eLife

Latest preprint reviews

1. Medial prefrontal cortex encodes but is not required to generate goal-directed actions under threat

   This article has 3 authors:

   1. Muhammad S. Sajid
   2. Ji Zhou
   3. Manuel A. Castro-Alamancos

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This important study employed a multi-stage behavioural paradigm of increasing cognitive complexity to investigate the role of inhibitory interneurons in the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) in avoidance behaviour in mice. The authors used imaging and optogenetic techniques, combined with this behavioural task, to show that mPFC interneurons are necessary for encoding but not for executing avoidance under threat. The evidence supporting these claims is compelling, and findings will be of interest to researchers in behavioural and systems neurosciences.

   Reviewed by eLife

2. Neural categorization of visual words of alphabetic and non-alphabetic languages

   This article has 2 authors:

   1. Guo Zheng
   2. Shihui Han

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This important study investigates how the brain categorizes written words from different writing systems (e.g., alphabetic vs. non-alphabetic), shedding potential light on the neural basis of language's social‑categorization function. Overall, the evidence supporting the authors' claims is solid, though some analyses and key interpretations would benefit from fuller justification.

   Reviewed by eLife

3. Optics-free reconstruction of shapes, images and volumes with DNA barcode proximity graphs

   This article has 12 authors:

   1. Hanna Liao
   2. Sanjay Kottapalli
   3. Yuqi Huang
   4. Matthew Chaw
   5. Jase Gehring
   6. Olivia Waltner
   7. Melissa Phung-Rojas
   8. Riza M. Daza
   9. Frederick A. Matsen
   10. Cole Trapnell
   11. Jay Shendure
   12. Sanjay Srivatsan

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This important technical study introduces SCOPE, an optics-free spatial reconstruction method based on bidirectional sender and receiver oligonucleotides on barcoded hydrogel beads. By sequencing proximity-encoded chimeric molecules, the authors computationally reconstruct 2D and 3D spatial information at an impressive scale. The technical demonstrations in synthetic bead systems are convincing and establish proof-of-principle that large spatial domains can be reconstructed without microscopy. The methodological advance is clear and the scale is impressive. Direct validation in biological samples would help clarify what additional limitations on applicability may exist. This work will be of interest to those working on spatial mapping.

   Reviewed by eLife

4. Fast-ripples are emergent properties of neuronal networks

   This article has 13 authors:

   1. Laurent Sheybani
   2. Yichen Qiu
   3. Prince Kumar Singh
   4. Umesh Vivekananda
   5. Neil Burgess
   6. Beate Diehl
   7. Andrew McEvoy
   8. Anna Miserocchi
   9. James A. Bisby
   10. Tawfeeq Shekh-Ahmad
   11. Gabriele Lignani
   12. Daniel Bush
   13. Matthew C Walker

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This valuable study addressed a key question in epilepsy research: whether the recordings of very fast oscillations in the brain (>250Hz, fast ripples) reflect underlying pathology or might be a property that emerges from a neuronal network at random. The strengths of the study are the importance of the question, the multiple methods, and the solid evidence. However, there are limitations to the methods that should be addressed.

   Reviewed by eLife

5. Reproducible and predictable reorganization of place fields driven by grid subfield rate changes

   This article has 7 authors:

   1. Christine M. Lykken
   2. Benjamin R. Kanter
   3. Jasmine Kaslow
   4. Oscar M. T. Chadney
   5. Kadjita Asumbisa
   6. Lucie A. L. Descamps
   7. Clifford G. Kentros

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This study provides a valuable contribution to understanding grid-to-place transformations, offering new insights into the structure and reliability of these representations and extending prior work in a meaningful way. The evidence supporting the authors' conclusions is solid, based on careful analyses and well-executed experiments, although clarity and mechanistic interpretation would be strengthened by improving sample size reporting, expanding population-level analyses, and future studies including simultaneous entorhinal-hippocampal recordings. The work will be of interest to neuroscientists studying spatial coding and hippocampal-entorhinal circuit function.

