eLife

Latest preprint reviews

1. Humans actively sample evidence to support prior beliefs

   This article has 5 authors:

   1. Paula Kaanders
   2. Pradyumna Sepulveda
   3. Tomas Folke
   4. Pietro Ortoleva
   5. Benedetto De Martino

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Evaluation Summary:

     Kaanders et al. investigate how the sampling of visual information by human subjects is biased toward their previous choice. The novel experiments and rigorous analyses largely support the presence of a 'confirmation bias' when information sampling is under the subjects' control. After ruling out some remaining alternative explanations of the observed behavior the paper will be of broad interest in cognitive neuroscience.

     (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

2. Gastrointestinal helminths increase Bordetella bronchiseptica shedding and host variation in supershedding

   This article has 3 authors:

   1. Nhat TD Nguyen
   2. Ashutosh K Pathak
   3. Isabella M Cattadori

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Evaluation Summary:

     Nguyen et al. examine how helminth co-infection alters shedding from a respiratory bacterial infection (Bordetella bronchiseptica), fitting a model to data from experimentally infected rabbits to link the presence/absence of two helminth species with immune responses (neutrophil and two antibody classes) and bacterial shedding. The authors find a larger frequency of intense bacterial shedding-supershedding events-among helminth-infected rabbits, and model results suggest that triple infection may be associated with faster bacterial replication in the respiratory tract and more rapid shedding of bacteria. Linking immune responses with infection outcomes is of enormous practical interest, as is identifying why certain hosts are superspreaders, but there are some limits to what can be gained from this data set and model framework.

     (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

3. Memory recall involves a transient break in excitatory-inhibitory balance

   This article has 7 authors:

   1. Renée S Koolschijn
   2. Anna Shpektor
   3. William T Clarke
   4. I Betina Ip
   5. David Dupret
   6. Uzay E Emir
   7. Helen C Barron

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Evaluation Summary:

     Koolschijn and colleagues present a novel and timely investigation of the balance between excitation and inhibition to explore the role of glutamate and GABA during memory retrieval. The innovative use of rapidly interleaved fMRI and fMRS provides a compelling link between successful retrieval effects in hippocampus and inhibitory/excitatory dynamics in visual cortex. The study itself is well-motivated and well executed, complementing prior cross-species work, and provides an intriguing set of results to support the major claims. This paper will be noteworthy to those interested in hippocampus-mediated cortical dynamics during memory retrieval. The rigorous methodology also demonstrates the utility of fMRS in investigating complex cognitive processes.

     (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 #2 agreed to share their names with the authors.)

   Reviewed by eLife

4. The nematode worm C. elegans chooses between bacterial foods as if maximizing economic utility

   This article has 12 authors:

   1. Abraham Katzen
   2. Hui-Kuan Chung
   3. William T Harbaugh
   4. Christina Della Iacono
   5. Nicholas Jackson
   6. Elizabeth E Glater
   7. Charles J Taylor
   8. Stephanie K Yu
   9. Steven W Flavell
   10. Paul W Glimcher
   11. James Andreoni
   12. Shawn R Lockery

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Evaluation Summary:

     This paper establishes a behavioural paradigm to study concepts developed in the field of economic decision making using the tractable model organisms C. elegans. It is therefore interesting to scientists studying the neuronal mechanisms of decision making and animal cognition.

     (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

5. Hippocampal sharp wave-ripples and the associated sequence replay emerge from structured synaptic interactions in a network model of area CA3

   This article has 11 authors:

   1. András Ecker
   2. Bence Bagi
   3. Eszter Vértes
   4. Orsolya Steinbach-Németh
   5. Mária R Karlócai
   6. Orsolya I Papp
   7. István Miklós
   8. Norbert Hájos
   9. Tamás F Freund
   10. Attila I Gulyás
   11. Szabolcs Káli

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Evaluation Summary:

     The theoretical study by Ecker et al. designs a minimal yet biologically plausible spiking neural network model for hippocampal region CA3 in order to pinpoint the mechanistic sources of important features of population activity (namely sharp wave ripples and replay) observed in vivo. It reproduces many properties of these network events and offers explanations for the observed dynamics. In doing so it demonstrates that the synaptic connectivity patterns formed during spatial exploration may be crucial to the occurrence of these phenomena. The study will be of interest primarily to theoretical researchers because of the many innovative approaches fielded to design the network and analyse its dynamics, and potentially also to experimentalists investigating the hippocampus.

     (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 name with the authors.)

