eLife

Latest preprint reviews

1. Optimising the tilt increment for in situ cryo-electron tomography

   This article has 4 authors:

   1. Maarten Willem Tuijtel
   2. Tomáš Majtner
   3. Beata Turoňová
   4. Martin Beck

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This convincing contribution addresses a question of practical importance: when collecting tilt-series data, what is the optimal angular step size between successive tilt images? The work provides valuable practical insights into cryo-ET data acquisition by demonstrating that balancing two competing demands - sufficient dose per individual tilt image and fine angular sampling - is essential to achieve high-quality tomographic reconstructions. They demonstrate that tilt-series acquired with finer increments (1-3 degrees) yield superior alignment accuracy and improved template-matching performance.

   Reviewed by eLife

2. Hippocampal representations differentiate reactive and anticipatory responses during foraging under threat

   This article has 3 authors:

   1. Chelsey C Damphousse
   2. Olivia L Calvin
   3. A David Redish

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This important study investigates how the hippocampus distinguishes between reactive escape and anticipatory withdrawal during approach-avoidance conflict in rats performing a naturalistic decision-making task. Solid evidence supports the main finding that hippocampal neuronal representations differ during different types of defensive behaviors. The study will be of interest to researchers studying memory, navigation, and decision-making in the presence of competing rewards and threats.

   Reviewed by eLife

3. Human decision-makers terminate evidence accumulation using flexible decision rules

   This article has 6 authors:

   1. Ishan Kalburge
   2. Alice Dallstream
   3. Krešimir Josić
   4. Zachary P Kilpatrick
   5. Long Ding
   6. Joshua I Gold

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This work introduces a new paradigm for modeling decision-making under time pressure: rather than having to infer the evidence accumulated by the subjects, experimenters can directly measure it on a trial-by-trial basis. This is an important advance, as it has the potential to address questions that are off limits to the standard paradigm. The methodology and analyses are convincing, especially the ones that manipulate the reward structure. Additional analyses - in particular, a deeper comparison to an ideal observer model - would strengthen and broaden the conclusions.

   Reviewed by eLife

4. Glutamate receptor composition at Drosophila neuromuscular junctions depends on developmental stage and muscle identity

   This article has 5 authors:

   1. Anne Sustar
   2. Chengjie Qiu
   3. Yu Xiong
   4. Dion K Dickman
   5. John C Tuthill

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This study provides important findings on the composition of glutamate receptor (GluR) subunits across diverse Drosophila neuromuscular junctions, spanning larval and adult stages and multiple muscle types. Most previous work has focused on larval body wall muscles, and this study demonstrates that this model does not capture the full diversity of GluR composition across development and tissues. The revised manuscript provides a convincing account of this diversity and will be of broad interest to researchers across neuroscience.

   Reviewed by eLife

5. Male chickadees with better spatial cognition sire more extra-pair young

   This article has 11 authors:

   1. Carrie L Branch
   2. Benjamin R Sonnenberg
   3. Joseph F Welklin
   4. Bronwyn G Butcher
   5. Virginia K Heinen
   6. Angela M Pitera
   7. Lauren M Benedict
   8. Eli S Bridge
   9. Irby J Lovette
   10. Michael S Webster
   11. Vladimir V Pravosudov

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This fundamental study examines the benefits of spatial cognition in a wild population of mountain chickadees. Using robust genetic analyses and experimental design, the authors show with compelling evidence that females seeking out extra-pair copulations prefer males with strong spatial cognition, and that these males have a reproductive advantage over other males. This work will be of broad interest to evolutionary and behavioural biologists.

   Reviewed by eLife

6. Small mammalian herbivores at moderate densities facilitate livestock growth by improving vegetation composition in grasslands

   This article has 16 authors:

   1. Zhiwei Zhong
   2. Bingbo Ni
   3. Douglas Lawton
   4. Xiaofei Li
   5. Xiaona Zheng
   6. Huakun Zhou
   7. Junhu Su
   8. Wenjin Li
   9. Fujiang Hou
   10. Zhenggang Guo
   11. Quanmin Dong
   12. Shikui Dong
   13. Christopher R Dickman
   14. Jens-Christian Svenning
   15. Ying Gao
   16. Zhibin Zhang

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This important study provides evidence that plateau pikas, at moderate densities, can facilitate yak nutrition by suppressing a poisonous plant, offering a helpful perspective on reciprocal interactions between small mammal ecosystem engineers and large herbivores. The evidence is convincing, supported by a manipulative field experiment and appropriate measurements of intermediary ecological processes. The work will be of interest to ecologists, conservation biologists, and rangeland managers, particularly those studying grassland herbivore interactions and livestock management.

