Latest preprint reviews

1. Detection of changes in membrane potential by magnetic resonance imaging

   This article has 8 authors:

   1. Kyeongseon Min
   2. Sungkwon Chung
   3. Seung-Kyun Lee
   4. Jongho Lee
   5. Phan Tan Toi
   6. Daehong Kim
   7. Jung Seung Lee
   8. Jang-Yeon Park

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     The authors show MRI relaxation time changes that are claimed to originate from cell membrane potential changes. This would be very important if true because it may provide a mechanism whereby membrane potential changes could be inferred noninvasively. However, the membrane potential manipulations applied here will induce cell swelling, and cell swelling has been previously shown to affect relaxation time. Therefore, the claim that the relaxation time changes observed in this manuscript are due to cell membrane potential changes is inadequately supported.

   Reviewed by eLife

2. Policy shaping based on the learned preferences of others accounts for risky decision-making under social observation

   This article has 2 authors:

   1. HeeYoung Seon
   2. Dongil Chung

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     In this paper, Seon and Chung investigate changes in own risk-taking behavior, when they are being observed by a "risky" or "safe" player. Using computational modeling and model-informed fMRI, the authors present solid evidence that participants adjust their choice congruent with the other player's type (either risky or safe). The conclusions of the paper are an important contribution to the field of social decision-making as they show a differentiated adjustment of choices and not just a universally riskier choice behavior when being observed as has been claimed in previous studies.

   Reviewed by eLife

3. Stochastic cell-intrinsic stem cell decisions control colony growth in planarians

   This article has 5 authors:

   1. Tamar Frankovits
   2. Prakash Varkey Cherian
   3. Yarden Yesharim
   4. Simon Dobler
   5. Omri Wurtzel

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This manuscript establishes a mathematical model to estimate the key parameters that control the repopulation of planarian stem cells after sublethal irradiation as they undergo fate-switching as part of their differentiation and self-renewal process. The findings are valuable for future investigation of stem cell division in planarians. The methods are solid, integrating modeling with perturbations of key transcription factors known to be critical for cell fate decisions, but the authors have only shown that this is the case for a small number of stem cell types.

   Reviewed by eLife

4. Dual role of FOXG1 in regulating gliogenesis in the developing neocortex via the FGF signaling pathway

   This article has 9 authors:

   1. Mahima Bose
   2. Ishita Talwar
   3. Varun Suresh
   4. Urvi Mishra
   5. Shiona Biswas
   6. Anuradha Yadav
   7. Shital T Suryavanshi
   8. Simon Hippenmeyer
   9. Shubha Tole

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This important study provides convincing evidence that developing neurons in the neocortex regulate glial cell development. The data demonstrates that the transcription factor FOXG1 negatively regulates gliogenesis by controlling the expression of a member of the FGF ligand family and by suppressing the receptor for this ligand in developing neurons. This study leads to a new understanding of the cascade of events regulating the timing of glial development in the neocortex.

   Reviewed by eLife

5. Mitochondrial calcium modulates odor-mediated behavioral plasticity in C. elegans

   This article has 4 authors:

   1. Hee Kyung Lee
   2. Dong-Kyu Joo
   3. Kyu-Sang Park
   4. Kyoung-hye Yoon

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This study presents important findings that will allow for a better understanding of the role of mitochondria in behaviours of C. elegans. There is convincing evidence that mutants in a subunit of the mitochondrial calcium uniporter (MCU-1) show defects in olfactory adaptation and this gene regulates neuropeptide secretion and allows for behavioural modulation in C. elegans. However, the evidence that mitochondrial calcium modulates odour-based behaviour in C. elegans is incomplete. This claim would require support from calcium imaging in conditioned WT and mcu-1 animals. This work would be of interest to labs working on behaviours across phyla.

   Reviewed by eLife

6. A neurotrophin functioning with a Toll regulates structural plasticity in a dopaminergic circuit

   This article has 13 authors:

   1. Jun Sun
   2. Francisca Rojo-Cortés
   3. Suzana Ulian-Benitez
   4. Manuel G. Forero
   5. Guiyi Li
   6. Deepanshu Singh
   7. Xiaocui Wang
   8. Sebastian Cachero
   9. Marta Moreira
   10. Dean Kavanagh
   11. Gregory Jefferis
   12. Vincent Croset
   13. Alicia Hidalgo

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This important work attempts to establish a causal link between neurotrophin signaling and experience-induced structural plasticity in dopaminergic circuits in the adult fly brain, a topic of broad interest to the neuroscience community. While the authors provide solid evidence for the role of this signaling in regulating the structure and synapses of dopaminergic circuits, the evidence for a direct link between neurotrophin signaling and experience-induced structural plasticity remains incomplete.

   Reviewed by eLife

7. The title and authors for this article are not available from our external data provider yet:
   10.48550/arxiv.2301.12812v5

8. Inference technique for the synaptic conductances in rhythmically active networks and application to respiratory central pattern generation circuits

   This article has 6 authors:

   1. Yaroslav I Molkov
   2. Anke Borgmann
   3. Hidehiko Koizumi
   4. Noriyuki Hama
   5. Ruli Zhang
   6. Jeffrey C Smith

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     The paper describes a novel approach for inferring features of synaptic networks from recordings of individual cells within the network. The paper will be a valuable contribution to those studying central pattern generators, including those involved in respiration. However, the theoretical approach to drawing inferences regarding the underlying synaptic currents is incomplete as it relies on unsupported simplifying assumptions.

   Reviewed by eLife

9. Characterizing the Spatial Distribution of Dendritic RNA at Single Molecule Resolution

   This article has 5 authors:

   1. Jihoon Kim
   2. Jean G Rosario
   3. Eric Mendoza
   4. Da Kuang
   5. Junhyong Kim

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This useful study combines multiplexed RNA-FISH with downstream analyses and modelling to describe novel dendritic mRNA distribution and behavioural features. Although the downstream analysis pipeline is novel, the results from this study are as of yet incomplete. Further inclusion of key missing controls, further work to better assess the physiological relevance, or additional modelling to expand their conclusions would make this work of greater interest to RNA biologists.

   Reviewed by eLife

10. Engineering Microglial Cells to Promote Spinal Cord Injury Recovery

    This article has 6 authors:

    1. Qingsheng Zhou
    2. Jianchao Liu
    3. Qiongxuan Fang
    4. Chunming Zhang
    5. Wei Liu
    6. Yifeng Sun

    This article has been curated by 1 group:

    • Curated by eLife

      eLife Assessment

      The study is useful for advancing understanding of spinal cord injuries, but it presents inadequate evidence due to the use of multiple datasets. Data were collected from different models of spinal cord injury, various regions of the spinal cord, and an iPSC model, with the differences between these models making it difficult to draw reliable conclusions.

    Reviewed by eLife