eLife

Latest preprint reviews

1. Dynamic organization of visual cortical networks inferred from massive spiking datasets

   This article has 3 authors:

   1. Colin Graber
   2. Yurii Vlasov
   3. Alexander Schwing

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     The authors describe a model for tracking time-varying functional connectivity between neurons from multi-electrode spike recordings. This is an interesting and potentially useful approach to an open problem in neural data analysis, and could be an essential tool for investigating the neural code from large-scale in-vivo recordings of spiking activity. However, the evidence is incomplete: systematic comparisons with existing methods and/or demonstration of its utility relative to conventional methods are essential to demonstrate the usefulness of the method.

   Reviewed by eLife

2. Subcortical correlates of consciousness with human single neuron recordings

   This article has 11 authors:

   1. Michael Pereira
   2. Nathan Faivre
   3. Fosco Bernasconi
   4. Nicholas Brandmeir
   5. Jacob E Suffridge
   6. Kaylee Tran
   7. Shuo Wang
   8. Victor Finomore
   9. Peter Konrad
   10. Ali Rezai
   11. Olaf Blanke

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This important study reports human single-neuron recordings in subcortical structures while participants performed a tactile detection task around the perceptual threshold. The study and the analyses are well conducted and provide convincing evidence that the thalamus and the subthalamic nucleus contain neurons whose activity correlates with the task, with stimulus presentation, and even with whether the stimulation is consciously detected or not. The study will be relevant for researchers interested in the role of subcortical structures in tactile perception and the neural correlates of consciousness.

   Reviewed by eLife

3. Identification of novel human microcephaly-linked protein Mtss2 that mediates cortical progenitor cell division and corticogenesis through Nedd9-RhoA

   This article has 11 authors:

   1. Aurelie Carabalona
   2. Henna Kallo
   3. Maryanne Gonzalez
   4. Liliia Andriichuk
   5. Ellinoora Elomaa
   6. Florence Molinari
   7. Christiana Fragkou
   8. Pekka Lappalainen
   9. Marja W Wessels
   10. Juha Saarikangas
   11. Claudio Rivera

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This important contribution to the field evaluated the function of the cytoskeletal protein ABBA in mediating key aspects of mitosis of neuronal precursor cells. The authors provide compelling evidence that ABBA interactions with its signaling partners is related to the development of at least some cases of microcephaly-a developmental anomaly associated with intellectual disability and other neurological findings.

   Reviewed by eLife

4. Circadian regulation of endoplasmic reticulum calcium response in cultured mouse astrocytes

   This article has 6 authors:

   1. Ji Eun Ryu
   2. Kyu-Won Shim
   3. Hyun Woong Roh
   4. Minsung Park
   5. Jae-Hyung Lee
   6. Eun Young Kim

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This work describes a circadian regulation in the expression of HERP, a regulator of endoplasmic reticulum calcium, in primary astrocytic cultures. This work is important because it highlights the potential importance of circadian rhythms in astrocytes, even though making a direct comparison between these rhythms in vitro and in vivo remains challenging. The technical approaches used in this work (RNA-seq, siRNA, Ca2+ imaging) are a solid support for data interpretation.

   Reviewed by eLife

5. Optogenetic silencing of hippocampal inputs to the retrosplenial cortex causes a prolonged disruption of spatial working memory

   This article has 3 authors:

   1. Bárbara Pinto-Correia
   2. Patrícia Caldeira-Bernardo
   3. Miguel Remondes

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     The authors report that optogenetic inhibition of hippocampal axon terminals in retrosplenial cortex impairs the performance of a delayed non-match to place task. Elucidating the role of hippocampal projections to the retrosplenial cortex in memory and decision-making behaviors is important. However, the strength of evidence for the paper's claims is incomplete.

