eLife

Latest preprint reviews

1. An open-source, high-performance tool for automated sleep staging

   This article has 2 authors:

   1. Raphael Vallat
   2. Matthew P Walker

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Evaluation Summary:

     This study describes a novel algorithm to perform fully automated sleep staging in humans. It is well validated and performs at the level of other state of the art algorithms although it does not yet include comparisons against the existing tools available in the field. Given the efforts made by the authors to ensure ease of use and accessibility it may help extend the use of automated methods in the study of sleep.

     (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. Rat sensitivity to multipoint statistics is predicted by efficient coding of natural scenes

   This article has 6 authors:

   1. Riccardo Caramellino
   2. Eugenio Piasini
   3. Andrea Buccellato
   4. Anna Carboncino
   5. Vijay Balasubramanian
   6. Davide Zoccolan

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Evaluation Summary:

     This research will be of interest to neuroscientists who want to understand how visual systems are tuned to and encode natural scenes. It reports that rats share phenomenology with humans in sensitivity to spatial correlations in scenes. This work shows that an earlier paper's hypothesis about efficient coding may be broadly applicable, but it is perhaps most interesting in opening up the possibility of studying this sort of visual tuning in an animal where invasive techniques can be used to study this sensitivity and its development.

     (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

3. Experience-dependent weakening of callosal synaptic connections in the absence of postsynaptic FMRP

   This article has 3 authors:

   1. Zhe Zhang
   2. Jay R Gibson
   3. Kimberly M Huber

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Evaluation Summary:

     The authors find that long-range interhemispheric synapses are selectively weakened following loss of function of the gene mediating fragile X syndrome, the most common inherited form of intellectual disability. Using clever genetic and physiological approaches in mice, the authors show that the effect is cell autonomous and occurs postnatally by impeding the normal developmental strengthening of these synapses. The results convincingly enhance our understanding of the complex pathophysiology of neurological dysfunction in this developmental disorder.

     (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. Physiological function of Flo11p domains and the particular role of amyloid core sequences of this adhesin in Saccharomyces cerevisiae

   This article has 7 authors:

   1. Clara Bouyx
   2. Marion Schiavone
   3. Marie-Ange Teste
   4. Etienne Dague
   5. Nathalie Sieczkowski
   6. Anne Julien
   7. Jean Marie Francois

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Evaluation Summary:

     This work serves as an independent confirmation and expansion of previous work, suggesting that certain domains in fungal adhesins can form amyloid-like structures that are essential for cell-cell aggregation, but less so for cell-surface adhesion or invasive growth. Specifically, the expression of different adhesin constructs offers insight into the functional role of the different adhesin domains. Together, the results provide further insight into the molecular mechanisms underlying fungal adhesion, which does only further our understanding of basic fungal physiology, but also offers insight into fungal pathogenesis.

     (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

5. Relating neural oscillations to laminar fMRI connectivity

   This article has 6 authors:

   1. René Scheeringa
   2. Mathilde Bonnefond
   3. Tim van Mourik
   4. Ole Jensen
   5. David G. Norris
   6. Peter J. Koopmans

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Evaluation Summary

     This study uses non-invasive imaging to look at the coupling within and between layers and regions of the human visual cortex during the modulation of attention. The results presented here are a re-analysis of a previously recorded dataset, but the novelty is the analytic technique used to relate laminar connectivity to rhythms. This in principle promises to advance the field of both oscillations and laminar fMRI and could deliver valuable insights. The work provides a non-invasive window on how feedback and feedforward circuitry in the human brain operates. We deem the work of potential interest to a broad audience as it aims to provide direct links between the animal invasive electrophysiology and human neuroimaging fields. However, in its current form, major reservations with respect to the hypothesis space being explored here as well as important analytic and technical caveats remain.

     (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

6. SARS-CoV-2 shedding dynamics across the respiratory tract, sex, and disease severity for adult and pediatric COVID-19

   This article has 6 authors:

   1. Paul Z Chen
   2. Niklas Bobrovitz
   3. Zahra A Premji
   4. Marion Koopmans
   5. David N Fisman
   6. Frank X Gu

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Evaluation Summary:

     The authors performed a systematic literature review and meta-analysis to develop a dataset of respiratory viral loads (rVLs) for SARS-CoV-2. Focus was on finding the relation between individual case characteristics (e.g. disease severity, age and sex) and lower and upper respiratory tract viral loads. The study appears robust and comprehensive, and the results are valuable and contribute to the scientific knowledge in this 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. Reviewer #2 agreed to share their name with the authors.)

