Evaluated articles

eLife Assessment

This important study demonstrates that slow fluctuations in serotonin release during wakefulness and non-REM sleep correspond to periods of heightened arousal or enhanced offline information processing. The evidence supporting this claim is convincing, and the methodology is robust and broadly applicable, likely to benefit many researchers in the field. This work will be of significant interest to neuroscientists studying sleep, memory, and neuromodulation.

eLife Assessment

This important study aims to understand the function of ProSAP-interacting protein 1 (Prosapip1) in the brain. Using a conditional Prosapip1 KO mouse (floxed prosapip1 crossed with Syn1-Cre line), the authors performed analysis including protein biochemistry, synaptic physiology, and behavioral learning. Convincing evidence from this study supports a role of Prosapip 1 in synaptic protein composition, synaptic NMDA responses, LTP, and spatial memory.

eLife assessment

This valuable work discusses the phylogenetic conservation of the hippocampal region and primary sensory cortical regions in mammalian species. The authors propose that species-specific differences in behavior and mnemonic functions may be due to differences in cortico-hippocampal connectivity patterns. However, the manuscript, in its present form, is speculative, and the strength of evidence for this proposition is incomplete.

eLife Assessment

This important research investigates the precision of numerosity perception in two types of tasks and concludes that human performance aligns with an efficient coding model optimized for current environmental statistics and task goals. The proposed model receives compelling evidence from two numerosity perception experiments and a reanalysis of an existing dataset of risky decision-making. These findings have theoretical implications for our understanding of numerosity perception and decision-making as well as the ongoing debate on different efficient coding models.

eLife Assessment

Using a combination of innovative and robust techniques, this study outlines cell-type-specific translational landscape changes that occur in the spinal cord neurons in the early and late phases of nerve injury. The authors provided compelling evidence suggesting an essential role of protein synthesis regulation in the chronic phase of neuropathic pain. Although additional mechanisms contributing to late-phase neuropathic pain beyond altered PV+ neuron excitability remain to be elucidated, this is a fundamental and significant study toward a comprehensive understanding of the molecular pathways involved in neuropathic pain.

eLife Assessment

This study presents a new, fundamental finding to the field interested in recurrent processing and its neuromodulatory underpinnings, finding unexpectedly that memantine (blocking NMDA-receptors) enhances the decoding of features thought to rely on NMDA-receptors. This interesting, compelling result identifies new directions for researchers studying consciousness, sensory processing, attention, and neurotransmitters.

eLife Assessment

This theoretical study makes a useful contribution to our understanding of a subtype of type 2 diabetes - ketosis-prone diabetes mellitus (KPD) - with a potential impact on our broader understanding of diabetes and glucose regulation. The article presents an ordinary differential equation-based model for KPD that incorporates a number of distinct timescales - fast, slow, as well as intermediate, incorporating a key hypothesis of reversible beta cell deactivation. The presented evidence is solid and shows that observed clinical disease trajectories may be explained by a simple mathematical model in a particular parameter regime.

eLife Assessment

This valuable study leverages innovative high-dimensional imaging strategies to interrogate pancreatic immune cell profiles and distributions throughout stages of type 1 diabetes (T1D). Despite a notable limitation in the number of donor samples analyzed, the authors identify a series of intriguing "immune signatures" and histopathological features that collectively constitute a solid foundation for future investigations into immunological processes underpinning the pathogenesis of T1D. Accordingly, the work will be of considerable interest to the community of T1D researchers and clinicians.

eLife Assessment

The study presents a valuable finding on the role of cholesterol-binding sites on GLP-1 receptors although the clinical ramifications are unclear and not eminent at this point. Based on the detailed and persuasive responses provided by authors to the concerns raised by reviewers, the revised manuscript is improved substantially and is convincing enough in its scientific merit. The study is a good addition to the scientific community working on receptor biology and drug development for GLP-1 R.

eLife assessment

This is an important paper that reports in vivo physiological abnormalities in the hippocampus of a rat model of traumatic brain injury (TBI). In this study, authors focused on changes in theta-gamma phase coupling and action potential entrainment to theta, phenomena hypothesized to be critical for cognition. While the authors provide solid evidence of deficits in both features post-TBI, the study would have been stronger with a more hypothesis-driven approach and consideration of alterations of the animal's behavioral state or sensorimotor deficits beyond memory processes.

