Neuroscience

High frequency spike inference with particle Gibbs sampling

1. Giovanni Diana
2. B. Semihcan Sermet
3. David A. DiGregorio

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  In their study, Diana et al. introduce a novel method for spike inference from calcium imaging data using a Monte Carlo-based approach, emphasizing the quantification of uncertainties in spike time estimates through a Bayesian framework. This method employs particle Gibbs sampling for estimating model parameter probabilities, offering accuracy comparable to existing methods with the added benefit of directly assessing uncertainties. Although the paper provides a solid methodological explanation, it lacks a thorough comparison with other inference methods. Nevertheless, it presents a valuable advancement for neuroscientists interested in new approaches for parameter estimation from calcium imaging data.

Reviewed by eLife

Spontaneous activity of striatal projection neurons supports maturation of striatal inputs to substantia nigra dopaminergic neurons

1. Bojana Kokinovic
2. Patricia Seja
3. Angelica Donati
4. Maria Ryazantseva
5. Alban de Kerchove d’Exaerde
6. Serge N. Schiffmann
7. Tomi Taira
8. Svetlana M. Molchanova

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This valuable study describes early postnatal compartmental differences in the functional maturation of striatal projection neurons. It explores how the postnatal activity of these neurons may determine the GABAergic innervation of dopaminergic neurons in the adult substantia nigra pars compacta. While the functional characterization of striatal neuron development is solid, analysis of how early postnatal activity of striatal projection neurons shapes their functional innervation of dopaminergic neurons is incomplete.

Reviewed by eLife

Microglia contact cerebral vasculature through gaps between astrocyte endfeet

1. Gary P. Morris
2. Catherine G. Foster
3. Brad A. Sutherland
4. Søren Grubb

Reviewed by Arcadia Science

Sibling chimerism among microglia in marmosets

1. Ricardo C.H. del Rosario
2. Fenna M. Krienen
3. Qiangge Zhang
4. Melissa Goldman
5. Curtis Mello
6. Alyssa Lutservitz
7. Kiku Ichihara
8. Alec Wysoker
9. James Nemesh
10. Guoping Feng
11. Steven A. McCarroll

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This fundamental study substantially advances our understanding of sibling chimerism in marmosets by demonstrating that chimerism is limited to hematopoietic cells. The evidence supporting these findings is compelling, demonstrated through comprehensive analyses, including single-cell RNA-seq data from multiple individuals and tissues. The work will be of broad interest to many fields of biology.

Reviewed by eLife

Unveiling the cell biology of hippocampal neurons with dendritic axon origin

1. Yuhao Han
2. Roland Thuenauer
3. Kay Grünewald
4. Marina Mikhaylova

Reviewed by Review Commons

Deciphering molecular heterogeneity and dynamics of human hippocampal neural stem cells at different ages and injury states

1. Junjun Yao
2. Shaoxing Dai
3. Ran Zhu
4. Ju Tan
5. Qiancheng Zhao
6. Yu Yin
7. Jiansen Sun
8. Xuewei Du
9. Longjiao Ge
10. Jianhua Xu
11. Chunli Hou
12. Nan Li
13. Jun Li
14. Weizhi Ji
15. Chuhong Zhu
16. Runrui Zhang
17. Tianqing Li

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  Using state-of-the-art single-nucleus RNA sequencing, Yao et al. investigate the transcriptomic features of neural stem cells (NSCs) in the human hippocampus to address how they vary across different age groups and stroke conditions. The authors report alterations in NSC subtype proportions and gene expression profiles after stroke. Although the study is valuable and the analysis is comprehensive, the significance is restricted by well-acknowledged technical limitations leading to incomplete evidence supporting some main conclusions.

Reviewed by eLife

Episodic long-term memory formation during slow-wave sleep

1. Flavio J Schmidig
2. Simon Ruch
3. Katharina Henke

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This manuscript supports the intriguing idea that some aspects of novel learning can occur during sleep and outside of awareness. The authors provide solid evidence that presenting participants with novel words and their translations during sleep, especially during slow oscillation troughs, leads to the ability to categorize the semantic meaning of those words during awake testing 36 hours later. These findings represent a valuable contribution to the literature on unconscious processing and learning during sleep, although the claim that the results reflect episodic memory formation, in particular, deviates from the typical use of this term in the literature.

Reviewed by eLife

Species -shared and -unique gyral peaks on human and macaque brains

1. Songyao Zhang
2. Tuo Zhang
3. Guannan Cao
4. Jingchao Zhou
5. Zhibin He
6. Xiao Li
7. Yudan Ren
8. Tao Liu
9. Xi Jiang
10. Lei Guo
11. Junwei Han
12. Tianming Liu

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This important paper compares cross-species cortical folding patterns in human and non-human primates, showing that most gyral peaks shared across species are in lower-order cortical regions. The supporting evidence is solid and multi-faceted, encompassing anatomy, connectivity and gene expression. This paper will be of interest to a broad readership within the neuroscience community, especially for those interested in cross-species correspondences in brain organisation.

Reviewed by eLife

Modulation of alpha oscillations by attention is predicted by hemispheric asymmetry of subcortical regions

1. Tara Ghafari
2. Cecilia Mazzetti
3. Kelly Garner
4. Tjerk Gutteling
5. Ole Jensen

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This study by Ghafari et al. tackles a question relevant for the field of attention as it connects structural differences in subcortical regions with oscillatory modulations during attention allocation. Using a combination of Magnetoencephalography (MEG) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) data in human subjects, the valuable results show that inter-individual differences in the lateralisation of alpha oscillations are explained by asymmetry of subcortical brain regions. The strength of evidence is deemed convincing in line with current state-of-the-art.

Reviewed by eLife

Lesions in a songbird vocal circuit increase variability in song syntax

1. Avani Koparkar
2. Timothy L Warren
3. Jonathan D Charlesworth
4. Sooyoon Shin
5. Michael S Brainard
6. Lena Veit

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  Songbirds provide a tractable model system to study mechanisms of vocal production and sequencing, and past work showed that the lesions to LMAN, the output of a basal ganglia thalamocortical loop, reduced vocal variability, consistent with a role in motor exploration. In this fundamental work, the authors rigorously examined how lesions to an understudied neighboring region, MMAN, part of a parallel basal ganglia loop, affect singing in Bengalese finches, whose songs exhibit complex sequential transitions. The authors provide compelling evidence that MMAN lesions resulted in increased sequential variability but do not affect syllable acoustic structure, showing that distinct frontal systems can have distinct functions for producing and sequencing song syllables.

Reviewed by eLife