   Reviewed by eLife, ScreenIT

7. Secondary metabolites of Hülle cells mediate protection of fungal reproductive and overwintering structures against fungivorous animals

   This article has 11 authors:

   1. Li Liu
   2. Christoph Sasse
   3. Benedict Dirnberger
   4. Oliver Valerius
   5. Enikő Fekete-Szücs
   6. Rebekka Harting
   7. Daniela E Nordzieke
   8. Stefanie Pöggeler
   9. Petr Karlovsky
   10. Jennifer Gerke
   11. Gerhard H Braus

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Evaluation Summary:

     Hülle cells, a type of cells formed by fungal species of the genus Aspergillus, are specialized cells that surround the sexual fruiting bodies of ascomycete fungi and are thought to nurse the fruiting bodies during fungal development. In this work, Liu et al. suggest that these cells have a strong ecological impact because they contain specific secondary metabolites that help the fungus to "withstand" the attack by fungivorous animals, like springtails, and also inhibit sexual reproduction of other fungi. This work will likely have a major impact on our view on the development and ecology of fungi as well as on the ecological functions of secondary metabolites.

     (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 and Reviewer #3 agreed to share their names with the authors.)

   Reviewed by eLife

8. A genome-phenome association study in native microbiomes identifies a mechanism for cytosine modification in DNA and RNA

   This article has 10 authors:

   1. Weiwei Yang
   2. Yu-Cheng Lin
   3. William Johnson
   4. Nan Dai
   5. Romualdas Vaisvila
   6. Peter Weigele
   7. Yan-Jiun Lee
   8. Ivan R Corrêa
   9. Ira Schildkraut
   10. Laurence Ettwiller

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Evaluation Summary:

     This work will interest researchers who want to explore the functional potential in metagenomes. The authors present a new computational method, MetaGPA, for performing enrichment analysis on cohorts of metagenomes. They then use this approach to identify an enzyme that can modify cytosines in DNA from natural bacteriophage populations. Though successful, the approach needs to improve in clarity and methodology to be both reproducible and of broader impact, as claimed.

     (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

9. Silencing long ascending propriospinal neurons after spinal cord injury improves hindlimb stepping in the adult rat

   This article has 10 authors:

   1. Courtney T Shepard
   2. Amanda M Pocratsky
   3. Brandon L Brown
   4. Morgan A Van Rijswijck
   5. Rachel M Zalla
   6. Darlene A Burke
   7. Johnny R Morehouse
   8. Amberley S Riegler
   9. Scott R Whittemore
   10. David SK Magnuson

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Evaluation Summary:

     This paper will be of interest to neuroscientists in the fields of spinal motor control and spinal cord injury. The finding that silencing of spared lumbar to cervical long ascending propriospinal neurons after spinal cord injury enhances locomotor coordination is unexpected and well-supported by the data. This has potential implications for strategies aimed at promoting recovery of function after SCI.

     (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

10. Neuronal calmodulin levels are controlled by CAMTA transcription factors

    This article has 5 authors:

    1. Thanh Thi Vuong-Brender
    2. Sean Flynn
    3. Yvonne Vallis
    4. Saliha E Sönmez
    5. Mario de Bono

    This article has been curated by 1 group:

    • Curated by eLife

      Evaluation Summary:

      Calcium-calmodulin (CaM) signaling plays an essential role within and outside of the nervous system. Moreover, it is conserved from plants to humans. While a lot is known about the mechanisms of cellular calcium level fluctuations, how CaM levels are regulated is less clear. In this manuscript, Vuong-Brender and colleagues characterize a, likely, conserved role of the transcription factor CAMT-1 in the homeostatic regulation of CaM levels and show how it impacts animal behavior and nervous system function. The paper is a tour-de-force across multiple techniques and model systems. The data is of a very high quality and supports most of the authors' claims strongly and convincingly.

      (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