eLife

Latest preprint reviews

1. The NIH BRAIN Initiative's Experiment in Team Research

   This article has 7 authors:

   1. Farah Bader
   2. Karen K. David
   3. Crystal Lantz
   4. Mauricio Rangel-Gomez
   5. Hermon Gebrehiwet
   6. Grace C.Y. Peng
   7. James Gnadt

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     The manuscript presents some useful accounts of experiences funding team projects within the BRAIN Initiative. These would be more appropriate to add to the companion manuscript since the present manuscript contains some overlapping analyses and does not stand well on its own. Therefore the evidence supporting the conclusions is incomplete.

   Reviewed by eLife

2. The NIH BRAIN Initiative’s Impacts in Systems and Computational Neuroscience, 2014-2023

   This article has 8 authors:

   1. Farah Bader
   2. Clayton Bingham
   3. Karen K. David
   4. Hermon Gebrehiwet
   5. Crystal Lantz
   6. Grace C.Y. Peng
   7. Mauricio Rangel-Gomez
   8. James Gnadt

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     The authors provide a useful summary of ten years of Brain Initiative funding including the historical development, the specific funding mechanisms, and examples of grants funded and work produced. The authors also conduct analyses of the impact on overall funding in Systems and Computational Neuroscience, the raw and field normalized bibliographic impact of the work, the social media impact of the funded work, and the popularity of some tools developed. The evidence for impact is incomplete due to the omission of a comparison group of funded grants.

   Reviewed by eLife

3. Activity-Dependent Changes in Ion Channel Voltage-Dependence Influence the Activity Patterns Targeted by Neurons

   This article has 3 authors:

   1. Yugarshi Mondal
   2. Ronald L. Calabrese
   3. Eve Marder

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This important computational study investigates homeostatic plasticity mechanisms that neurons may employ to achieve and maintain stable target activity patterns. The work extends previous analyses of calcium-dependent homeostatic mechanisms based on ion channel density by considering activity-dependent shifts in channel activation and inactivation properties that operate on faster and potentially variable timescales. The model simulations demonstrate the potential functional importance of these mechanisms, but the evidence is incomplete and would be strengthened by more in-depth analyses and explicit exposition.

   Reviewed by eLife

4. Molecular Requirements for C. elegans Transgenerational Epigenetic Inheritance of Pathogen Avoidance

   This article has 6 authors:

   1. Rachel Kaletsky
   2. Rebecca Moore
   3. Titas Sengupta
   4. Renee Seto
   5. Borja Ceballos-Llera
   6. Coleen T. Murphy

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This fundamental study concerns a model for transgenerational epigenetic inheritance, the learned avoidance by C. elegans of the PA14 pathogenic strain of Pseudomonas aeruginosa. The authors test the impact of procedural alterations made in another study, by Gainey et al., which claimed that transgenerational inheritance in this paradigm lacks robustness, despite this observation having been reported in multiple papers from the Murphy lab. The authors of the present study show that by following a non-standard avoidance protocol, Gainey et al. likely biased their measurements in a way that made it hard to observe learned avoidance. The authors also highlight the importance of bacterial growth conditions, showing that expression of the trigger molecule, the bacterial P11 RNA, which is necessary and sufficient to drive the transgenerational inheritance of the avoidance phenotype, is influenced by temperature. As expression of P11 was not verified by Gainey et al., this provides another explanation for the inability to observe transgenerational epigenetic inheritance. Together, the authors provide compelling and powerful arguments that the original phenomenon is robust and that it can be reproduced in the Murphy lab by following their original protocol precisely, including the use of azide to immobilize the worms at the food source. Overall, this study not only provides guidance for investigators in this experimental paradigm, but it also provides additional understanding of the differences between naïve preference, learned preference, and transgenerational epigenetic inheritance. The present study is therefore of broad interest to anyone studying genetics, epigenetics, or learned behavior.

   Reviewed by eLife

5. Longitudinal assessment of DREADD expression and efficacy in the monkey brain

   This article has 14 authors:

   1. Yuji Nagai
   2. Yukiko Hori
   3. Ken-ichi Inoue
   4. Toshiyuki Hirabayashi
   5. Koki Mimura
   6. Kei Oyama
   7. Naohisa Miyakawa
   8. Yuki Hori
   9. Haruhiko Iwaoki
   10. Katsushi Kumata
   11. Ming-Rong Zhang
   12. Masahiko Takada
   13. Makoto Higuchi
   14. Takafumi Minamimoto

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This study provides a novel and critically important insight into the long-term use of DREADDs to modulate neuronal activity in nonhuman primates. The methods compellingly demonstrate the peak dynamics and the subsequent stability of chemogenetic effects for 1.5 years, informing experimental designs and interpretation of highly impactful chemogenetic studies in macaques. The protocols, data, and outcomes can serve as guidelines for future experiments. Therefore, the findings will be of significant interest to the field of chemogenetics and may also be of broader interest to researchers and clinicians who seek to utilize viral vectors and/or related genetic technologies.

