eLife

Latest preprint reviews

1. Perceiving animacy in ‘identical’ images

   This article has 2 authors:

   1. Tal Boger
   2. Chaz Firestone

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This valuable study uses an elegant visual-anagram approach to test whether perceived animacy structures visual working memory and attention while controlling for many low-level image properties. The evidence is solid, with converging results across seven preregistered experiments, but the central claim that animacy itself is represented independently of visual features should be tempered, as residual mid-level configural cues, ensemble or category structure, and broader semantic differences may also contribute to the effects. The work will be of interest to researchers studying high-level visual representation, attention, and working memory.

   Reviewed by eLife

2. Pregistered movie-fMRI analyses reveal altered visual feature encoding in autism in pSTS

   This article has 4 authors:

   1. Jeff Mentch
   2. Yibei Chen
   3. Tamara Vanderwal
   4. Satrajit S Ghosh

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This valuable study uses naturalistic movie-viewing fMRI and stacked encoding models to investigate sensory feature representations in autistic and non-autistic youth, showing a relative shift toward low-level visual representations in higher-order social cortical regions in autism. The evidence is solid overall, supported by preregistration, a relatively large open dataset, and sophisticated encoding-model analyses, although several methodological and interpretive issues require further clarification and validation. The work will interest researchers in developmental cognitive neuroscience and naturalistic neuroimaging.

   Reviewed by eLife

3. Neuromodulatory systems partially account for the topography of cortical networks of learning under uncertainty

   This article has 2 authors:

   1. Alice Hodapp
   2. Florent Meyniel

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This study presents valuable findings on the neuromodulatory underpinnings of adaptive learning in dynamic, probabilistic environments. Solid evidence for these claims comes from showing spatial correlations between model-derived fMRI responses and PET-based receptor density maps. The work will be of interest to cognitive and systems neuroscientists working on decision-making.

   Reviewed by eLife

4. Neural bases of space-specific distractor biases in visual working memory

   This article has 3 authors:

   1. Deepak V Raya
   2. Sanchit Gupta
   3. Devarajan Sridharan

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This useful study combines behavioral reports, EEG decoding, and computational modeling to address an interesting question: how delay-period distractors bias working-memory representations, and how these effects depend on target relevance, distractor location, and the strength of memory maintenance and distractor encoding. However, the supporting evidence is incomplete, as several key claims require clearer statistical tests, better integration of the behavioral and neural results, and more careful consideration of alternative explanations. Stronger engagement with prior literature would also substantially strengthen the manuscript and increase its potential interest to researchers in systems, cognitive, and computational neuroscience.

   Reviewed by eLife

5. Structural basis of CO ₂ valence coding in Drosophila

   This article has 7 authors:

   1. Javorski Dominik
   2. Bergkirchner Beate
   3. Ensinger Gernot
   4. Lingl Alexander
   5. Navolic Jelena
   6. Batawi Ashwaq
   7. Hummel Thomas

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This study provides a detailed anatomical and functional framework for understanding CO₂ processing and behavioral flexibility in Drosophila. The significance of the work is important, as it identifies how specific neural circuits, such as LN23, modulate innately aversive signals across different contexts. The strength of the evidence is convincing, supported by a robust combination of connectomics, anatomical reconstructions, and targeted behavioral manipulations.

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6. Bayesian causal inference unifies perceptual and neuronal processing of center-surround motion in area MT

   This article has 4 authors:

   1. Gabor Lengyel
   2. Sabyasachi Shivkumar
   3. Gregory C. DeAngelis
   4. Ralf M. Haefner

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This manuscript represents a valuable contribution to understanding motion processing in the visual cortex. Based on a heterogeneous collection of previous empirical findings, the authors show that the diversity of tuning curves in the middle temporal (MT) area, in response to moving center-surround images, can be explained by Bayesian inference combined with neural sampling. The model rests on strong and solid assumptions about the prior and likelihood; independent evidence that neither of these factors is misspecified would strengthen the work.

   Reviewed by eLife

7. Beyond Acoustic Cues: Olfactory-Mediated Avoidance of Bats by Crickets

   This article has 6 authors:

   1. Yannan Li
   2. Wenhao Zhang
   3. Jiaqi Wei
   4. Hanhong Xu
   5. Jiang Feng
   6. Aiqing Lin

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This valuable study raises the intriguing possibility that crickets use bat-associated odors as cues of predation risk, extending the classic bat-insect arms race beyond its usual acoustic framework. The authors combine fecal metabarcoding, behavioral assays, electrophysiology, chemical analyses, and field observations to show that Loxoblemmus equestris avoids the odor of the insectivorous bat Scotophilus kuhlii, and that synthetic (-)-limonene can elicit antennal responses, avoidance in the laboratory, and reduced calling activity in the field. However, the evidence is currently incomplete because the identity, biological source, natural concentration, and ecological specificity of limonene as a bat-derived predator cue require stronger support, including clearer quantification, contamination controls, individual-level odor data, and evidence that crickets can distinguish bat-associated limonene from common environmental sources. The work will be of interest to researchers in sensory ecology, chemical ecology, predator-prey interactions, and bat-insect coevolution.

   Reviewed by eLife

8. Cytoplasmic circular dsDNA is a key constituent of stress granules

   This article has 2 authors:

   1. Natalia A. Demeshkina
   2. Adrian R. Ferré-D’Amaré

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This important study demonstrates that extrachromosomal circular DNA and chromatin-associated proteins are components of stress granules. The data from a range of cellular and microscopy approaches are convincing, but the main conclusions would be further strengthened by demonstrating functional relevance and by extending the analysis to additional cell types. This paper will be of broad interest to cell biologists and those studying stress granule formation.

   Reviewed by eLife

9. Identifying and targeting the Mg-Fe-PmrAB regulatory circuit reverses phosphate starvation-driven polymyxin resistance in Enterobacteriaceae

   This article has 7 authors:

   1. Guangming Zhang
   2. Ziqing Deng
   3. Jiezhang Jiang
   4. Minji Wang
   5. Xiaoyuan Wang
   6. Xiaoyun Liu
   7. Aixin Yan

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This study characterizes a potentially targetable mechanism by which phosphate scarcity drives polymyxin B resistance in Enterobacteriaceae. The findings are important. While some aspects of the approach are very strong, particularly the diversity of techniques, it is recommended to include genetic controls and antibiotic resistance experiments in order to strengthen the evidence, which is currently solid. The clarity and presentation of the findings could also be improved.

   Reviewed by eLife

10. Developmental Synchrony of Retinal Waves, Apoptosis, and Angiogenesis in Postnatal Retina

    This article has 8 authors:

    1. Michael A Savage
    2. Cori Bertram
    3. Jean de Montigny
    4. Courtney A Thorne
    5. Rachel Queen
    6. Majlinda Lako
    7. Gerrit Hilgen
    8. Evelyne Sernagor

    This article has been curated by 1 group:

    • Curated by eLife

      eLife Assessment

      This study identifies apoptotic retinal ganglion cells as a potential source of ATP-mediated activation of PANX1 channels that initiate developmental retinal Ca²⁺ waves and coordinate microglial activation and vascular outgrowth with postnatal maturation. The work is important because it proposed an integrative framework linking programmed cell death, spontaneous neural activity, immune responses, and angiogenesis into a self-regulating developmental loop. The multimodal data are solid, but the mechanistic conclusions would be strengthened by complementary genetic approaches, such as PANX1 or BAX knockout models, to establish direct causality.

    Reviewed by eLife