eLife

Latest preprint reviews

1. Automatic learning mechanisms for flexible human locomotion

   This article has 4 authors:

   1. Cris Rossi
   2. Kristan Leech
   3. Ryan Roemmich
   4. Amy J Bastian

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This important study introduces a novel split-belt treadmill learning task to reveal distinct and parallel learning sub-components of gait adaptation: slow and gradual error-based perceptual realignment, and a more deliberate and flexible "stimulus-response" style learning process. The behavioural results convincingly support the presence of a non-error-based learning process during continuous movements, and the computational modelling provides comprehensive further evidence for establishing this learning process. These results will be of interest for the broader motor learning community.

   Reviewed by eLife

2. Sensitivity to visual features in inattentional blindness

   This article has 4 authors:

   1. Makaela Nartker
   2. Chaz Firestone
   3. Howard Egeth
   4. Ian Phillips

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This study presents valuable findings to the field interested in inattentional blindness (IB), the phenomenon that participants fail to notice salient stimuli when their attention is directed elsewhere. This study reveals that participants who indicate no awareness of unexpected stimuli through yes/no questions ("did you notice anything unusual?"), may still show above-chance sensitivity to specific properties of these stimuli through follow-up forced-choice questions (e.g., regarding its location or color). By introducing absent trials where no IB stimulus is presented, the authors show that this is because participants are generally conservative and biased to report not noticing in inattentional blindness experiments. The evidence supporting these conclusions is convincing, the samples sizes are large and the analysis protocol is novel.

   Reviewed by eLife

3. Menopausal hormone therapy and the female brain: Leveraging neuroimaging and prescription registry data from the UK Biobank cohort

   This article has 6 authors:

   1. Claudia Barth
   2. Liisa AM Galea
   3. Emily G Jacobs
   4. Bonnie H Lee
   5. Lars T Westlye
   6. Ann-Marie G de Lange

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This observational study from the UK Biobank provides an important investigation into the associations between menopausal hormone therapy and brain health in a large, population-based cohort of females in the UK. A convincing model of brain aging using an open source algorithm is used. While some modest adverse brain health characteristics were associated with current mHT use and older age at last use, the findings do not support a general neuroprotective effect of mHT nor severe adverse effects on the female brain. This work addresses a topic that is of grave importance since menopausal hormone therapy and its effect on the brain should be better understood in order to provide individualized effective medical support to women going through menopause.

   Reviewed by eLife

4. Host-derived Lactobacillus plantarum alleviates hyperuricemia by improving gut microbial community and hydrolase-mediated degradation of purine nucleosides

   This article has 26 authors:

   1. Yang Fu
   2. Xiao-Dan Luo
   3. Jin-Ze Li
   4. Qian-Yuan Mo
   5. Xue Wang
   6. Yue Zhao
   7. You-Ming Zhang
   8. Hao-Tong Luo
   9. Dai-Yang Xia
   10. Wei-Qing Ma
   11. Jian-Ying Chen
   12. Li-Hau Wang
   13. Qiu-Yi Deng
   14. Lukuyu Ben
   15. Muhammad Kashif Saleemi
   16. Xian-Zhi Jiang
   17. Juan Chen
   18. Kai Miao
   19. Zhen-Ping Lin
   20. Peng Zhang
   21. Hui Ye
   22. Qing-Yun Cao
   23. Yong-Wen Zhu
   24. Lin Yang
   25. Qiang Tu
   26. Wence Wang

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     The landmark significance of this manuscript is based on the mechanistic description of purine metabolism by Lactobacillus plantarum, which helps to alleviate hyperuricemia, which is a phenotype that underlies multiple disease symptoms. The evidence provided for L. plantarum's involvement in reducing hyperuricemia was exceptional, combining microbiomics, whole genomics, in vitro bacterial culture, gene knock-outs, and metabolomics. Collectively, the study shows a clear link between the gut microbiota and hyperuricemia, providing a pathway for modification to help alleviate this condition.

