eLife

Latest preprint reviews

1. Cntnap2 loss drives striatal neuron hyperexcitability and behavioral inflexibility

   This article has 5 authors:

   1. Katherine R Cording
   2. Emilie M Tu
   3. Hongli Wang
   4. Alexander HCW Agopyan-Miu
   5. Helen S Bateup

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This important and well-executed study describes how deleting the autism spectrum disorder risk gene CNTNAP2 in mice increases dorsolateral striatal projection neuron excitability and promotes repetitive behaviors and cognitive inflexibility. The evidence supporting this claim is convincing. The study provides a potential cellular explanation for the repetitive and inflexible behavior in Cntnap2 knockout mice and CNTNAP2 disorder in humans, which would interest both basic and translational neuroscientists.

   Reviewed by eLife

2. Follicular helper- and peripheral helper-like T cells drive autoimmune disease in human immune system mice

   This article has 12 authors:

   1. Mohsen Khosravi-Maharlooei
   2. Andrea Vecchione
   3. Nichole Danzl
   4. Hao Wei Li
   5. Grace Nauman
   6. Rachel Madley
   7. Elizabeth Waffarn
   8. Robert Winchester
   9. Amanda Ruiz
   10. Xiaolan Ding
   11. Georgia Fousteri
   12. Megan Sykes

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This important study utilizes humanized mice, in which human immune cells are introduced into immune-deficient mice, to provide convincing evidence that two helper CD4 T-cell subsets, T-follicular helper (Tfh) and T-peripheral helper (Tph) cells, are able to drive both autoantibody production and induction of autoimmunity. The work will be of broad interest to medical scientists engaged in deciphering how human immune cells mediate immune responses and contribute to the development of autoimmune diseases.

   Reviewed by eLife

3. Efficient coding in biophysically realistic excitatory-inhibitory spiking networks

   This article has 4 authors:

   1. Veronika Koren
   2. Simone Blanco Malerba
   3. Tilo Schwalger
   4. Stefano Panzeri

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This study offers a valuable treatment of how the population of excitatory and inhibitory neurons integrates principles of energy efficiency in their coding strategies. The convincing analysis provides a comprehensive characterisation of the model, highlighting the structured connectivity between excitatory and inhibitory neurons. The role of the many free parameters are discussed and studied in depth.

   Reviewed by eLife

4. Identification of suitable target/E3 ligase pairs for PROTAC development using a rapamycin-induced proximity assay (RiPA)

   This article has 5 authors:

   1. Bikash Adhikari
   2. Katharina Schneider
   3. Mathias Diebold
   4. Christoph Sotriffer
   5. Elmar Wolf

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     The study describes a valuable new technology in the field of targeted protein degradation that allows identification of E3-ubiquitin ligases that target a protein of interest. The presented data are convincing, however, additional work will be needed to optimize for high-throughput evaluation. This technology will therefore serve the community in the initial stages of developing targeted protein degraders.

   Reviewed by eLife

5. Elevated DNA damage without signs of aging in the short-sleeping Mexican cavefish

   This article has 14 authors:

   1. Evan Lloyd
   2. Fanning Xia
   3. Kinsley Moore
   4. Carolina Zertuche Mery
   5. Aakriti Rastogi
   6. Robert A Kozol
   7. Olga Kenzor
   8. Wesley Warren
   9. Lior Appelbaum
   10. Rachel L Moran
   11. Chongbei Zhao
   12. Erik R Duboue
   13. Nicolas Rohner
   14. Alex C Keene

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     Lloyd et al. used an evolutionary comparative approach to study DNA damage repair associated with low sleep duration in Astyanax mexicanus, highlighting how the cavefish population has evolved a reduced DNA damage response. The results presented here have important implications. Their results are generally solid however, the evidence suggesting that sleep differences are linked to DNA damage response is missing and this hypothesis remains to be fully tested.

