Evaluated articles

eLife assessment

The study has some significance for the field of dementia research and neurodegenerative diseases more broadly. Using the brain-age paradigm, the main findings are that having an older-appearing brain is associated with more advanced stages of amyloid and tau pathology, higher white matter hyperintensities, higher plasma NfL and carrying the APOE 34 allele. Findings were broadly similar in cognitively normal people and people with mild cognitive impairment and the evidence for these findings is convincing. Although sex differences are emphasized, the evidence for this is generally incomplete.

eLife assessment

This study presents important new findings regarding prenatal thalamocortical development. The authors present convincing evidence to overcome substantial methodological challenges in charting prenatal brain development in vivo. This work will be of interest to pediatric and developmental neuroscientists and neuroradiologists.

eLife assessment

The authors present valuable findings regarding the mechanism of high mannose induced cellular toxicity in cancer cells. The evidence supporting genomic instability as the anti-cancer activity of mannose is convincing with multiple orthogonal approaches showing consistent results, but the conclusions related to metabolic remodeling could be further strengthened by additional metabolomics data. While the findings are limited to genetically modified cancer cell lines cultured in vitro, this work will be of interest to cell biologists working on cancer metabolism.

eLife assessment

This potentially important study examines brain age based on resting state functional connectivity (RSFC) following an 18-month lifestyle intervention. The design of the intervention study is generally solid; the randomized controlled trial includes three intervention groups and assessments at two-time points of numerous health markers, however, the methodology for brain age prediction appears somewhat incomplete and would benefit from more rigorous approaches. The lack of control groups also prevents firm conclusions about the extent to which the observed RSFC changes are linked to the intervention. With these parts strengthened, the paper would be of broad interest to neuroscientists and biologists working on obesity, lifestyle interventions, and brain health.

eLife assessment

This paper reports a valuable new method for creating localized damage to candidate brain regions for functional and behavioral studies. The authors present solid support for their ability to create long-term local lesions with mm spatial resolution. The paper is likely to be of broad interest to brain researchers working to establish causal links between neural circuits and behavior.

eLife assessment

This valuable work proposes a framework inspired by chemotaxis for understanding how the brain might implement behaviours related to navigating toward a goal. The evidence supporting the conceptual claim is convincing. The manuscript proposes a hypothesis that would be of interest to the broad systems neuroscience community, although it was noted the relationship to existing similar hypotheses could be clarified.

eLife assessment

This important paper reports recent improvements and extensions to stdpopsim, a community-driven resource that is built on top of powerful software for performing simulations of population genomic data and provides a catalog of species with curated genomic parameters and demographic models. In addition to describing the new features and species in stdpopsim, the authors provide a set of practical guidelines for implementing realistic simulations. Overall, this convincing manuscript serves as an excellent overview of the utility, challenges, common pitfalls, and best practices of population genomic simulations. It will be of broad interest to population, evolutionary, and ecological geneticists studying humans, model organisms, or non-model organisms.

eLife assessment

This study presents valuable structural data for the bacterial adhesin PrgB, an atypical microbial cell surface-anchored polypeptide that binds DNA. There is convincing support for the claims regarding the overall function and importance of individual domains, which integrate a wide range of new and previously published experimental data. The structure-based model of PrgB molecular activity will be impactful in the field of bacterial adhesins, conjugation, and biofilm formation, especially because it focuses on a clinically relevant Gram-positive pathogen, whereas most work in the field has been focused on Gram-negative model systems.

eLife assessment

This valuable paper informs on the role of type I PRMTs in programming muscle stem cell identification. The evidence presented is mostly solid, with some weaknesses in the evidence regarding the proposed mechanism. The paper will be of particular interest to those who study skeletal muscle satellite cell biology.

eLife assessment

The authors have used an extensive database to study associations between biphosphanate use and COVID-19. Using careful statistical analyses biphosphonate use appeared strongly associated with a lower risk of COVID-19. If these findings are confirmed in well-designed prospective studies biphosphanate use could be an attractive drug to prevent COVID-19.

