Evaluated articles

eLife Assessment

This is an important study addressing a debated question in brain repair research by testing whether NeuroD1 can convert brain immune cells into nerve cells using a virus-free genetic approach and live imaging. The compelling evidence presented here supports that, under the conditions tested, NeuroD1-expressing cells do not become nerve cells and instead retain their original identity. This work will be of interest to neuro-immunologists.

eLife Assessment

What can a neural network trained to imitate animal behavior tell us about biology? This valuable work uses deep reinforcement learning to train an artificial neural network to transform the dynamics of a recurrent neural network based on the C. elegans connectome into an adult Drosophila walking program in a physical model of the fly body, demonstrating that achieving plausible output dynamics does not in and of itself imply biologically meaningful simulation. Evidence for this basic claim is solid, but more extensive analyses, better methodological description, and a discussion of deeper challenges in the undertaking of biological brain modeling would strengthen the study. This result demands the attention of the practitioners of the growing field of connectome simulation for the purpose of gaining mechanistic understanding of nervous system function.

eLife Assessment

This important study introduces an open-source software package that improves the computational efficiency of whole-brain modelling and facilitates individualised model fitting in large neuroimaging cohorts. The evidence is convincing for the main computational and practical claims, supported by evaluations across multiple optimisation strategies, speed benchmarks, and demonstrations using human neuroimaging data. Its modular design and documentation should make it a resource that is of value to researchers interested in scalable and individualised brain network modelling.

eLife Assessment

This is a valuable study of the effects of selective or broadband amyloid deposition in medial septum (MS) cholinergic neurons on neuropathology, cognition, sleep, and hyperexcitability in aging mice carrying risk factors for Alzheimer's disease (AD). The investigation is still incomplete, with some weaknesses related to conceptualization and methodology that need to be addressed.

eLife Assessment

This valuable study demonstrates how rhythmic inputs can shape sequential working memory. The study puts forward plausible dynamic mechanisms, but some of the central behavioral effects are small, so the evidence - at present - remains incomplete.

eLife Assessment

This important study provides new insight into how frontostriatal circuits encode elapsed time and exhibit decision-related dynamics during an auditory change-detection task. Analyses of simultaneously recorded neurons from the frontal orienting field (FOF) and anterior dorsal striatum (ADS) provide solid evidence that FOF and ADS show similar dynamics during evidence accumulation, but that FOF shows stronger movement-aligned reorganization near the time of the decision report. However, the mechanistic interpretation would be strengthened by clearer links between the population-level analyses, single-neuron activity, and relevant circuit anatomy. The work will be of broad interest to systems neuroscientists studying timing, decision-making, and frontostriatal dynamics.

eLife Assessment

This important study combines behavioral testing, fiber photometry recordings, and optogenetic manipulations to understand the role of CRH+ neurons in the PVN of the hypothalamus in social and non-social settings, while varying the degree of familiarity. The approaches used and the finding that these neurons respond to various social (and non-social) stimuli are strong; however, the conclusion that the activity of these neurons is driven solely by unfamiliar situations and the lack of dynamic analysis of fiber photometry data leaves the manuscript incomplete. This elegant study will likely be of interest to the field of social neuroscience and, if outstanding issues are addressed, would expand our understanding of the role of the PVN in behavior.

eLife Assessment

The authors propose the existence of an AQP4-positive tanycyte-associated canal system in the hippocampus based on histological, ultrastructural, immunohistochemical, and RNA-based approaches. There are serious concerns regarding the evidence, and the identification of the tanycyte-related structures can be questioned. At this stage, the evidence for the central claims of the manuscript has to be regarded as inadequate.

eLife Assessment

This work describes a valuable method for monitoring pathogens using an innovative, field-deployable device that attracts animals and collects saliva on filter paper in a non-invasive manner. While the strategy is effective at collecting samples and ensuring their preservation, support for some claims remains incomplete. This study will interest scientists in various fields, ranging from biodiversity, ecology, and conservation to infectious diseases and public health.

eLife Assessment

This valuable study employs an innovative chemoproteomic and multi-modal experimental approach to support VDAC2 as a key functional mediator of STX effects on mitochondrial bioenergetics. The authors assimilated convincing evidence for targeting VDAC2 within POMC neurons to demonstrate neuroprotective therapies against Alzheimer's disease and menopause-associated neurodegeneration, with the potential to minimize adverse off-target side effects.

