eLife

Latest preprint reviews

1. Molecular identification of wide-field amacrine cells in mouse retina that encode stimulus orientation

   This article has 13 authors:

   1. Silvia J. Park
   2. Wanyu Lei
   3. John Pisano
   4. Andrea Orpia
   5. Jacqueline Minehart
   6. Joseph Pottackal
   7. Christin Hanke-Gogokhia
   8. Thomas E. Zapadka
   9. Cheryl Clarkson-Paredes
   10. Anastas Popratiloff
   11. Sarah E. Ross
   12. Joshua H. Singer
   13. Jonathan B. Demb

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     Amacrine cells are a heterogeneous and understudied set of retinal interneurons. This study presents valuable new insights into the structure, function, and circuit connectivity of a particular subset of wide field amacrine cells (WACs). The authors use an impressive set of techniques to study structural and functional properties of these cells and to establish their postsynaptic circuit partners. Evidence for the central conclusions is solid, although some of the most interesting results could be pursued more completely.

   Reviewed by eLife

2. The ubiquitin-conjugating enzyme UBE2D/eff maintains a youthful proteome and ensures protein quality control during aging

   This article has 8 authors:

   1. Liam C Hunt
   2. Kudzai Nyamkondiwa
   3. Anna Stephan
   4. Jianqin Jiao
   5. Kanisha Kavdia
   6. Vishwajeeth Pagala
   7. Junmin Peng
   8. Fabio Demontis

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This valuable study presents findings on the role of the ubiquitin-conjugating enzyme UBE2D/eff in maintaining proteostasis during aging. The evidence supporting the conclusions is solid, although one reviewer had concerns about the readout for protein aggregation and the loss-of-function studies. In the future, mechanistic insights explaining the impact of UBE2D/eff deficiency on the accumulation of poly-ubiquitinated proteins and in shortening lifespan would be interesting. The present study is of broad interest to cell biologists working in aging and age-related diseases.

   Reviewed by eLife

3. Speech-induced suppression and vocal feedback sensitivity in human cortex

   This article has 7 authors:

   1. Muge Ozker
   2. Leyao Yu
   3. Patricia Dugan
   4. Werner Doyle
   5. Daniel Friedman
   6. Orrin Devinsky
   7. Adeen Flinker

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     The manuscript describes human intracranial neural recordings in the auditory cortex during speech production, showing that the effects of delayed auditory feedback correlate with the degree of underlying speech-induced suppression. This is an important finding, as previous work has suggested that speech suppression and feedback sensitivity often do not co-localize and may be distinct processes, in contrast with findings in non-human primates where there is a strong correlation. The strength of the evidence is convincing, with appropriate experimental methods, data, and analysis.

   Reviewed by eLife

4. An Information-Theoretic Approach to Reward Rate Optimization in the Tradeoff Between Controlled and Automatic Processing in Neural Network Architectures

   This article has 3 authors:

   1. Giovanni Petri
   2. Sebastian Musslick
   3. Jonathan D. Cohen

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This useful study addresses the interesting and challenging problem of how neural networks (including possibly the brain) can optimize performance while multi-tasking. The authors address this problem by introducing an information-theoretic framework that balances the costs of control and of automaticity to achieve a desired level of overall performance. They present detailed analyses of this framework, but overall the manuscript is not easily accessible to a broad audience, and the supporting evidence is currently incomplete (but could be greatly improved with substantial revisions). They use information-theoretic terminology in non-standard ways that are not clearly explained, leading to difficulties in interpreting the framework and comparing it to other computational approaches, and the relationship between their findings and empirical data is not always clear.

   Reviewed by eLife

5. Hippocampal-occipital connectivity reflects autobiographical memory deficits in aphantasia

   This article has 7 authors:

   1. Merlin Monzel
   2. Pitshaporn Leelaarporn
   3. Teresa Lutz
   4. Johannes Schultz
   5. Sascha Brunheim
   6. Martin Reuter
   7. Cornelia McCormick

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This important work substantially advances our understanding of episodic memory in individuals with aphantasia, and sheds light on the neural underpinnings of episodic memory and mental imagery. The evidence supporting the conclusions is convincing, including evidence from a well-established interview paradigm complemented with fMRI to assess neural activation during memory recall. The work will be of broad interest to memory researchers and mental imagery researchers alike.

