eLife

Latest preprint reviews

1. Drowning a frog respiratory rhythm generator in a wash of excitation: State-dependent architecture of a ventilatory oscillator

   This article has 3 authors:

   1. Mufaddal I. Baghdadwala
   2. Marina R. Sartori
   3. Richard. J. A. Wilson

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     Using isolated frog brainstem preparations, pharmacological manipulation of excitability, systematic extracellular unit mapping, and focal microinjections, this study provides important findings on whether the buccal rhythm generator is a discrete anatomical nucleus or a distributed, state-dependent network. The question is conceptually significant and of interest to researchers working within respiratory neurobiology and rhythmogenicity in general, and the preparation and experimental strategy are generally appropriate. However, the evidence for the strongest architectural claims is incomplete, with pseudoreplication in pooled unit-mapping analyses, inconsistent statistical reporting, and limited controls in necessity/sufficiency experiments. Overall, although data are largely convincing, substantial revision and more nuanced interpretation of the results are required before claims of state-dependent architectural reorganization can be considered well-supported.

   Reviewed by eLife

2. A developmentally regulated long-range enhancer-promoter contact mediates human neural development

   This article has 21 authors:

   1. Devin Bready
   2. Shuai Wang
   3. Niklas Ravn-Boess
   4. Joshua Frenster
   5. Jonathan Sabio
   6. Robert Kushmakov
   7. Finnegan Clark
   8. Adler Guerrero
   9. Cathryn Lapierre
   10. Kristyn Galbraith
   11. Catherine Do
   12. Priscillia Lhoumaud
   13. Jod Prado
   14. Albert Jiang
   15. Sara Haddock
   16. Claire D. Kim
   17. Matija Snuderl
   18. Timothée Lionnet
   19. Aristotelis Tsirigos
   20. Jane Skok
   21. Dimitris G. Placantonakis

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     In this important study, Bready et al. investigate how a highly conserved long-range enhancer mediates neural-specific SOX2 regulation during neural differentiation using human neural stem cells. This study has broad appeal to developmental neuroscience; however, the data remain incomplete given the need for homozygous enhancer knockouts and biological replicates in the scRNAseq assays.

   Reviewed by eLife

3. ATP8B1–TMEM30B Flippase Activity Maintains Stereocilia Lipid Asymmetry Required for Hearing

   This article has 9 authors:

   1. Henry N. De Hoyos
   2. Sihan Li
   3. Jun-Sub Im
   4. Alyssa Luz-Ricca
   5. Betsy Szeto
   6. Rachel Jonas
   7. Emma Kim
   8. Nikhil Amin
   9. Jung-Bum Shin

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     Mechanical transduction channels of sensory hair cells possess lipid scramblase activity. Membrane lipid disruption resulting from mechanical transduction is thought to be restored by flippase activities. This fundamental study provides compelling evidence that ATP8B1, a P4-ATP flippase and its subunit TMEM30B, are key in mediating this restorative function in outer hair cells of the mammalian cochlea.

   Reviewed by eLife

4. Sensory adaptation supports flexible evidence accumulation during perceptual decision making

   This article has 2 authors:

   1. Kara D McGaughey
   2. Joshua I Gold

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This important study measures single-unit activity in the middle temporal area (MT) of awake-behaving monkeys to test the idea that sensory adaptation contributes to flexible evidence accumulation during decision-making. Solid evidence is provided, showing that adaptation to different temporal contexts shapes both perceptual judgements and neural responses, but analyses aimed at establishing a direct link between them are less persuasive. This work has the potential to be of interest to a broad range of researchers working on visual perception, plasticity, and decision making.

   Reviewed by eLife

5. Alpha oscillations and aperiodic neural dynamics jointly predict visual temporal resolution, confidence, and dependence on prior experience

   This article has 3 authors:

   1. Gianluca Marsicano
   2. Michele Deodato
   3. David Melcher

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This important study developed a novel paradigm combined with EEG recordings to examine the neural mechanisms underlying temporal integration in perception and its modulation by prior history (i.e., the serial dependence effect). The results provide solid evidence that two key EEG features, namely the individual alpha frequency and the aperiodic slope, jointly and independently shape perceptual integration and its reliance on prior information. While additional control analyses would further strengthen the main conclusions, the findings will be of broad interest to researchers studying perception, decision-making, inter-individual differences, and brain rhythms.

