Evaluated articles

eLife Assessment

This study provides novel and fundamental insights into the long-term use of DREADDs to modulate neuronal activity in nonhuman primates. The exceptional evidence demonstrates the peak dynamics and the subsequent stability of chemogenetic effects for 1.5 years, informing the experimental designs and the interpretation of highly impactful chemogenetic studies in macaques. The protocols, data, and outcomes can serve as guidelines for future experiments. Therefore, the findings will be of significant interest to the field of chemogenetics and may also be of broader interest to researchers and clinicians who seek to utilize viral vectors and/or related genetic technologies.

eLife Assessment

This valuable study combines real-time keypoint tracking with transdermal activation of sensory neurons to investigate sensory neuron recruitment in freely moving mice, and builds on the authors' prior work in stationary mice. The evidence supporting the utility of the system is solid, although a more thorough classification of the behavioral responses to nociceptor stimulation would strengthen the work. Importantly, future analyses could include other cutaneous sensory neuron subtypes, and could also be adapted for studying more complex behaviors. The work will be of interest to sensory biologists and pain researchers.

eLife Assessment

This manuscript by Kaur et al. identifies differential gene expression observed in distinct cell populations, namely myeloid and lymphoid cells, upon short-term exposure to e-cig aerosols with various flavors. Their findings are useful because they provide a single cell sequencing data resource for assessing which genes and cellular pathways are most affected by e-cig aerosols and their components. However, the evidence is incomplete due to limited analyses and replicates per condition, as well as the lack of in vivo validation.

eLife Assessment

This important study suggests that adolescent mice exhibit less accuracy than adult mice in a sound discrimination task when the sound frequencies are very similar. The evidence supporting this observation is solid and suggests that it arises from cognitive control differences between adolescent and adult mice. The adolescent period is largely understudied, despite its contribution to shaping the adult brain, which makes this study interesting for a broad range of neuroscientists.

eLife Assessment

Huang and colleagues examined neural responses in mouse anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) during a discrimination-avoidance task. The authors present useful findings that ACC neurons encode primarily post-action variables over extended periods rather than the outcomes or values of those actions. Though the methodological approach was sound, the evidence ruling out alternative explanations is incomplete and requires substantial control analyses.

eLife Assessment

This valuable study employs a formalized computational model of learning to assess memory deficits in Alzheimer's Disease with the goal of developing an early diagnosis tool. Using an established mouse model of the disease, the authors studied multiple behavioral tasks and ages with the goal of showing similarities in behavioral deficits across tasks. Using the model, the authors indicate specific deficits in memory (overgeneralization and over differentiation) in mice with the transgene for the disease. The evidence presented is solid, yet certain concerns remain regarding the interpretation of the results of the modeling.

eLife Assessment

This useful study describes a novel method for imaging NAD(P)H fluorescence lifetime and thus metabolic states in the Drosophila brain. These solid findings support recent work demonstrating the importance of energy homeostasis to sustain memory formation and maintenance. Further efforts to demonstrate the adequacy of the statistical methods and the significance of the observed differences in FLIM signals in the α/β KCs would greatly enhance the manuscript. The approach will be helpful for researchers working with systems where genetic manipulation is challenging.

eLife Assessment

This study presents important information about the role of mu opioid receptors in neurotransmission between the medial habenula and the interpeduncular nucleus. The authors provide convincing evidence that mu opioid receptor activation has differential effects on transmission from substance P neurons and cholinergic neurons, and that blockade of potassium channels can unmask a nicotinic cholinergic synaptic response. This work will be of high interest to those studying this brain region, and potentially to the larger neuroscience community studying motivated behavior.

eLife Assessment

The medicinal leech preparation is an amenable system in which to understand the neural basis of locomotion. Here a previously identified non-spiking neuron was studied in leech and found to alter the mean firing frequency of a crawl-related motoneuron, which fires during the contraction phase of crawling. The findings are valuable and the experiments were diligently done and considered solid. The results lay a foundation for additional studies in this system.

