Neuroscience

Shared functional organization between pulvinar-cortical and cortico-cortical connectivity and its structural and molecular imaging correlates

1. Gianpaolo Antonio Basile
2. Augusto Ielo
3. Lilla Bonanno
4. Antonio Cerasa
5. Giuseppe Santoro
6. Demetrio Milardi
7. Giuseppe Pio Anastasi
8. Ambra Torre
9. Sergio Baldari
10. Riccardo Laudicella
11. Michele Gaeta
12. Marina Quartu
13. Maria Pina Serra
14. Marcello Trucas
15. Angelo Quartarone
16. Manojkumar Saranathan
17. Alberto Cacciola

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This study presents a useful characterisation of the topographical organisation of the human pulvinar, an associative thalamic subregion crucial for visual perception and attention. The evidence supporting the conclusions is solid given the multimodal validation and replication across datasets, although even higher-resolution imaging data would have strengthened the study. In their revised manuscript, the authors elaborated further on the motivation for their study and conducted several robustness checks. Nevertheless, there remains an opportunity for a more fully integrated interpretation of the findings. The work would be of interest to neuroscientists, neurologists, and neuropsychiatrists working on pulvinar functioning in health and disease.

Reviewed by eLife

Evolution of lateralized gustation in nematodes

1. Marisa Mackie
2. Vivian Vy Le
3. Heather R Carstensen
4. Nicole R Kushnir
5. Dylan L Castro
6. Ivan M Dimov
7. Kathleen T Quach
8. Steven J Cook
9. Oliver Hobert
10. Sreekanth H Chalasani
11. Ray L Hong

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  Mackie and colleagues present a valuable comparison of lateralized gustation in two well-studied nematodes. Their results present convincing evidence that ASEL/R lateralization exists and is achieved by different means in P. pacificus compared to C. elegans. This work will be of interest to neurobiologists interested in how small nervous systems make sense of the environment, and how evolution can take multiple paths to asymmetry within a neuron class.

Reviewed by eLife

Topographically organized dorsal raphe activity modulates forebrain sensory-motor computations and adaptive behaviors

1. Aytac Kadir Mutlu
2. Bram Serneels
3. Christoph Wiest
4. Anh-Tuan Trinh
5. Ricarda Bardenhewer
6. Fabrizio Palumbo
7. Oda Bjørnevik Frisvold
8. Inger Kristine Fjeldskaar Aukrust
9. Anna Maria Ostenrath
10. Emre Yaksi

Reviewed by preLights

Cortical astrocyte activation triggers meningeal nociception and migraine-like pain

1. Dara Bree
2. Jun Zhao
3. Jennifer Stratton
4. Dan Levy

Reviewed by preLights

A ventral hippocampal-lateral septum pathway regulates social novelty preference

1. Maha Rashid
2. Sarah Thomas
3. Jennifer Isaac
4. Sonia Corbett Karkare
5. Hannah Klein
6. Malavika Murugan

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This important manuscript uses circuit mapping, chemogenetics, and optogenetics to demonstrate a novel hippocampal lateral septal circuit that regulates social novelty behaviours and shows that downstream of the hippocampal septal circuit, septal projections to the ventral tegmental area are necessary for general novelty discrimination. The strength of the evidence supporting the claims is convincing but would be strengthened by the inclusion of additional functional assays. The work will be of interest to systems and behavioural neuroscientists who are interested in the brain mechanisms of social behaviours.

Reviewed by eLife

The myeloid cell-driven transdifferentiation of endothelial cells into pericytes promotes the restoration of BBB function and brain self-repair after stroke

1. Tingbo Li
2. Ling Yang
3. Jiaqi Tu
4. Yufan Hao
5. Zhu Zhu
6. Yingjie Xiong
7. Qingzhu Gao
8. Lili Zhou
9. Guanglei Xie
10. Dongdong Zhang
11. Xuzhao Li
12. Yuxiao Jin
13. Yiyi Zhang
14. Bingrui Zhao
15. Nan Li
16. Xi Wang
17. Jie-Min Jia

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This important study aims to understand the role of endothelial cell differentiation into pericytes in the restoration of blood-brain barrier function after ischemic stroke. Identification of pericytes derived from endothelial cells and the involvement of myeloid cell-derived TGFβ1 signaling are compelling new findings, but future studies will be needed to validate the origin and nature of these pericytes. The work will be of interest to blood-brain barrier and basic and translational stroke researchers.

Reviewed by eLife

Neurons throughout the brain embed robust signatures of their anatomical location into spike trains

1. Gemechu Bekele Tolossa
2. Aidan M Schneider
3. Eva Dyer
4. Keith B Hengen

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This paper provides a useful systematic quantification of the relationship between electrophysiological response properties of single neurons with their position in the brain. The quality of the classification setup is high and the methodology is solid.

Reviewed by eLife

A theory of brain-computer interface learning via low-dimensional control

1. Jorge A Menéndez
2. Jay A Hennig
3. Matthew D Golub
4. Emily R Oby
5. Patrick T Sadtler
6. Aaron P Batista
7. Steven M Chase
8. Byron M Yu
9. Peter E Latham

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This valuable study proposes a network implementation of the "re-aiming" learning strategy, which has been hypothesized to underlie brain-computer interface learning. Combining theoretical arguments, numerical simulations, and analysis of experimental data, the authors provide convincing evidence for their hypothesis. This paper will likely be of broad interest to the systems neuroscience community.

Reviewed by eLife

Hierarchy between forelimb premotor and primary motor cortices and its manifestation in their firing patterns

1. Akiko Saiki-Ishikawa
2. Mark Agrios
3. Sajishnu Savya
4. Adam Forrest
5. Hannah Sroussi
6. Sarah Hsu
7. Diya Basrai
8. Feihong Xu
9. Andrew Miri

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This study provides important insights as to how interacting brain areas produce movement during the execution of a skilled multi-directional reaching task. Using a combination of single neuron and neural population analysis, optogenetic stimulation, and computational models, the authors provide convincing evidence of an asymmetrical influence between mouse premotor and motor cortex during the execution of a well-practiced behaviour. This asymmetry can only be captured by some but not all population analysis methods, which is a key lesson to the field in and of itself. Analyzing how activity that is shared and private to these areas relates to different aspects of movements, and why different methods provide different outcomes regarding the nature of inter-area interactions would further strengthen this work.

Reviewed by eLife

Location- and feature-based selection histories make independent, qualitatively distinct contributions to urgent visuomotor performance

1. Emily E Oor
2. Emilio Salinas
3. Terrence R Stanford

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  Oor and colleagues report the potentially independent effects of the spatial and feature-based selection history on visuomotor choices. They outline compelling evidence, tracking the dynamic history effects based on their extremely clever experimental design (urgent version of the search task). Their finding is of fundamental significance, broadening the framework to identify variables contributing to choice behavior and their neural correlates in future studies.

Reviewed by eLife