eLife

Latest preprint reviews

1. Virtual reality reveals fine-scale alterations in behaviour following loss of the ADHD-linked gene adgrl3.1 in zebrafish

   This article has 5 authors:

   1. Phoebe Reynolds
   2. Emily Read
   3. Caitlin Daly-East
   4. Matthew O. Parker
   5. Robert Hindges

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     The study presents valuable findings on early behavioral phenotypes that arise in an ADHD-associated adgrl3.1 mutant zebrafish, using a new behavioral approach with a closed-loop OMR assay. The evidence supporting the claims of the authors is solid; however, the validation of the method and analysis is incomplete and would benefit from more rigorous approaches and validation practices. This work will be of broad interest to developmental biologists and behavioral neuroscientists.

   Reviewed by eLife

2. An integrated human forebrain organoid reveals microglia-mediated CD8 ⁺ T cell recruitment and neuroimmune dysfunction in Alzheimer’s disease pathology

   This article has 6 authors:

   1. Yilin Feng
   2. Feifei Yu
   3. Jiyuan Tang
   4. Honghui Zheng
   5. Zitian Wang
   6. Shaohua Ma

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This study presents a valuable human organoid platform for investigating neuron-immune interactions in Alzheimer's disease and modeling the interplay between innate and adaptive immunity in the context of amyloid pathology. The system has the potential to advance the field by enabling the study of human-specific neuroimmune interactions that are difficult to recapitulate in rodent models; however, the evidence supporting several central conclusions remains incomplete. Key claims, including the causal role of microglia-derived chemokines in T cell recruitment and the existence of a neuroinflammatory feedback loop, rely primarily on correlative observations and lack the mechanistic experiments necessary to establish causality; in addition, a major confounding factor, the non-autologous nature of the cellular components, is not adequately addressed. Despite these limitations, the study will be of considerable interest to researchers in neuroimmunology and Alzheimer's disease.

   Reviewed by eLife

3. Flexible brain state engagement predicts cognitive control transdiagnostically

   This article has 14 authors:

   1. Jean Ye
   2. Saloni Mehta
   3. Milana Khaitova
   4. Jagriti Arora
   5. Fuyuze Tokoglu
   6. C Alice Hahn
   7. Cheryl Lacadie
   8. Abigail S Greene
   9. Marisa N Spann
   10. Gerard Sanacora
   11. Scott W Woods
   12. Vinod H Srihari
   13. R Todd Constable
   14. Dustin Scheinost

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This valuable paper reports on a measure of flexible brain state engagement, derived from fMRI, as a predictor of cognitive control. One strength of the study is the use of external datasets for validation and replication. The results are solid, although some may benefit from further explanation.

   Reviewed by eLife

4. Rapid cortical reorganization tracks goal-directed sensorimotor learning in real time

   This article has 8 authors:

   1. Anthony Renard
   2. Georgios Foustoukos
   3. Maya Iuga
   4. Pol Bech
   5. Axel Bisi
   6. Robin F Dard
   7. Sylvain Crochet
   8. Carl CH Petersen

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This valuable study aimed to explore whether sensory representations in the cortex reorganize on the same timescale over which behavioral changes first emerge. Convincing evidence is presented to show that reward-dependent plasticity takes place in the mouse barrel cortex within a single recording session as mice learn a whisker detection task. However, the evidence supporting the authors' proposal that this rapid reorganization may involve spontaneous reactivation of neurons that gain stimulus responsiveness during training is incomplete. The work will be of interest to systems neuroscientists studying cortical circuits and learning.

   Reviewed by eLife

5. Split-trial analysis reveals the information capacity of neural population codes

   This article has 2 authors:

   1. Dylan Le
   2. Xue-Xin Wei

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This valuable study describes a simple and robust approach for estimating information-limiting noise by splitting neural populations and comparing estimator values. The authors report more accurate and robust results compared to previous methods. The evidence for the robustness of the method is currently incomplete; some concerns regarding bias need to be resolved, and additional tests need to be provided on how the number of trials and neurons affect performance.