   Reviewed by eLife

7. Distinct sensorimotor encoding in tuft dendrites and somata associated with action, correction, and learning

   This article has 14 authors:

   1. Jackson Scheib
   2. Zachary L Newman
   3. Jacob Gable
   4. Deano M Farinella
   5. Mitchell Head
   6. Savannah Bliese
   7. Benjamin Dougen
   8. Harishankar Jayakumar
   9. Sarah Young
   10. Nicole Miller
   11. Robert Al Khoury
   12. Huan Kim Tran
   13. Tien Dinh
   14. Aaron Kerlin

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This important study reveals distinct representations of task-related information in the dendrites and somata of cortical neurons during sensorimotor learning and behavioral adaptation. The evidence is compelling, combining imaging of dendritic and somatic activity during behavior to demonstrate compartment-specific encoding of sensory cues, motor actions, and corrective signals. The work will be of broad interest to neuroscientists studying dendritic computation, motor learning, and the cellular mechanisms underlying adaptive behavior.

   Reviewed by eLife

8. Ramping-up hippocampal ripples and their neocortical coupling support human visual short-term memory

   This article has 7 authors:

   1. Jing Liu
   2. Xianhui He
   3. Can Yang
   4. Nikolai Axmacher
   5. Gui Xue
   6. Shaoming Zhang
   7. Ying Cai

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This important study provides convincing novel evidence for a role of ripples in the hippocampus in visual short-term memory. The work is strong in employing state-of-the-art intracranial electrophysiology in epilepsy patients with multivariate pattern classifiers in the context of an elegant experiment, though some reviewers had concerns about interpretation of the ripple activity. The work will be of interest to researchers studying working memory and hippocampal ripples.

   Reviewed by eLife

9. Localization of candidate clock neurons in Antarctic krill ( Euphausia superba )

   This article has 9 authors:

   1. Lukas Hüppe
   2. Nils Reinhard
   3. Annika Karl
   4. Valentina Kirsch
   5. Laura Wollny
   6. Amy Palmer
   7. Dirk Rieger
   8. Pingkalai R. Senthilan
   9. Charlotte Helfrich-Förster

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This foundational and valuable study expands our understanding of circadian clock work in non-model taxa in wider environmental niches, using solid methods for protein and RNA detection to describe the expression pattern of PDH, cry2, and per in the central nervous system of Euphausia superba. While the anatomical annotation is extensive, support for the identification of the clock network is incomplete.

   Reviewed by eLife

10. Layer-specific spatiotemporal dynamics of feedforward and feedback in human visual object perception

    This article has 9 authors:

    1. Tony Carricarte
    2. Siying Xie
    3. Johannes Singer
    4. Robert Trampel
    5. Laurentius Huber
    6. Zejin Lu
    7. Tim C Kietzmann
    8. Nikolaus Weiskopf
    9. Radoslaw M Cichy

    This article has been curated by 1 group:

    • Curated by eLife

      eLife Assessment

      This valuable study combines sub-millimeter 7T fMRI, EEG, representational similarity analysis, and deep neural network modeling to investigate layer-specific spatiotemporal dynamics underlying human object processing in early visual cortex and lateral occipital cortex; the authors report temporally distinct signatures in superficial layers of LOC that are interpreted as reflecting sequential feedforward and feedback processing during visual recognition. The multimodal methodological approach and empirical dataset are substantial and will be of broad interest to researchers in visual neuroscience, layer-fMRI methodology, and computational vision. However, the evidence supporting the central interpretation of interareal feedback remains incomplete, as the observed dynamics could also be explained by alternative mechanisms such as within-area recurrent processing, and there are additional concerns regarding several methodological and modeling choices underlying claims about increasing representational complexity at later time points. Overall, the study provides solid evidence for layer- and time-specific neural dynamics during object processing, while the interpretation of these signals as feedback-related remains provisional.

    Reviewed by eLife