Evaluated articles

eLife Assessment

This study presents valuable findings suggesting that the late maturation of prefrontal cortex-based control processes enhances conceptual learning by allowing a period of less-constrained knowledge acquisition. The authors provide convincing computational evidence that delayed semantic control promotes learning without compromising representation integrity, with the strongest benefits emerging when control connections target intermediate layers of the model. However, the model's narrow scope raises concerns about scalability to more complex, real-world learning environments, and the meta-analysis, while supporting the developmental trajectory, does not directly test the model's specific predictions regarding task outcomes or error patterns.

eLife Assessment

The study presents important findings regarding the incidence and clinical impact of a mutation in a cardiac muscle protein and its association with the development of atrial fibrillation. The authors provide convincing evidence of electrophysiological disturbances in cells with this mutation and of its association with atrial fibrillation, which would be of interest to cardiologists. Evidence supporting the conclusion that this mutation causes atrial fibrillation would benefit from more rigorous electrophysiologic approaches.

eLife Assessment

This important study analyzes the effect of heat treatment on phage-bacterial interactions and convincingly shows that prior heat exposure alters the bacterial cell envelope, enhancing persistence and bacterial survival when exposed to lytic phages. The study will interest researchers working on antibiotic resistance, tolerance, and phage therapy.

eLife Assessment

This is an important study that examines the impact of Streptococcus pneumoniae genetics on its in vitro growth kinetics, aiming to identify potential targets for vaccines and therapeutics. The study identified significant variations in growth characteristics among capsular serotypes and lineages, linked to phylogeny and high heritability, but genome-wide association studies did not reveal specific genomic loci associated with growth features independent of the genetic background. The evidence supporting these findings is convincing.

eLife Assessment

This study establishes a methodology (machine vision and gaze pose estimation) and behavioral apparatus for examining social interactions between pairs of marmoset monkeys. It has been difficult to study social interactions using artificial stimuli rather than genuine interactions between unrestrained animals. This study makes a fundamental contribution to social neuroscience research in a laboratory setting. Their results are convincing showing that the study of unrestrained social interactions is possible with detailed quantification of position and gaze. The methodology presented here is relevant to research in social neuroscience, neuroethology, and primatology.

eLife Assessment

This important study examines the relationship between cognition and mental health and investigates how brain, genetics, and environmental measures mediate that relationship. The methods and results are compelling and well-executed. Overall, this study will be of interest in the field of population neuroscience and in studies of mental health.

eLife Assessment

This important study examined orientation representations along the visual hierarchy during perception and working memory. The authors provide results suggesting that during working memory there is a gradient where representations are more categorical in nature later in the visual hierarchy. The evidence presented is solid, most notably a match between behavioral data, though minor weakness can be attributed to the tasks and behaviors not being designed to address this question. The findings should be of interest to a relatively broad audience, namely those interested in the relationship between sensory coding and memory.

eLife Assessment

The songbird vocal motor nucleus HVC contains cells that project to the basal ganglia, the auditory system, or to downstream vocal motor structures. In this fundamental study, the authors conduct optogenetic circuit mapping to clarify how four distinct inputs to HVC act on these distinct HVC cell types. They provide compelling evidence that all long range projections engage inhibitory circuits in HVC and can also exhibit cell-type specific preferences in monosynaptic input strength. Understanding HVC at this microcircuit level is critical for constraining models of song learning and production.

eLife Assessment

This important manuscript proposes a dual behavioral/computational approach to assess emotional regulation in humans. The authors present solid evidence for the idea that emotional distancing (as routinely used in clinical interventions for e.g. mood and anxiety disorders) enhances emotional control.

eLife Assessment

Studying the biological roles of polyphosphates in metazoans has been a longstanding challenge to the field given that the polyP synthase has yet to be discovered in metazoans. This important study capitalizes on the sophisticated genetics available in the Drosophila system and uses a combination of methodologies to start to tease apart how polyphosphate participates in Drosophila development and in the clotting of Drosophila hemolymph. The data validating one of these tools (cyto-FLYX ) are solid and well-documented and they will open up a field of research into the functional roles of polyP in a metazoan model. The other tools for tissue specific knockdown of polyP (Mito-FLYX, ER-FLYX, and Nuc-FLYX) have not yet been validated but will be invaluable to the field when they are.

