and contribute to the field by refining existing models of presynaptic organization.

eLife Assessment

Karimian et al. present a valuable new model to explain how gamma-band synchrony (30-80 Hz) can support human visual feature binding by selectively grouping image elements, countering recent criticisms that the stimulus dependence of gamma oscillations limits their functional role. Grounded in the theory of weakly coupled oscillators and informed by primate electrophysiology, the model captures behavioural patterns observed in human psychophysics, offering support for the potential role of synchrony-based mechanisms, but incomplete evidence for a specific role of gamma oscillations. This work could be strengthened by more direct evidence for the proposed mechanism, and expanding beyond figure-only model inputs with limited ecological validity.