Evaluated articles

eLife assessment

This important paper reports major technical advances for in vivo intramuscular electrical recording from multiple motor units in behaving animals. The paper includes compelling demonstrations of the efficacy of this new technique in multiple animal species. This new muscle recording method has the potential to provide new insight into a wide range of questions in motor neuroscience.

eLife assessment

This study documents important findings on three variants in SNAP25 that are associated with developmental and epileptic encephalopathy. The thorough characterization of synaptic release and in vitro vesicle fusion phenotypes provides interesting information about the nature of the SNAP25 variants. The evidence supporting the claims is compelling, and this work will be of interest to neuroscientists working on SNAP25, SNAP25-associated encephalopathy, and synaptic vesicle exocytosis.

eLife assessment

This important work examines the potential utility of socio-emotional and socio-cognitive mental training on hippocampal subfield structure and function, and cortisol levels. The authors provide convincing evidence that CA1-3 volume is sensitive to socio-emotional training, with changes related to function plasticity and cortisol levels. Further, the authors provide evidence of change across all subfields and training modules related to stress.

eLife Assessment

This study examines how self-citations in selected neurology, neuroscience, and psychiatry journals differ according to seniority, geography, gender and subfield. The evidence supporting the claims is convincing, and the article is a valuable addition to the literature on self-citations.

eLife assessment

This valuable study provides convincing evidence that acute experimental pain induces changes of cortical excitability. Although the modality specificity of the findings is not fully clear, the findings will be of interest to researchers interested in the brain mechanisms of pain.

eLife assessment

This manuscript addresses an important question, that in countries endemic for P vivax the need to administer a primaquine (PQ) course adequate to prevent relapse in G6PD deficient persons poses a real dilemma. On one hand PQ will cause haemolysis; on the other hand, without PQ the chance of relapse is very high. As a result, out of fear of severe haemolysis, PQ has been under-used. This manuscript is convincing that regimen (1) can be used successfully to deliver within 3 weeks, under hospital conditions, the dose of PQ required to prevent P vivax relapse.

eLife assessment

This important study tested the hypothesis that liver-derived but not serum-derived antibodies that are cross-reactive to E.coli and to host proteins can play a role in the hepatic damage found in severe alcoholic hepatitis (SAH). Using a solid methodology that includes state-of-the-art microscopy, proteome arrays, and gene ontology assays, it provides strong evidence that liver-derived IgG and IgA with cytotoxic properties and reactivity to both gut-derived E.coli and autoantigens accumulated in hepatocytes of SAH patients but not of healthy controls. The study would benefit from a broader analysis of gut microbiota proteome and further characterization of B cells infiltrating the liver tissue including their numbers/field and their origin (infiltrating versus resident cells). The work opens new avenues of understanding for the pathogenesis of severe alcoholic hepatitis and is of great interest to researchers and clinicians in the field.

eLife assessment

This study presents a valuable dataset regarding chromatin remodeling by the BAF complex in the context of meiotic sex chromosome inactivation. Solid data generally support the conclusions, although the partial deletion of the BAF complex in the germline could be considered limiting. This work will be of interest to researchers working on chromatin and reproductive biology.

eLife assessment

This study addresses the role of FMRP in the migration of newborn neuroblasts in the postnatal brain. Through extensive and convincing analysis of living imaging videos, the authors showed that neurons with FMRP deletion migrate aberrantly and exhibit defects in nucleokinesis and centrokinesis. The study presents a valuable finding on the mechanism of neuroblast migration in the postnatal brain.

eLife assessment

This valuable manuscript examines the role of basal forebrain cholinergic (ACh) projection neurons and their inputs to the basolateral amygdala (BLA) and effects on BLA activity during reward seeking. The manuscript provides compelling evidence that ACh may have different effects on network activity in the BLA depending on the state of the network during reward engagement, whereas behavioural data indicating that these ACh neurons/inputs are involved in uncued reward seeking specifically is somewhat less complete. The paper will be of interest to those studying amygdala circuitry, reward processing, and neuromodulation broadly defined.

