eLife

Latest preprint reviews

1. Disentangled multi-subject and social behavioral representations through a constrained subspace variational autoencoder (CS-VAE)

   This article has 5 authors:

   1. Daiyao Yi
   2. Simon Musall
   3. Anne Churchland
   4. Nancy Padilla-Coreano
   5. Shreya Saxena

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This paper is a valuable step in multi-subject behavioral modeling using an extension of the Variational Autoencoder (VAE) framework. Using a novel partition of the latent space and in tandem with a recently proposed regularization scheme, the paper provides a rich set of computational analyses analyzing social behavior data of mice with results that represent the state-of-the-art in this subfield. The strength of evidence is convincing, with the methodology being well documented and the results being reproducible, although some additional quantifications would have been helpful to fully gauge the circumstances where the approach would be most effectively applied.

   Reviewed by eLife

2. EphrinB2 knockdown in cervical spinal cord preserves diaphragm innervation in a mutant SOD1 mouse model of ALS

   This article has 16 authors:

   1. Mark W Urban
   2. Brittany A Charsar
   3. Nicolette M Heinsinger
   4. Shashirekha S Markandaiah
   5. Lindsay Sprimont
   6. Wei Zhou
   7. Eric V Brown
   8. Nathan T Henderson
   9. Samantha J Thomas
   10. Biswarup Ghosh
   11. Rachel E Cain
   12. Davide Trotti
   13. Piera Pasinelli
   14. Megan C Wright
   15. Matthew B Dalva
   16. Angelo C Lepore

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This is a valuable study of Eph-Ephrin signaling mechanisms generating pathological changes in amyotropic lateral sclerosis. There are exciting findings bearing on the role of glial cells in this pathology. The study emerges with solid evidence for a novel astrocyte-mediated mechanism for disease propagation. It may help identify potential therapeutic targets.

   Reviewed by eLife

3. The lncRNA Malat1 inhibits miR-15/16 to enhance cytotoxic T cell activation and memory cell formation

   This article has 11 authors:

   1. Benjamin D Wheeler
   2. John D Gagnon
   3. Wandi S Zhu
   4. Priscila Muñoz-Sandoval
   5. Simon K Wong
   6. Dimitre S Simeonov
   7. Zhongmei Li
   8. Rachel DeBarge
   9. Matthew H Spitzer
   10. Alexander Marson
   11. K Mark Ansel

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This is an important study that revealed a new noncoding RNA regulatory circuit involved in T cell function. The authors provide compelling evidence, that is more rigorous than the state-of-the-art, using genetically engineered mice and cell-based experiments. The interpretation of the results should be tempered due to the small effect size observed.

   Reviewed by eLife

4. Optogenetic stimulation of the locus coeruleus enhances appetitive extinction in rats

   This article has 3 authors:

   1. Simon Lui
   2. Ashleigh K Brink
   3. Laura H Corbit

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     In this important study, Lui and colleagues examine whether the locus coeruleus is involved in extinction of an appetitive conditioned response. Using a set of optogenetic approaches aimed at manipulating the activity of locus coeruleus cells, the authors provide solid evidence that these neurons regulate the extinction of conditioned responses. Overall this study further highlights the key role of noradrenaline in cognitive processes and will be of interest to those interested in associative learning, extinction, noradrenaline, associated brain systems and translational endpoints.

   Reviewed by eLife

5. Multi-study fMRI outlooks on subcortical BOLD responses in the stop-signal paradigm

   This article has 6 authors:

   1. Scott Isherwood
   2. Sarah A Kemp
   3. Steven Miletić
   4. Niek Stevenson
   5. Pierre-Louis Bazin
   6. Birte Forstmann

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This study aggregates across five fMRI datasets and reports that a network of brain areas previously associated with response inhibition processes, including several in the basal ganglia, are more active on failed stop than successful stop trials. This study is valuable as a well-powered investigation of fMRI measures of stopping, and following revisions provides solid evidence for its conclusions.

   Reviewed by eLife

6. Correlated signatures of social behavior in cerebellum and anterior cingulate cortex

   This article has 8 authors:

   1. Sung Won Hur
   2. Karen Safaryan
   3. Long Yang
   4. Hugh T Blair
   5. Sotiris C Masmanidis
   6. Paul J Mathews
   7. Daniel Aharoni
   8. Peyman Golshani

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     Based on a technological advance which couples onboard calcium imaging with in vivo electrophysiology in freely behaving mice, this important work presents data about the modulation of some long range brain activity correlations during social interactions. Solid evidence shows that neural activity across cerebellum and cingulate cortex is more correlated during social behaviors than during non-social epochs. This study is of interest for a broad range of neurophysiologists.

   Reviewed by eLife

7. An allocentric human odometer for perceiving distances on the ground plane

   This article has 4 authors:

   1. Liu Zhou
   2. Wei Wei
   3. Teng Leng Ooi
   4. Zijiang J He

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This important study reveals the use of an allocentric spatial reference frame in the updating perception of the location of a dimly lit target during locomotion. The evidence supporting this claim is compelling, based on a series of cleverly and carefully designed behavioral experiments. The results will be of interest not only to scientists who study perception, action and cognition but also to engineers who work on developing visually guided robots and self-driving vehicles.

   Reviewed by eLife

8. Revealing unexpected complex encoding but simple decoding mechanisms in motor cortex via separating behaviorally relevant neural signals

   This article has 4 authors:

   1. Yangang Li
   2. Xinyun Zhu
   3. Yu Qi
   4. Yueming Wang

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This study presents a useful method for the extraction of behaviour-related activity from neural population recordings based on a specific deep learning architecture, a variational autoencoder. Although the authors performed thorough benchmarking of their method in the context of decoding behavioural variables, the evidence supporting claims about encoding is incomplete as the results may stem, in part, from the properties of the method itself.

   Reviewed by eLife

9. Running modulates primate and rodent visual cortex differently

   This article has 7 authors:

   1. John P Liska
   2. Declan P Rowley
   3. Trevor Thai Kim Nguyen
   4. Jens-Oliver Muthmann
   5. Daniel A Butts
   6. Jacob Yates
   7. Alexander C Huk

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This important work advances our understanding of the differences in locomotion-induced modulation in primate and rodent visual cortexes and underlines the significant contribution cross-species comparisons make to investigating brain function. The evidence in support of these differences across species is convincing. This work will be of broad interest to neuroscientists.

   Reviewed by eLife

10. Conformational heterogeneity of the BTK PHTH domain drives multiple regulatory states

    This article has 6 authors:

    1. David Yin-wei Lin
    2. Lauren E Kueffer
    3. Puneet Juneja
    4. Thomas E Wales
    5. John R Engen
    6. Amy H Andreotti

    This article has been curated by 1 group:

    • Curated by eLife

      eLife assessment

      BTK, a TEC-family tyrosine kinase activated by the B-cell antigen receptor, contains a variety of regulatory domains and it is subject to complex regulation by membrane phospholipids, protein ligands, phosphorylation, and dimerization. This study presents convincing evidence, utilizing various biophysical techniques, to support a model for BTK activation that will be valuable for the field. Overall, the study enhances the understanding of BTK's activation mechanism, autoinhibition, and allosteric control, challenging previous assumptions about BTK.

    Reviewed by eLife