eLife

Latest preprint reviews

1. Deciphering the genetic interactions between Pou4f3, Gfi1, and Rbm24 in maintaining mouse cochlear hair cell survival

   This article has 3 authors:

   1. Guangqin Wang
   2. Yunpeng Gu
   3. Zhiyong Liu

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     In this valuable study, the authors explore regulatory cascades governing mammalian cochlear hair cell development and survival. They confirm previous studies that the transcription factors Pou4f3 and Gfi1 are necessary for hair cell survival, and use compelling evidence to demonstrate that the RNA binding protein gene RBM24 is regulated by Pou4f3, but not Gfi1. These findings will be of interest to those working on hearing loss, and hold significance for viral gene delivery methods aiming to manipulate gene expression.

   Reviewed by eLife

2. Single-cell RNAseq analysis of spinal locomotor circuitry in larval zebrafish

   This article has 3 authors:

   1. Jimmy J Kelly
   2. Hua Wen
   3. Paul Brehm

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     In zebrafish, primary motor neurons (PMNs) control escape movements, and a more heterogeneous population of secondary motor neurons (SMNs) regulate the speed of rhythmic swimming. Using single cell RNA sequencing (scRNAseq), the authors have obtained compelling evidence that PMNs, and two types of interneurons innervating them, express a set of three genes encoding voltage-gated ion channels enabling rapid firing. The PMNs also express high transcript levels of proteins involved in exocytosis, which would be expected to support rapid neurotransmitter release. These results will be important for those working on spinal cord function and zebrafish genomics/transcriptomics.

   Reviewed by eLife

3. A synergistic workspace for human consciousness revealed by Integrated Information Decomposition

   This article has 14 authors:

   1. Andrea I Luppi
   2. Pedro AM Mediano
   3. Fernando E Rosas
   4. Judith Allanson
   5. John Pickard
   6. Robin L Carhart-Harris
   7. Guy B Williams
   8. Michael M Craig
   9. Paola Finoia
   10. Adrian M Owen
   11. Lorina Naci
   12. David K Menon
   13. Daniel Bor
   14. Emmanuel A Stamatakis

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This article presents important results describing how the gathering, integration, and broadcasting of information in the brain changes when consciousness is lost either through anesthesia or injury. They provide convincing evidence to support their conclusions, although the paper relies on a single analysis tool (partial information decomposition) and could benefit from a clearer explication of its conceptual basis, methodology, and results. The work will be of interest to both neuroscientists and clinicians interested in basic and clinical aspects of consciousness.

   Reviewed by eLife

4. Finding structure during incremental speech comprehension

   This article has 4 authors:

   1. Bingjiang Lyu
   2. William D Marslen-Wilson
   3. Yuxing Fang
   4. Lorraine K Tyler

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This valuable study provides insights into how the brain parses the syntactic structure of a spoken sentence. Convincing evidence is provided that distributive cortical networks are engaged for incremental parsing of a sentence, and neural activity recorded by MEG correlates with sentence structure measures extracted by a deep neural network language model, i.e., BERT. A contribution of the work is to use a deep neural network model to quantify how the mental representation of syntactic structure updates as a sentence unfolds in time.

   Reviewed by eLife

5. What happens to the inhibitory control functions of the right inferior frontal cortex when this area is dominant for language?

   This article has 5 authors:

   1. Esteban Villar-Rodríguez
   2. Cristina Cano-Melle
   3. Lidón Marin-Marin
   4. Maria Antònia Parcet
   5. César Avila

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This study has important implications for theoretical proposals concerning how language lateralization affects the lateralization of other cognitive functions. The methods are solid, with an appropriate selection of cognitive control tasks that share homotopic regions of the brain with language, comparing participants with typical and atypical organization of language. The participants included in the study were mainly bilinguals, a population previously reported to have a more bilateral organization of cognitive control regions than monolinguals, limiting the generalizability of the results to the general population. Despite this limitation, the results will be of interest to researchers working of brain plasticity and development, in addition to those interested in language and cognitive control.

   Reviewed by eLife

6. An in vitro model for vitamin A transport across the human blood–brain barrier

   This article has 2 authors:

   1. Chandler B Est
   2. Regina M Murphy

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This fundamental work substantially advances our understanding of retinol transport through the blood-brain barrier. The evidence supporting the conclusions is compelling, with rigorous biochemical assays. In general, the work is of broad interest to cell biologists, biochemists and neuroscientists.

