Neuroscience

Synaptic cell adhesion molecule Cdh6 identifies a class of sensory neurons with novel functions in colonic motility

1. Julieta Gomez-Frittelli
2. Gabrielle Frederique Devienne
3. Lee Travis
4. Melinda A Kyloh
5. Xin Duan
6. Tim J Hibberd
7. Nick J Spencer
8. John R Huguenard
9. Julia A Kaltschmidt

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This important study characterizes the molecular signatures and function of a type of enteric neuron (IPAN) in the mouse colon, identifying molecular markers (Cdh6 and Cdh8) for these cells. A battery of compelling and comprehensive experimental findings suggests data from other species are likely translatable to mice, bridging the abundant literature from humans and other mammals into this experimentally tractable animal model. This work will be of interest to scientists studying the motor control of the colon and more generally the enteric neuromuscular system.

Reviewed by eLife

Afadin Sorts Different Retinal Neuron Types into Accurate Cellular Layers

1. Matthew R Lum
2. Sachin H Patel
3. Hannah K Graham
4. Mengya Zhao
5. Yujuan Yi
6. Liang Li
7. Melissa Yao
8. Anna La Torre
9. Luca Della Santina
10. Ying Han
11. Yang Hu
12. Derek S Welsbie
13. Xin Duan

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This study demonstrates the critical role of Afadin on the generation and maintenance of complex cellular layers in the mouse retina. The data are solid, which provides important insights into how cell-adhesion molecules contribute to retinal organization. However, further investigations are needed to clarify the mechanisms underlying the cellular disorganization phenotype in the retina and axonal projection to the brain.

Reviewed by eLife

Adult neurogenesis through glial transdifferentiation in a CNS injury paradigm

1. Sergio Casas-Tinto
2. Nuria Garcia-Guillen
3. María Losada-Perez

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  In this work, the authors use a Drosophila melanogaster adult ventral nerve cord injury model extending and confirming previous observations. This important study reveals key aspects of adult neural plasticity. Taking advantage of several genetic reporter and fate tracing tools, the authors provide solid evidence for different forms of glial plasticity, that are increased upon injury. The significance of the generated cell types under homeostatic conditions and in response to injury remains to be further explored and open up new avenues of research.

Reviewed by eLife

Proactive distractor suppression in early visual cortex

1. David Richter
2. Dirk van Moorselaar
3. Jan Theeuwes

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This important and well-written study uses functional neuroimaging in human observers to provide compelling evidence that activity in the early visual cortex is suppressed at locations that are frequently occupied by a task-irrelevant but salient item. This suppression appears to be general to any kind of stimulus and also occurs in advance of any item actually appearing. The work will be of great interest to psychologists and neuroscientists examining attention, perception, learning and prediction.

Reviewed by eLife

Pupil dilation offers a time-window on prediction error

1. Olympia Colizoli
2. Tessa van Leeuwen
3. Danaja Rutar
4. Harold Bekkering

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This important study seeks to examine the relationship between pupil size and information gain, showing opposite effects dependent upon whether the average uncertainty increases or decreases across trials. Given the broad implications for learning and perception, the findings will be of broad interest to researchers in cognitive neuroscience, decision-making, and computational modelling. Nevertheless, the evidence in support of the particular conclusion is at present incomplete - the conclusions would be strengthened if the authors could both clarify the differences between model-updating and prediction error in their account and clarify the patterns in the data.

Reviewed by eLife

An Alzheimer’s disease-associated common regulatory variant in a PTK2B intron alters microglial function

1. Erica Bello
2. Kathleen Long
3. Sho Iwama
4. Juliette Steer
5. Sarah Cooper
6. Kaur Alasoo
7. Natsuhiko Kumasaka
8. Jeremy Schwartzentruber
9. Nikolaos I Panousis
10. Andrew Bassett

Reviewed by Review Commons

Perceptual and attentional impairments of conscious access involve distinct neural mechanisms despite equal task performance

1. Samuel Noorman
2. Timo Stein
3. Johannes Jacobus Fahrenfort
4. Simon van Gaal

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This important study provides new insights into the mechanisms that underlie perceptual and attentional impairments of conscious access. The paper presents convincing evidence of a dissociation between the early stages of low-level perception, which are impermeable to perceptual or attentional impairments, and subsequent stages of visual integration which are susceptible to perceptual impairment but resilient to attentional manipulations. This study will be of interest to scientists working on visual perception and consciousness.

Reviewed by eLife

Multi-dimensional social relationships shape social attention in monkeys

1. Sainan Liu
2. Jiepin Huang
3. Suhao Chen
4. Michael L Platt
5. Yan Yang

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This study examined how multidimensional social relationships influence social attention in rhesus macaques, linking individual and group-level behaviors to attentional processes. The findings that oxytocin altered social attention and its relationship to both social tendencies and dyadic relationships are important, as recent technological advances allow for the exploration of neuronal activities and mechanisms in free-moving macaques. This work is convincing and will be of interest to those studying the interplay between social dynamics and information processing in primates.

Reviewed by eLife

Computational modelling identifies key determinants of subregion-specific dopamine dynamics in the striatum

1. Aske L Ejdrup
2. Jakob K Dreyer
3. Matthew D Lycas
4. Søren H Jørgensen
5. Trevor W Robbins
6. Jeffrey W Dalley
7. Freja Herborg
8. Ulrik Gether

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  The conclusions of this work are based on valuable simulations of a detailed model of striatal dopamine dynamics. Establishing that a lower dopamine uptake rate can lead to a 'tonic' level of dopamine in the ventral but not dorsal striatum, and that dopamine concentration changes at short delays can be tracked by D1 but not D2 receptor activation, is of value and will be of interest to dopamine aficionados. However, the simulations are incomplete, providing only partial support for the key claims. Several things can be done to strengthen the conclusions, including, for example, but not exclusively, a demonstration of how the results would change as a function of changes in D2 affinity.

Reviewed by eLife

Neurons in the medial prefrontal cortex that are not modulated by hippocampal sharp-wave ripples are involved in spatial tuning and signaling upcoming choice

1. Hanna den Bakker
2. Fabian Kloosterman

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This useful study reports analyses of Neuropixel recordings in the medial prefrontal cortex and hippocampus of rats in a spatial navigation trial, focusing on classifying prefrontal neurons based on SWR modulation and anatomical location. However, the evidence for claims of a clear link between SWR modulation and neuronal encoding, and the evidence for anatomical organization, is currently incomplete. Further analyses might strengthen the evidence for some conclusions, and some of the strong claims of the paper should likely be moderated.

Reviewed by eLife