Neuroscience

Wide-ranging behavioral dysfunction in two mouse models of pathological human variants in the GRIK2 kainate receptor gene

1. Brynna T. Webb
2. Hieu Trinh
3. Emily A. Breach
4. Kendall M. Foote
5. Erica Binelli
6. Geoffrey T. Swanson

Reviewed by preLights

Decoding movie content from neuronal population activity in the human medial temporal lobe

1. Franziska Gerken
2. Alana Darcher
3. Pedro J Gonçalves
4. Rachel Rapp
5. Ismail Elezi
6. Johannes Niediek
7. Marcel S Kehl
8. Thomas P Reber
9. Stefanie Liebe
10. Jakob H Macke
11. Florian Mormann
12. Laura Leal-Taixé

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This valuable study demonstrates that it is possible to decode information about characters and locations from single-unit responses in the human brain to a narrative movie, using a convincing technical approach to capture information in population-level dynamics. The study introduces an exciting dataset of single-unit responses in humans during a naturalistic and dynamic movie stimulus, with recordings from multiple regions within the medial temporal lobe. Using both a traditional firing-rate analysis as well as a population decoding analysis to connect these neural responses to the visual content of the movie, they show that in this dataset, the decoding of semantic scene features (e.g., the person currently on screen), but not scene transitions, is surprisingly driven by classically non-responsive neurons. Based on these findings, the authors argue that dynamic naturalistic semantic information may be processed within the medial temporal lobe at the population level.

Reviewed by eLife

Efficient Generation of Expandable Dorsal Forebrain Neural Rosette Stem Cell Lines

1. Signe Emilie Dannulat Frazier
2. Kristian Honnens de Lichtenberg
3. Elham Jaberi
4. Charlotte Bertelsen
5. Simone Møller Jensen
6. Andreas Wrona
7. Nicolaj Strøyer Christophersen
8. Mie Kristensen
9. J Carlos Villaescusa

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  The study provides valuable technical advances to generate and isolate neural rosettes. The technique is robust, as indicated by both reviewers. The evidence is solid, as shown in orthogonal characterization by flow cytometry, morphology, and scRNA-seq. Comparison with the manual-rosette-picking protocol will enhance the validity of the claims.

Reviewed by eLife