eLife

Latest preprint reviews

1. Diversity of funnel plasmodesmata in angiosperms: the impact of geometry on plasmodesmal resistance

   This article has 5 authors:

   1. Grayson P. Ostermeyer
   2. Kaare H. Jensen
   3. Aslak R. Franzen
   4. Winfried S. Peters
   5. Michael Knoblauch

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Evaluation Summary:

     The authors make an important contribution to our understanding of the universal mechanism of unloading of sugars from the phloem (the vascular tissue dedicated to long-distance sugar transport in plants) into root tip cells. Specifically, the authors investigate the pores (called plasmodesmata) present in the cell wall separating phloem cells from those cells into which sugars get unloaded in roots, which they found to have the same characteristic structure in all plant species investigated. The physical properties of these particular plasmodesmata suggest that they are especially suited for efficient and selective phloem unloading. The paper is relevant for audiences studying plant physiology and development. There are a few criticisms of the modelling work.

     (This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the public reviews from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript. Reviewer #1 agreed to share their name with the authors.)

   Reviewed by eLife

2. Cortical layer‐specific modulation of neuronal activity after sensory deprivation due to spinal cord injury

   This article has 7 authors:

   1. Marta Zaforas
   2. Juliana M. Rosa
   3. Elena Alonso‐Calviño
   4. Elena Fernández‐López
   5. Claudia Miguel‐Quesada
   6. Antonio Oliviero
   7. Juan Aguilar

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Evaluation Summary:

     Zaforas et al. conducted a high-quality study on a very complex topic, using advanced layer-specific neuronal recording techniques. Their findings might be especially interesting for pre-clinical and clinical researchers as well as clinicians in the field of SCI-related sensory pathologies such as neuropathic pain. However, methodological limitations prevent clear mechanistic insight into the underlying causes of their effects.

     (This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the public reviews from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript. Reviewer #3 agreed to share their name with the authors.)

   Reviewed by eLife

3. Awareness-Dependent Normalization Framework of Visual Bottom-up Attention

   This article has 6 authors:

   1. Shiyu Wang
   2. Ling Huang
   3. Qinglin Chen
   4. Jingyi Wang
   5. Siting Xu
   6. Xilin Zhang

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Evaluation Summary:

     The study claims to demonstrate an interplay between awareness and bottom-up attention and explains their joint effects within an established normalization framework. How awareness fits into current computational theory is an important and timely undertaking that has a far-reaching impact on our understanding of visual and cognitive function. Although the study uses control experiments and analyses to reinforce their claims, shortcomings in their experimental approach require further clarification and data to adequately support the study's conclusions.

     (This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the public reviews from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript. Reviewer #1 agreed to share their name with the authors.)

   Reviewed by eLife

4. Alpha Oscillations Shape Sensory Representation and Perceptual Sensitivity

   This article has 5 authors:

   1. Ying Joey Zhou
   2. Luca Iemi
   3. Jan-Mathijs Schoffelen
   4. Floris P. de Lange
   5. Saskia Haegens

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Evaluation Summary:

     This work investigates how prestimulus alpha neural oscillations differentially modulate sensory signal and noise during visual detection and demonstrates that alpha power correlates with the subject's perceptual discriminability but not with decision criterion, supporting that alpha power modulates sensory signals more strongly than noise. The key conceptual claim is directly related to existing claims in the literature, although this is an unusually elegant experimental demonstration of the phenomenon.

     (This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the public reviews from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript. The reviewers remained anonymous to the authors.)

   Reviewed by eLife

5. Predictive Feedback, Early Sensory Representations, and Fast Responses to Predicted Stimuli Depend on NMDA Receptors

   This article has 12 authors:

   1. Sounak Mohanta
   2. Mohsen Afrasiabi
   3. Cameron P. Casey
   4. Sean Tanabe
   5. Michelle J. Redinbaugh
   6. Niranjan A. Kambi
   7. Jessica M. Phillips
   8. Daniel Polyakov
   9. William Filbey
   10. Joseph L. Austerweil
   11. Robert D. Sanders
   12. Yuri B. Saalmann

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Evaluation Summary:

     In this study, the authors investigated how predictions modulate performance using a combination of pharmacological experiments, high-density EEG, Bayesian modeling, and machine learning. This is an interesting study with a complex set of analyses. The detailed assessment and interpretation of all the findings could be strengthened by providing a more unified and hypotheses-driven approach.

     (This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the public reviews from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript. The reviewers remained anonymous to the authors.)