   Reviewed by eLife

6. Structured stabilization in recurrent neural circuits through inhibitory synaptic plasticity

   This article has 3 authors:

   1. Dylan Festa
   2. Claudia Cusseddu
   3. Julijana Gjorgjieva

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This work establishes a valuable theoretical finding about how the spike timing dependence of inhibitory plasticity shapes recurrent network connectivity. The combination of theoretical analysis and simulations provides convincing evidence that effective inhibitory connectivity forms a so-called Mexican-hat profile when multiple inhibitory neuron types follow distinct learning rules. These mechanisms are thought to be implicated in the contextual modulation of neuronal responses to stimuli.

   Reviewed by eLife

7. Engulfment by brain macrophages in a short-lived vertebrate

   This article has 23 authors:

   1. Rahul Nagvekar
   2. Angela N. Pogson
   3. Prateek R. Kalakuntla
   4. Helena J. Barr
   5. Azalia M. Martínez Jaimes
   6. S.V. Perry
   7. Emma K. Costa
   8. Jingxun Chen
   9. Felix Boos
   10. Paloma Navarro Negredo
   11. Luise A. Seeker
   12. James B. Jaggard
   13. Rogelio Barajas
   14. Philippe Mourrain
   15. Param Priya Singh
   16. Stephen R. Quake
   17. Tony Wyss-Coray
   18. Kristy Red-Horse
   19. Beth Stevens
   20. Bo Wang
   21. Claire N. Bedbrook
   22. Ravi D. Nath
   23. Anne Brunet

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This valuable study establishes a novel genetic model for chronic, in vivo visualization of protein engulfment in brain macrophages from the naturally short-lived African turquoise killifish. The solid data presented here show that brain phagocytes exhibit transcriptional features resembling mammalian border associated macrophages and monocyte derived macrophages rather than classical microglia and that their engulfment capacity declines with age, providing a resource for future studies on brain immune cells in teleosts. This research will interest a broad audience across developmental biology, genetics, neuroimmunology, aging research, and evolutionary biology.

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

   Reviewed by eLife

8. foxQ2 marks fast-acting brain interneurons including a subset of dopaminergic neurons innervating mushroom bodies and central complex in the beetle Tribolium castaneum

   This article has 8 authors:

   1. Ying Pang
   2. Bastian Klußmann-Fricke
   3. Doga Cedden
   4. Jiajun Zhang
   5. Johannes B Schinko
   6. Michalis Averof
   7. Thomas Riemensperger
   8. Gregor Bucher

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This valuable descriptive study describes the expression of a developmentally relevant transcription factor in the adult Tribolium brain. The evidence supporting the claims is convincing and based on a very detailed and rigorous analysis of light microscopy data, which, however, lacks single-cell resolution. This neuroanatomical study is of interest to the field of insect neural development and neuroscience.

   Reviewed by eLife

9. Toothy: an interactive platform for dentate spike curation

   This article has 4 authors:

   1. Kathleen N Esfahany
   2. Amanda L Schott
   3. Julia M Grocott
   4. Jordan S Farrell

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This paper describes a valuable tool for the detection and analysis of dentate spikes, network events in the dentate gyrus that are common yet understudied. This tool could help standardize dentate spike detection and analysis across labs and is therefore likely to be of interest to hippocampal neurophysiologists. However, the strength of evidence for its broad usefulness was viewed as incomplete, due to several identified bugs in the program and insufficient explanations of parameter selection and methods.

   Reviewed by eLife

10. Demonstrating the ability of GABAergic cells in the zona incerta to modulate motivation

    This article has 2 authors:

    1. Laura Korobkova
    2. Brian G Dias

    This article has been curated by 1 group:

    • Curated by eLife

      eLife Assessment

      This set of studies provides important knowledge for the role of zona incerta neurons in motivation and food-seeking in mice. The evidence supporting the findings is convincing, with the use of multiple approaches and nice behavioral procedures to provide converging lines of evidence. Additional analyses and data from the current studies would further strengthen the evidence. This work will be of interest to those interested in motivation and its brain substrates.

    Reviewed by eLife