eLife

Latest preprint reviews

1. Rule-based modulation of a sensorimotor transformation across cortical areas

   This article has 4 authors:

   1. Yi-Ting Chang
   2. Eric A Finkel
   3. Duo Xu
   4. Daniel H O'Connor

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This important work advances our understanding of how brains flexibly gate actions in different contexts, a topic of great interest to the broader field of systems neuroscience. Recording neural activity from several sensory and motor cortical areas along a sensorimotor pathway, the authors found that preparatory activity in motor cortical areas of the mouse depends on the context in which an action will be carried out, consistent with previous theoretical and experimental work. Furthermore, the authors provide causal evidence that these changes support flexible gating of actions. The carefully carried out experiments were analyzed using state-of-the-art methodology and provide convincing conclusions.

   Reviewed by eLife

2. Clustered synapses develop in distinct dendritic domains in visual cortex before eye opening

   This article has 3 authors:

   1. Alexandra H Leighton
   2. Juliette E Cheyne
   3. Christian Lohmann

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This important work provides insight into the activity and spatial organization of synapses during early postnatal development in the mouse visual cortex, using state-of-the-art tools to show that synapses are distributed in co-active clusters well before eye opening. The evidence supporting the claims is convincing, and this revised version provides additional methodological details about the experimental paradigm and image analysis.. This work is of particular interest to the field of developmental neuroscience and can also be used by computational neuroscientists studying dendritic integration.

   Reviewed by eLife

3. Cortical neuroprosthesis-mediated functional ipsilateral control of locomotion in rats with spinal cord hemisection

   This article has 5 authors:

   1. Elena Massai
   2. Marco Bonizzato
   3. Isley De Jesus
   4. Roxanne Drainville
   5. Marina Martinez

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     The contributions of ipsilateral cortical pathways to motor control are yet not fully understood. Here, the authors present important insights into their role in locomotion following unilateral spinal cord injury. Their data provide convincing evidence in rats that stimulation of ipsilateral motor cortex improves the injured side's ability to support weight and leads to improved locomotion, a result that may inspire new treatments for spinal or cerebral injuries.

   Reviewed by eLife

4. BMP signalling facilitates transit amplification in the developing chick and human cerebellum

   This article has 5 authors:

   1. Victoria Rook
   2. Parthiv Haldipur
   3. Kathleen J Millen
   4. Thomas Butts
   5. Richard J Wingate

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This study investigates BMP signaling mechanisms in the developing chick cerebellum to better understand germinal layer formation, cellular amplification and neuronal differentiation. The data from human tissue is compelling and lends support to the possible links of these processes to medulloblastoma, although this study does raise exciting questions regarding the generalized role of BMP signaling during normal development and malignant growth. Overall, this is an important study with beautifully presented findings.

   Reviewed by eLife

5. Illuminating T cell-dendritic cell interactions in vivo by FlAsHing antigens

   This article has 8 authors:

   1. Munir Akkaya
   2. Jafar Al Souz
   3. Daniel Williams
   4. Rahul Kamdar
   5. Olena Kamenyeva
   6. Juraj Kabat
   7. Ethan Shevach
   8. Billur Akkaya

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This is an important study that develops a method to fluorescently label peptide MHC complexes on live dendritic cells to enable detection of antigen specific T cells in polyclonal populations. Solid evidence that this can be used to effectively identify antigen specific T cells in vitro and in vivo is provided for one model antigen systems (Ova-OTII). The approach has exciting potential as prior single step methods with directly conjugated single peptides have generally failed due to high background. Thus, this approach potentially moves the state of the art forward, but further work is needed to realise and determine the limits and ultimate utility of the approach.

