eLife

Latest preprint reviews

1. Economic and Social Modulations of Innate Decision-Making in Mice Exposed to Visual Threats

   This article has 6 authors:

   1. Zhe Li
   2. Jiahui Wang
   3. Yidan Sun
   4. Jialin Li
   5. Ling-yun Li
   6. Ya-tang Li

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     The authors show that innate defensive behavior in mice is shaped by threat intensity, reward value, and social hierarchy, highlighting how value and social context influence instinctive decisions. The authors provide useful behavioural findings supported by strong data, yet the evidence is incomplete due to ambiguities about methodology and the computational model that remains largely descriptive.

   Reviewed by eLife

2. A theory and recipe to construct general and biologically plausible integrating continuous attractor neural networks

   This article has 3 authors:

   1. Federico Claudi
   2. Sarthak Chandra
   3. Ila R Fiete

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This valuable study presents a theoretical framework for building continuous attractor networks that integrate with a wide range of topologies, which are of increasing relevance to neuroscientists. While the work offers solid evidence for most claims, the evidence supporting biological plausibility and key claims - such as the existence of a continuum of stable states and robustness across geometries - is currently incomplete and would benefit from further analysis or discussion. The study will be of interest to computational and systems neuroscientists working on neural dynamics and network models of cognition.

   Reviewed by eLife

3. The C. elegans gustatory receptor homolog LITE-1 is a chemoreceptor required for diacetyl avoidance

   This article has 7 authors:

   1. Alan Koh
   2. Eduard Bokman
   3. Alexey Gavrikov
   4. Javier Rodriguez
   5. Changchun Chen
   6. Alon Zaslaver
   7. André EX Brown

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     Avoidance of UV and blue light by the nematode C. elegans is mediated by the unusual transmembrane protein LITE-1, a non-canonical photoreceptor. In this valuable work, the authors provide convincing evidence that LITE-1 function is also required for avoidance of very high concentrations of the food-associated cue diacetyl, suggesting that it may also function as a diacetyl chemoreceptor. While the evidence for this idea is incomplete, these intriguing findings suggest an unexpected complexity in the function of this unusual photoreceptor.

   Reviewed by eLife

4. Development of the axonal βII-spectrin periodic skeleton requires active cytoskeletal remodelling

   This article has 4 authors:

   1. Shivani Bodas
   2. Ashish Mishra
   3. Pramod Pullarkat
   4. Aurnab Ghose

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This study examines how the neuronal cytoskeleton contributes to the formation of the axonal membrane-associated periodic skeleton (MPS) in embryonic dorsal root ganglia (DRG) neurons, using STED imaging. Conclusions are supported by convincing methods, data, and analyses. This useful work confirms previous data and improves our understanding of the roles of microtubules and actin dynamics in the chronological recruitment of MPS components.

   Reviewed by eLife

5. Center-surround inhibition by expectation: a neuro-computational account

   This article has 7 authors:

   1. Ling Huang
   2. Shiqi Shen
   3. Yueling Sun
   4. Shipei Ou
   5. Ruyuan Zhang
   6. Floris P de Lange
   7. Xilin Zhang

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This is a methodologically rich manuscript that is important for elucidating the neural mechanisms of expectation in perception. The analyses are convincing in extending analogous findings in attention and working memory. With further clarification, the findings will be of broad interest to vision researchers.

   Reviewed by eLife

6. Compensation of Hyperexcitability with Simulation-Based Inference

   This article has 2 authors:

   1. Daniel Müller-Komorowska
   2. Tomoki Fukai

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This study introduces a valuable simulation-based inference (SBI) framework to identify degenerate compensatory mechanisms that stabilize network activity despite neuronal hyperexcitability, a feature common to many brain disorders. By estimating posterior distributions of network parameters, the authors highlight factors such as threshold potential and interneuron-to-principal cell connectivity as key compensators for increased intrinsic excitability and interneuron loss. While the approach is promising and could become a key tool for probing network degeneracy, the study is currently incomplete. To fully realize its potential, the framework requires improved scalability and more rigorous cross-validation.

   Reviewed by eLife

7. A neural mechanism for compositional generalization of structure in humans

   This article has 7 authors:

   1. Lennart Luettgau
   2. Nan Chen
   3. Tore Erdmann
   4. Sebastijan Veselic
   5. Zeb Kurth-Nelson
   6. Rani Moran
   7. Raymond J Dolan

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This study provides valuable insights into humans' ability to generalize knowledge of learned graph structures to new experiences that share the same structure but are built from different stimuli. However, the evidence for the authors' claims is incomplete, with the main claims of structural generalization and compositionality only partially supported by MEG and behavioral data. This study will be of interest to cognitive neuroscientists studying structure learning and generalization.

   Reviewed by eLife

8. The insulin / IGF axis is critically important controlling gene transcription in the podocyte

   This article has 12 authors:

   1. Jennifer A Hurcombe
   2. Lusyan Dayalan
   3. Fern Barrington
   4. Frédéric Burdet
   5. Lan Ni
   6. Joseph T Coward
   7. Paul T Brinkkoetter
   8. Martin Holzenberger
   9. Aaron Jeffries
   10. Sebastian Oltean
   11. Gavin I Welsh
   12. Richard JM Coward

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This study investigated the role of insulin receptor (IR) and insulin-like growth factor 1 receptor (IGF1R) in the renal glomerular podocytes by characterizing the mice with dual deletion of both receptors in vivo as well as the cultured murine podocytes with induced deletion of both receptors in vitro. The solid data presented in this paper demonstrated the critical requirement of both IR and IGF1R signaling in normal podocyte physiology in mice, albeit a more detailed characterization of the mouse model is desired. Interestingly, long-range sequencing revealed significant retention of introns in mRNAs, due to an altered spliceosome level resulted from the loss of IR and IGF1 signaling in cultured podocytes. This new finding suggests an essential role of IR and IGF1R signaling in regulating RNA metabolism in podocyte, which provides useful information for the understanding of physiology and metabolism of podocytes. However, the underlying molecular mechanism for such a regulation is still unclear and awaits further studies.

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

   Reviewed by eLife

9. Structural and functional evidence supports re-defining mouse higher order visual areas into a single area V2

   This article has 2 authors:

   1. Declan P Rowley
   2. Madineh Sedigh-Sarvestani

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This paper performs a valuable critical reassessment of anatomical and functional data, proposing a reclassification of the mouse visual cortex in which almost all the higher visual areas are consolidated into a single area V2. However, the evidence supporting this unification is incomplete, as the key experimental observations that the model attempts to reproduce do not accurately reflect the literature. This study will likely be of interest to neuroscientists focused on the mouse visual cortex and the evolution of cortical organization.

   Reviewed by eLife

10. A biochemical mechanism for Stu2/XMAP215-family microtubule polymerases

    This article has 3 authors:

    1. Binnu Gangadharan
    2. Daniel L Kober
    3. Luke M Rice

    This article has been curated by 1 group:

    • Curated by eLife

      eLife Assessment

      In their important manuscript, Gangadharan, Kober and Rice focus on how Stu2/XMAP215-family microtubule polymerases use their TOG domains to catalytically promote microtubule growth, testing whether their mechanism follows an enzyme-like kinetic model similar to that of actin polymerases. The authors integrate measurements including microtubule polymerization rates and TOG-tubulin binding kinetics to convincingly show that Stu2 follows an enzyme-like model where tight tubulin binding enables efficient polymerization, revealing a shared mechanism with actin polymerases despite their evolutionary divergence. This work will be of general interest to the cell biology and biophysics communities.

    Reviewed by eLife