eLife

Latest preprint reviews

1. Early parafoveal semantic integration in natural reading

   This article has 4 authors:

   1. Yali Pan
   2. Steven Frisson
   3. Kara D Federmeier
   4. Ole Jensen

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This important study contributes to the understanding of how parafoveal words are neurally processed during naturalistic sentence reading. Convincing evidence is provided that the MEG response to a word can be modulated by the semantic congruency of a parafoveal target word. The study addresses a classic question in reading using a new Rapid Invisible Frequency Tagging (RIFT) technique, which can separately monitor the neural processing of multiple words during sentence reading.

   Reviewed by eLife

2. Boosting of neural circuit chaos at the onset of collective oscillations

   This article has 3 authors:

   1. Agostina Palmigiano
   2. Rainer Engelken
   3. Fred Wolf

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This work provides a valuable characterization of the chaotic dynamics of high-dimensional spiking networks in the presence of internally generated oscillations due to synaptic delays or externally generated oscillations due to external input. The authors provide convincing analytical and numerical calculations to support their claims, however, the paper suffers from heavy mathematical jargon that reduces its impact. The paper could be revised to provide interpretations of the results so that it can be accessible to a broader neuroscience audience. In its current form, findings will be of interest mostly to researchers working at the interface between theoretical neuroscience, applied mathematics, and physics.

   Reviewed by eLife

3. The title and authors for this article are not available from our external data provider yet:
   10.48550/arxiv.2309.03194v1

4. Asymmetric cortical projections to striatal direct and indirect pathways distinctly control actions

   This article has 7 authors:

   1. Jason R Klug
   2. Xunyi Yan
   3. Hilary Hoffman
   4. Max D Engelhardt
   5. Fumitaka Osakada
   6. Edward M Callaway
   7. Xin Jin

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This manuscript presents an important finding that D1- and D2-striatal neurons receive distinct cortical inputs, offering key insights into corticostriatal function. For instance, in the context of striatal-dependent learning, this distinction is highly informative for interpreting synaptic physiology data, particularly when inputs to one neuron subtype may change independently of the other. The strength of the evidence is solid, with anatomical and electrophysiological findings aligning well with results from optogenetic and behavioral studies. The study would be of interest to neuroscientists studying basal ganglia circuits in health and disease.

   Reviewed by eLife

5. Circadian photoreceptor CRYPTOCHROME promotes wakefulness under short winter-like days via a GABAergic circuitry

   This article has 4 authors:

   1. Lixia Chen
   2. Danya Tian
   3. Chang Su
   4. Luoying Zhang

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     Winter months with short days are commonly associated with seasonal depression and hypersomnolence; the mechanisms behind this hypersomnolence however remain unclear. Chen and colleagues identify a genetic basis for this phenomenon in the fly Drosophila - mutations in the circadian photoreceptor cryptochrome resulted in increased sleep under short photoperiods. These findings are potentially valuable insights into the genetic mechanisms regulating sleep under short days. The data supporting the neurobiological basis of these effects is however incomplete.

   Reviewed by eLife

6. The function of juvenile–adult transition axis in female sexual receptivity of Drosophila melanogaster

   This article has 9 authors:

   1. Jing Li
   2. Chao Ning
   3. Yaohua Liu
   4. Bowen Deng
   5. Bingcai Wang
   6. Kai Shi
   7. Rencong Wang
   8. Ruixin Fang
   9. Chuan Zhou

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     The aim of this valuable study is to uncover developmental roles of the neuropeptide prothoracicotropic hormone (PTTH) and ecdysone, which later regulate female receptivity of Drosophila melanogaster. The work combines spatially and temporally restricted genetic manipulation with behavior quantification to explore these molecular pathways and the neuronal substrates participating in the control of female sexual receptivity. At present, the implication of both signaling pathways in this process is convincing but the strength of the evidence is incomplete to support the main claim that PTTH pathway controls female sexual receptivity through the function of ecdysone in pC1 neurons.

   Reviewed by eLife

7. Neural attentional filters and behavioural outcome follow independent individual trajectories over the adult lifespan

   This article has 2 authors:

   1. Sarah Tune
   2. Jonas Obleser

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This study provides a valuable contribution to understanding the neural mechanisms underlying age-related changes in attention and speech understanding. The large dataset (N=105) provides convincing evidence for how speech recognition behaviour and neural tracking of speech separately evolve in about 2 years. The work would be of interest to psychologists, neuroscientists, and audiologists.

   Reviewed by eLife

8. Reactivation strength during cued recall is modulated by graph distance within cognitive maps

   This article has 9 authors:

   1. Simon Kern
   2. Juliane Nagel
   3. Martin F Gerchen
   4. Çağatay Gürsoy
   5. Andreas Meyer-Lindenberg
   6. Peter Kirsch
   7. Raymond J Dolan
   8. Steffen Gais
   9. Gordon B Feld

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This magnetoencephalography study reports important new findings regarding the nature of memory reactivation during cued recall. It replicates previous work showing that such reactivation can be sequential or clustered, with sequential reactivation being more prevalent in low performers. It adds convincing evidence, even though based on limited amounts of data, that high memory performers tend to show simultaneous (i.e., clustered) reactivation, varying in strength with item distance in the learned graph structure. The study will be of interest to scientists studying memory replay.

   Reviewed by eLife

9. Multiple origins of dorsal ecdysial sutures in trilobites and their relatives

   This article has 6 authors:

   1. Kun-sheng Du
   2. Jin Guo
   3. Sarah R Losso
   4. Stephen Pates
   5. Ming Li
   6. Ai-lin Chen

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     The authors present 16 new well-preserved specimens from the early Cambrian Chengjiang biota. These specimens potentially represent a new taxon which could be useful in sorting out the problematic topology of artiopodan arthropods - a topic of interest to specialists in Cambrian arthropods. The authors provide solid anatomical and phylogenetic evidence in support of a new interpretation of the homology of dorsal sutures in trilobites and their relatives.

   Reviewed by eLife

10. Deciphering the genetic code of neuronal type connectivity through bilinear modeling

    This article has 1 author:

    1. Mu Qiao

    This article has been curated by 1 group:

    • Curated by eLife

      eLife assessment

      This is an important computational study that applies the machine learning method of bilinear modeling to the problem of relating gene expression to connectivity. Specifically, the author attempts to use transcriptomic data from mouse retinal neurons to predict their known connectivity with promising results. On revision, the approach was tested against a second data set from C. elegans. A limited number of genes studied in this second dataset may have resulted in performance that matched but did not exceed prior models. However, taken together, the results were felt to provide solid evidence for the value of the approach.

    Reviewed by eLife