eLife

Latest preprint reviews

1. Error prediction determines the coordinate system used for the representation of novel dynamics

   This article has 2 authors:

   1. Raz Leib
   2. David Franklin

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This study provides a valuable new perspective on how motor learning occurring in one state generalizes to new states (for example, a different limb posture). The proposed model improves upon previous theories in its ability to predict patterns of generalization, but evidence supporting this specific proposed model over possible alternatives is incomplete. The newly proposed theory appears promising but would be more convincing if its conceptual and theoretical basis were clearer and more rigorously derived.

   Reviewed by eLife

2. Balancing safety and efficiency in human decision-making

   This article has 4 authors:

   1. Pranav Mahajan
   2. Shuangyi Tong
   3. Sang Wan Lee
   4. Ben Seymour

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This important work describes results from a set of simulation and empirical studies of a set-up assessing exploratory behavior in a potentially rewarding environment that contains danger. The core idea is that an instrumental agent can be helped to be both effective and safe, thus avoiding excessive danger, during exploratory behavior, if the influence of an independent Pavlovian fear is flexibly gated based on uncertainty. This work is grounded in previous foundational work on Pavlovian control of instrumental choice, and significantly extends prior work showing that the impact of Pavlovian reward biases can be flexibly gated. The conclusion that safe but effective exploration can be achieved based on a flexibly weighted combination of a Pavlovian and an instrumental agent is convincing.

   Reviewed by eLife

3. Secreted exosomes induce filopodia formation

   This article has 11 authors:

   1. Caitlin McAtee
   2. Mikin R Patel
   3. Daisuke Hoshino
   4. Bong Hwan Sung
   5. Ariana K von Lersner
   6. Mingjian Shi
   7. Nan Hyung Hong
   8. Anna Young
   9. Evan Krystofiak
   10. Andries Zijlstra
   11. Alissa M Weaver

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     In this important manuscript, the authors reveal novel findings on the role of exosomes in regulating filopodia formation. Filopodia are crucial for various cellular processes, including migration, polarization, directional sensing, and the formation of neuronal synapses. The authors convincingly demonstrate that exosomes, particularly those enriched with the protein THSD7A, play a significant role in promoting filopodia formation in both cancer cells and neurons.

   Reviewed by eLife

4. The flexible stalk domain of sTREM2 modulates its interactions with brain-based phospholipids

   This article has 6 authors:

   1. David Saeb
   2. Emma E Lietzke
   3. Daisy I Fuchs
   4. Emma C Aldrich
   5. Kimberley D Bruce
   6. Kayla G Sprenger

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This useful manuscript addresses some key molecular mechanisms on the neuroprotective roles of soluble TREM2 in neurodegenerative diseases. The study will advance our understanding of TREM2 mutations, particularly on the damaging effect of known TREM2 mutations, and also provides solid evidence why soluble TREM2 can antagonize Aβ aggregation.

   Reviewed by eLife

5. Scale matters: Large language models with billions (rather than millions) of parameters better match neural representations of natural language

   This article has 16 authors:

   1. Zhuoqiao Hong
   2. Haocheng Wang
   3. Zaid Zada
   4. Harshvardhan Gazula
   5. David Turner
   6. Bobbi Aubrey
   7. Leonard Niekerken
   8. Werner Doyle
   9. Sasha Devore
   10. Patricia Dugan
   11. Daniel Friedman
   12. Orrin Devinsky
   13. Adeen Flinker
   14. Uri Hasson
   15. Samuel A Nastase
   16. Ariel Goldstein

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This valuable study investigates how the size of an LLM may influence its ability to model the human neural response to language recorded by ECoG. Overall, solid evidence is provided that larger language models can better predict the human ECoG response. Further discussion would be beneficial as to how the results can inform us about the brain or LLMs, especially about the new message that can be learned from this ECoG study beyond previous fMRI studies on the same topic. This study will be of interest to both neuroscientists and psychologists who work on language comprehension and computer scientists working on LLMs.

   Reviewed by eLife

6. The title and authors for this article are not available from our external data provider yet:
   10.48550/arxiv.2402.07252v3

7. Activity-dependent synapse elimination requires caspase-3 activation

   This article has 4 authors:

   1. Zhou Yu
   2. Andrian Gutu
   3. Namsoo Kim
   4. Erin K O'Shea

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This study presents an important finding on the involvement of a Caspase 3-dependent pathway in the elimination of synapses for retinogeniculate circuit refinement and eye-specific territory segregation. This work fits well with the concept of "synaptosis" which has been proposed in the past. The evidence supporting the claims of the authors is convincing, demonstrating that caspase-3 activation is essential for microglial elimination of synapses during both brain development and neurodegeneration. The work will be of interest to investigators studying cell death pathways, neurodevelopment, and neurodegenerative disease.

   Reviewed by eLife

8. Characterization of direct Purkinje cell outputs to the brainstem

   This article has 4 authors:

   1. Christopher H Chen
   2. Zhiyi Yao
   3. Shuting Wu
   4. Wade G Regehr

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This important paper provides an unbiased landscape for the cerebellar cortical outputs to the brainstem nuclei. By conducting anatomical and physiological analyses of the axonal terminals of Purkinje cells, the data provides convincing evidence that Purkinje cells innervate brainstem nuclei directly. The results show that in addition to previously known inputs to vestibular and parabrachial nuclei, Purkinje cells synapse onto the pontine central grey nucleus but have little effect on the locus coeruleus and mesencephalic trigeminal neurons.

   Reviewed by eLife

9. Xist RNA binds select autosomal genes and depends on Repeat B to regulate their expression

   This article has 4 authors:

   1. Shengze Yao
   2. Yesu Jeon
   3. Barry Kesner
   4. Jeannie T Lee

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This valuable study addresses the potential roles of the master regulator of X chromosome inactivation, the Xist long non-coding RNA, in the regulation of autosomal genes. Using data from mouse cells, the authors propose that Xist can coat specific autosomal promoters, which in turn leads to the attenuation of their transcriptional activity. The evidence from individual genes is interesting, and the model aligns with recently published results from humans. However, despite some improvements during revision, the data and statistical analyses in the current study are not yet strong enough to allow for conclusive inferences, leaving the evidence for mouse cells behaving like human cells incomplete. The topic of the work is of broad interest, in particular to colleagues studying gene regulation and noncoding RNAs.

   Reviewed by eLife

10. Crystal structure and catalytic mechanism of PL35 family glycosaminoglycan lyases with an ultrabroad substrate spectrum

    This article has 12 authors:

    1. Lin Wei
    2. Hai-Yan Cao
    3. Ruyi Zou
    4. Min Du
    5. Qingdong Zhang
    6. Danrong Lu
    7. Xiangyu Xu
    8. Yingying Xu
    9. Wenshuang Wang
    10. Xiu-Lan Chen
    11. Yu-Zhong Zhang
    12. Fuchuan Li

    This article has been curated by 1 group:

    • Curated by eLife

      eLife Assessment

      This useful manuscript reports on the crystal structures of two glycosaminoglycan (GAG) lyases from the PL35 family, along with in vitro enzyme activity assays and comprehensive structure-guided mutagenesis. The authors have addressed key concerns by incorporating additional docking analyses, validating the role of His188 in alginate degradation, and providing ICP-MS data to examine Mn²⁺ binding. While these improvements enhance the study, the study is incomplete due to the lack of enzyme-substrate complex structures and reliance on modeling which still limit mechanistic insight. Nonetheless, the revised manuscript presents a more complete analysis that will be of interest to specialists in carbohydrate-active enzymes.

    Reviewed by eLife