eLife

Latest preprint reviews

1. From Syllables to Words: EEG Evidence of Different Age Trajectories in Speech Tracking and Statistical Learning in Infants at High and Low Likelihood for Autism

   This article has 5 authors:

   1. Michel Godel
   2. Ana Fló
   3. Lucas Benjamin
   4. Ghislaine Dehaene-Lambertz
   5. Marie Schaer

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This study addresses a key question in developmental cognitive neuroscience by identifying early neural correlates of variability in language learning and showing how syllable tracking and word segmentation develop from birth to two years in infants with differing likelihoods of autism. The evidence is generally strong, with rigorous longitudinal EEG acquisition, careful preprocessing, and validated statistical approaches, though several methodological clarifications would further strengthen confidence in the inferences. Overall, the findings offer important insights with clear theoretical implications for understanding early mechanisms of speech perception and statistical learning, supported by convincing evidence.

   Reviewed by eLife

2. Retrosplenial cortex enables context-dependent goal-directed sensorimotor transformation

   This article has 8 authors:

   1. Pol Bech
   2. Robin F Dard
   3. Jules Lebert
   4. Lana Smith
   5. Axel Bisi
   6. Anthony Renard
   7. Sylvain Crochet
   8. Carl CH Petersen

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This important study combines optogenetic manipulations and wide-field imaging to show that the retrosplenial cortex controls behavioral responses to whisker deflection in a context-dependent manner. The evidence is convincing, but the study would benefit from additional analyses to disentangle the contributions of movement initiation to the recorded neural signals. The paper should be of strong interest to neuroscientists studying cortical mechanisms of sensorimotor processing.

   Reviewed by eLife

3. How individual vigor shapes human-human physical interaction

   This article has 3 authors:

   1. Dorian Verdel
   2. Bastien Berret
   3. Etienne Burdet

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This is an important study showing that movement vigor is not solely an individual property but emerges through interaction when two people are physically linked. The evidence is convincing, supported by a well-controlled experimental design and modeling that closely match the observed behavior. While the authors provided a helpful comparison of several candidate models of human-human interaction dynamics, the statistical power and the statistical analyses could be further improved.

   Reviewed by eLife

4. Perceptual predictions track subjective, over objective, statistical structure

   This article has 5 authors:

   1. Jessye Clarke
   2. Kirsten Rittershofer
   3. Emma K. Ward
   4. Daniel Yon
   5. Clare Press

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This important study reports three experiments examining how the subjective experience of task regularities influences perceptual decision-making. Although the evidence linking subjective ratings to behavioral measures is solid, the study would be strengthened if potential reverse influences of response times on subjective ratings were ruled out and if more comprehensive model comparisons supporting the main claims were performed. The findings will appeal to a wide range of researchers in decision-making and perception.

   Reviewed by eLife

5. Translational reading frame determines the pathogenicity of C-terminal frameshift deletions in MeCP2: an alternative therapeutic approach

   This article has 8 authors:

   1. Jacky Guy
   2. Elena Hein
   3. Bea Alexander-Howden
   4. Timur von Bock und Polach
   5. Tricia Mathieson
   6. Benjamin P Kleinstiver
   7. Huda Zoghbi
   8. Adrian Bird

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This study offers important insight into the pathogenic basis of intragenic frameshift deletions in the carboxy-terminal domain of MECP2, which account for some Rett syndrome cases, yet similar variants also appear in unaffected individuals. Using base editing and mouse models, the authors present convincing evidence supporting the pathogenicity of select deletion variants, with potential implications for therapeutic development. However, comments regarding the analysis of publicly available genetic databases should be addressed to strengthen the conclusions and provide greater clarity to the field.

   Reviewed by eLife

6. Spatial learning in multi-scale environments: Roles of hippocampus, orbitofrontal cortex, and retrosplenial cortex

   This article has 5 authors:

   1. Yidan Qiu
   2. Senning Zheng
   3. Huakang Li
   4. Shuting Lin
   5. Ruiwang Huang

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     The goal of this useful study is to examine learning-related changes in neural representations of global and local spatial reference frames in a spatial navigation task. Although the study addresses an interesting question, the evidence for neural representations in the hippocampus and retrosplenial cortex remains incomplete because of confounds in the experimental design and partial data analysis. There are further concerns about the framing of the study in the context of the relevant literature as well as the discussion.

   Reviewed by eLife

7. Prolonged oscillating kisspeptin neuron activity underlies the preovulatory luteinizing hormone surge in mice

   This article has 3 authors:

   1. Ziyue Zhou
   2. Cheng-Yu Huang
   3. Allan E Herbison

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This important work advances our understanding of the role of kisspeptin neurons in regulating the luteinizing hormone (LH) surge in females. The evidence demonstrating increased neuronal activity in anterior hypothalamic kisspeptin neurons just before the LH surge is compelling, though additional neuroanatomical evidence showing the specificity of the methods would strengthen the study. It also confirms that high circulating levels of estradiol, but also other unidentified factors, are required for the full daily activation. This research will be of interest to reproductive biologists and neuroscientists studying the female ovarian cycle.

   Reviewed by eLife

8. The urban tree of life: quantifying relationships between body size and urban tolerance for more than 30,000 plant and animal species

   This article has 8 authors:

   1. Corey T Callaghan
   2. Diana E Bowler
   3. Vaughn Shirey
   4. Brittany M Mason
   5. Laura H Antão
   6. Ingmar Staude
   7. John H Wilshire
   8. Thomas Merckx

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This study provides an important assessment of how body size influences the occurrence of macro-organisms in urban areas across the globe. Size in most plants, but only some animal families, was positively associated with urban tolerance. The data set is impressive, but the evidence for broad-scale conclusions is incomplete due to methodological issues that need to be resolved.

   Reviewed by eLife

9. Enteropathogenic E. coli-mediated Fast and Coordinated Ca²⁺ responses regulate NF-κB activation

   This article has 6 authors:

   1. Fangrui Guo
   2. Roberto Ornelas Guevara
   3. Linda Oussaedine
   4. Geneviève Dupont
   5. Laurent Combettes
   6. Guy Tran Van Nhieu

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This study reports important advances in our understanding of how enteropathogenic E. coli (EPEC) interacts at the intestinal interface. Solid data describe a novel model of spatially coordinated calcium signaling to modulate NF-kB activation; additional data and clarification of methods would improve the strength of these conclusions. These findings, which integrate imaging, genetics, and computational modeling, provide a new way to consider host-pathogen interactions in EPEC infections that may lead to improved therapies.

   Reviewed by eLife

10. Synergistic MAPT mutations as a platform to uncover modifiers of tau pathogenesis

    This article has 14 authors:

    1. Miles R Bryan
    2. Michael F Almeida
    3. Kyle Pellegrino
    4. Carli K Opland
    5. J Ethan Paulakonis
    6. Jake McGillion-Moore
    7. Hanna Trzeciakiewicz
    8. Diamond King
    9. Xu Tian
    10. Jui-Heng Tseng
    11. Jonathan C Schisler
    12. Nicholas G Brown
    13. Ben A Bahr
    14. Todd J Cohen

    This article has been curated by 1 group:

    • Curated by eLife

      eLife Assessment

      This study presents compelling new data that combine two FTD-tau mutations, P301L/S320F (PL-SF), that reliably induce spontaneous full-length tau aggregation across multiple cellular systems. The findings are important for the field of neurodegenerative disease. The strength of evidence is solid; however, several conclusions would benefit from more validation.

    Reviewed by eLife