   Reviewed by eLife

6. Plasticity Associated with Adoption of Social Roles in Clown Anemonefish

   This article has 10 authors:

   1. Lili F Vizer
   2. Douglas Alvarado
   3. Colleen Bove
   4. Marcela Herrera
   5. Annabel Hughes
   6. Kian Thompson
   7. Steven M Bogdanowicz
   8. Vincent Laudet
   9. Sarah W Davies
   10. Peter M Buston

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     Using the clownfish model, this study examines how growth, feeding, and agonistic behavior result in socially dominant or subordinate states in size- and age-matched individuals of the clownfish, Amphiprion percula. The authors complement this work with whole-body transcriptomics and find significant variation in genes and gene co-expression modules related to growth and satiety-related pathways, as well as ossification-related genes. They provide solid evidence that emerging dominants grow more, eat more, and behave more aggressively than subordinate or solitary individuals; these phenotypic differences are accompanied by distinct gene expression profiles, including variation in growth- and satiety-related pathways. The work is valuable in advancing our understanding of how the social environment regulates phenotypic change; however, claims regarding the mechanistic role of gene expression are only partially supported by the current analyses.

   Reviewed by eLife

7. A real-time, multi-animal model for automatic face detection and identification of freely moving common marmosets based on YOLOv8 algorithms

   This article has 3 authors:

   1. Jiayue Yang
   2. James Wang
   3. Justine Cléry

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This valuable study presents a real-time system for identifying multiple unrestrained marmosets in a home cage setting using a combination of face detection and color-coded beads. However, there is incomplete evidence regarding the generalizability and robustness of the system to unconstrained multi-animal environments.

   Reviewed by eLife

8. Opening the black box: a modular approach to spike sorting

   This article has 9 authors:

   1. Samuel Garcia
   2. Chris Halcrow
   3. Charlie Windolf
   4. Zachary M McKenzie
   5. Paul Adkisson-Floro
   6. Herberto Ramon Mayorquin
   7. Benjamin Dichter
   8. Alessio P Buccino
   9. Pierre Yger

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This valuable study introduces a new framework for improving the automated sorting of extracellular action potentials. However, the evidence is incomplete; the biophysical model used for simulation is based on one simulation that does not necessarily reflect real experimental data, the test datasets are insufficiently diverse, and essential algorithmic details are currently missing. This work will be of interest to neuroscientists using high-density multichannel electrophysiology.

   Reviewed by eLife

9. LFA-1 Interaction with GBP-130 on Plasmodium falciparum-infected Red Blood Cells mediates NK Cell Activation and Parasite Control

   This article has 14 authors:

   1. Osama Mukhtar
   2. Ravi Dutt
   3. Ashutosh Panda
   4. Poonam Kumari
   5. Suneet Shekhar Singh
   6. Gourab Paul
   7. Neha Prakash
   8. Madiha Abbas
   9. Md. Muzahidul Islam
   10. Priya Arora
   11. Alma Tammour
   12. Asif Mohmmed
   13. Dhiraj Kumar
   14. Pawan Malhotra

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This useful study addresses the interesting question of how immune cells recognise infected erythrocytes in malaria. It proposes the parasite protein PfGBP-130 as an interaction partner of the human cell surface protein LFA 1, which could help explain how NK cells recognize infected erythrocytes. The conclusions are partially supported by pull-down and cell-based activation data. However, the overall evidence of direct interaction at the cell-cell interface and downstream effects is incomplete; stronger evidence is required to demonstrate surface exposure of PfGBP-130, as well as a direct role of this antigen in killing.

   Reviewed by eLife

10. Out-of-balance Growth Enables Cost-free Synthesis of the Flagellum and Other Proteins in a Single Bacterium

    This article has 3 authors:

    1. Mayra Garcia-Alcala
    2. Josiah C Kratz
    3. Philippe Cluzel

    This article has been curated by 1 group:

    • Curated by eLife

      eLife Assessment

      This important study addresses a discrepancy between population-level growth laws and single-cell correlations. It shows, for flagellar and synthetic genes in E. coli, that while gene expression of certain genes reduces population-average growth, expression levels positively correlate with growth at the single-cell level. The measurements are mostly convincing, and the proposed mechanism-inheritance of growth factors such as ribosomes during asymmetric division- explains this observation. The theoretical analysis would benefit from clearer explanations and robustness checks.

    Reviewed by eLife