Neuroscience

eLife Assessment

This valuable study provides convincing evidence for deficits in aversive taste learning and taste coding in a mouse model of autism spectrum disorders. Specifically, the authors found that Shank3 knockout mice exhibit behavioral deficits in learning and extinction of conditioned taste aversion, and calcium imaging of the gustatory cortex identified impaired neuronal responses to taste stimuli. This paper will likely be of interest to researchers studying how learning and sensory processes are affected by genetic causes of autism spectrum disorders.

eLife Assessment

This important study uses diffusion magnetic resonance imaging to non-invasively map the white matter fibres connecting the zona incerta and cortex in humans. The authors present compelling evidence to indicate that these connections are organized along a rostro-caudal axis. The findings will be of interest to researchers interested in neuroanatomy and cortico-subcortical connectivity.

eLife Assessment

This work presents a software and hardware suite for targeted photostimulation that can be used in vivo. The package is a well-designed and documented hardware/software suite with a comprehensive build guide. This tool will likely promote important neuroscience advances through targeted real-time perturbation of the cerebral cortex. Overall, this manuscript makes a compelling case on how to design and make available power tools for the research community.

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. Technically rigorous experiments were performed, and solid evidence is provided to support the claims. 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.

eLife Assessment

This study provides an important insight into how the medial and lateral entorhinal cortices interact through distinct excitatory and inhibitory pathways. Using anatomical tracing, optogenetics, and electrophysiology, the authors show that glutamatergic medial entorhinal neurons provide broad excitatory input to lateral entorhinal, while long-range SST+ interneurons deliver selective inhibition to layer I. These findings reveal a novel layer- and cell-type-specific organization of medial to lateral entorhinal connectivity with implications for spatial and episodic memory. The evidence for the paper's overall conclusions is convincing.

eLife Assessment

This is an important study of critical period plasticity, focused on temperature manipulations, and how different parts of the Drosophila larval motor circuit adapt or maladapt. The work convincingly demonstrates that components of the motor network respond in distinct ways to heat shocks, and the combination of functional, structural, and electrophysiological approaches makes the study of significant interest. The work points to central interneurons as primary drivers of maladaptive changes, while motoneurons and neuromuscular junctions show compensatory or homeostatic adjustments. The authors have thoughtfully and substantially addressed the concerns raised in the original reviews through new temporal-window experiments, additional receptor and behavioral analyses, clearer discussion of the study's limitations, and an integrative model.

eLife Assessment

This paper represents a valuable contribution to our understanding of how local field potential (LFP) oscillations and beta band coordination between the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex of rats may relate to learning. Through a set of appropriate analyses, including oscillation-oscillation coupling, oscillation-spike modulation, and behavioral dependant measurements, the study presents convincing evidence for uncoupled beta activity between the two regions. This work will be of interest to researchers working on interaction of brain regions during spatial learning in rodents.

eLife Assessment

This important study uses the Cntnap2 mouse model of autism to investigate how reduced activity in the dorsal CA1 region of the hippocampus contributes to impaired temporal binding and memory flexibility. The authors combined trace conditioning and radial maze assays with fibre photometry, optogenetic rescue, and brain-wide c-Fos mapping to provide convincing evidence that dorsal CA1 hypoactivity limits the retention of temporally separated associations and biases learning towards less flexible strategies. The work advances understanding of hippocampal contributions to cognitive alterations associated with autism and will be of broad interest to researchers studying memory, hippocampal function, and neurodevelopmental disorders.

eLife Assessment

The paper presents a valuable finding that the human brain and models that incorporate sentence structures can capture sentence-level semantics beyond word meaning, while large language models behave differently. The evidence supporting the authors' claims is solid, though the stimuli are highly controlled and some analyses could be more thorough. This work will be of interest to researchers in language neuroscience and those developing language models.

eLife Assessment

This is a potentially valuable study in the area of connectomics, comparing across species to obtain a uniform synaptic density of ~1 synapse per micron. While the methods add to the field, the datasets are limited and filtered, and the role of cell-type on spacing is passed over. Additionally, some of the analyses could be tightened; hence, overall, the findings remain incomplete.