   Reviewed by eLife

6. The spatial extent of anatomical connections within the thalamus varies across the cortical hierarchy in humans and macaques

   This article has 7 authors:

   1. Amber M Howell
   2. Shaun Warrington
   3. Clara Fonteneau
   4. Youngsun T Cho
   5. Stamatios N Sotiropoulos
   6. John D Murray
   7. Alan Anticevic

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This fundamental study describes patterns of anatomical connectivity between the cortex and the thalamus using magnetic resonance imaging data in humans and non-human primates. The measures are related to numerous other modalities to develop a robust understanding of the organisation of the system. The authors provide convincing evidence that there is a difference between sensory and association cortices in terms of their connectivity with the thalamus, which may have downstream effects on brain function. This work will be of interest to neuroscientists interested in the organization and dynamics of cortico-thalamic circuits.

   Reviewed by eLife

7. Contrasting responses to aridity by different-sized decomposers cause similar decomposition rates across a precipitation gradient

   This article has 6 authors:

   1. Viraj R Torsekar
   2. Nevo Sagi
   3. J Alfred Daniel
   4. Yael Hawlena
   5. Efrat Gavish-Regev
   6. Dror Hawlena

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment:

     This fundamental study substantially advances our understanding of the role of different-sized soil invertebrates in shaping the rates of leaf litter decomposition, using an experiment across seasons along an aridity gradient. The authors provide compelling evidence that the summed effects of all invertebrates (with large-sized invertebrates being more active in summer and small-sized invertebrates in winter) on decomposition rates result in similar levels of leaf litter decomposition across seasons. The work will be of broad relevance to ecosystem ecologists interested in soil food webs, and researchers interested in modeling carbon cycles to understand global warming.

   Reviewed by eLife

8. Distinct catecholaminergic pathways projecting to hippocampal CA1 transmit contrasting signals during navigation in familiar and novel environments

   This article has 2 authors:

   1. Chad Heer
   2. Mark Sheffield

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This study presents important findings on the differential activity of noradrenergic and dopaminergic input to dorsal hippocampus CA1 in head-fixed mice traversing a runway in a virtual environment that is familiar or novel. The data are rigorously analysed, and the observed divergence in the dynamics of activity in the dopaminergic and noradrenergic axons is solid. Future studies, using specific manipulations of the two distinct midbrain inputs combined with behavioral testing, are required to strengthen the claim that distinct signals to the hippocampus cause distinct behavioral effects.

   Reviewed by eLife

9. Uncertainty-modulated prediction errors in cortical microcircuits

   This article has 4 authors:

   1. Katharina Anna Wilmes
   2. Mihai A Petrovici
   3. Shankar Sachidhanandam
   4. Walter Senn

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This important study introduces a new cortical circuit model for predictive processing. Simulations effectively illustrate that, with appropriate synaptic plasticity, a canonical layer 2/3 cortical circuit - comprising two classes of interneurons providing subtractive and divisive inhibition - can generate uncertainty-modulated prediction errors by pyramidal neurons. The model is compelling; although it relies on many assumptions and has not yet been compared directly to data, the model does align with empirical observations and yields a range of testable predictions. The study is expected to be of great interest to those involved in cortical and predictive processing research.

   Reviewed by eLife

10. Rapid and inducible mislocalization of endogenous TDP43 in a novel human model of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis

    This article has 6 authors:

    1. Johanna Ganssauge
    2. Sophie Hawkins
    3. Seema Chandramohan Namboori
    4. Szi Kay Leung
    5. Jonathan Mill
    6. Akshay Bhinge

    This article has been curated by 1 group:

    • Curated by eLife

      eLife Assessment

      TDP-43 mislocalization is a key feature of some neurodegenerative diseases, but cellular models are lacking. The authors endogenously-tagged TDP-43 with a C-terminal GFP tag in human iPSCs, followed by expression of an intrabody-NES that targeted GFP to the cytosol. They convincingly report physical mislocalization and functional depletion of TDP-43, as measured by microscopy and RNAseq. This method will be valuable to investigators studying the biological consequences of TDP-43 mislocalization and the methodology is in line with the current state-of-the-art.

    Reviewed by eLife