Neuroscience

Auditory perception and neural representation of temporal features are altered by age but not by cochlear synaptopathy

1. Friederike Steenken
2. Rainer Beutelmann
3. Henning Oetjen
4. Christine Köppl
5. Georg M Klump

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This study tested the specific hypothesis that age-related changes to hearing involve a partial loss of synapse connections between sensory cells in the ear and the nerve fibers that carry information about sounds to the brain, and that this interferes with the ability to discriminate rapid temporal fluctuations in sounds. Physiological, behavioral, and histological analyses provide a powerful combination to test this hypothesis in gerbils. Contrary to previous suggestions, it was found that chemically-induced isolated synaptopathy (at similar levels as observed in aged gerbils) did not result in worse performance on a behavioral task measuring sensitivity to temporal fine-structure, nor did it produce degradations in auditory-nerve fiber encoding of fine structure. Aged gerbils showed degraded behavior and stronger than normal envelope responses, but temporal fine-structure coding was not affected; interpreted by the authors as suggesting central processing contributions to aging effects on discrimination. These findings are important for advancing our knowledge of the mechanistic bases for age-related changes to hearing, and the evidence provided is solid with the results largely supporting the claims made and minor limitations related to possible confounds discussed in reasonable depth.

Reviewed by eLife

Local synthesis of Reticulon-1C lessens the outgrowth of injured axons and Spastin activity

1. Alejandro Luarte
2. Javiera Gallardo
3. Daniela Corvalán
4. Ankush Chakraborty
5. Cláudio Gouveia-Roque
6. Francisca Bertin
7. Carlos Contreras
8. Juan Pablo Ramírez
9. André Weber
10. Waldo Acevedo
11. Werner Zuschratter
12. Rodrigo Herrera-Molina
13. Úrsula Wyneken
14. Andrea Paula-Lima
15. Tatiana Adasme-Rocha
16. Jorge Toledo
17. Rodrigo Vergara
18. Antonia Figueroa
19. Carolina González
20. Christian González-Billault
21. Ulrich Hengst
22. Andrés Couve

Reviewed by Review Commons

The gut-brain vagal axis governs mesolimbic dopamine dynamics and reward events

1. Oriane Onimus
2. Faustine Arrivet
3. Tinaïg Le Borgne
4. Sylvie Perez
5. Julien Castel
6. Anthony Ansoult
7. Benoit Bertrand
8. Nejmeh Mashhour
9. Camille de Almeida
10. Linh-Chi Bui
11. Marie Vandecasteele
12. Serge Luquet
13. Laurent Venance
14. Nicolas Heck
15. Fabio Marti
16. Giuseppe Gangarossa

Reviewed by PREreview

Rhythmic sampling and competition of target and distractor in a motion detection task

1. Changhao Xiong
2. Nathan M Petro
3. Ke Bo
4. Lihan Cui
5. Andreas Keil
6. Mingzhou Ding

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This work presents important information on rhythmicity of overlapping target and distractor processing and how this affects behaviour. The methods are, in general, clearly laid out and defensible, with several supplementary analyses leading to a solid base of evidence for their claims.

Reviewed by eLife

Co-release of opposing signaling molecules controls the escalation and release of aggression

1. Rachel E. Gatlin
2. Jordyn Gagon
3. Damhyeon Kwak
4. Sewon Park
5. Hailee Walker
6. Lo Kronheim
7. Thomas Everett
8. Ashley Covington
9. Michaela M. Fluck
10. Tobias Zickmund
11. Nicholas A. Frost
12. Moriel Zelikowsky

Reviewed by PREreview

Remote automated delivery of mechanical stimuli coupled to brain recordings in behaving mice

1. Justin Burdge
2. Anissa Jhumka
3. Ashar Khan
4. Simon Ogundare
5. Nicholas Baer
6. Sasha Fulton
7. Alexander Kaplan
8. Brittany Bistis
9. William Foster
10. Joshua Thackray
11. Andre Toussaint
12. Miao Li
13. Yosuke M Morizawa
14. Jake Nazarian
15. Leah Yadessa
16. Arlene J George
17. Abednego Delinois
18. Wadzanayi Mayiseni
19. Noah Loran
20. Guang Yang
21. David J Margolis
22. Victoria E Abraira
23. Ishmail Abdus-Saboor

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This important study describes the development and validation of an Automated Reproducible Mechano-stimulator (ARM), a tool for standardizing and automating tactile behavior experiments. The data supporting the use of the ARM system are compelling, and demonstrate that by removing experimenter effects on animals, it reduces variability in various parameters of stimulus application. Moreover, the authors demonstrate that any noise emitted from the ARM does not induce an increased stress state. Once commercially available, the ARM system has the potential to increase experimental reproducibility between laboratories in the somatosentation and pain fields.

Reviewed by eLife

RubyACRs Enable Red-Shifted Optogenetic Inhibition in Freely Behaving Drosophila

1. Daniel Bushey
2. Hiroshi Shiozaki
3. Yichun Shuai
4. Jihong Zheng
5. Vivek Jayaraman
6. Jeremy P Hasseman
7. Ilya Kolb
8. GENIE Project Team
9. Glenn C Turner

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This important work describes the adaptation and evaluation of two red-shifted anion channelrhodopsins (RubyACRs) for optogenetic inhibition in Drosophila. The study provides convincing evidence for the effectiveness of RubyACRs in fly neurons, including electrophysiology, calcium imaging, and behavioral analysis. With minor revisions to address potential toxicity and compatibility with 2-photon imaging, this paper and the publicly available fly lines it describes will be resources that are of value to the neuroscience community.

Reviewed by eLife

Misclassification in memory modification in AppNL-G-F knock-in mouse model of Alzheimer’s disease

1. Mei-Lun Huang
2. Yusuke Suzuki
3. Hiroki Sasaguri
4. Takashi Saito
5. Takaomi C Saido
6. Itaru Imayoshi

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This valuable study employs a formalized computational model of learning to assess memory deficits in Alzheimer's Disease with the goal of developing an early diagnosis tool. Using an established mouse model of the disease, the authors studied multiple behavioral tasks and ages with the goal of showing similarities in behavioral deficits across tasks. Using the model, the authors indicate specific deficits in memory (overgeneralization and over differentiation) in mice with the transgene for the disease. The evidence presented is solid, yet certain concerns remain regarding the interpretation of the results of the modeling.

Reviewed by eLife

A conserved Arf-GEF modulates axonal integrity through RAB-35 by altering neuron-epidermal attachment

1. Igor Bonacossa-Pereira
2. Sean Coakley
3. Massimo A. Hilliard

Reviewed by Review Commons

The effects of 17α-estradiol treatment on endocrine system revealed by single-nucleus transcriptomic sequencing of hypothalamus

1. Lei Li
2. Guanghao Wu
3. Xiaolei Xu
4. Junling Yang
5. Lirong Yi
6. Ziqing Yang
7. Zheng Mo
8. Li Xing
9. Ying Shan
10. Zhuo Yu
11. Yinchuan Li

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This study demonstrates the potential role of 17α-estradiol in modulating neuronal gene expression in the aged hypothalamus of male rats, identifying key pathways and neuron subtypes affected by the drug. While the findings are useful and provide a foundation for future research, the strength of supporting evidence is incomplete due to the lack of female comparison, a young male control group, unclear link to 17α-estradiol lifespan extension in rats, and insufficient analysis of glial cells and cellular stress in CRH neurons.

Reviewed by eLife