@jcorquiza's saved articles

eLife assessment

Richevaux and colleagues conducted a valuable study that investigated the integration of thalamic and retrosplenial inputs in the dorsal presubiculum, an essential hippocampal region involved in spatial navigation and memory. Through ex vivo optogenetic electrophysiological experiments, they discovered that many presubicular pyramidal cells receive convergent inputs from both the anterior thalamus and the retrosplenial cortex. These solid findings provide a potential cellular mechanism for anchoring the brain's internal compass to external landmarks, shedding light on how the brain integrates spatial information with an animal's sense of its position in space.

eLife assessment

This study is a useful analysis of the organization of synaptic proteins of a developing synapse in the binocular path visual system and how it is impacted by manipulations in activity. The original images collected by STORM microscopy are state-of-the-art in terms of the high-resolution view of the protein components of a synapse in intact tissue. However, the analysis is incomplete and does not fully support several of the conclusions of the study.

eLife assessment

The ExA-SPIM methodology developed will be important to the field of light sheet microscopy as the new technology provides an impressive field of view making it possible to image the entire expanded mouse brain at cellular and subcellular resolution. The authors provide solid evidence that mostly supports the conclusions. Certain statements were deemed to be overstating the method's capabilities, in particular, the claim of "near isotropic resolution" is not supported by the data as there is a large discrepancy between the x/y and z-resolution. Improved characterization of the new technology and a more expanded discussion of prior work would also be beneficial to the reader.

eLife assessment

This study uses a multi-pronged empirical and theoretical approach to advance our understanding of how differences in learning relate to differences in the ways that male versus female animals cope with urban environments, and more generally how reversal learning may benefit animals in urban habitats. The work makes an important contribution and parts of the data and analyses are solid, although several of the main claims are only partially supported or overstated and require additional support.

eLife assessment

This important study enhances our understanding of the brain circuitry responsible for fear conditioning and provides evidence for an under-appreciated role of dopaminergic output projection from the Locus Coeruleus to the dorsal hippocampus in this fear learning. The evidence supporting the conclusion is convincing, although a direct test of dopamine release in the dorsal hippocampus from Locus Coeruleus projections during fear conditioning would strengthen the study. If done, this would likely raise the strength of the evidence to compelling. This paper is of interest to behavioural and neuroscience researchers studying learning, memory, and neural networks.

eLife assessment

This important study assesses anatomical, behavioral, physiological, and neurochemical effects of early-life seizures in rats, describing a striking astrogliosis and deficits in cognition and electrophysiological parameters. The convincing aspects of the paper are the wide range of convergent techniques used to understand the effects of early-life seizures on behavior as well as hippocampal prefrontal cortical dynamics. While reviewers thought that the scope was impressive, there was criticism of the statistical robustness and number of animals used per study arm, as well as the lack of causal manipulations to determine cause-and-effect relationships. This paper will be of interest to neurobiologists, epileptologists, and behavioral scientists.

eLife assessment

The study presents valuable insights into the regulation of astrocytes in the long-term potentiation of excitatory synapses onto inhibitory interneurons. However, reviewers identified concerns regarding originality and proper acknowledgment of replicated work, representation of interneuron diversity, and the robustness of certain conclusions. The strength of evidence provided is deemed incomplete, necessitating significant revisions for clarity, and accuracy, and to address highlighted concerns.

eLife assessment

This valuable study shows that distinct midbrain dopaminergic axons in the medial prefrontal cortex respond to aversive and rewarding stimuli and suggest that they are biased toward aversive processing. The use of innovative microprism based two-photon calcium imaging to study single axon heterogeneity is solid, although the experimental design could be optimized to distinguish aversive valence from stimulus salience and identity in this dopamine projection. This work will be of interest to neuroscientists working on neuromodulatory systems, cortical function and decision making.

eLife assessment

The authors previously developed a tool with the goal of non-toxic trans-synaptic tracing using a modified rabies virus, an important goal for the neuroscience field. The tool has the propensity to accumulate mutations over time that promote toxicity, and the manuscript here describes techniques to avoid these mutations. It remains important to show that the non-mutated virus can serve as an effective trans-synaptic tracing tool.