eLife Assessment

In this valuable study, Zhang et al. investigated EEG neurofeedback as a method to modulate brain activity prior to painful stimulation and examined its effect on pain perception in a well-powered, double-blind study. Results showed that real, but not sham, feedback enabled learning-dependent enhancement of pre-stimulus α oscillations. However, the evidence for a neurofeedback-specific reduction in pain remains incomplete, as the current paradigm cannot distinguish between genuine neurofeedback effects and placebo effects. Nonetheless, this work is likely to be of interest to researchers in the fields of neurofeedback and pain.

eLife Assessment

This important study investigates whether perceived gender is represented in the brain in a category-invariant manner across faces, bodies, and objects, identifying the right middle temporal gyrus (rMTG) as a potential locus. The evidence is incomplete due to major conceptual concerns, weak statistical methods, and unaddressed low-level confounds like stimulus size and motion. This work will be of interest to psychology and social neuroscience researchers in face and person perception literature, provided the authors temper their claims regarding abstract representation.

eLife Assessment

This important study reports a novel phenomenon of maternal growth during pregnancy that is independent of growth hormone (GH), adding a new dimension to maternal biology of reproduction. The evidence is convincing and supported by state-of-the-art methodologies conducted in mice and persuasive, interesting and unique observations in humans with hereditary isolated GH deficiency.

eLife Assessment

This important study extends a model of cortical normalization (ORGaNICs) to interacting cortical areas and shows that communication through coherence and communication subspaces can arise from a single set of dynamics. The evidence is convincing, showing analytically that contrast-dependent gamma dynamics and a low-dimensional inter-areal communication subspace arise from one parameter set. The work will interest neuroscientists and theorists concerned with inter-areal communication, cortical oscillations, and divisive normalization.

eLife Assessment

The paper provides a valuable, foundational dataset that will undoubtedly provide substantial value to the cancer research community. The aggregation and harmonization of a broad, rich, multi-omic dataset is convincing and will potentially support further downstream research on GIST, which currently has poor supporting datasets. Support for the accompanying claims is more incomplete, however: the biological demonstration rests on a single gene tested by one approach, several analyses lack sample sizes and multiple-testing correction, the claims made for the LLM assistant are not backed by direct evaluation, and the curated data matrices would ideally be deposited independently of the web.

eLife Assessment

This valuable study characterizes how antibody responses converge on similar functional solutions despite diverse genetic backgrounds, providing a resource that is of importance in understanding immune responses and informing vaccine research. The evidence is solid, with extensive and well-executed analyses supporting the primary findings, although broader conclusions regarding vaccine design would benefit from more cautious interpretation and fuller discussion of the study's limitations. The work will be of interest to researchers studying antibody responses, viral evolution, and vaccine development.

eLife Assessment

In this important work, the authors develop methods to forecast epidemic growth from viral sequencing data alone. The evidence for the usefulness of the approach is solid, but some justifications and methodological details are incomplete. This study should be of broad interest to the community interested in viral dynamics and epidemiology.

eLife Assessment

This important study presents the development of a model to quantify the dynamics of stress-induced volatile emissions in plants and identify biologically relevant differences in these responses. The model is based on a convincing methodology and represents a starting point for studies of similar responses in other plants or investigations of induced phenotypes in different biological systems.

eLife Assessment

This useful study addresses a timely question about semantic prioritisation in visual working memory, using behavioural manipulations and drift-diffusion modelling. However, the strength of evidence is incomplete for the broader claims about working-memory representations because the main interpretation relies on indirect inferences from non-decision time, which cannot uniquely identify memory access or retrieval.

eLife Assessment

The manuscript by von Velsen et al. offers valuable structural insights into the mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) pathway by providing cryo-EM structures of stabilized MEK1-ERK2 kinase-substrate complexes in inactive, active, and nucleotide-free states, complemented by HDX-MS, SAXS, ITC, crystallography, and molecular dynamics. The work provides solid evidence for the overall architecture of the complex and identifies interaction sites that help explain MAPK pathway specificity. However, some mechanistic conclusions are not yet fully supported, particularly the designation of one state as an active phosphoryl-transfer configuration, the claim that substrate binding releases the MEK1 catalytic machinery, the proposed link to processive phosphorylation, and the extrapolation to disease-associated mutations.