Neuroscience

The transcription factor BCL11A restores differentiation potential to aged oligodendrocyte progenitor cells

1. Tanay Ghosh
2. Roey Baror
3. Chao Zhao
4. Amar Sharma
5. Nick Goldman
6. Robin JM Franklin

• Curated by eLife

  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 solid while identifying some minor weaknesses that if addressed would enhance the rigor of the study.

Reviewed by eLife

ELECTROPHYSIOLOGICAL CORRELATES OF CONSCIOUS EXPERIENCES DURING SLEEP: LUCID DREAMS, SLEEP PARALYSIS, OUT-OF-BODY EXPERIENCES, AND FALSE AWAKENINGS

1. Nerea L. Herrero
2. Yohann Corfdir
3. Aylin A. Vázquez-Chenlo
4. Lucila Capurro
5. Cecilia Forcato

Reviewed by preLights

Contributions of insula and superior temporal sulcus to interpersonal guilt and responsibility in social decisions

1. Maria Gädeke
2. Tom Eric Willems
3. Omar Salah Ahmed
4. Bernd Weber
5. Rene Hurlemann
6. Johannes Schultz

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This manuscript provides valuable novel insights into the role of interpersonal guilt in social decision-making by showing that responsibility for a partner's bad lottery outcomes influences happiness. Through the integration of neuroimaging and computational modelling methods, and by combining findings from two studies, the authors provide solid support for their claims. The findings will be of interest to researchers in the field of social neuroscience and decision making.

Reviewed by eLife

Ventral Hippocampal Temporoammonic and Schaffer Collateral Pathways Differentially Control Fear- and Anxiety-Related Behaviors

1. Maltesh Kambali
2. Muxiao Wang
3. Rajasekar Nagarajan
4. Jinrui Lyu
5. Howard Gritton
6. Uwe Rudolph

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  Kambali et al use optogenetic manipulations to examine whether the ventral hippocampal Schaffer collateral (vCA3-to-vCA1) and temporoammonic (EC-to-vCA1) pathways regulate anxiety- and fear-related behaviors in mice. They find that both pathways regulate the expression of fear (freezing) responses to a context and auditory conditioned stimulus paired with foot shock (trace conditioning protocol), but only the Schaffer collateral pathway regulates the expression of anxiety-related behaviors in the elevated plus maze, open field test, and Vogel conflict test. Overall, the study is valuable: it detects bidirectional effects of optogenetic excitation and inhibition in both pathways. However, the strength of the evidence in support of its main claims is incomplete.

Reviewed by eLife

Death receptor 6 does not regulate axon degeneration and Schwann cell injury responses during Wallerian degeneration

1. Bogdan Beirowski
2. Haoran Huang
3. Elisabetta Babetto

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  In this valuable study, through carefully executed and rigorously controlled experiments, the authors challenged a previously reported role of the Death Receptor 6 (DR6/Tnfrsf21) in Wallerian degeneration (WD). Using two DR6 knockout mouse lines and multiple WD assays, both in vitro and in vivo, the authors provided convincing evidence that loss of DR6 in mice does not protect peripheral axons from WD after injury, at least in the specific contexts of the mice and analyses performed in this study. Due to the lack of certain specific parameters from previous studies (sex, age, mouse strains etc.), the exact reasons underlying the observed inconsistencies between current and previous reports on the protective effects of DR6 remains to be determined. Overall, this is a carefully executed study providing invaluable information toward understanding DR6's role (or lack thereof) in axon degeneration.

Reviewed by eLife

Strong mnemonic prediction errors increase cognitive control, attention, and arousal

1. Alice M Xue
2. Jenna Jokhani
3. Anthony M Norcia
4. Anthony D Wagner

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This important study characterizes a cascade of neural processes triggered by memory-based prediction errors. The study uses an impressive collection of approaches and methods to characterize and measure cognitive control, arousal, and memory changes as a function of memory-based violations. The analyses are technically sophisticated and rigorous and, taken together, provide solid evidence that there are multiple processes accompanying prediction errors, and that they differentially relate to successful encoding. The manuscript would be much improved by the addition of a discussion or visual schematic that integrates the numerous findings together into a more coherent model.

Reviewed by eLife

Opposite and complementary roles of the two calcium thresholds for inducing LTP and LTD in models of striatal projection neurons

1. Daniel Trpevski

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This computational study constitutes an extension to prior work on biophysical calcium-based synaptic plasticity rules with metaplasticity, investigating how single neurons can learn to perform non-linear pattern classification. This important work presents a significantly simpler solution to the studied problem with potentially broad applicability, there is however incomplete evidence to support the core conclusions.

Reviewed by eLife

Sex-specific single transcript level atlas of vasopressin and its receptor (AVPR1a) in the mouse brain

1. Anisa Azatovna Gumerova
2. Georgii Pevnev
3. Funda Korkmaz
4. Uliana Cheliadinova
5. Guzel Burganova
6. Darya Vasilyeva
7. Liam Cullen
8. Orly Barak
9. Farhath Sultana
10. Weibin Zhou
11. Steven Lee Sims
12. Emily Weiss
13. Victoria Laurencin
14. Tal Frolinger
15. Se-Min Kim
16. Ki A Goosens
17. Tony Yuen
18. Mone Zaidi
19. Vitaly Ryu

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This work presents a brain-wide atlas of vasopressin (Avp) and vasopressin receptor 1A (Avpr1a) mRNA expression in mouse brains using high-resolution RNAscope in situ hybridization. The single-transcript approach provides precise localization and identifies additional brain regions expressing Avpr1a, creating a valuable resource for the field. The revised manuscript is clearer and more impactful, with improved figures, stronger data organization, and enhanced scholarship through added context and citations. Overall, the evidence is compelling, and the atlas should be broadly of use to researchers studying vasopressin signaling and related neural circuits.

Reviewed by eLife

Dynamic regulation of mRNA acetylation at synapses by spatial memory in mouse hippocampus

1. Hai-Qian Zhou
2. Zhen Zhu
3. Jia-Wei Zhang
4. Wei-Peng Lin
5. Hao-JY Jin
6. Yang-Yang Ding
7. Shuai Liu
8. Dong-Min Yin

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  Recent studies have shown that mRNA can be acetylated (ac4c), altering mRNA stability and translation efficiency; however, the role of mRNA acetylation in the brain remains unexplored. In this important study, the authors demonstrate that ac4c occurs in synaptically localised mRNAs, mediated by NAT10. Conditional reduction of NAT10 protein levels led to decreases in ac4c of mRNAs and deficits in synaptic plasticity and memory. These solid results suggest that mRNA acetylation may play a role in memory consolidation.

Reviewed by eLife

PSD-95 drives binocular vision maturation critical for predation

1. Subhodeep Bhattacharya
2. Livia JF Wilod Versprille
3. Cornelia Schöne
4. Oliver M Schlüter
5. Siegrid Löwel

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This valuable study describes significant differences in prey capture behavior between PSD-95 knock-out and wild-type mice, despite prior work by the same authors showing only modest visual deficits in the former. The data convincingly demonstrated prey capture performance in PSD-95 knock-out mice to improve under monocular viewing conditions. However, this finding alone was inadequate to support the interpretation of results as revealing a deficit in binocular visual integration, especially given the lack of eye and head tracking data or consideration of alternative explanations for the observed behavior.

Reviewed by eLife