eLife

Latest preprint reviews

1. Topological structure in human spatial representation revealed through drawing

   This article has 4 authors:

   1. Mahwish Kittur
   2. Agnes Zhang
   3. Nessa Bryce
   4. Sami Yousif

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This important paper provides evidence that visual representations, as observed through drawing, preferentially preserve topological features over metric features. Across three experiments with different age groups and creative converging methods, they demonstrate that holes and T-junctions are relatively preserved as compared to topologically irrelevant L-junctions, and Euclidian features like length or precise angle. Together, these data provide convincing evidence for topology as an organizing principle for spatial representation, but the work would be strengthened by considering a broader range of topological features, or by ruling out alternative accounts, like preserved memory for complex features, motor production limitations, or noisy compression, that may produce a similar pattern without a topological prior.

   Reviewed by eLife

2. Inhibition tunes prefrontal circuit dynamics to promote sociosexual behavior in female mice

   This article has 7 authors:

   1. Elizabeth A Amadei
   2. Pau Vilimelis Aceituno
   3. Reinhard Loidl
   4. Roman Boehringer
   5. Eduarda Streit Morsch
   6. Benjamin Ehret
   7. Benjamin F Grewe

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This study examines how prefrontal population dynamics tune social behaviors, providing important findings that oxytocin receptor-expressing interneurons support sociosexual choice in female mice. The multidisciplinary evidence is convincing and could be strengthened by more comprehensive reporting of the methodology and a clearer distinction between inferential and directly tested insights from modelling. This work will be of interest to those interested in prefrontal cortex, oxytocin, and/or social behavior.

   Reviewed by eLife

3. AGES for Ageing: Evaluating the auxin-inducible gene expression system for use in Drosophila ageing studies

   This article has 4 authors:

   1. Taylor McGilvary
   2. Kriti Gupta
   3. Adam J Dobson
   4. Nathan Woodling

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This study provides useful information for the Drosophila ageing community by characterising the auxin-based gene expression system (AGES) and identifying caveats associated with its use in adult flies. The authors provide solid evidence for sex-, age-, tissue- and dose-dependent variability in transgene induction, as well as effects of auxin feeding and AGES activation on stress resistance, metabolism, and lifespan. While the study would benefit from a broader characterisation of some of these limitations, the findings provide a helpful benchmark for researchers using AGES in ageing studies.

   Reviewed by eLife

4. Crossmodal representations in the auditory cortex of deaf and hearing individuals

   This article has 13 authors:

   1. Barbara Manini
   2. Konstantin Grin
   3. Martin Eimer
   4. Samuel Evans
   5. Luigi Tamè
   6. Bencie Woll
   7. Rita Bertani
   8. Dilay Ercelik
   9. Lucy Core
   10. Yueming Gao
   11. Matthew Longo
   12. Valeria Vinogradova
   13. Velia Cardin

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This study offers valuable insights into brain responses to somatosensory and visual temporal and spatial tasks in the auditory cortex of Deaf and hearing individuals. The evidence for a sensorily-bound representation in the deprived cortex -- rather than abstract -- is solid; however, the study will benefit from some additional analyses to better clarify and contextualise the results. This work will be of broad interest to neuroscientists investigating brain plasticity and development.

   Reviewed by eLife

5. GPCR-mediated regulation of glial TNF production

   This article has 4 authors:

   1. Zahra Abbasi
   2. Shirin Sadighparvar
   3. Marie Franquin
   4. David Stellwagen

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This study presents a useful finding on using diverse experimental systems to understand how neuromodulatory signals shape glial inflammatory signaling; however, the strength of evidence is inadequate. The astrocyte-enrichment method used may permit contamination by microglia, oligodendrocyte-lineage cells, or neurons, complicating attribution of TNF expression specifically to astrocytes. This concern is compounded by the strong microglial response to Gi manipulation and the lack of quantitative validation of chemogenetic cell-type specificity in vivo. These weaknesses have hindered further evaluation of the claims.

   Reviewed by eLife

6. Hilar mossy cells control structural and functional organization in the dentate gyrus

   This article has 6 authors:

   1. Corwin R Butler
   2. Connor R Squellati
   3. Alyssa B Danis
   4. Arielle Isakharov
   5. Gary L Westbrook
   6. Eric Schnell

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This important study demonstrates how ablation or silencing of hilar mossy cells in the mouse influences the primary location where the mossy cells project, the inner molecular layer of the dentate gyrus. The anatomical findings are convincing and include altered adult-born granule cells and the shrinkage of the inner molecular layer following mossy cell ablation. However, the mechanisms and their functional significance are unclear, so more of these types of experiments/analyses would strengthen the study, especially the support for the broader conclusions.

   Reviewed by eLife

7. A theory of multi-task computation and task selection

   This article has 3 authors:

   1. Owen Marschall
   2. David G Clark
   3. Ashok Litwin-Kumar

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This valuable study analyzes how recurrent neural network can flexibly switch between multiple tasks. The evidence is solid, but reviewers have raised questions about the impacts of transient dynamics, whether the activity is actually chaotic, can inputs be used to switch between tasks, what determines overlap between tasks and others. In addition, there were more minor questions pertaining to whether the analyses are actually analytic or primarily based on numerical simulations, as well as the relationship to prior studies where the same network was optimized to perform multiple tasks simultaneously with different readouts.

   Reviewed by eLife

8. Correctness is its own reward: bootstrapping error signals in self-guided reinforcement learning

   This article has 4 authors:

   1. Ziyi Gong
   2. Fabiola Duarte
   3. Richard Mooney
   4. John Pearson

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This important study proposes a framework in which tutor-song memorization and performance-error computation arise from a shared predictive-cancellation circuit. The approach is solid, but the choice of learning rules, circuit architecture, and sparsity assumptions is not always sufficiently justified, and the model would benefit from a clearer mechanistic derivation and more concrete experimental predictions. This study would be relevant for researchers studying vocal learning and motor learning in general.

   Reviewed by eLife

9. Shared binding sites for the chromosomal architectural protein Su(Hw) mediate physical interactions between Drosophila TAD boundaries

   This article has 9 authors:

   1. Wenfan Ke
   2. Miki Fujioka
   3. Brendan Wang
   4. Tiffany Park
   5. Li Zhang
   6. Amina Kurbidaeva
   7. Yuri Pritykin
   8. James B Jaynes
   9. Paul Schedl

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This study reports results characterizing two boundaries (homie and nhomie) flanking the TAD of a developmental gene. The study's thorough and mechanistic characterization of these boundaries provides useful information to the field, and the conclusions are well supported by convincing evidence. The novelty of the work is somewhat limited because the major conclusion is confirmatory in nature.

   Reviewed by eLife

10. Bcl11b dose-dependently regulates positive selection of CD8 T cells to the virtual memory fate

    This article has 2 authors:

    1. Tom Sidwell
    2. Ellen V Rothenberg

    This article has been curated by 1 group:

    • Curated by eLife

      eLife Assessment

      The study provides important insight into the development of CD8 T cell virtual memory cells by identifying a dose-sensitive role for Bcl11b. The authors define the developmental stages affected by reduced Bcl11b expression and establish its role in promoting the virtual memory fate. The evidence is compelling, supported by multiple genetic models and complementary approaches.

    Reviewed by eLife