Neuroscience

eLife Assessment

This valuable study provides convincing evidence that white matter diffusion imaging of the right superior longitudinal fasciculus might help to develop a predictive biomarker of chronic back pain chronicity. The results are based on a discovery-replication approach with different cohorts, but the sample size is limited. The findings will interest researchers interested in the brain mechanisms of chronic pain and in developing brain-based biomarkers of chronic pain.

eLife Assessment

This valuable study investigates how biologically plausible learning mechanisms can support assembly formation that encodes statistics of the environment, by enabling neural sampling that is based on within-assembly connectivity strength. It convincingly shows that assembly formation can emerge from predictive plasticity in excitatory synapses, while two types of plasticity in inhibitory synapses are required: inhibitory homeostatic (predictive) plasticity and inhibitory competitive (anti-predictive) plasticity.

eLife Assessment

This work is of fundamental significance and has an exceptional level of evidence for a new population that protects against obesity-induced hypothalamic inflammation. This topic will attract attention from a broad base of readers, from hypothalamic neuroscientists to immunologists with an interest in metabolism.

eLife Assessment

This fundamental work advances our understanding of the mechanisms underlying lactation-induced infertility. Compelling evidence supports the notion that prolactin inhibits kisspeptin activity and LH pulsatile release and that loss of this signal results in an early reestablishment of fertility during lactation. This work will be of interest to endocrinologists and reproductive biologists.

eLife Assessment

This valuable study provides a detailed picture of the synapse distributions for a set of visual projection neurons and their downstream partners, in combination with multi-compartmental modelling fitted to electrophysiological data. The model reveals interesting consequences of synapse topography for neuronal computation. The analysis, however, seems incomplete as the authors only analyze passive models of these spiking neurons, and do not attempt to connect their analysis to the bigger picture at the behavioral level.

eLife Assessment

This valuable study provides convincing evidence that mutant hair cells with abnormal, reversed polarity of their hair bundles in mouse otolith organs retain wild-type localization, mechanoelectrical transduction and firing properties of their afferent innervation, leading to mild behavioral dysfunction. It thus demonstrates that the bimodal pattern of afferent nerve projections in this organ is not causally related to the bimodal distribution of hair-bundle orientations, as also confirmed in the zebrafish lateral line. The work will be of interest to scientists interested in the development and function of the vestibular system as well as in planar-cell polarity.

eLife Assessment

The authors describe a model for tracking time-varying functional connectivity between neurons from multi-electrode spike recordings. This is an interesting and potentially useful approach to an open problem in neural data analysis, and could be an essential tool for investigating the neural code from large-scale in-vivo recordings of spiking activity. However, the evidence is incomplete: systematic comparisons with existing methods and/or demonstration of its utility relative to conventional methods are essential to demonstrate the usefulness of the method.

eLife Assessment

This important work uses in vivo foveal cone-resolved imaging and simultaneous microscopic photostimulation to investigate the relationship between ocular drift - eye movements long thought to be random - and visual acuity. The surprising result is that ocular drift is systematic - causing the object to move to the center of the cone mosaic over the course of each perceptual trial. The tools used to reach this conclusion are state-of-the-art and the evidence presented is convincing. This work advances our understanding of the visuomotor system and the interplay of anatomy, oculomotor behavior, and visual acuity.

eLife Assessment

This important study examines the stability and compensatory plasticity in the retinotopic mapping in patients with congenital achromatopsia. It provides convincing evidence for a stable mapping of the visual field in V1, alongside changes of the readout from V1 into V3, which shows revised receptive field location and size. With the controlling for potential confounding variables, this paper would be of interest to scientists studying the visual system, brain plasticity, and development.

eLife Assessment

This important study presents results for the theory of odor coding in hyperbolic spaces by revealing spiral trajectories in the dynamics of odors during natural, ethologically relevant processes such as ripening. In the current manuscript, the strength of the evidence is solid and would be strengthened by answering several technical points raised by reviewers.