Evaluated articles

eLife assessment

The finding that Fusicoccin (FC-A) promotes locomotor recovery after spinal cord injury is supported by solid data, and the idea of harnessing small molecules that may affect protein-protein interactions to promote axon regeneration is valuable. The evidence showing that 14-3-3 and spastin interact and that 14-3-3 enhances spastin function and stability in cells is also solid.

eLife assessment

This important study describes the discovery and further engineering of a red light-activated, chloride-conducting Channelrhodopsin (ACR) that could be used to inhibit neuronal activity. The evidence for the spectral confirmation and biophysical characterization of MsACR and raACR, and ion selectivity are solid; however, the evidence supporting the use of the tools in vivo is incomplete and missing proper controls. In addition, benchmarking against other inhibitory tools is somewhat missing. With the in vivo part strengthened, this paper would interest neuroscientists seeking more efficient ways to inhibit neuronal activity.

eLife assessment

This useful study proposes a role of lysosomal Ca2+ release in inflammasome signaling and metabolic inflammation. While the proposed model would be of considerable interest to the field of immunology if validated, the experimental approaches to study calcium dynamics are problematic, with one of several concerns being the transfection efficiency. The major claims of the paper are thus only incompletely supported.

eLife assessment

This paper describes a new complexity estimator for time series based on state-space modeling, which can directly decompose signal entropy in both time and frequency. The authors compare their estimator to Lempel-Ziv (LZ) complexity using a variety of time series neurophysiological data from humans and non-human primates. This represents a potentially valuable methodological contribution for existing studies using LZ complexity in their analyses, although the paper currently ignores much of the existing literature which has already developed related solutions to the same issues. The strength of the evidence supporting the superiority of the new complexity metric is currently incomplete, and should be backed by additional analyses.

eLife assessment

This valuable study advances our understanding of the potential therapeutic strategies for the treatment of pheochromocytomas using single-cell transcriptomics. The authors propose a new molecular classification criterion based on the characterization of tumor microenvironmental features, based on solid evidence. The work, which could be improved further through delineating the choice of the PASS scoring system, will be of broad interest to clinicians, medical researchers, and scientists working in the field of pheochromocytoma.

eLife assessment

This study presents important findings indicating that gradients of functional connectivity are present in the human foetal brain, and that these gradients develop further during gestation, particularly in multisensory brain regions. The study uses state-of-the-art connectomic mapping techniques. However, recent findings suggest that such gradients may reflect confounds within the analysis technique more than underlying brain functions. The evidence for the authors' claims therefore currently appears inadequate as it does not account for these potential confounds.

eLife assessment

This study provides an important starting point for unraveling the molecular basis of the pathological phenotypes of the repeat expansion in the gene associated with open reading frame 72 in human chromosome 9. The coarse-grained simulation method used by the authors goes beyond the state of the art, investigating a compelling number of binding partners. The evidence supporting the claims of the authors is solid, although experimental validation of the results would strengthen the major conclusions of the work. The work will be of broad interest to biophysicists and biochemists.

eLife Assessment

This valuable study has the potential to shed mechanistic light on how attention mechanisms that influence competition between multiple visual stimuli are modulated by the relative neural similarity of these stimuli. The study provides convincing data that will also be used for future modeling efforts. The study will be of interest to researchers working on the neural basis of visual attention.

eLife assessment

Franke et al. explore and characterize color response properties of neurons in mouse primary visual cortex (V1), revealing specific color opponent encoding strategies across the visual field. The paper provides evidence for the existence of color opponency in a subset of neurons within V1 and shows that these color opponent neurons are more numerous in the upper visual field. Support for the main conclusions is convincing and the dataset that forms the basis of the paper is impressive. The paper will make an important contribution to understanding how color is coded in mouse V1.

eLife assessment

The valuable findings by Dasgupta et al demonstrate the role of Sema7a in fine tuning the morphology of the microcircuit between afferent axons and sensory hair cells in the lateral line organ. The loss and gain of function evidence provides solid support for a role for Sema7a in this process. Additional work is needed to determine the role for different isoforms in Sema7a-mediated synapse formation and chemoattraction as well as cell type specificity.