   Reviewed by eLife

6. Staphylococcus aureus counters organic acid anion-mediated inhibition of peptidoglycan cross-linking through robust alanine racemase activity

   This article has 11 authors:

   1. Sasmita Panda
   2. Yahani P Jayasinghe
   3. Dhananjay D Shinde
   4. Emilio Bueno
   5. Amanda Stastny
   6. Blake P Bertrand
   7. Sujata S Chaudhari
   8. Tammy Kielian
   9. Felipe Cava
   10. Donald R Ronning
   11. Vinai C Thomas

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     In this useful study, the authors present convincing evidence linking the enzyme D-alanine-D-alanine ligase (Ddl), crucial for cell wall fortification, to organic acid exposure in Staphylococcus aureus. While it's established that organic acids impede bacterial growth, the researchers reveal a novel coping mechanism where S. aureus maintains elevated levels of D-alanine, the substrate for Ddl, to counteract this inhibition. This discovery illuminates a bacterial strategy for organic acid tolerance, offering new insights for microbiologists and potentially informing future antimicrobial approaches.

   Reviewed by eLife, Arcadia Science

7. Selective recruitment of the cerebellum evidenced by task-dependent gating of inputs

   This article has 5 authors:

   1. Ladan Shahshahani
   2. Maedbh King
   3. Caroline Nettekoven
   4. Richard B Ivry
   5. Jörn Diedrichsen

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This important study reports a novel approach to studying cerebellar function based on the idea of selective recruitment using fMRI. It provides convincing evidence for task-dependent gating of neocortical input to the cerebellum during a motor task and a working memory task. The study will be of interest to a broad cognitive neuroscience audience.

   Reviewed by eLife

8. Allosteric coupling asymmetry mediates paradoxical activation of BRAF by type II inhibitors

   This article has 10 authors:

   1. Damien M Rasmussen
   2. Manny M Semonis
   3. Joseph T Greene
   4. Joseph M Muretta
   5. Andrew R Thompson
   6. Silvia Toledo Ramos
   7. David D Thomas
   8. William CK Pomerantz
   9. Tanya S Freedman
   10. Nicholas M Levinson

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This elegant study presents important findings into how small molecules that were originally developed to inhibit the oncogenic kinase, BRAF, instead trigger activation of this kinase target. Compelling and comprehensive evidence supports a new allosteric model to explain the paradoxical activation. This rigorous work will be of great interest to biochemists, structural biologists, and those working on strategies to inhibit kinases in the context of human disease.

   Reviewed by eLife

9. A multisite validation of brain white matter pathways of resilience to chronic back pain

   This article has 13 authors:

   1. Mina Mišić
   2. Noah Lee
   3. Francesca Zidda
   4. Kyungjin Sohn
   5. Katrin Usai
   6. Martin Löffler
   7. Md Nasir Uddin
   8. Arsalan Farooqi
   9. Giovanni Schifitto
   10. Zhengwu Zhang
   11. Frauke Nees
   12. Paul Geha
   13. Herta Flor

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This valuable study provides convincing evidence that white matter diffusion imaging of the right superior longitudinal fasciculus might help to develop a predictive biomarker of chronic back pain chronicity. The results are based on a discovery-replication approach with different cohorts, but the sample size is limited. The findings will interest researchers interested in the brain mechanisms of chronic pain and in developing brain-based biomarkers of chronic pain.

   Reviewed by eLife

10. Input-specific gating of NMDA amplification via HCN channels in mouse L2/3 pyramidal neurons

    This article has 4 authors:

    1. Viktor János Oláh
    2. Jing Wu
    3. Leonard K Kaczmarek
    4. Matthew JM Rowan

    This article has been curated by 1 group:

    • Curated by eLife

      eLife Assessment

      In this valuable study the authors use electrophysiology in brain slices and computer modeling and suggest that layer 2/3 pyramidal neurons of the mouse cortex have functional HCN channels on the proximal apical dendrite which allows distinct processing of input at that location from the input to distal apical dendrites. The revisions improved the solid paper but some of the concerns were not addressed sufficiently and many of these concerns could be addressed by further revision.

    Reviewed by eLife