eLife assessment

This valuable contribution follows past descriptions of ciliation defects, potentially linked to cholinergic neuronal dysfunction, associated with mutated G2019S Lrrk2 expression. The strength of evidence is considered solid and broadly supportive of the claims concerning well-characterized cilia changes in cholinergic neurons over time in the model; however, additional work may be required to define the specificity of the pRab12 antibody in the IHC technique, dependence on LRRK2, and clarification of the cilia phenotype in sporadic PD brains that exists (for the moment) only in a non-peer-reviewed pre-print, despite the prominence of these (preliminary) results highlighted in the abstract and text of the current manuscript. It is hoped that the authors will begin to address the feedback provided by the expert reviewers to help provide a more mechanistic basis for the audience interested in cholinergic defects associated with Parkinson's disease.

eLife Assessment

This important work by Malita et al. describes a mechanism by which an intestinal infection causes an increase in daytime sleep through signaling from the gut to the blood-brain barrier. Their findings suggest that cytokines upd3 and upd2 produced by the intestine following infection act on glia of the blood brain barrier to regulate sleep by modulating Allatostatin A signaling. The evidence is compelling and elegantly performed using the ample Drosophila genetic toolbox, making this work appealing for a broad group of neuroscience researchers interested in sleep and gut-brain interactions.

eLife Assessment

This important study by Wong et al. addresses a longstanding question in the field of associative learning regarding how a motivationally relevant event can be inferred from prior learning based on neutral stimulus-stimulus associations. The research provides convincing behavioral and neurophysiological evidence to address this question. The manuscript will be interesting for researchers in behavioral and cognitive neuroscience.

eLife Assessment

This important work combines theory and experiment to demonstrate convincingly how humans make decisions about sequences of pairs of correlated observations. The proposed model for evidence integration in correlated environments will be of use for the study of decision-making.

eLife Assessment

In this manuscript, Griesius et al analyze the dendritic integration properties of NDNF and OLM interneurons, and suggest that the supralinear NMDA receptor-dependent synaptic integration may be associated with dendritic calcium transients only in NDNF interneurons. These findings are important because they suggest there might be functional heterogeneities in the mechanisms underlying synaptic integration in different classes of interneurons of the mouse neocortex and hippocampus. The revised work remains incomplete due to remaining concerns about experimental methodology, cell health, and lack of dendritic Na-spikes which have been recorded in previous works.

eLife Assessment

This important study shows that a very slow (infraslow) oscillation occurs in voltage recordings from the dentate gyrus of the adult mouse. The authors suggest that it is related to sleep stage and serotonin acting at one type of serotonin receptor in the dentate gyrus. The results are significant because they suggest new insight into how a slow oscillation affects memory through serotonin receptors in the dentate gyrus. Convincing data are provided to support the claims.

eLife assessment

In this study, Ferling and colleagues provide convincing evidence demonstrating that myeloid cells exert distinct, cargo-dependent responses during and after phagocytosis. These important findings establish previously unrecognized insights into the function(s) of myeloid cells in immunosurveillance and are thus likely to be broadly impactful across the spectrum of biomedical disciplines including immunology and cell biology. Notwithstanding these clear strengths of the article, some minor issues were noted pertinent to the relative opaqueness of the mechanisms underpinning context-specific RhoA activation.

eLife Assessment

Utilizing transgenic lineage tracing techniques and tissue clearing-based advanced imaging and three-dimensional slices reconstruction, the authors comprehensively mapped the distribution atlas of NFATc1+ and PDGFR-α+ cells in dental and periodontal mesenchyme and tracked their in vivo fate trajectories. This important work extends our understanding of NFATc1+ and PDGFR-α+ cells in dental and periodontal mesenchyme homeostasis, and should provide impact on clinical application and investigation. The strength of this work is compelling in employing CRISPR/Cas9-mediated gene editing to generate two dual recombination systems, and mapped gNFATc1+ and PDGFR-α+cells residing in dental and periodontal mesenchyme, their capacity for progeny cell generation, and their inclusive, exclusive and hierarchical relations in homeostasis, generating a spatiotemporal atlas of these skeletal stem cell population.

eLife assessment

The authors made a useful finding that Zizyphi spinosi semen, a traditional Chinese medicine, has demonstrated excellent biological activity and potential therapeutic effects against Alzheimer's disease (AD). The researchers presented the effects, but the research evidence for the mechanism was incomplete. The main claims were only partially supported.

eLife Assessment

This study presents a fundamental finding on how levels of m6A levels are controlled, invoking a consolidated model where degradation of modified RNAs in the cytoplasm plays a primary role in shaping m6A patterns and dynamics, rather than needing active regulation by m6A erasers and other related processes. The evidence is compelling through its use of transcriptome-wide data and mechanistic modeling. Relevant for any reader with an interest in RNA metabolism, this new framework consolidates previous observations and highlights the importance of careful experimentation for evaluation m6A levels.