Neuroscience

Predicting individual traits from models of brain dynamics accurately and reliably using the Fisher kernel

1. Christine Ahrends
2. Mark W Woolrich
3. Diego Vidaurre

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This important study combines the use of Fisher Kernels with Hidden Markov models aiming to improve brain-behaviour prediction. The evidence supporting the authors' conclusions is compelling, comparing brain-behaviour prediction accuracies across a range of different traits, including out of sample assessment. This work is timely and will be of interest to neuroscientists working on functional connectivity for brain-behaviour association.

Reviewed by eLife

Operation of spinal sensorimotor circuits controlling phase durations during tied-belt and split-belt locomotion after a lateral thoracic hemisection

1. Ilya A Rybak
2. Natalia A Shevtsova
3. Johannie Audet
4. Sirine Yassine
5. Sergey N Markin
6. Boris I Prilutsky
7. Alain Frigon

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This important modeling study alters a previous model of the intact cat spinal locomotor network to simulate a lateral hemi-section of the spinal cord. The modeling and experimental work described provide convincing evidence that this model is capable of qualitatively predicting alterations to the swing and stance phase durations during locomotion at different speeds on intact or split-belt treadmills. This paper will interest neuroscientists studying vertebrate motor systems, including researchers working on motor dysfunction after spinal cord injury.

Reviewed by eLife

Behavioural pharmacology predicts disrupted signalling pathways and candidate therapeutics from zebrafish mutants of Alzheimer’s disease risk genes

1. François Kroll
2. Joshua Donnelly
3. Güliz Gürel Özcan
4. Eirinn Mackay
5. Jason Rihel

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This important manuscript sets out to identify sleep/arousal phenotypes in larval zebrafish carrying mutations in Alzheimer's disease (AD)-associated genes. The authors provide detailed phenotypic data for F0 knockouts of each of 7 AD-associated genes and then compare the resulting behavioral fingerprints to those obtained from a large-scale chemical screen to generate new hypotheses about underlying molecular mechanisms. The data presented are solid, although extensive interpretation of pharmacological screen data does not necessarily reflect the limited mechanistic data. Nonetheless, the authors address most reviewer concerns in their revised version, providing invaluable new analyses. Phenotypic characterization presented is comprehensive, and the authors develop a well-designed behavioral analysis pipeline that will provide considerable value for zebrafish neuroscientists.

Reviewed by eLife

Input-specific gating of NMDA amplification via HCN channels in mouse L2/3 pyramidal neurons

1. Viktor János Oláh
2. Jing Wu
3. Leonard K Kaczmarek
4. Matthew JM Rowan

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  In this valuable study the authors use electrophysiology in brain slices and computer modeling and suggest that layer 2/3 pyramidal neurons of the mouse cortex have functional HCN channels on the proximal apical dendrite which allows distinct processing of input at that location from the input to distal apical dendrites. The revisions improved the solid paper but some of the concerns were not addressed sufficiently and many of these concerns could be addressed by further revision.

Reviewed by eLife

Statistical learning beyond words in human neonates

1. Ana Fló
2. Lucas Benjamin
3. Marie Palu
4. Ghislaine Dehaene-Lambertz

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  The manuscript provides important new insights into the mechanisms of statistical learning in early human development, showing that statistical learning in neonates occurs robustly and is not limited to linguistic features but occurs across different domains. The evidence is convincing and the findings are highly relevant for researchers working in several domains, including developmental cognitive neuroscience, developmental psychology, linguistics, and speech pathology.

Reviewed by eLife

Disruption of the CRF1 receptor eliminates morphine-induced sociability deficits and firing of oxytocinergic neurons in male mice

1. Alessandro Piccin
2. Anne-Emilie Allain
3. Jérôme M Baufreton
4. Sandrine S Bertrand
5. Angelo Contarino

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  The revised report provides valuable findings for the field, suggesting a relationship between CRF1 receptors, sociability deficits in morphine-treated male mice yet not females, and a potential mechanism involving oxytocin neurons in the paraventricular nucleus of the hypothalamus. Generally, the strength of evidence is solid in terms of the methods, data, and analyses. This work will be of interest to those interested in social behavior and addiction.

Reviewed by eLife

Canonical neurodevelopmental trajectories of structural and functional manifolds

1. Alicja Monaghan
2. Richard. AI Bethlehem
3. Danyal Akarca
4. Daniel Margulies
5. the Team CALM
6. Duncan E Astle

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This important study provides insights into the neurodevelopmental trajectories of structural and functional connectivity gradients in the human brain and their potential associations with behaviour and psychopathology. While certain aspects of the methodology are rigorous, the evidence supporting the findings is currently incomplete and would benefit from additional sensitivity analyses to evaluate methodological choices supporting the findings. This study will be of interest to neuroscientists interested in understanding functional connectivity across development.

Reviewed by eLife

Deficiency of orexin receptor type 1 in dopaminergic neurons increases novelty-induced locomotion and exploration

1. Xing Xiao
2. Gagik Yeghiazaryan
3. Fynn Eggersmann
4. Anna Lena Cremer
5. Heiko Backes
6. Peter Kloppenburg
7. Anne Christine Hausen

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This manuscript describes valuable findings regarding the expression pattern of orexin receptors in the midbrain and how manipulating this system influences several behaviors, such as context-induced locomotor activity and exploration. The overall strength of evidence - which includes anatomical, viral manipulation studies, and brain imaging - is solid and broadly substantiates claims in the paper. However, there are several areas in which the conclusions are only partially supported by the combination of methods used. These results have implications for understanding the neural underpinnings of reward and will be of interest to neuroscientists and cognitive scientists with an interest in the neurobiology of reward.

Reviewed by eLife

Sex-specific behavioral and thalamo-accumbal circuit adaptations after oxycodone abstinence

1. Yanaira Alonso-Caraballo
2. Yan Li
3. Nicholas J Constantino
4. Megan A Neal
5. Gillian S Driscoll
6. Maria Mavrikaki
7. Vadim Y Bolshakov
8. Elena H Chartoff

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This study presents valuable evidence of sex differences in oxycodone relapse-related behavior in rats and provides insight into associated synaptic plasticity in the paraventricular thalamus to the nucleus accumbens shell (PVT-NAcSh) circuit. The report reveals that females show heightened cue-induced oxycodone seeking compared to males after 14 days – but not 1 day – of abstinence; however, an increase in synaptic strength from the PVT inputs to the NAcSh was observed in both males and females at 14 days of abstinence. Therefore, whereas the behavioral data and much of the electrophysiology data are solid, the link between them is incomplete. Further investigation of the functional role of the PVT-NAcSh pathway in the observed sex differences in oxycodone relapse and examination of input and cell-type specificity of synaptic alterations would greatly strengthen this study.

Reviewed by eLife

Label-free characterization of Amyloid-β-plaques and associated lipids in brain tissues using stimulated Raman scattering microscopy

1. Volker Schweikhard
2. Andrea Baral
3. Vishnu Krishnamachari
4. William C. Hay
5. Martin Fuhrmann

Reviewed by Arcadia Science