Neuroscience

Dynamics of sensorimotor plasticity during spatial finger augmentation

1. Dominika Radziun
2. Siebe Geurts
3. Valeria C Peviani
4. Luke E Miller

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This study provides a useful contribution to understanding how wearable augmentation devices interact with human proprioception, using a longitudinal design over a single session. Results demonstrate that the perceptual representation of the biological finger and augmentation device changes across different phases of device exposure and use. The evidence supporting a representational change over time is solid, although it is still not clear whether these changes reflect three distinct phases of sensorimotor plasticity, as argued, versus 'washout' or adaptation effects. This work will be of interest to researchers studying body representation, sensorimotor learning, and human-technology interaction.

Reviewed by eLife

Control of innate olfactory valence by segregated cortical amygdala circuits

1. James R Howe
2. Chung-Lung Chan
3. Donghyung Lee
4. Marlon Blanquart
5. James H Lee
6. Laurine Decoster
7. Haylie K Romero
8. Abigail N Zadina
9. Mackenzie E Lemieux
10. Fergil Mills
11. Paula A Desplats
12. Kay M Tye
13. Cory M Root

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This fundamental manuscript describes how the posterolateral cortical amygdala (plCoA) generates appetitive or aversive behaviors in response to odors. By combining optogenetic stimulation, single-cell RNA sequencing, and spatial analysis, the authors identify a topographically organized circuit within plCoA that governs these behaviors. The manuscript shows convincingly that multiple features (spatial, genetic, and projection) contribute to overall population encoding of valence. Overall, the authors conduct many challenging experiments, each of which contains the relevant controls, and the results are interpreted within the framework of their experiments.

Reviewed by eLife

Temporal dynamics of peri-microsaccadic modulations within the foveola

1. Zoe Stearns
2. Martina Poletti

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  Stearns and Poletti present a technically impressive study that aims to uncover a deeper understanding of microsaccade function: their role in perceptual modulation and the associated temporal dynamics. The question is useful, and advances prior work by adding temporal granularity. However, the strength of the evidence is currently incomplete. Additional analysis is needed to control for the effects of endogenous attention and to demonstrate changes in perceptual performance.

Reviewed by eLife

Descending locus coeruleus noradrenergic signaling to spinal astrocyte subset is required for stress-induced mechanical pain hypersensitivity

1. Riku Kawanabe-Kobayashi
2. Sawako Uchiyama
3. Kohei Yoshihara
4. Keisuke Koga
5. Daiki Kojima
6. Thomas J McHugh
7. Izuho Hatada
8. Ko Matsui
9. Kenji F Tanaka
10. Makoto Tsuda

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This important study identifies a novel role for Hes5+ astrocytes in modulating the activity of descending pain-inhibitory noradrenergic neurons from the locus coeruleus during stress-induced pain facilitation. The role of glia in modulating neurological circuits including pain is poorly understood, and in that light, the role of Hes5+ astrocytes in this circuit is a key finding with broader potential impacts. This work is supported by convincing evidence, albeit somewhat limited by the indirect nature of the evidence linking adenosine to nearby neuronal modulation, and possible questions on the population specificity of the transgenic approach.

Reviewed by eLife

Intravital calcium imaging of meningeal macrophages reveals niche-specific dynamics and aberrant responses to brain hyperexcitability

1. Simone Carneiro-Nascimento
2. Chao Wei
3. Anna Gutterman
4. Dan Levy

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This valuable study presents a technically sophisticated intravital two-photon calcium imaging approach to characterize Ca²⁺ dynamics in distinct populations of meningeal macrophages in awake, freely behaving mice. These data are solid and suggest that meningeal macrophage calcium activity is tightly linked to anatomical sub-compartments, with potential implications for migraine and neuroinflammatory processes. Despite these strengths and broad relevance to neuroimmunology, several technical and interpretational issues limit the study, which could be addressed to strengthen this manuscript.

Reviewed by eLife

Patient-Specific Midbrain Organoids with CRISPR Correction Reveal Disease Mechanisms and Enable Therapeutic Evaluation in Neuronopathic Gaucher Disease

1. Yi Lin
2. Benjamin Liou
3. Venette Fannin
4. Stuart Adler
5. Christopher N Mayhew
6. Jason E Hammonds
7. Yueh-Chiang Hu
8. Jason Tchieu
9. Wujuan Zhang
10. Xueheng Zhao
11. Rebecca L Beres
12. Kenneth DR Setchell
13. Ahmet Kaynak
14. Xiaoyang Qi
15. Ricardo A Feldman
16. Ying Sun

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  The manuscript presents important findings with theoretical or practical implications beyond a single subfield. The work is overall solid, and the methods, data, and analyses broadly support the claims. Although the novelty of this study and the work put into it are appreciated, there are also clearly some weaknesses that should be addressed.

Reviewed by eLife

Mixture discrimination training induces durable and generalizable olfactory learning independent of odorant structure and concentration

1. Xiaoyue Chang
2. Huibang Tan
3. Jiehui Niu
4. Kaiqi Yuan
5. Rui Chen
6. Wen Zhou

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This potentially important study explores the specificity of olfactory perceptual learning. In keeping with previous work, the authors found that learning to discriminate between two enantiomers does not generalize across the nostrils or to unrelated enantiomers, whereas learning to discriminate odor mixtures does generalize across the nostrils and to other odor mixtures, with this learning effect persisting over at least two weeks. While the evidence presented to support these findings is convincing, it remains unclear why the results differ for enantiomers and why training on odor mixtures generalizes to other odor mixtures.

Reviewed by eLife

The distinct role of human PIT in attention control

1. Siyuan Huang
2. Lan Wang
3. Sheng He

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This important study reports that the human posterior inferotemporal cortex (hPIT) functions as an attentional priority map, integrating both top-down and bottom-up attentional signals rather than serving solely as an object-processing region. The experiments and analyses are well conducted and provide compelling evidence that hPIT bridges dorsal and ventral attention networks and is robustly modulated by attention across diverse visual tasks. The study will be relevant for researchers investigating visual attention, high-level visual cortex, and the neural mechanisms that integrate endogenous and exogenous attentional control.

Reviewed by eLife

Four new Duchenne muscular dystrophy mouse models with clinically relevant exon deletions in the human DMD gene

1. Maaike van Putten
2. Margot Linssen
3. Christa Tanganyika-de Winter
4. Conny M. Brouwers
5. Jill W.C. Claassens
6. Nisha Verwey
7. Max Walsh
8. Tiberiu Loredan Stan
9. Annemieke Aartsma-Rus
10. Peter Hohenstein

Reviewed by Review Commons

Sexual dimorphism in sensorimotor transformation of optic flow

1. Sarah Nicholas
2. Katja Sporar Klinge
3. Luke Turnbull
4. Annabel Moran
5. Aika Young
6. Yuri Ogawa
7. Karin Nordström

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  Hoverflies are known for their sexually dimorphic visual systems and exquisite flight behaviors. This valuable study reports how two types of visual descending neurons differ between males and females in their motion- and speed-dependent responses, yet surprisingly, the behavior they control lacks any sexual dimorphism. The results convincingly support these findings, which will be of interest for studies of visuomotor transformations and network-level brain organization.

Reviewed by eLife