   Reviewed by eLife

6. Impaired HA-specific T follicular helper cell and antibody responses to influenza vaccination are linked to inflammation in humans

   This article has 13 authors:

   1. Danika L Hill
   2. Carly E Whyte
   3. Silvia Innocentin
   4. Jia Le Lee
   5. James Dooley
   6. Jiong Wang
   7. Eddie A James
   8. James C Lee
   9. William W Kwok
   10. Martin S Zand
   11. Adrian Liston
   12. Edward J Carr
   13. Michelle A Linterman

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Evaluation Summary:

     This paper will be of significant interest to immunologists interested in understanding the determinants of antibody responses to vaccination. It uses tetramers to specifically identify and track CD4 T cell responses to influenza vaccination in younger and older adults, in an effort to understand why older individuals tend to have lower antibody responses to immunisation. The combination of tetramers, RNA sequencing and TCR clonotype tracking provides a powerful dataset to address fundamental questions of CD4 T cell immunology.

     (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. Expression of a CO2-permeable aquaporin enhances mesophyll conductance in the C4 species Setaria viridis

   This article has 12 authors:

   1. Maria Ermakova
   2. Hannah Osborn
   3. Michael Groszmann
   4. Soumi Bala
   5. Andrew Bowerman
   6. Samantha McGaughey
   7. Caitlin Byrt
   8. Hugo Alonso-cantabrana
   9. Steve Tyerman
   10. Robert T Furbank
   11. Robert E Sharwood
   12. Susanne von Caemmerer

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Evaluation Summary:

     The conductance of CO2 into the chloroplast from the intercellular airspace is a key limitation to rates of net photosynthesis. Despite its importance, past work has been contradictory in what does and does not affect this mesophyll conductance. This paper takes a unique and multi-pronged approach to resolving the mechanisms of mesophyll conductance and proposing a transgenic approach for increasing it in C4 plants.

     (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

8. A sex-specific evolutionary interaction between ADCY9 and CETP

   This article has 16 authors:

   1. Isabel Gamache
   2. Marc-André Legault
   3. Jean-Christophe Grenier
   4. Rocio Sanchez
   5. Eric Rhéaume
   6. Samira Asgari
   7. Amina Barhdadi
   8. Yassamin Feroz Zada
   9. Holly Trochet
   10. Yang Luo
   11. Leonid Lecca
   12. Megan Murray
   13. Soumya Raychaudhuri
   14. Jean-Claude Tardif
   15. Marie-Pierre Dubé
   16. Julie Hussin

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Evaluation Summary:

     This study presents evidence supporting population and sex-specific selection and an epistatic interaction between variants in the genes ADCY9 and CETP of pharmacogenetic importance. The confluence of evidence from population genetics, gene expression, functional experiments, and phenotypic association lends support to the paper's claims beyond what may be achieved by a single analysis. All three reviewers and I agreed that this work is of high interest in medical and population genetics and addresses a challenging topic in an impactful way.

     (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

9. Endothelial pannexin 1–TRPV4 channel signaling lowers pulmonary arterial pressure in mice

   This article has 11 authors:

   1. Zdravka Daneva
   2. Matteo Ottolini
   3. Yen Lin Chen
   4. Eliska Klimentova
   5. Maniselvan Kuppusamy
   6. Soham A Shah
   7. Richard D Minshall
   8. Cheikh I Seye
   9. Victor E Laubach
   10. Brant E Isakson
   11. Swapnil K Sonkusare

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Evaluation Summary:

     This study, which makes a connection between several proteins known to regulate endothelial function in pulmonary arteries, may be of interest to vascular, pulmonary and ion channel physiologists. The study provides compelling evidence that ATP released from pulmonary artery endothelial cell (EC) pannexin1 channels activates TRPV4 channels via an EC P2Y2R-PLC-DAG-PKC alpha pathway that is facilitated by the scaffolding protein Caveolin-1 and that this pathway helps to maintain low pulmonary vascular resistance and pulmonary artery pressure. Identification of this pathway provides new drug targets to improve pulmonary endothelial function in disease states such characterized by impaired endothelial function. What remains to be established or understood is the physiological stimulus for activation of the pannexin1 channels and ATP release and also the potential dark-side of overactivity of EC TRPV4 channels, which appear to have negative effects on EC function.

     (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

10. Finger somatotopy is preserved after tetraplegia but deteriorates over time

    This article has 5 authors:

    1. Sanne Kikkert
    2. Dario Pfyffer
    3. Michaela Verling
    4. Patrick Freund
    5. Nicole Wenderoth

    This article has been curated by 1 group:

    • Curated by eLife

      Evaluation Summary:

      This paper investigates the stability of the somatotopic organization of somatosensory cortex after spinal cord injury that results in tetraplegia. The findings suggest that somatotopic maps are preserved, degrading very slowly over decades, but that the amount of spared function is a poor predictor of somatotopic stability. These findings contribute to a developing story on how sensory representations are formed and maintained and has implications for the development of brain-machine interfaces for individuals with tetraplegia. The study is interesting and the manuscript is well-written. There remain concerns about some choices taken in the analyses.

      (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