   Reviewed by eLife

6. Detecting directed motion and confinement in single-particle trajectories using hidden variables

   This article has 9 authors:

   1. François Simon
   2. Guillaume Ramadier
   3. Inès Fonquernie
   4. Janka Zsok
   5. Sergiy Patskovsky
   6. Michel Meunier
   7. Caroline Boudoux
   8. Elisa Dultz
   9. Lucien E Weiss

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     In this valuable contribution, the authors present a novel and versatile probabilistic tool for classifying tracking behaviors and understanding parameters for different types of single-particle motion. The software package will be broadly applicable to single-particle tracking studies. The methodology has been convincingly tested by computational comparisons and experimental data, although the mathematical foundation for the hypothesis testing method can be further strengthened.

   Reviewed by eLife

7. Investigating working memory updating processes of the human subcortex using 7T MRI

   This article has 12 authors:

   1. Anne C Trutti
   2. Zsuzsika Sjoerds
   3. Russell J Boag
   4. Solenn LY Walstra
   5. Steven Miletić
   6. Scott JS Isherwood
   7. Pierre-Louis Bazin
   8. Bernhard Hommel
   9. Sarah Habli
   10. Desmond HY Tse
   11. Asta K Håberg
   12. Birte U Forstmann

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This valuable study uses high-field fMRI to test the hypothesized involvement of subcortical structures, particularly the striatum, in updating working memory. The study overcomes limitations of prior work by applying high-field imaging with a more precise definition of regions of interest in the brain. Thus, the empirical observations are of use to specialists interested in working memory gating or the reference back task specifically. The evidence is generally solid, but strong conclusions on dopaminergic contributions must await additional work using molecular imaging or related techniques.

   Reviewed by eLife

8. Multisensory integration enhances audiovisual responses in the Mauthner cell

   This article has 3 authors:

   1. Santiago Otero-Coronel
   2. Thomas Preuss
   3. Violeta Medan

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This study provides valuable advances in our understanding of how inputs from multiple sources can impact the physiology of motor neurons during the process of multisensory integration. Specifically, the authors show how streams of auditory and principally visual information modulate the physiology of Mauthner neurons in goldfish, thus allowing the different senses to influence escape behavior. Supporting evidence is generally convincing, although material reporting the direct control of behavior is less representative of the data.

   Reviewed by eLife

9. Specific Sensitivity to Rare and Extreme Events: Quasi-Complete Black Swan Avoidance vs Partial Jackpot Seeking in Rat Decision-Making

   This article has 5 authors:

   1. Mickaël Degoulet
   2. Louis-Matis Willem
   3. Christelle Baunez
   4. Stéphane Luchini
   5. Patrick A Pintus

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This study represents an important contribution to the study of decision-making under risk, bringing an interdisciplinary approach spanning economic theory, behavioral neuroscience, and computational modeling to test how choice preference is influenced by rare and extreme events. The authors present evidence that rats are indeed sensitive to these rare and extreme events despite their infrequent occurrence, driven primarily by an almost complete avoidance of "Black Swans" - rare and extreme losses. The evidence for specific sensitivity to rare and extreme events however remains incomplete, owing in part to the difficulty of isolating the effect of these events beyond that arising from risk preferences more generally in both task design and in the computational modeling of the choice behavior. Given the approach here brings a relatively novel perspective, with a more detailed treatment of these confounds this paper will be of broad interest to those seeking to understand animal behavior through the lens of economic choice.

   Reviewed by eLife

10. Sequential temporal anticipation characterized by neural power modulation and in recurrent neural networks

    This article has 2 authors:

    1. Xiangbin Teng
    2. Ru-Yuan Zhang

    This article has been curated by 1 group:

    • Curated by eLife

      eLife assessment

      This valuable study provides insights into how the brain learns to better detect a target by predicting when the target may appear. Overall, solid evidence is provided that the power fluctuations of alpha- and beta-band oscillations can reflect the predicted occurrence time of the target, but some conclusions, especially ones related to the neural-network model and temporal gain control account, need further consideration. The study highlights an advanced EEG analysis approach as well as a close combination of human EEG analysis and computational modeling using recurrent neural networks.

    Reviewed by eLife