eLife assessment

This important study unravels the interaction between effort cost, pupil-indexed brain state, and movement (saccadic) vigor during foraging decisions in marmoset monkeys. Based on a normative computational model, the authors derive the prediction that anticipated effort should affect both decisions and movement vigor during foraging; and then provide solid behavioural and pupillometric evidence for this prediction in a foraging task. This paper will be of interest to decision and motor neuroscience as well as to all researchers studying animal behavior.

eLife assessment

This is an important paper that links distinctive stinging behavior of two related anemones occupying different ecological niches to varying inactivation properties of voltage-gated calcium channels conferred by auxiliary Cavβ subunits. Further convincing evidence is provided that these differences are mediated by alternative splicing of Cavβ subunit of the calcium channel. The study will be of interest to scientists studying Ca2+ signaling, ion channel biophysicists, and marine biologists.

eLife assessment

This important paper uses a genome-wide, massively parallel reporter assay to determine how CpG methylation affects regulatory sequences that control the expression of human genes. The authors provide compelling evidence that methylation not only influences baseline activity of regulatory sequences but also the magnitude of acute responses to environmental stimuli. The findings are of broad interest, and the extensive data set will likely become a key resource for the community.

eLife assessment

This study describes important findings on how a core component of the circadian clock impacts the effect of dietary restriction (DR) on longevity and fecundity in Drosophila, which lead the authors to postulate rhythmic control of proteostasis in the fat body as a critical aspect of DR effects. The evidence presented is still incomplete, not fully supporting the conclusions of the study, as alternative hypotheses/explanations have not yet been systematically explored. The work will nevertheless be of substantial interest to researchers working in circadian and cell biology, metabolism, and aging, with an interesting hypothesis to be explored further.

eLife assessment

In this valuable study, advanced simulation methodologies are used to extract the mechanisms of inactivation for the potassium ion channel KcsA. The string method approach provides solid evidence that reveal features associated with the interplay between gate size and collapse of the selectivity filter, as well as remarkable differences between different force fields. While this manuscript does not address recent discoveries in K channel inactivation involving dilated selectivity filter structures obtained by Xray and cryo-EM, it does help us understand the KcsA constriction process. With added descriptions and analysis of collective variables, improved reproducibility of results, consistency between string method free energies and unbiased simulations, and improved transition rate calculation, this manuscript will be of interest to the ion channel field.

eLife assessment

The primary goal of this paper is to examine microtubule detyrosination as a potential therapeutic target for axon regeneration. The valuable findings of this study provide convincing evidence for mechanistic links between microtubule detyrosination and neurite outgrowth in vitro and some evidence for axon regeneration in vivo.

eLife Assessment

This important study uses machine learning-based network analysis on transcriptomic data from different tissue cell types to identify a small set of conserved (pan-tissue) genes associated with changes in cell mechanics. The new method, which provides a new type of approach for mechanobiology, is accessible, compelling, and well-validated using in silico and experimental approaches. The study provides motivation for researchers to test hypotheses concerning the identified five-gene network, and the method will be strengthened over time with expanded sets of validations, such as testing genes with hitherto unknown roles and different perturbation techniques.

eLife Assessment

This important study combines virology experiments and mathematical modeling to determine the nuclear export rate of each of the eight RNA segments of the influenza A virus, leading to the proposal that a specific retention of mRNA within the nucleus delays the expression of antigenic viral proteins. The proposed model for explaining the differential rate of export is compelling, going beyond the state of the art, but the experimental setup is only in partial support and further studies will be needed to confirm the proposed mechanism.

eLife assessment

This study presents the valuable finding that sustained calcium signaling in induced-Treg (iTreg) cells can lead to the loss of Foxp3 expression and iTreg identity by altering the chromatin landscape. The evidence supporting the claims of the authors is convincing. The work will be of interest to immunologists working on Treg cell therapy.

eLife assessment

The study provides useful data supporting prior findings that mitochondria in cultured cells maintain a temperature that is up to 15°C above the external temperature at which cultured cells are maintained. The evidence supporting the hypothesis is solid, although direct measures of temperature in isolated mitochondria or comparison with other cellular compartments would have strengthened the ability to interpret the relevance of the findings. Nevertheless, the bioenergetic implications of the work will be of interest to cell biologists, biochemists, and physiologists.