   Reviewed by eLife

6. A single pair of pharyngeal neurons functions as a commander to reject high salt in Drosophila melanogaster

   This article has 8 authors:

   1. Jiun Sang
   2. Subash Dhakal
   3. Bhanu Shrestha
   4. Dharmendra Kumar Nath
   5. Yunjung Kim
   6. Anindya Ganguly
   7. Craig Montell
   8. Youngseok Lee

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This valuable study on the molecular and cellular mechanisms of ingestion avoidance of high salt in insects is focused in scope, but the authors present convincing evidence that a specific subset of gustatory receptors in a pair of pharyngeal taste neurons are necessary and sufficient for avoiding ingestion of high salt during feeding. This work will be of interest to Drosophila neuroscientists interested in taste coding and feeding behavior.

   Reviewed by eLife

7. Bridging the gap between presynaptic hair cell function and neural sound encoding

   This article has 2 authors:

   1. Lina María Jaime Tobón
   2. Tobias Moser

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This fundamental study advances substantially our understanding of sound encoding at synapses between single inner hair cells of the mouse cochlea and spiral ganglion neurons. Dual patch-clamp recordings-a technical tour-de force-and careful data analysis provide compelling evidence that the functional heterogeneity of these synapses contributes to the diversity of spontaneous and sound-evoked firing by the neurons. The work will be of broad interest to scientists in the field of auditory neuroscience.

   Reviewed by eLife

8. Deletion of FNDC5/irisin modifies murine osteocyte function in a sex-specific manner

   This article has 9 authors:

   1. Anika Shimonty
   2. Fabrizio Pin
   3. Matthew Prideaux
   4. Gang Peng
   5. Joshua Huot
   6. Hyeonwoo Kim
   7. Clifford J Rosen
   8. Bruce M Spiegelman
   9. Lynda F Bonewald

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     The study presents valuable findings on sexually dimorphic patterns of osteocytic transcriptomes and low calcium diet-induced osteocytic osteolysis in FNDC5-deficient mice. The authors present solid evidence for sex-specific changes in osteocyte morphology and gene expression under a calcium-demanding setting in this particular strain of mice, although the protective role of FNDC5-deficiency in lactation and low-calcium diet in female mice remains unclear due to lack of mechanistic studies. The study also lacks evidence that irisin, a proteolytically cleaved product of FNDC5, is responsible for the observed phenotypes, as irisin was not directly measured.

   Reviewed by eLife

9. Perirenal adipose tissue contains a subpopulation of cold-inducible adipocytes derived from brown-to-white conversion

   This article has 4 authors:

   1. Houyu Zhang
   2. Yan Li
   3. Carlos F Ibáñez
   4. Meng Xie

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This study presents a valuable finding on the process of brown to white adipogenic transdifferentiation within the perirenal adipose depot. The evidence supporting the claims is convincing, although limited sequencing depth of single nuclei and lack of regulatory insights somewhat lessens the impact of these findings. The work will be of interested to adipose tissue biologists.

   Reviewed by eLife

10. Epigenetic insights into GABAergic development in Dravet Syndrome iPSC and therapeutic implications

    This article has 7 authors:

    1. Jens Schuster
    2. Xi Lu
    3. Yonglong Dang
    4. Joakim Klar
    5. Amelie Wenz
    6. Niklas Dahl
    7. Xingqi Chen

    This article has been curated by 1 group:

    • Curated by eLife

      eLife assessment

      This is a potentially useful study that shows changes in the chromatin landscape of GABAergic neurons in induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) derived from both Dravet Syndrome (DS) patients and healthy donors. The strength of the evidence is currently incomplete because the authors compared iPSCs from different individuals, rather than isogenic controls. A strategy for minimizing variability across cell lines is used, but the explanation is not complete. The revised manuscript adds RNAseq and qPCR measurements of the expression of the gene SCN1A, however these do not appear to agree, perhaps because of the way the qPCR measurements are normalized, and there is no measurement of Nav1.1, the gene product thought to be responsible for the majority of DS cases. Hence the evidence that there is reduced expression of SCN1A or its gene product is not complete and therefore it is difficult to evaluate whether or not the observed epigenetic changes are causal. The work would potentially be of interest to scientists who study development, developmental disorders, and epigenetic contributions to disease.

    Reviewed by eLife