Evaluated articles

eLife Assessment

This valuable study presents a computational model that simulates walking motions in Drosophila and suggests that, if sensorimotor delays in the neural circuitry were any longer, the system would be easily destabilized by external perturbations. The hierarchical control model is sensible and the evidence supporting the conclusions convincing. The modular model, which has many interacting components with varying degrees of biological realism, will serve as a well-grounded starting point for future studies that incorporate richer or more complete empirical data.

eLife Assessment

This important study reports a reanalysis of one experiment of a previously-published report to characterize the dynamics of neural population codes during visual working memory in the presence of distracting information. This paper presents solid evidence that working memory representations are dynamic and distinct from sensory representations of intervening distractions. This research will be of interest to cognitive neuroscientists working on the neural bases of visual perception and memory.

eLife Assessment

This important study demonstrates that some degree of spatial tuning (e.g., place cells) and ability to decode spatial location emerges in sufficiently complex systems trained to process visual information. This intriguing observation challenges existing approaches and findings used in the study of spatial navigation. However, the strength of evidence regarding the nature and quality of spatial tuning, its compatibility with experimental data, and the overall interpretation of the study remains incomplete. This work will be of interest to the research community of spatial navigation.

eLife Assessment

This study provides an in-depth exploration of the impact of X-linked ZDHHC9 gene mutations on cognitive deficits and epilepsy, with a particular focus on the expression and function of ZDHHC9 in myelin-forming oligodendrocytes (OLs). These valuable findings offer insights into ZDHHC9-related X-linked intellectual disability (XLID) and shed light on the regulatory mechanisms of palmitoylation in myelination. The experimental design and analysis of results are solid, providing a reference for further research in this field.

eLife Assessment

This study presents fundamental new findings introducing a new approach for the reprogramming of brain glial cells to corticospinal neurons. The data is highly compelling, with multiple lines of evidence demonstrating the success of this new assay. These exciting findings set the stage for future studies of the potential of these reprogrammed cells to form functional connections in vivo and their utility in clinical conditions where corticospinal neurons are compromised.

eLife Assessment

This valuable study investigates the development of high-level visual responses in infants, finding that neural responses specific to faces are present by 4-6 months but not earlier. The study is methodologically convincing, using state-of-the-art experimental design and analysis approaches. The findings would be of broad interest to the cognitive neuroscience and developmental psychology research communities.

eLife Assessment

This manuscript describes a resource detailing the econstitution of Holothuria glaberrima gut following self-evisceration in response to a potassium chloride injection, using scRNAseq and fluorescent RNA localization in situ. It provides some new findings about organ regeneration, as well as the origins of pluripotent cells, and places these findings in the context of regeneration across species. The paper's schematic model and HCR images are a valuable foundation for future work. The authors provide convincing RNA localization images to validate their data and to provide spatial context. These validation experiments are of good quality but remain challenging to connect to the complex spatial organization of complex tissues. This resource will be of interest to the field of regeneration, particularly in invertebrates, but also in comparative studies in other species, including evolutionary studies.

eLife Assessment

This important study uses optogenetics in combination with single cell recordings to selectively activate sensory input channels within the olfactory bulb, providing direct evidence for activity-dependent and distance-independent enhancement of stimulus-evoked gamma oscillations via lateral interactions between input channels, most likely via granule cells. The article presents solid evidence to support the main conclusions.

eLife Assessment

This important study substantially advances our understanding of noncoding somatic mutations by identifying a novel class of mutations that affect 3'UTR polyadenylation signals enriched in tumor suppressor genes in cancer. The evidence supporting the conclusions is convincing, with rigorous statistical analyses. The work will be of broad interest to cancer researchers.

eLife Assessment

In this manuscript, the authors sought to elucidate mechanistic intricacies of inflammatory responses, with emphasis on T cell dysfunction, to S. aureus-induced pneumonia in the context of aging process using Terc deficient mice. Conceptually, the study is very interesting with a set of useful findings. Although some experimental approaches are appropriate, the work as shown in the revised manuscript remains significantly underpowered and the absence of rigorous controls make this study incomplete in support of its claims.

eLife Assessment

This important study examines the role of endothelin signaling in nerve regeneration, providing convincing evidence that it functions as a default brake on axon regrowth. Inhibiting endothelin signaling with Bosentan promotes regeneration and counteracts the decline in regenerative potential caused by aging. Since Bosentan is an FDA-approved drug, these findings could have therapeutic value in clinical settings where peripheral nerve regeneration is not adequate or seriously impaired, as is often the case in older individuals.

eLife Assessment

This important revised report describes the control of the activity of the RNA-activated protein kinase, PKR, by the Vaccinia virus K3 protein. A strength of the manuscript is the powerful combination of a classic yeast-based assay with high-throughput sequencing and its convincing experimental use to characterize large numbers of PKR variants, now with improved controls for potential biases. A minor current limitation that the authors may address in the future is the scope of the screen in terms of the segments of PKR included.

eLife Assessment

This work introduces a new Python package, Avian Vocalization Analysis (AVN) that provides several key analysis pipelines for birdsong research. This tool is likely to prove useful to researchers in neuroscience and beyond, as demonstrated by convincing experiments using a wide range of publicly available birdsong data.

eLife Assessment

NAD deficiency perturbs embryonic development resulting in multiple congenital malformations, collectively termed Congenital NAD Deficiency Disorder (CNDD). The authors report fundamental findings demonstrating that extra-embryonic visceral yolk sac endoderm is critical for NAD de novo synthesis during early organogenesis and perturbations of this pathway may underlie CNDD. The authors combine gene expression with metabolic assays to provide solid evidence of an essential role of the extra-embryonic visceral yolk sac in both mouse and human embryos.

eLife Assessment

The authors provide a solid set of data supporting the safety of transcutaneous auricular vagal nerve stimulation on cardiovascular parameters in the acute setting of critically ill patients presenting with subarachnoid hemorrhage. This important study also suggests a promising effect on autonomic balance.

eLife Assessment

The authors have developed a biosensor for programmed cell death. They use this biosensor to provide cell death measurements in a specific early development time. The findings useful in a specific context; however, the application of this biosensor is incomplete as it does not take into account existing literature and is missing controls.

eLife Assessment

This work presents important findings that the human frontal cortex is involved in a flexible, dual role in both maintaining information in short-term memory, and controlling this memory content to guide adaptive behavior and decisions. The evidence supporting the conclusions is compelling, with a well-designed task, best-practice decoding methods, and careful control analyses. The work will be of broad interest to cognitive neuroscience researchers working on working memory and cognitive control.

eLife assessment

The intrinsic chirality of actin filaments (F-actin) is implicated in the chiral arrangement and movement of cellular structures, but it was unknown how opposite chiralities can arise when the chirality of F-actin is invariant. Kwong et al. present evidence that two actin filament-based cytoskeletal structures, transverse actin arcs and radial stress fibers, drive clockwise and anti-clockwise rotation, respectively. This fundamental work, which has broad implications for cell biology, is supported by compelling data.

eLife Assessment

Transient receptor potential mucolipin 1 (TRPML1) functions as a lysosomal ion channel whose variants are associated with lysosomal storage disorder mucolipidosis type IV. This important report describes local and global structural changes driven by binding of regulatory phospholipids and by mutations that allosterically cause gain or loss of channel function. Most of the claims related to the allosteric regulation of TRPML1 are convincingly supported by two new cryo-EM structures which are evaluated within the context of previously reported TRPML1 structures, and a proposed allosteric gating mechanism is partially supported by functional electrophysiology results.