   Reviewed by eLife

5. Visualizing sarcomere and cellular dynamics in skeletal muscle to improve cell therapies

   This article has 10 authors:

   1. Judith Hüttemeister
   2. Franziska Rudolph
   3. Michael H Radke
   4. Claudia Fink
   5. Dhana Friedrich
   6. Stephan Preibisch
   7. Martin Falcke
   8. Eva Wagner
   9. Stephan E Lehnart
   10. Michael Gotthardt

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This study offers valuable information on how titin derived from different nuclei within the syncytium is organized and integrated during skeletal muscle development and remodeling. The authors developed a novel mCherry titin knock-in mice with the fluorophore mCherry inserted into titin's Z-disk region to track the titin during cell fusion. The approach using mcherry adds to understanding of the role and localization of titin in controlling stiffness of striated muscles and fine tuning contraction. The results demonstrate that the integration of titin into the sarcomere is tightly regulated, with its unexpected mobility aiding in the uniform distribution of titin post-cell fusion. Although the experimental approach is convincing, the work is very qualitative in its approaches, and the data needs rigorous statistical analysis. There is a need for some clarification concerning numbers of animals and control groups. Future studies will need more rigorous data analysis and interpretation.

   Reviewed by eLife

6. Gasdermin D-mediated neutrophil pyroptosis drives inflammation in psoriasis

   This article has 8 authors:

   1. Jian Liu
   2. YuYing Jiang
   3. ZiYue Diao
   4. DanDan Chen
   5. RuiYuan Xia
   6. BingWei Wang
   7. Shuo Yang
   8. ZhiQiang Yin

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This is a valuable study regarding the role of gasdesmin D in experimental psoriasis. The study contains solid evidence for such a role, involving neutrophils, from murine models of skin inflammation, as well as correlative data of elevated gasdermin D expression in human psoriatic skin. The findings will be of interest to researchers trying to unravel pathways of skin inflammation.

   Reviewed by eLife

7. Human brain ancestral barcodes

   This article has 1 author:

   1. Darryl Shibata

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This study presents a valuable conceptual approach that cell lineage can be determined using methylation data. However, the evidence supporting the claims of the author remains incomplete after revision. If clarified further as described in the reviews, this approach could be of broad interest to neuroscientists and developmental biologists.

   Reviewed by eLife

8. AgRP1 modulates breeding season-dependent feeding behavior in female medaka

   This article has 9 authors:

   1. Yurika Tagui
   2. Shingo Takeda
   3. Hiroyo Waida
   4. Shoichi Kitahara
   5. Tomoki Kimura
   6. Shinji Kanda
   7. Yoshitaka Oka
   8. Yu Hayashi
   9. Chie Umatani

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This manuscript provides fundamental new insight into the mechanisms linking photoperiod, reproduction function, and feeding activity, using medaka, a genetic model that itself exhibits photoperiodic responses. As well as identifying key neuropeptide genes that are regulated by photoperiod and involved in regulating feeding activity, the authors establish a knockout line for agrp1 using CRISPR Cas9 - based approach, profiting from the extensive use and development on this methodology in medaka. The combination of the RNAseq and quantitative in situ hybridization analysis with the knockout results as well as the study of ovariectomized fish provides compelling evidence implicating agrp1 in feeding regulation in response to photoperiod and reproductive status.

   Reviewed by eLife

9. The value of initiating a pursuit in temporal decision-making

   This article has 4 authors:

   1. Elissa Sutlief
   2. Charlie Walters
   3. Tanya Marton
   4. Marshall G Hussain Shuler

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     The paper presents a valuable theoretical treatment of the role of passage of time in optimal decision strategies in pursuit based tasks. The computational evidence and methodologies employed are novel, and the authors offer solid evidence for the majority of the claims.

   Reviewed by eLife

10. β-Glucan reprograms alveolar macrophages via neutrophil/IFNγ axis in a murine model of lung injury

    This article has 11 authors:

    1. Renaud Prevel
    2. Erwan Pernet
    3. Kim A Tran
    4. Abderrahmane Sadek
    5. Mina Sadeghi
    6. Elizabeth Lapshina
    7. Leonardo F Jurado
    8. Arnold S Kristof
    9. Mohieddine Moumni
    10. Jeremie Poschmann
    11. Maziar Divangahi

    This article has been curated by 1 group:

    • Curated by eLife

      eLife Assessment

      This important study advances our understanding of maladaptive innate immune training. The experimental evidence supporting the conclusions is convincing and the expert reviewers strongly endorse the manuscript. The work will be of high interest to both researchers in the trained immunity field and clinician scientists.

    Reviewed by eLife