Neuroscience

Anti-drift pose tracker (ADPT): A transformer-based network for robust animal pose estimation cross-species

1. Guoling Tang
2. Yaning Han
3. Quanying Liu
4. Pengfei Wei

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This study introduces a useful deep learning-based algorithm that tracks animal postures with reduced drift by incorporating transformers for more robust keypoint detection. The efficacy of this new algorithm for single-animal pose estimation was demonstrated through comparisons with two popular algorithms. However, the analysis is incomplete and would benefit from comparisons with other state-of-the-art methods and consideration of multi-animal tracking.

Reviewed by eLife

Observational activation of anterior cingulate cortical neurons coordinates hippocampal replay in social learning

1. Xiang Mou
2. Daoyun Ji

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This study provides solid evidence of coordinated spiking activity of neurons in the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), and correlated activity in the CA1 subregion of the hippocampus, during observational learning. The authors also show coordinated ACC-CA1 neural activity during rest periods prior to the performance of the observationally learned task. The important findings advance the field's understanding of neural mechanisms underlying social learning.

Reviewed by eLife

On the variability of dynamic functional connectivity assessment methods

1. Mohammad Torabi
2. Georgios D Mitsis
3. Jean-Baptiste Poline

Reviewed by GigaScience

Mimicking opioid analgesia in cortical pain circuits

1. Justin G. James
2. Nora M. McCall
3. Alex I. Hsu
4. Corinna S. Oswell
5. Gregory J. Salimando
6. Malaika Mahmood
7. Lisa M. Wooldridge
8. Meghan Wachira
9. Adrienne Jo
10. Raquel Adaia Sandoval Ortega
11. Jessica A. Wojick
12. Katherine Beattie
13. Sofia A. Farinas
14. Samar N. Chehimi
15. Amrith Rodrigues
16. Lindsay L. Ejoh
17. Blake A. Kimmey
18. Emily Lo
19. Ghalia Azouz
20. Jose J. Vasquez
21. Matthew R. Banghart
22. Kate Townsend Creasy
23. Kevin T. Beier
24. Charu Ramakrishnan
25. Richard C. Crist
26. Benjamin C. Reiner
27. Karl Deisseroth
28. Eric A. Yttri
29. Gregory Corder

Reviewed by Arcadia Science

Drosophila epidermal cells are intrinsically mechanosensitive and modulate nociceptive behavioral outputs

1. Jiro Yoshino
2. Sonali S. Mali
3. Claire R. Williams
4. Takeshi Morita
5. Chloe E. Emerson
6. Christopher J. Arp
7. Sophie E. Miller
8. Chang Yin
9. Lydia Thé
10. Chikayo Hemmi
11. Mana Motoyoshi
12. Kenichi Ishii
13. Kazuo Emoto
14. Diana M. Bautista
15. Jay Z. Parrish

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This is an important work and provides a significant advance in our understanding of mechanosensation in the epidermis. The evidence presented is solid, however, additional work such as testing whether the activation time can be shorter, addressing the mechanism underlying endoplasmic reticulum calcium release, and improving the clarity of writing and rigor of analysis would strengthen the study. This work will be of broad interest to neurobiologists, epithelial cell biologists, and mechanobiologists.

Reviewed by eLife, Arcadia Science

Geometry and dynamics of representations in a precisely balanced memory network related to olfactory cortex

1. Claire Meissner-Bernard
2. Friedemann Zenke
3. Rainer W Friedrich

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This important study introduces a biologically constrained model of telencephalic area of adult zebrafish to highlight the significance of precisely balanced memory networks in olfactory processing. The authors convincingly show that their model performs better in multiple situations (for e.g. in terms of network stability and shaping the geometry of representations), compared to traditional attractor networks and persistent activity. However the study lacks a mechanistic understanding of the results in terms of parameter sensitivity analysis. The work supports recent studies reporting functional E/I subnetworks in several sensory cortexes, and will be of interest to both theoretical and experimental neuroscientists studying network dynamics based on structured excitatory and inhibitory interactions.

Reviewed by eLife

Two long-axis dimensions of hippocampal-cortical integration support memory function across the adult lifespan

1. Kristin Nordin
2. Robin Pedersen
3. Farshad Falahati
4. Jarkko Johansson
5. Filip Grill
6. Micael Andersson
7. Saana M. Korkki
8. Lars Bäckman
9. Andrew Zalesky
10. Anna Rieckmann
11. Lars Nyberg
12. Alireza Salami

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This fundamental work demonstrates the importance of considering overlapping modes of functional organization (i.e. gradients) in the hippocampus, showing associations between with aging, dopaminergic receptor distribution and episodic memory. The evidence supporting the conclusions is solid, although some clarifications about testing procedures and a discussion of the limitations of the dopaminergic receptor mapping techniques employed should be provided along with analysis code. The work will be of broad interest to basic and clinical neuroscientists.

Reviewed by eLife

The identification of extensive samples of motor units in human muscles reveals diverse effects of neuromodulatory inputs on the rate coding

1. Simon Avrillon
2. François Hug
3. Roger Enoka
4. Arnault H. Caillet
5. Dario Farina

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  Leveraging state-of-the-art experimental and analytical approaches, this valuable study characterizes the recruitment and activation of large populations of human motor units during slow isometric contractions in two lower limb muscles. Evidence for many claims is solid, however, the main claim that this study reveals rate coding of entire motoneuron pools requires additional data in more dynamic conditions.

Reviewed by eLife

Direct modulation of TRPM8 ion channels by rapamycin and analog macrolide immunosuppressants

1. Balázs István Tóth
2. Bahar Bazeli
3. Annelies Janssens
4. Erika Lisztes
5. Márk Racskó
6. Balázs Kelemen
7. Mihály Herczeg
8. Tamás Milán Nagy
9. Katalin E. Kövér
10. Argha Mitra
11. Attila Borics
12. Tamás Bíró
13. Thomas Voets

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  In this manuscript, the authors have identified Rapamycin, a common pharmacological tool, thought to only bind to the mTOR kinase, as an off-target modulator of the ion channel TRPM8, the main cold sensor in mammals. This is a valuable study, that presents solid evidence for its claims. The NMR methods employed need to be better validated in order to become a tool for the community.

Reviewed by eLife

Dynamic reinforcement learning reveals time-dependent shifts in strategy during reward learning

1. Sarah Jo C Venditto
2. Kevin J Miller
3. Carlos D Brody
4. Nathaniel D Daw

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This important work by Veneditto and colleagues developed a new modeling approach, called a mixture-of-agent hidden Markov model (MoA-HMM), in which choice behaviors are modeled as transitions between discrete states defined by different weighting of several reinforcement learning and decision strategies. The authors apply this approach to their previous data collected from rats performing the two-step task, and show that this method provides better fits to the data than previous methods, and predicts fluctuations in neural and other behavioral data. The reviewers found this study to be overall convincing, and the method is of general interest to the field.

Reviewed by eLife