eLife

Latest preprint reviews

1. Convergence of inputs from the basal ganglia with layer 5 of motor cortex and cerebellum in mouse motor thalamus

   This article has 2 authors:

   1. Kevin P Koster
   2. S Murray Sherman

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This investigation marks an important advancement in our understanding of motor thalamus connectivity, illustrating a complex integration of inputs that reshapes previous models. The study utilizes compelling methodologies that expose a dynamic synaptic network, although the evidence of triple-input convergence on individual neurons and for multiple driver type inputs onto motor thalamic neurons remains incomplete. Despite this, the findings provide a persuasive rationale for revisiting our perceptions of the thalamic role in motor control, with a call for further studies to substantiate the breadth of these functional interactions.

   Reviewed by eLife

2. An atlas of brain-bone sympathetic neural circuits in mice

   This article has 14 authors:

   1. Vitaly Ryu
   2. Anisa Azatovna Gumerova
   3. Ronit Witztum
   4. Funda Korkmaz
   5. Liam Cullen
   6. Hasni Kannangara
   7. Ofer Moldavski
   8. Orly Barak
   9. Daria Lizneva
   10. Ki A Goosens
   11. Sarah Stanley
   12. Se-Min Kim
   13. Tony Yuen
   14. Mone Zaidi

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This fundamental work advances our understanding of the central coding and control mechanisms regulating sympathetic nervous system efferent signals to bone. The evidence supporting the conclusion is mostly convincing, although the inclusion of higher resolution images for certain data and further discussions would strengthen the study. This paper holds potential interest for skeletal biologists and neuroscientists who study the brain-bone sympathetic neural circuits.

   Reviewed by eLife

3. Limited column formation in the embryonic growth plate implies divergent growth mechanisms during pre- and postnatal bone development

   This article has 9 authors:

   1. Sarah Rubin
   2. Ankit Agrawal
   3. Anne Seewald
   4. Meng-Jia Lian
   5. Olivia Gottdenker
   6. Paul Villoutreix
   7. Adrian Baule
   8. Tomer Stern
   9. Elazar Zelzer

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     The study presents a valuable finding on quantifying the orientation and organization of chondrocyte columns in the prenatal and postnatal growth plate cartilage using advanced 3D imaging and a sophisticated image analysis pipeline. The evidence supporting the authors' conclusions regarding the lack of columns in the fetal growth plate is considered inadequate due to technical caveats, inconsistencies in the data and corresponding model, and failure to correctly put the findings in context.

   Reviewed by eLife

4. White matter structural bases for phase accuracy during tapping synchronization

   This article has 5 authors:

   1. Pamela Garcia-Saldivar
   2. Cynthia de León
   3. Felipe A Mendez Salcido
   4. Luis Concha
   5. Hugo Merchant

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This paper is valuable in that it provides a critical missing link between measures of structural connectivity and rhythmic tapping abilities, pointing to some interesting possibilities for how tapping synchronization is carried out. The methodology and findings are solid, and of interest to those studying the neural mechanisms of timing.

   Reviewed by eLife

5. Insulator-based dielectrophoresis-assisted separation of insulin secretory vesicles

   This article has 7 authors:

   1. Mahta Barekatain
   2. Yameng Liu
   3. Ashley Archambeau
   4. Vadim Cherezov
   5. Scott Fraser
   6. Kate L White
   7. Mark A Hayes

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This paper presents a new method for separating organelles in an unbiased way. The method is applied to the separation of distinct subpopulations of insulin vesicles. There are concerns around whether the vesicles measured are in fact insulin vesicles and whether the observed changes in vesicle populations upon glucose stimulation are biologically meaningful, and thus it is difficult to assess at this stage how well the technique performs. This paper is likely to be of wide interest to cell biologists studying a variety of compartments, as well as to researchers in the beta cell field.

   Reviewed by eLife

6. Novel Nuclear Roles for Testis-Specific ACTL7A and ACTL7B Supported by In Vivo Characterizations and AI Facilitated In Silico Mechanistic Modeling with Implications for Epigenetic Regulation in Spermiogenesis

   This article has 4 authors:

   1. Pierre Ferrer
   2. Srijana Upadhyay
   3. James J. Cai
   4. Tracy M. Clement

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This valuable study reports that actin-related proteins may be involved in transcriptional regulation during spermatogenesis. The supporting data remain incomplete, and more extensive disentanglement from the canonical role of these actin-related proteins and the experimental validation of in silico predictions are required. This work will be of interest to reproductive biologists and other researchers working on non-canonical roles of actin and actin-related proteins.

   Reviewed by eLife

7. Comparison of Tug-of-War Models Assuming Moran versus Branching Process Population Dynamics

   This article has 3 authors:

   1. Khanh N. Dinh
   2. Monika K. Kurpas
   3. Marek Kimmel

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This study uses numerical simulations to characterize and compare variants of two widely used mathematical models and then applies those models to inferring evolutionary parameters from breast cancer data. The copious numerical results will be of some interest to mathematical biologists working with similar models. The finding that many breast cancer mutations are mildly deleterious is valuable but the evidence supporting this claim is incomplete because the mathematical modelling and statistical methods are insufficiently justified and inadequately validated.

   Reviewed by eLife

8. The holocephalan ratfish endoskeleton shares trabecular and areolar mineralization patterns, but not tesserae, with elasmobranchs little skate and catshark

   This article has 4 authors:

   1. Oghenevwogaga Joseph Atake
   2. Fidji Berio
   3. Melanie Debiais Thibaud
   4. B Frank Eames

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This important study significantly advances our understanding of the skeleton of cartilaginous fishes by using a range of state of the art and complementary approaches to compare the skeleton amongst three cartilagenous fishes (catshark, little skate and ratfish). The evidence presented is compelling and likely to impact several fields of study.

   Reviewed by eLife

9. Olfactory ensheathing cells from adult female rats are hybrid glia that promote neural repair

   This article has 8 authors:

   1. Patricia E Phelps
   2. Sung Min Ha
   3. Rana R Khankan
   4. Mahlet A Mekonnen
   5. Giovanni Juarez
   6. Kaitlin L Ingraham Dixie
   7. Yen-Wei Chen
   8. Xia Yang

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This study unveils important data describing cell states of olfactory ensheathing cells, and how these cell states may relate to repair after spinal cord injury. The framework used for characterizing these cells is solid. This work will be of interest to stem cell biologists and spinal cord injury researchers.

   Reviewed by eLife

10. Fractal cycles of sleep, a new aperiodic activity-based definition of sleep cycles

    This article has 13 authors:

    1. Yevgenia Rosenblum
    2. Mahdad Jafarzadeh Esfahani
    3. Nico Adelhöfer
    4. Paul Zerr
    5. Melanie Furrer
    6. Reto Huber
    7. Famke F Roest
    8. Axel Steiger
    9. Marcel Zeising
    10. Csenge G Horváth
    11. Bence Schneider
    12. Róbert Bódizs
    13. Martin Dresler

    This article has been curated by 1 group:

    • Curated by eLife

      eLife Assessment

      This valuable study provides a novel method to detect sleep cycles based on variations in the slope of the power spectrum from electroencephalography signals. The method, dispensing with time-consuming and potentially subjective manual identification of sleep cycles, is supported by solid evidence and analyses. This study will be of interest to researchers and clinicians working on sleep and brain dynamics.

    Reviewed by eLife