   Reviewed by eLife

6. Wetness modulates the effects of grazing on net ecosystem productivity in global grasslands

   This article has 14 authors:

   1. Yueqiang Wu
   2. Le Qi
   3. Hao Li
   4. Jiguang Feng
   5. Peng Zhou
   6. Hangyu Li
   7. Xiaoyang Gao
   8. Zhijie Wang
   9. Shilin Cui
   10. Ping Yin
   11. Wenhong Ma
   12. Cunzhu Liang
   13. Zhiyong Li
   14. Biao Zhu

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This study uses convincing modeling methods and analyses of rich behavioral datasets to investigate the role of attention in value-based decision making; for instance, as when choosing between two snacks. The results are valuable, as they challenge existing theories that assume that paying attention to an available option biases the eventual choice toward that option. The results suggest that the correlation between attention and decision-making is formed largely after and not before the (internal) choice process has terminated, a finding that offers an intuitively appealing rethinking of how attention and decision-making processes interact during value-based choices.

   Reviewed by eLife

7. Behavioral Signatures of Post-Decisional Attention in Preferential Choice

   This article has 3 authors:

   1. Ariel Zylberberg
   2. Ian Krajbich
   3. Michael N. Shadlen

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This study uses convincing modeling methods and analyses of rich behavioral datasets to investigate the role of attention in value-based decision making; for instance, as when choosing between two snacks. The results are valuable, as they challenge existing theories that assume that paying attention to an available option biases the eventual choice toward that option. The results suggest that the correlation between attention and decision-making is formed largely after and not before the (internal) choice process has terminated, a finding that offers an intuitively appealing rethinking of how attention and decision-making processes interact during value-based choices.

   Reviewed by eLife

8. A non-human primate model of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis

   This article has 7 authors:

   1. Rachael H. A. Jones
   2. Luciano Saieva
   3. Fabien Balezeau
   4. Ian Schofield
   5. Caroline McCardle
   6. Mark R. Baker
   7. Stuart N. Baker

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This fundamental study provides a major contribution to our understanding of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) pathogenesis by utilizing a primate model that overcomes the historical limitations of rodent paradigms. By demonstrating the retrograde and trans-synaptic spread of pathological TDP-43 from the periphery to the spinal cord and motor cortex, the authors propose a new model for the disease spreading. The evidence supporting these findings is compelling, characterized by rigorous post-mortem histological observations. This work will be of profound interest to neuroscientists and translational researchers seeking to decode the mechanisms of systemic disease progression in ALS.

   Reviewed by eLife

9. Method of loci training yields unique prefrontal representations that support effective memory encoding

   This article has 7 authors:

   1. Jingyuan Ren
   2. Boris N. Konrad
   3. Yannan Zhu
   4. Fan Li
   5. Michael Czisch
   6. Martin Dresler
   7. Isabella C. Wagner

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This study presents a useful array of analyses of the effects of training and/or instruction to use the method of loci during episodic encoding and retrieval. A major strength of the experiment is the impressive recruitment of memory athletes and the training of novice athletes to use the method of loci, long known to improve the precision of memory recall. That said, the sheer number of results and their organization should be addressed; streamlining the results and placing them, whenever possible, in a theoretical framework will be tremendously useful to readers. As it stands, the presented work is incomplete with respect to the major conclusions that training itself leads to neural differentiation of prefrontal cortical neural patterns, and the authors need to temper these claims.

   Reviewed by eLife

10. Drosophila ryanodine receptor gene triggers functional and developmental muscle properties and could be used to assess the impact of human RYR1 mutations

    This article has 9 authors:

    1. Monika Zmojdzian
    2. Teresa Jagla
    3. Florian Cherik
    4. Magda Dubinska-Magiera
    5. Marta Migocka-Patrzalek
    6. Malgorzata Daczewska
    7. John Rendu
    8. Krzysztof Jagla
    9. Catherine Sarret

    This article has been curated by 1 group:

    • Curated by eLife

      eLife Assessment

      This important paper provides novel information on the function of the Drosophila ryanodine receptor (RyR) during muscle development. The authors analyze the effects of a rare human mutation that causes myopathy that affects a conserved region of the gene. They present compelling evidence that this variant affects muscle function in flies. These results suggest that Drosophila can be used as a tool for screening additional variants.

      [Editors' note: this paper was reviewed by Review Commons.]

    Reviewed by eLife