eLife Assessment

This manuscript tackles a significant problem in addiction science: how interdependent are measures of "addiction-like" behavioral phenotypes? The manuscript provides compelling evidence that, under these experimental conditions, escalation of intake, punishment-resistant responding, and progressive ratio break points reflect a single underlying construct rather than reflect distinct unrelated measures. The exceptionally large sample size and incorporation of multiple behavioral endpoints add strength to this paper, and make it an important resource for the field.

eLife assessment

The study investigates the functional impact of cranial irradiation in mouse and proposes PAK3 as molecular element involved in radiation-induced cognitive decrement. The significance of the findings is useful for fields covering radiation, brain tumor and cognition. The strength of evidence is solid, although the referees expressed divergent views on the manuscript.

eLife assessment

Multimodal experiences that for example contain both visual and tactile components are encoded as associative memories. This manuscript is a valuable contribution supporting structural and functional brain plasticity following associative training protocols that pair together different types of sensory stimuli. The results provide solid support for this plasticity being a basis for cross-modal associative memories.

eLife assessment

This study builds upon previous work which demonstrated that brain injury results in the entry of a protein called albumin into the brain which then causes diverse effects. The present study shows that prolonged stimulation of a forelimb in a rat leads to albumin entry, and is associated with effects that suggest plasticity is enhanced in the stimulated side of the brain. The strength of evidence was convincing and results are important because they suggest a previously-considered pathological process may be relevant to the normal brain and have benefits.

eLife assessment

Chang et al. provide glutamate co-expression profiles in the central noradrenergic system and test the requirement of Vglut2-based glutamatergic release in respiratory and metabolic activity under physiologically relevant gas challenges. Their experiments provide compelling evidence that conditional deletion of vesicular glutamate transporters from noradrenergic neurons does not impact steady-state breathing or metabolic activity in room air, hypercapnia, or hypoxia. This study provides an important contribution to our understanding of how noradrenergic neurons regulate respiratory homeostasis in conscious adult mice.

eLife assessment

This paper presents a valuable pipeline based on state-of-the-art analytical software that was used to study genetic pleiotropy between neuropsychiatric disorders. The presented evidence supporting the claims is convincing and now includes an appropriate comparison to previously published methods as well as a detailed exploration of the findings. The created pipeline can thus be used by researchers from diverse fields to study different combinations of diseases and traits.

eLife assessment

This study presents valuable new insights from the protist Tetrahymena regarding radial spokes, conserved protein complexes that are relevant for cilia motility. The work employs interdisciplinary approaches to provide convincing support for radial spoke composition with some experiments, but there are weaker areas with partially incomplete support, such as relying on knockouts alone rather than including localization studies of tagged proteins.

eLife assessment

This important study presents convincing evidence for the use of orangutan teeth as terrestrial proxies to reconstruct rainfall regimes, while exploring the potentially conflicting impact of breastfeeding signals. The findings will be of broad interest for those using and developing methods and tools to reconstruct environmental conditions in the historical and archaeological past.

eLife assessment

This fundamental study provides a unique tool for assessing the range of phosphorylation in insulin reactions due to genetic variation and dietary influence through the utilization of genetically distinct mouse strains. The discoveries of this study hold substantial importance, as they shed light on the interplay between genetic attributes and environmental conditions in shaping the insulin-signaling network within skeletal muscle, a crucial regulator of metabolism. The supporting evidence presented is compelling, and the work is anticipated to captivate a wide audience within the metabolism discipline due to its extensive appeal and by providing inspiration for further hypothesis-driven research.

eLife assessment

This fundamental work uses computational network models to suggest a possible origin of the wide range of time scales observed in cortical activity. This claim is supported by convincing evidence based on comparisons between mathematical theory, simulations of spiking network models, and analysis of recordings from the orbitofrontal cortex. This manuscript will be of interest to the broad community of systems and computational neuroscience.