   Reviewed by eLife

7. Multimodal analysis of methylomics and fragmentomics in plasma cell-free DNA for multi-cancer early detection and localization

   This article has 65 authors:

   1. Van Thien Chi Nguyen
   2. Trong Hieu Nguyen
   3. Nhu Nhat Tan Doan
   4. Thi Mong Quynh Pham
   5. Giang Thi Huong Nguyen
   6. Thanh Dat Nguyen
   7. Thuy Thi Thu Tran
   8. Duy Long Vo
   9. Thanh Hai Phan
   10. Thanh Xuan Jasmine
   11. Van Chu Nguyen
   12. Huu Thinh Nguyen
   13. Trieu Vu Nguyen
   14. Thi Hue Hanh Nguyen
   15. Le Anh Khoa Huynh
   16. Trung Hieu Tran
   17. Quang Thong Dang
   18. Thuy Nguyen Doan
   19. Anh Minh Tran
   20. Viet Hai Nguyen
   21. Vu Tuan Anh Nguyen
   22. Le Minh Quoc Ho
   23. Quang Dat Tran
   24. Thi Thu Thuy Pham
   25. Tan Dat Ho
   26. Bao Toan Nguyen
   27. Thanh Nhan Vo Nguyen
   28. Thanh Dang Nguyen
   29. Dung Thai Bieu Phu
   30. Boi Hoan Huu Phan
   31. Thi Loan Vo
   32. Thi Huong Thoang Nai
   33. Thuy Trang Tran
   34. My Hoang Truong
   35. Ngan Chau Tran
   36. Trung Kien Le
   37. Thanh Huong Thi Tran
   38. Minh Long Duong
   39. Hoai Phuong Thi Bach
   40. Van Vu Kim
   41. The Anh Pham
   42. Duc Huy Tran
   43. Trinh Ngoc An Le
   44. Truong Vinh Ngoc Pham
   45. Minh Triet Le
   46. Dac Ho Vo
   47. Thi Minh Thu Tran
   48. Minh Nguyen Nguyen
   49. Thi Tuong Vi Van
   50. Anh Nhu Nguyen
   51. Thi Trang Tran
   52. Vu Uyen Tran
   53. Minh Phong Le
   54. Thi Thanh Do
   55. Thi Van Phan
   56. Hong-Dang Luu Nguyen
   57. Duy Sinh Nguyen
   58. Van Thinh Cao
   59. Thanh-Thuy Thi Do
   60. Dinh Kiet Truong
   61. Hung Sang Tang
   62. Hoa Giang
   63. Hoai-Nghia Nguyen
   64. Minh-Duy Phan
   65. Le Son Tran

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This study provides insights into the early detection of malignancies with noninvasive methods by developing a framework, which assesses methylation, CNA, and other genomic features. They established a solid model in discriminating malignancies from healthy controls, as well as the ability to distinguish tumor of origin. This important study will demonstrate its practical impacts in the clinic and other researchers of the field.

   Reviewed by eLife

8. Emotional vocalizations alter behaviors and neurochemical release into the amygdala

   This article has 6 authors:

   1. Zahra Ghasemahmad
   2. Aaron Mrvelj
   3. Rishitha Panditi
   4. Bhavya Sharma
   5. Karthic Drishna Perumal
   6. Jeffrey J Wenstrup

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This important study advances our understanding of how distinct types of communication signals differentially affect mouse behaviors and amygdala cholinergic/dopaminergic neuromodulation. The evidence supporting the authors' claims is solid. Researchers interested in the complex interaction between prior experience, sex, behavior, hormonal status, and neuromodulation should benefit from this study.

   Reviewed by eLife

9. Context-Aware Amino Acid Embedding Advances Analysis of TCR-Epitope Interactions

   This article has 4 authors:

   1. Pengfei Zhang
   2. Seojin Bang
   3. Michael Cai
   4. Heewook Lee

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This study provides an important tool for predicting binding between immune cells receptors and antigens based on protein sequence data. The analysis convincingly showed the tool's effectiveness in both supervised TCR binding prediction and unsupervised clustering, surpassing existing methods in accuracy and reducing annotation costs. This study will be of interest to immunologists and computational biologists.

   Reviewed by eLife

10. Orai-mediated calcium entry determines activity of central dopaminergic neurons by regulation of gene expression

    This article has 3 authors:

    1. Rishav Mitra
    2. Shlesha Richhariya
    3. Gaiti Hasan

    This article has been curated by 1 group:

    • Curated by eLife

      eLife assessment

      In Drosophila melanogaster, the SOCE channel Orai is required for the development of flight promoting dopaminergic neurons. The Hasan laboratory has previously shown that disabling Orai function impairs Drosophila flight due to aberrant neuronal development at the pupal stage. In this fundamental study, Mitra et al show that SOCE drives a transcriptional feedback loop via the homeobox transcription factor, 'Trithorax-like' (Trl), and histone modifiers, Set2 and E(z), to regulate the expression of key genes required for the function of dopaminergic flight neurons, including the muscarinic acetylcholine receptor and the inositol 1,4,5-trisphosphate receptor. This solid study is carefully performed with validated methodology and most of the analyses are rigorous.

    Reviewed by eLife