Neuroscience

eLife Assessment

This important study links blood-derived dietary content to sustained increases in sleep in the mosquito Aedes aegypti. Using multiple independent approaches, the authors provide convincing evidence for blood-induced changes in sleep. These findings have broad implications for understanding how specialized diets regulate sleep across species and for mosquito vector biology.

eLife Assessment

This important study combines anatomical tracing, tissue clearing, and functional manipulations to demonstrate lateralized brainstem control of hepatic glucose metabolism and identify a site of sympathetic nerve crossover supplying the liver. The evidence supporting the anatomical organization of hepatic sympathetic innervation is compelling, and the functional studies provide solid support for a role of asymmetric sympathetic outflow in regulating glucose homeostasis. While some uncertainty remains regarding the contribution of sensory innervation and the extent to which these findings generalize beyond mice, the work provides an invaluable advance in understanding neural regulation of liver metabolism.

eLife Assessment

This valuable study investigates communication from the anterior cingulate cortex to the hippocampus during learning. The optogenetic evidence supporting the functional connection including the interneurons likely to be involved, is convincing. However, the evidence linking this pathway to learning and memory and certain aspects of the statistical interpretation remain limited. Overall, the work will be of interest to neuroscientists studying cortical-hippocampal interactions and learning and memory.

eLife Assessment

This valuable study uses EEG and computational modeling to investigate hemispheric oscillatory asymmetries in unilateral spatial neglect. The work benefits from rare patient data and a careful multimethod approach. The study manuscript provides convincing evidence contributing to our understanding of the neural dynamics underlying spatial neglect.

eLife Assessment

This is a fundamental study on the sensory roles of cerebrospinal-fluid-contacting neurons (CSF-cNs) in mammals, revealing how the apical extension is used as an amplifier of chemical changes in content of the CSF. Specifically, the authors show compelling evidence that PKD2L1 is predominantly a pH-sensing channel in CSF-cNs and link its apical localization to dual phasic and sustained responses underlying CSF chemosensation.

eLife Assessment

This important study reports that neural activity in the auditory cortex (field L) of singing male zebra finches can be modulated by the presence of a female conspecific. These findings extend recent work showing that the activity of dopaminergic neurons in songbirds is also affected by an audience. Solid evidence is presented for the importance of singing context in modulating auditory processing during vocal production, but the study does not yet fully establish that these effects arise specifically from audience-dependent modulation of auditory feedback, as opposed to possible acoustic, temporal, or recording-related confounds. This work should be of interest to researchers studying the context dependence of sensory processing, the role of auditory feedback, and vocal communication during courtship behavior.

eLife Assessment

In this fundamental manuscript, Richter et al. present a thorough anatomical characterization of the Drosophila melanogaster larval pharyngeal sensory system, which is involved in taste-guided behaviors.This study fills a major gap in the larval sensory map, providing a detailed neuroanatomical foundation for future investigations into sensory circuits and behavior. The exceptional data will significantly enrich the field of Drosophila neurobiology.

eLife Assessment

In this study, electroencephalography was recorded during a binocular-rivalry paradigm in which participants viewed a target and a distractor stimulus. The stimuli were independently frequency-tagged, allowing the researchers to track target and distractor processing over time. The findings suggest that parietal alpha oscillations initially segregate competing inputs, followed by frontal theta activity associated with suppression of distractor representations. The significance of these findings is valuable, although the strength of the evidence remains incomplete, because of specific experiment design choices and methodological limitations.

eLife Assessment

This important study introduces a method, based on active control, for determining the functional connectivity between neurons or groups of neurons. While the theory is derived for a linear model with a perfectly observed control signal, the authors present compelling evidence that their method will work even when the system is nonlinear and the control signal is not fully observed. Furthermore, they provide a practical recipe for doing so.

eLife Assessment

This valuable study demonstrates molecular changes associated with age related impairment in oligodendrocyte differentiation and ability to myelinate. The identification of particular genes that are associated with this decline will provide potential future targets for therapeutic interventions. The reviewers felt that the quality of the evidence was convincing while identifying some minor weaknesses that were largely addressed in the review process.