   Reviewed by eLife

6. Precision cutaneous stimulation in freely moving mice

   This article has 4 authors:

   1. Isobel Parkes
   2. Ara Schorscher-Petcu
   3. Qinyi Gan
   4. Liam E. Browne

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This valuable study combines real-time keypoint tracking with transdermal activation of sensory neurons to investigate sensory neuron recruitment in freely moving mice, and builds on the authors' prior work in stationary mice. The evidence supporting the utility of the system is solid, although a more thorough classification of the behavioral responses to nociceptor stimulation would strengthen the work. Importantly, future analyses could include other cutaneous sensory neuron subtypes, and could also be adapted for studying more complex behaviors. The work will be of interest to sensory biologists and pain researchers.

   Reviewed by eLife

7. Single-cell transcriptomics identifies a dampened neutrophil function and accentuated T-cell cytotoxicity in tobacco flavored e-cigarette exposed mouse lungs

   This article has 4 authors:

   1. G Kaur
   2. T Lamb
   3. A Tjitropranoto
   4. Irfan Rahman

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This manuscript by Kaur et al. identifies differential gene expression observed in distinct mouse lung cell populations, namely myeloid and lymphoid cells, upon short-term exposure to e-cig aerosols with various flavors. Their findings are potentially useful because the single-cell sequencing data provides a reference for future studies of genes and cellular pathways that are most affected by e-cig aerosols and their components. However, the evidence is incomplete due to limited statistical analyses and few biological replicates, as well as a lack of experimental validation.

   Reviewed by eLife

8. Age and Learning Shapes Sound Representations in Auditory Cortex During Adolescence

   This article has 6 authors:

   1. Praegel Benedikt
   2. Chen Feng
   3. Dym Adria
   4. Lavi-Rudel Amichai
   5. Druckmann Shaul
   6. Mizrahi Adi

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This important study suggests that adolescent mice exhibit less accuracy than adult mice in a sound discrimination task when the sound frequencies are very similar. While the evidence supporting this observation is solid, demonstrating that this effect arises from cognitive differences between adolescent and adult mice requires more thorough documentation of task performance, as well as control of impulsivity and baseline licking. The authors should also clarify how difficult and easy trials are interleaved in the task and provide a more comprehensive discussion of the cortical inactivation results in relation to the overall task difficulty.

   Reviewed by eLife

9. Anterior cingulate cortex in complex associative learning: monitoring action state and action content

   This article has 6 authors:

   1. Wenqiang Huang
   2. Arron F Hall
   3. Natalia Kawalec
   4. Ashley N Opalka
   5. Jun Liu
   6. Dong V Wang

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     Huang and colleagues examined neural responses in mouse anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) during a discrimination-avoidance task. The authors present useful findings that ACC neurons encode primarily post-action variables over extended periods rather than the outcomes or values of those actions. Though the methodological approach was sound, the evidence ruling out alternative explanations is incomplete and requires substantial control analyses.

   Reviewed by eLife

10. Misclassification in memory modification in AppNL-G-F knock-in mouse model of Alzheimer’s disease

    This article has 6 authors:

    1. Mei-Lun Huang
    2. Yusuke Suzuki
    3. Hiroki Sasaguri
    4. Takashi Saito
    5. Takaomi C Saido
    6. Itaru Imayoshi

    This article has been curated by 1 group:

    • Curated by eLife

      eLife Assessment

      This valuable study proposes using a rigorous computational model to assess memory deficits in Alzheimer's Disease with the goal of developing an early diagnosis tool for the disease. Using an established mouse model of the disease, the authors studied multiple behavioral tasks and ages with the goal of showing similarities in behavioral deficits across tasks. Using the model, the authors indicate specific deficits in memory (overgeneralization and overdifferentiation) in mice with the transgene for the disease. However, the evidence presented is incomplete as certain concerns remain regarding the interpretation of the behavioral results and the validation of the model fit.

    Reviewed by eLife