eLife Assessment

This important study describes the effect of beta-glucan innate training of macrophages and its effect on uptake of tumour cells and on the production of inflammatory cytokines. The data are convincing and show decreased phagocytic activity of apoptotic tumour cells accompanied by lower levels of secreted IL-1β, and in vivo findings are also provided in the revision. This finding has potential impact on designing potential macrophage-targeted cancer immuno-therapeutic approaches.

eLife Assessment

Using fMRI-based pRF mapping, this important study presents a novel method to estimate visual field (VF) and VF loss/or potential restoration, through analysis of contrast sensitivity patterns in the early visual cortex. While the approach is very interesting and the evidence supporting the claims of the authors is solid, some methodological concerns need to be addressed. The work will be of interest to researchers in vision/clinical vision, neuroscience, and brain imaging.

eLife Assessment

This study aims to identify the proteins that make up the electrical synapse, which are much less understood than those of the chemical synapse. These findings represent an important step toward understanding the molecular function of chemical synapses and will have broad utility for the wider neuroscience field. The experimental evidence is convincing.

eLife Assessment

This valuable study shows that an odorant that is typically thought of as a repellant actually activates both attractant and repellant olfactory neurons in C. elegans. Solid evidence is provided that nematode worms can integrate signals using different pathways to drive different behavioral responses to the same cue. These findings will be of interest to scientists interested in combinatorial coding in sensory systems.

eLife assessment

The work is interesting in its characterization of a large number of antibiotic persisters from a wild-type strain. Previous work was typically limited to directly observe either high persister strains or a smaller number of wt persisters. Therefore, it sheds new light on the elusive non-dormant persisters present in exponentially growing cultures and should help resolve previous conflicting observations.

eLife Assessment

This important study shows that the Nora virus, a natural Drosophila pathogen that also persistently infects many laboratory fly stocks, infects intestinal stem cells (ISCs), leading to a shorter life span and increased sensitivity to intestinal infection with the Pseudomonas bacterium. The authors provide convincing data to support their conclusions. The paper provides new insights into virus-host interactions in the Drosophila gut and serves as a warning for scientists who use the fruit fly as a model to study gut physiology.

eLife Assessment

This important research addresses the effects of subjective control and task difficulty on experienced stress using a novel behavioral task administered on the same day in two large online samples. Convincing evidence is provided, establishing the internal and external task validity of the task, as well as a relationship between the sense of control and task difficulty, with individual differences in relevant mental health constructs. Evidence for the specificity of the link between control and stress would be more substantial if the design had not conflated control and reward rate. This work will be of interest to psychologists and clinicians studying the concepts of controllability, stress, and psychopathology.

eLife Assessment

The manuscript provides valuable findings in the field for understanding the RNAi regulation in plants at the molecular level with a model of how DRB7.2 and DRB4 form a heterodimer and protect dsRNA from DICER activity. The presented data provide a solid basis for the model, but certain measurements could benefit from replicates for robust statistics.

eLife Assessment

In this manuscript, Franco and colleagues present compelling evidence that fecal extracts containing high concentrations of indole, a known repellent, enhance rather than protect against invasion of colonic tissue by Salmonella. The authors describe important findings that lead to the conclusion that the competing effects of attractants present in fecal matter, including L-serine, also sensed by the Tsr chemoreceptor that senses indole, override the repulsive effect of indole.

eLife Assessment

This study presents a valuable finding on the delivery of a nuclear envelop protein to lysosomes and the impact of C-terminal tagging on its traffic. The authors provide solid evidence for the potential artifacts introduced by large terminal tags, particularly in the context of membrane protein localization and stability.

eLife Assessment

This valuable model-based study seeks to mimic bat echolocation behavior and flight under conditions of high interference, such as when large numbers of bats leave their roost together. Although some of the assumptions made in the model may be questioned, the simulations convincingly suggest that the problem of acoustic jamming in these situations may be less severe than previously thought. This finding will be of broad interest to scientists working in the fields of bat biology and collective behaviour.