eLife

Latest preprint reviews

1. Coordinated dynamics of excitatory and inhibitory synapse assembly

   This article has 3 authors:

   1. Krassimira Garbett
   2. James Allen
   3. Richard C Sando

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     In this valuable study, the authors developed long-term imaging tools to simultaneously monitor the temporal and spatial dynamics of excitatory and inhibitory synapses and reported that excitatory and inhibitory synapses need to develop synergistically during synaptogenesis to maintain balance. While the analysis and quantification of the imaging data are incomplete, there is convincing evidence that the developed tools are feasible. If these tools can function stably in vivo, their applications will be much broader.

   Reviewed by eLife

2. Heterogenous associations of polygenic indices of 35 traits with mortality

   This article has 7 authors:

   1. Hannu Lahtinen
   2. Jaakko Kaprio
   3. Andrea Ganna
   4. Kaarina Korhonen
   5. Stefano Lombardi
   6. Karri Silventoinen
   7. Pekka Martikainen

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This important study reports convincing evidence of associations between 35 polygenic indices (PGIs) for social, behavioural, and psychological traits, as well as other health conditions (e.g., BMI) and all-cause mortality, based on data from Finnish population-based surveys and a twin cohort linked to administrative registers. PGIs for education, depression, alcohol use, smoking, BMI, and self-rated health showed the strongest associations with all-cause mortality, in the order of ~10% increment in risk per PGI standard deviation. Effect sizes from twin-difference analyses tended to be slightly larger than those from population cohorts, a pattern opposite that generally observed when testing PGI associations with their target phenotypes, and supporting the robustness of findings to confounding by population stratification.

   Reviewed by eLife

3. Visual Working Memory Guides Attention Rhythmically

   This article has 3 authors:

   1. Jiachen Lu
   2. Yaochun Cai
   3. Xilin Zhang

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This valuable study reports evidence that items maintained in working memory can bias attention in an oscillatory manner, with the attentional capture effect fluctuating at theta frequency. The study provides incomplete evidence that this dynamic attentional bias is associated with oscillatory neural mechanisms, particularly in the alpha and theta bands, as measured by EEG. The study will be relevant for researchers studying attention, working memory, and neural oscillations, particularly those interested in how memory and perception interact over time.

   Reviewed by eLife

4. A Context-Free Model of Savings in Motor Learning

   This article has 4 authors:

   1. Mahdiyar Shahbazi
   2. Olivier Codol
   3. Jonathan A Michaels
   4. Paul L Gribble

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This study presents valuable computational findings on the neural basis of learning new motor memories and the savings using recurrent neural networks. The evidence supporting the claims of the authors is solid, but it would benefit from more controls and from considering the role of explicit strategies and other brain regions. This work will be of interest to computational and experimental neuroscientists working in motor learning.

   Reviewed by eLife

5. Feedback of peripheral saccade targets to early foveal cortex

   This article has 5 authors:

   1. Luca Kämmer
   2. Lisa M Kroell
   3. Tomas Knapen
   4. Martin Rolfs
   5. Martin N Hebart

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This valuable study addresses a question related to how we achieve visual stability across saccadic eye movements. The authors' gaze-contingent fMRI design provides convincing evidence that peripherally presented visual stimuli are represented in foveal visual cortex prior to a saccade. The results will be of interest to vision scientists and behavioural neuroscientists.

   Reviewed by eLife

6. Individual differences in fear memory expression engage distinct functional brain networks

   This article has 6 authors:

   1. Barbara D Fontana
   2. Jacob Hudock
   3. Neha Rajput
   4. Dea Kanini
   5. Dinh Luong
   6. Justin W Kenney

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This important work sets out to identify the neural substrates of associative fear responses in adult zebrafish. Through a compelling and innovative paradigm and analysis, the authors suggest brain regions associated with individual differences in fear memory. While several findings are well supported, aspects of the interpretation and presentation are partially incomplete, and the manuscript would benefit from adjusting key claims or including additional experiments. Nonetheless, this study showcases the strength of zebrafish for systems-level neuroscience and will be of broad interest to the neuroscience community.

   Reviewed by eLife

7. Viral commitment to infection depends on host metabolism

   This article has 4 authors:

   1. Anastasios Marantos
   2. Kim Sneppen
   3. Stanley Brown
   4. Namiko Mitarai

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This valuable study shows the impact of the metabolic state of bacteria on phage infection. The experimental results, based on various phages infecting E. coli, are solid and consistent with a two-step adsorption mathematical model, although the detailed evidence supporting this model is currently incomplete. This study should be of interest to the communities working on cell metabolism and on host-pathogen interactions.

   Reviewed by eLife

8. Cortical motor activity modulates respiration and reduces apnoea in neonates

   This article has 8 authors:

   1. Coen S Zandvoort
   2. Fatima Usman
   3. Shellie Robinson
   4. Odunayo Fatunla
   5. Eleri Adams
   6. Kyle TS Pattinson
   7. Simon F Farmer
   8. Caroline Hartley

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     Zandvoort and colleagues describe respiration-brain coupling in the context of apnoea in human newborns. The authors have addressed an important question and supported their claims with solid data. The rigor of the findings could perhaps be further strengthened with some relatively minor changes to the analysis methodology.

   Reviewed by eLife

9. Beta-Glucan Modulates Monocyte Plasticity and Differentiation Capacity to Mitigate DSS-Induced Colitis

   This article has 16 authors:

   1. Yinyin Lv
   2. Yanyun Fan
   3. Qingxiang Gao
   4. Qiongyun Chen
   5. Yiqun Hu
   6. Lin Wang
   7. Huaxiu Shi
   8. Ermei Chen
   9. Qinyu Xu
   10. Ying Cai
   11. Qingqi Fan
   12. Linying Li
   13. Dan Du
   14. Jianlin Ren
   15. Shih-Chin Cheng
   16. Hongzhi Xu

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This study presents valuable and compelling evidence that β-glucan-induced trained immunity can protect against intestinal inflammation by reprogramming innate immune cells toward a reparative phenotype. The authors employ a convincing combination of functional assays, adoptive transfers, and single-cell transcriptomics to uncover mechanistic insights and demonstrate the therapeutic potential of innate immune memory in IBD. While the work is robust, addressing the underlying epigenetic mechanisms and including additional controls would further reinforce the trained immunity-specific interpretation.

   Reviewed by eLife

10. Synthetic auxotrophy reveals metabolic regulation of plasma cell generation, affinity maturation, and cytokine receptor signaling

    This article has 16 authors:

    1. Sung Hoon Cho
    2. Shawna K Brookens
    3. Ariel L Raybuck
    4. Kaylor Meyer
    5. Yeeun C Paik
    6. Jennie Hamilton
    7. Jingxin Li
    8. Karel Kalecky
    9. Chloe Park
    10. Sakeenah L Hicks
    11. John Karijolich
    12. Teodoro H Bottiglieri
    13. Jeffrey C Rathmell
    14. Denis Mogilenko
    15. Chris D Scharer
    16. Mark R Boothby

    This article has been curated by 1 group:

    • Curated by eLife

      eLife Assessment

      The authors addressed an important biological question, namely the role of glutamine metabolism in humoral responses, and they obtained solid conclusions. The strength of this study is that the authors used state-of-the-art transgenic mouse models together with in vitro analysis, thereby providing significant insights into the question posed. The following would strengthen the manuscript: i) adding more in-depth functionality/physiological relevance in the discussion part, and ii) regarding the experiments, the inclusion of more appropriate controls and a clearer and more accurate description of the methods.

    Reviewed by eLife