Neuroscience

E3 Ubiquitin Ligase Highwire/Phr1 Phase Separation Mediates Endocytic Control of JNK Signaling in Drosophila Neurons

1. Srikanth Pippadpally
2. Anjali Bisht
3. Saumitra Dey Choudhury
4. Manish Kumar Dwivedi
5. Zeeshan Mushtaq
6. Suneel Reddy-Alla
7. Vimlesh Kumar

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This study provides valuable findings on how the activity of the E3 ubiquitin ligase Highwire (Hiw/Phr1) is regulated and its impact on synaptic growth. The authors propose that impaired endocytosis leads to condensation of Hiw, resulting in increased synaptic growth. They also integrate such a mechanism within the known JNK (c-JUN N-terminal Kinase) and BMP (Bone Morphogenetic Protein) signalling pathways involved in synapse regulation. While the work raises an interesting mechanistic framework, several aspects of the experimental design and methodology are incomplete, and key conclusions, particularly those regarding the liquid-liquid phase separation of the E3 ubiquitin ligase, are not fully supported by the presented data.

Reviewed by eLife

Improved sensory representations as a result of temporal adaptation

1. Amber Marijn Brands
2. Zilan Oz
3. Nikolina Vukšić
4. Paulo Ortiz
5. Iris Isabelle Anna Groen

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This valuable study examined how sensory adaptation supports visual perception in the presence of noise. The authors used a combination of human psychophysics, electroencephalography (EEG), and deep neural networks to show that adaptation to noise can improve perception. The results are solid but are, at present, weakened by a number of concerns, including some related to the experimental design and some regarding the interpretation of the results in terms of particular mechanisms. With these concerns adequately addressed, the study and conclusions would be likely to be of broad interest to the neuroscience community.

Reviewed by eLife

Efficient and reproducible pipelines for spike sorting large-scale electrophysiology data

1. Alessio P Buccino
2. Arjun Sridhar
3. David Feng
4. Karel Svoboda
5. Joshua H Siegle

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This study presents a valuable and well-documented computational pipeline for the scalable analysis and spike sorting of large extracellular electrophysiology datasets, with particular relevance for high-density recordings such as Neuropixels. The authors demonstrate the pipeline's utility for benchmarking spike sorter performance and evaluating the effects of data compression, supported by thorough testing, clear figures, and openly available code. The workflow is reproducible, portable, and practical, providing concrete guidance on computational cost and runtime. Overall, the evidence supporting the pipeline's performance and output quality is compelling, and this work will be of broad interest to the systems neuroscience community.

Reviewed by eLife

Multi-Scale Anti-Correlated Neural States Dominate Naturalistic Whole-Brain Activity

1. Dora Gözükara
2. Djamari Oetringer
3. Nasir Ahmad
4. Linda Geerligs

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This manuscript presents a novel investigation of organizational principles governing brain activity at both global and local scales during naturalistic viewing paradigms, an important advance for theoretical neuroscience, functional neuroimaging, and neurology. The authors demonstrate that brain activity during naturalistic viewing is dominated by two anti-correlated states that toggle between each other with a third transitional state mediating between them. The evidence supporting this finding is compelling, with the successful replication across three independent datasets (StudyForrest, NarrattenTion, and CamCAN) a particular strength.

Reviewed by eLife

Distinct involvements of the subthalamic nucleus subpopulations in reward-biased decision-making in monkeys

1. Kathryn Branam
2. Joshua I Gold
3. Long Ding

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This study presents valuable analyses of single neuron activity in the subthalamic nucleus (STN) of monkeys performing a decision-making task that manipulates both perceptual evidence and reward. In particular, the study shows convincing evidence of multiple decision variables being represented in the STN. However, the evidence for sub-populations in STN with distinct involvements in decision-making is incomplete at this stage and requires either further efforts to provide stronger support or refinement of that conclusion.

Reviewed by eLife

Progressive overfilling of readily releasable pool underlies short-term facilitation at recurrent excitatory synapses in layer 2/3 of the rat prefrontal cortex

1. Jiwoo Shin
2. Seung Yeon Lee
3. Yujin Kim
4. Suk-Ho Lee

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This valuable work explores how synaptic activity encodes information during memory tasks. All reviewers agree that the work is of very high quality and that the methodological approach is praiseworthy. The experimental data support the possibility that phospholipase diacylglycerol signaling and synaptotagmin 7 (Syt7) dynamically regulate the vesicle pool required for presynaptic release. Overall, this is a convincing study.

Reviewed by eLife

Backward conditioning reveals flexibility in infralimbic cortex inhibitory memories

1. Nura W Lingawi
2. Billy Chieng
3. R Fred Westbrook
4. Nathan Holmes
5. Mark E Bouton
6. Vincent Laurent

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This set of experiments provides important knowledge for how the infralimbic cortex is recruited to inhibit behavior after extinction training. The evidence supporting the conclusions is convincing with multiple sophisticated behavioral designs providing converging lines of evidence, though reviewers note possible alternative interpretations and limitations of small group sizes in some cases. This work will be of interest to those interested in cortical function, learning and memory, aversive behavior, and/or related psychiatric factors.

Reviewed by eLife

Linking spinal circuit reorganization to recovery after thoracic spinal cord injury

1. Natalia A Shevtsova
2. Andrew B Lockhart
3. Ilya A Rybak
4. David SK Magnuson
5. Simon M Danner

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This important study describes a computational model of the rat spinal locomotor circuits and how they could be plastically reconfigured after lateral hemisection or contusion injuries to replicate gaits observed experimentally in vivo. Overall, the simulation results convincingly mirror the gait parameters observed experimentally. The model suggests the emergence of detour circuits after lateral hemisection, whereas after a midline contusion, the model suggests plasticity of left-right and sensory inputs below the injury.

Reviewed by eLife

Power Pixels: a turnkey pipeline for processing of Neuropixel recordings

1. Guido T. Meijer
2. Francesco P. Battaglia

Reviewed by Peer Community in Neuroscience

Alcohol Attenuates CRF-Induced Excitatory Effects from the Extended Amygdala to Dorsostriatal Cholinergic Interneurons

1. Amanda Essoh
2. Xueyi Xie
3. Himanshu Gangal
4. Zhenbo Huang
5. Ruifeng Chen
6. Ziyi Li
7. Xuehua Wang
8. Valerie Vierkant
9. Miguel Garza
10. Lierni Ugartemendia
11. Maria E Secci
12. Nicholas W Gilpin
13. Nicholas J Justice
14. Robert O Messing
15. Jun Wang

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This important work shows that corticotrophin-releasing factor is delivered monosynaptically to dorsal striatal cholinergic interneurons from the central amygdala and bed nucleus of the stria terminalis. CRF increases cholinergic interneuron firing and release of acetylcholine, and this action is attenuated by pre-exposure to ethanol, suggesting a potential role in stress- and alcohol use disorders. This revision addressed prior concerns, presented convincing evidence supporting the conclusions, and set the stage for additional studies.

Reviewed by eLife