eLife assessment

This paper provides a valuable systematic analysis of proteomic profiles associated with a particular murine Ryanodine receptor abnormality. Its analysis technique provides a solid and systematic set of data summarising the differences in different muscle types. The work emerges with insights into pathological mechanism of congenital muscle diseases linked to mutations in a range of other genes related to excitation contraction coupling in workers within the skeletal muscle field.

eLife assessment

This is a rigorous and compelling extension of previous normative modeling work that demonstrates that normative models incorporating lifespan trajectories of structural and functional connectivity provide a strong basis for brain imaging studies across a range of tasks including, univariate group difference assessment, classification, and building regression models. The work is important, rigorous and a valuable contribution to the field.

eLife assessment

This study presents a useful identification of an herbal drug combination for the treatment of plasma cell mastitis (PCM), a breast inflammation with severe and intense clinical symptoms. The data were collected and analyzed using a solid and in clinical trial of 160 patients (NCT05530226) and can be used as a starting point for understanding how herbal drug combinations could be helpful in the management of PCM patients.

eLife assessment

This paper presents an analysis of both contact tracing and whole-genome sequence data to track the elimination of dog-mediated rabies in Pemba Island, Tanzania. The work is a valuable contribution to the literature as it will have practical implications for the elimination of dog-mediated rabies in other regions/contexts. The main claims made are largely supported, but the strength of evidence for the cost-effectiveness is limited.

eLife assessment

This important study presents the idea of "Skeletal Age", defined as the age of one's skeleton as a consequence of fragility fracture, as a potential new tool to raise awareness about the increased risk of mortality following a fracture (particularly hip fractures) and thus improve the medical management of osteoporosis. The evidence is convincing and is derived from a very large database from the Danish National Hospital Discharge Registry. The proposed approach might represent a starting point for making doctor-patient communication about the health risks of an osteoporotic fracture more intuitive and possibly more effective.

eLife assessment

This study presents an important finding on the cause of the widely reported disruption of the excitation to inhibition (E-I) ratio change in Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) mouse models. The evidence supporting the main conclusions is solid and well-sampled. These results can be a starting point for studies that assess the functional role of daily oscillations of the E-I ratio in the pathophysiology of ASD, and possibly, reshape our understanding of the nature of the E/I balance alterations that contribute to normal and diseased circuits.

eLife assessment

Understanding specific tau-tau interactions that play key roles in Alzheimer's disease and tauopathies will enable the elucidation of the toxic tau species involved in the pathogenesis of these diseases and therapeutic development in this area. In this paper, the authors developed a series of NanoBiT complementation-based tau biosensors to monitor tau intramolecular and intermolecular interactions. This paper will be of high interest to a broad target audience including researchers in the field of biophysics, biochemistry, cell biology, neuroscience, neuropathology, and drug discovery as well as physicians.

eLife assessment

This important study reveals that slow plasticity in the neocortex is essential to prevent memory interference. The method of artificially increasing plasticity in the prefrontal cortex of rats during learning and its effect on sleep physiology, when memories are believed to be reprocessed, is solid. The work will be of interest to neuroscientists interested in learning and memory.

eLife assessment

Alamia and colleagues investigate the direction of traveling waves in the alpha frequency band during visual spatial attention. The authors' novel perspective adopted here is valuable to understanding the functional relevance of alpha oscillations for spatial attention. The observed pattern of results is consistent with distinct roles for travelling alpha waves in spatially opposite directions and makes a solid case for considering this new perspective on alpha rhythms in human cognitive function.

eLife assessment

Silva and colleagues present useful findings related to the isolation of an anti-S2 antibody that recognizes a previously uncharacterized SARS-CoV2 Spike (S) epitope, adding to the growing repertoire of anti-S antibodies that broadly cross-react against human and zoonotic coronaviruses. The evidence supporting the claims of the authors is solid, although antibody effectiveness as a prophylactic or therapeutic reagent in an animal model would have strengthened the study. The work will be of interest to biologists working to develop pan-coronavirus therapies.