Neuroscience

Challenges and Efficacy of Astrocyte-to-Neuron Reprogramming in Spinal Cord Injury: In Vitro Insights and In Vivo Outcomes

1. ALESSIA NICEFORO
2. Lyandysha V Zholudeva
3. Silvia Fernandes
4. Yashvi Shah
5. Michael A Lane
6. Liang Qiang

Reviewed by PREreview

Encoding of cerebellar dentate neuron activity during visual attention in rhesus macaques

1. Nico A Flierman
2. Sue Ann Koay
3. Willem S van Hoogstraten
4. Tom JH Ruigrok
5. Pieter Roelfsema
6. Aleksandra Badura
7. Chris I De Zeeuw

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This important study examined neuronal activity in the dentate nucleus of the cerebellum when monkeys performed a difficult perceptual decision-making task. The authors provide convincing evidence that the cerebellum represents sensory, motor, and behavioral outcome signals that are sent to the attentional system. This paper is of great general interest in that it shows the involvement of the cerebellum in cognitive processes at the neuronal level.

Reviewed by eLife

Valence and salience encoding in the central amygdala

1. Mi-Seon Kong
2. Ethan Ancell
3. Daniela M Witten
4. Larry S Zweifel

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This useful work reveals differential activity to food and shock outcomes in central amygdala GABAergic neurons. Evidence supports claims of unconditioned stimulus activity that changes with learning. Compelling evidence that the circular shift method rigorously identifies functional neuron types is also presented. However, the evidence regarding claims related to valence or salience signaling in these neurons is incomplete. This work will be of interest to neuroscientists studying sensory processing and learning in the amygdala.

Reviewed by eLife

High-resolution awake mouse fMRI at 14 tesla

1. David Hike
2. Xiaochen Liu
3. Zeping Xie
4. Bei Zhang
5. Sangcheon Choi
6. Xiaoqing Alice Zhou
7. Andy Liu
8. Alyssa Murstein
9. Yuanyuan Jiang
10. Anna Devor
11. Xin Yu

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This is a valuable study describing an implementation of awake mouse fMRI with implanted head coils at high fields. The evidence presented is convincing, combining technical advances with interesting neuroscience applications showing that mice anticipate stimuli given at regular (but at irregular) intervals.

Reviewed by eLife

The satiety hormone cholecystokinin gates reproduction in fish by controlling gonadotropin secretion

1. Lian Hollander-Cohen
2. Omer Cohen
3. Miriam Shulman
4. Tomer Aiznkot
5. Pierre Fontanaud
6. Omer Revah
7. Patrice Mollard
8. Matan Golan
9. Berta Levavi-Sivan

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This study presents valuable findings on the role of the satiety hormone cholecystokinin typically associated with feeding in the control of a pituitary hormone, FSH, which is a critical regulator of reproductive physiology. The authors provide solid pharmacological evidence that cholecystokinin is sufficient to regulate FSH and compelling genetic evidence that one of its receptors is required for gonadal development, with uncertainties remaining about the physiological regulation and necessity of the peptide. The work will be of interest to reproductive biologists, especially those with an interest in the endocrine control of fertility.

Reviewed by eLife

Dendritic growth and synaptic organization from activity-independent cues and local activity-dependent plasticity

1. Jan H Kirchner
2. Lucas Euler
3. Ingo Fritz
4. André Ferreira Castro
5. Julijana Gjorgjieva

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This important work investigates how two distinct processes, morphological changes and synaptic plasticity, contribute to the final shape of neuronal dendrites and the spatial structure of their synaptic inputs. The modelling is convincing and could be broadly applied to other similar questions. The work will be of interest to neuroscientists studying dendritic development and connectivity at a single-cell level.

Reviewed by eLife

Mid1 deletion leads to cognitive dysfunction in Opitz syndrome by regulates neural rhythms through the inhibition of p-Creb by PP2Ac

1. Ziye Yang
2. Pengxiang Li
3. Yue Chen
4. Xiaoyu Guo
5. Ping Liu
6. Guangjian Ni
7. Shuang Liu
8. Liqun Chen
9. Dong Ming

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This study provides important insights into the role of the Mid1 gene in hippocampal development and its implications in Opitz G/BBB syndrome, with much evidence supporting its impact on synaptic plasticity, neural rhythms, and cognitive functions. The methods, data, and analyses are solid, supporting the claims, presenting several minor weaknesses, and establishing Mid1 as a potential therapeutic target for neurological deficits associated with OS. The conclusions are largely supported by the results, but additional data are needed.

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Multiple and subject-specific roles of uncertainty in reward-guided decision-making

1. Alexander Paunov
2. Maëva L’Hôtellier
3. Dalin Guo
4. Zoe He
5. Angela Yu
6. Florent Meyniel

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  The findings of this study are valuable, as they address a critical methodological gap in decision-making research by demonstrating how heuristic strategies can confound interpretations of uncertainty-driven behaviour and provide a clearer framework for distinguishing between uncertainty-seeking and heuristic-driven exploration. While the evidence is solid, with strong methodological rigour in task design and computational modelling, some claims, such as the stability of uncertainty parameters and correlations with psychopathology measures, require refinement. Overall, the data broadly support the study's claims, but interpretational ambiguities limit the impact of certain findings.

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GPR30 in spinal cholecystokinin-positive neurons modulates neuropathic pain

1. Qing Chen
2. Hui Wu
3. Shulan Xie
4. Fangfang Zhu
5. Fang Xu
6. Qi Xu
7. Lihong Sun
8. Yue Yang
9. Linghua Xie
10. Jiaqian Xie
11. Hua Li
12. Ange Dai
13. Wenxin Zhang
14. Luyang Wang
15. Cuicui Jiao
16. Honghai Zhang
17. Xuelong Zhou
18. Zhen-Zhong Xu
19. Xinzhong Chen

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This valuable study investigates the mechanisms that contribute to nerve-injury-induced allodynia by studying the role of the estrogen receptor GPR30 in a population of CCK+ neurons in the dorsal horn of the spinal cord that receive direct inputs from primary somatosensory cortex and modulate nociceptive sensitivity. The authors provide convincing evidence, using a variety of complementary approaches, ranging from the cellular to physiology level; however, conclusions that descending corticospinal projections modulate nociceptive behaviors through GPR30 are incompletely supported. With some additional analyses, the findings will be better positioned within the context of spinal circuitry literature.

Reviewed by eLife

A brainstem circuit controls cough-like airway defensive behaviors in mice

1. Xiaoshan Xu
2. Xiupeng Nie
3. Weijia Zhang
4. He-Hai Jiang
5. Bingyi Liu
6. Yanyan Ren
7. Tingting Wang
8. Xiang Xu
9. Jing Yang
10. Fujun Luo

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This valuable study by Xu and colleagues investigates brainstem circuits mediating evoked respiratory reflexes that they define as cough-like in a freely behaving mouse model. They have applied multiple circuit mapping and manipulation approaches to suggest that the caudal spinal trigeminal nucleus (SP5C) nucleus can play a novel role in generating a reflex cough-like behavior in mice. The authors give incomplete evidence that the reflex behavior produced in their mouse model is definitively cough, limiting functional interpretation of the putative circuit identified and requiring more thorough experimental interrogation of the behavior studied.

Reviewed by eLife