eLife Assessment

This is a very important study in which the authors have modified ChIP-seq and 4C-seq with a urea step, which drastically changes the pattern of chromatin interactions observed for SATB1, but not other proteins (including CTCF). The study highlights that the urea protocols provide a complementary view of protein-chromatin interactions for some proteins, which can uncover previously hidden, functionally significant layers of chromatin organization. If applied more widely, these protocols may significantly further our understanding of chromatin organization. The study's findings are supported by a wealth of controls, making the evidence compelling.

eLife Assessment

Catani and colleagues provide data on antigenic properties of neuraminidase proteins of pandemic H1N1 and show that antigenic diversity of the neuraminidase from 2009 to 2020 largely falls into two groups. These antigenic groups map to two phylogenetic groups, and substitutions at positions 432 and 321 are likely associated with the antigenic change. These data and results allow useful insights into the antigenic properties of N1 influenza and the evidence supporting the conclusions is solid.

eLife Assessment

This important study investigates the different mechanisms that provide instructions for a missing body part to regenerate its appropriate identity. The authors use two species of planarians to identify a key role for bodywide canonical Wnt gradients in controlling the outcome of regeneration. The study provides convincing evidence for variable regeneration efficiency among planarian species that will be of interest to developmental biologists interested in regeneration. However, some of the results are over-interpreted and the additional experiments could provide better support for the authors' claims.

eLife Assessment

M proteins are essential group A streptococci virulence factors that bind to numerous human proteins; a small subset of M proteins, such as M3, have been reported to bind collagen, which is thought to promote tissue adherence. In this important paper, the authors provide a solid characterization of M3 interactions with collagen. The work raises significant questions regarding the specificity of the structure and its interactions with different collagens, with implications for the variable actions of M protein collagen interactions on biofilm formation.

eLife Assessment

This important work substantially advances our understanding of how accessory olfactory bulb neurons respond to social odor cues across the estrous cycle, showing that responses vary with the strain and sex of the odor source but display no consistent differences between estrous and non-estrous states. It employs a unique electrophysiology preparation that activates the vomeronasal organ pump via electric stimulation, enabling precise recordings of accessory olfactory bulb cell responses to different chemosignals in anesthetized mice. Overall, the study presents convincing findings on the stability and variability of accessory olfactory bulb response patterns, indicating that while accessory olfactory bulb detects social signals, it does not appear to interpret them based on reproductive state. This work will be of interest to those studying olfaction, social behavior, reproductive cycles, and systems neuroscience more broadly.

eLife Assessment

Pinho et al use in vivo calcium imaging and chemogenetic approaches to examine the involvement of hippocampal sub-regions across the different stages of a sensory preconditioning task in mice. They find evidence for sensory preconditioning in male mice. They also find that, in these mice, CaMKII-positive neurons in the dorsal hippocampus encode the audio-visual association that forms in stage 1 of the task. The evidence in support of these findings is convincing. The important study will be of interest to researchers in the fields of learning and memory and/or hippocampus function.

eLife Assessment

The study introduces new tools for measuring the intracellular calcium concentration close to transmitter release sites, which may be relevant for synaptic vesicle fusion and replenishment. This approach yields important new information about the spatial and temporal profile of calcium concentrations near the site of entry at the plasma membrane. This experimental work is complemented by a coherent, open-source, computational model that successfully describes changes in calcium domains. The conclusions are solid and well supported by the data.

eLife Assessment

This important theoretical study introduces an extension to the commonly used SIR model for infectious disease dynamics, to explicitly consider the role of larger group sizes. Instead of the commonly used individual-based network models, the authors developed a simplified approach based on group sampling, with discrete high- and low-risk groups, which makes the results easier to produce and interpret, at the cost of less detail in the model. The evidence is convincing in terms of the soundness of the theoretical projections and the impact that accounting for group sizes may have on inferences from surveillance data. However, it has not yet been demonstrated that the predictions provide more realistic projections when based on real-world data.