   Reviewed by eLife

6. Mutations affecting the N-terminal domains of SHANK3 point to different pathomechanisms in neurodevelopmental disorders

   This article has 11 authors:

   1. Daniel Woike
   2. Emily Wang
   3. Debora Tibbe
   4. Fatemeh Hassani Nia
   5. Antonio Virgilio Failla
   6. Maria Kibæk
   7. Tinett Martesen Overgård
   8. Martin J. Larsen
   9. Christina R. Fagerberg
   10. Igor Barsukov
   11. Hans-Jürgen Kreienkamp

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Evaluation Summary:

     This study identifies a novel Shank3 mutation from individuals with ADHD-like syndrome and tests the impacts of this mutation together with other known Shank3 mutations on inter- and intramolecular protein-protein interactions of Shank3 involving the N-terminal SPN and Ank repeats. The results indicate that Shank3 mutations have diverse impacts on the intramolecular SPN-Ank domains and the interaction of Shank3 with other proteins including delta-catenin, fodrin, and CaMKIIa. Overall, the results of the study are novel and of high quality. Considering the lack of detailed biochemical understanding on various Shank3 mutations associated with PMS, ASD, and schizophrenia, this study is a meaningful step forward in the basic understanding of Shank3 functions and related pathophysiology.

     (This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the public reviews from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript. The reviewers remained anonymous to the authors.)

   Reviewed by eLife

7. Motor cortical output for skilled forelimb movement is selectively distributed across projection neuron classes

   This article has 6 authors:

   1. Junchol Park
   2. James W. Phillips
   3. Jian-Zhong Guo
   4. Kathleen A. Martin
   5. Adam W. Hantman
   6. Joshua T. Dudman

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Evaluation Summary:

     Park and colleagues examined the activity and function of different projection neuron types, pyramidal tract (PT) and intratelencephalic (IT) neurons, in the primary motor cortex using a joystick manipulation task in mice. During forelimb movements, the activity of IT neurons was more correlated with movement kinematics than that of PT neurons was, and inactivation of IT neurons caused larger effects on movement kinematics (amplitude and velocity). The results highlight different activity patterns and functions between PT and IT neurons. Discussion among reviewers focused on two main issues. One centered on the interpretation of the PT neural activity; the second on the evidence underlying the claim of a dissociation between the PT and IT neurons.

     “(This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the public reviews from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript. Reviewer #1 agreed to share their name with the authors.)”

   Reviewed by eLife

8. Prenatal environmental conditions underlie alternative reproductive tactics that drive the formation of a mixed-kin cooperative society

   This article has 2 authors:

   1. Shailee S. Shah
   2. Dustin R. Rubenstein

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Evaluation Summary:

     This article will be of interest to evolutionary biologists and behavioural ecologists. It aims to quantify the fitness benefits of helping with the breeding attempts of others vs. seeking own breeding attempts via dispersal. It is generally considered that helping is less profitable than breeding, but occurs when superior reproductive options are constrained. Using a long-term dataset of birds, the authors call into question this assumption, and propose that both reproductive tactics can in fact have similar fitness returns, resulting in mixed-kin societies.

     (This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the public reviews from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript. Reviewer #1 and Reviewer #3 agreed to share their names with the authors.)

   Reviewed by eLife

9. The establishment of variant surface glycoprotein monoallelic expression revealed by single-cell RNA-seq of Trypanosoma brucei in the tsetse fly salivary glands

   This article has 7 authors:

   1. Sebastian Hutchinson
   2. Sophie Foulon
   3. Aline Crouzols
   4. Roberta Menafra
   5. Brice Rotureau
   6. Andrew D. Griffiths
   7. Philippe Bastin

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Evaluation Summary:

     All reviewers think the study will be really valuable for the field, especially after re-writing to include a detailed comparison with results that were previously published. We all appreciate the clear identification of a gamete sub-population, and also thought that the discovery of low activation of all VSG expression sites was intriguing and will be of considerable interest to those in the field.

     (This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the public reviews from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript. The reviewers all agreed to share their names with the authors.)

   Reviewed by eLife

10. Host tropism determination by convergent evolution of immunological evasion in the Lyme disease system

    This article has 12 authors:

    1. Thomas M. Hart
    2. Alan P. Dupuis
    3. Danielle M. Tufts
    4. Anna M. Blom
    5. Simon R. Starkey
    6. Ryan O. M. Rego
    7. Sanjay Ram
    8. Peter Kraiczy
    9. Laura D. Kramer
    10. Maria A. Diuk-Wasser
    11. Sergios-Orestis Kolokotronis
    12. Yi-Pin Lin

    This article has been curated by 1 group:

    • Curated by eLife

      Evaluation Summary:

      This work builds on previous work by the same team, demonstrating that the bacterial protein CspA, which inactivates host complement by binding to the host complement inhibitor FH, is a determinant of host range for the Lyme disease bacterium. Additionally, the authors present phylogenetic analysis of CspA and related protein sequences, which supports the hypothesis that inactivation of host complement has evolved independently in three bacterial genospecies.

      (This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the public reviews from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript. Reviewer #2 agreed to share their name with the authors.)

    Reviewed by eLife