Reviewer #2 (Public review):

In the presented manuscript, Teplenin and colleagues use both electrical pacing and optogenetic stimulation to create a reproducible, controllable source of ectopy in cardiomyocyte monolayers. To accomplish this, they use a careful calibration of electrical pacing characteristics (i.e., frequency, number of pulses) and illumination characteristics (i.e., light intensity, surface area) to show that there exists a "sweet spot" where oscillatory excitations can emerge proximal to the optogenetically depolarized region following electrical pacing cessation, akin to pacemaker cells. Furthermore, the authors demonstrate that a high-frequency electrical wave-train can be used to terminate these oscillatory excitations. The authors observed this oscillatory phenomenon both in vitro (using neonatal rat ventricular cardiomyocyte monolayers) and in silico (using a computational action potential model of the same cell type). These are surprising findings and provide a novel approach for studying triggered activity in cardiac tissue.

The study is extremely thorough and one of the more memorable and grounded applications of cardiac optogenetics in the past decade. One of the benefits of the authors' "two-prong" approach of experimental preps and computational models is that they could probe the number of potential variable combinations much deeper than through in vitro experiments alone. The strong similarities between the real-life and computational findings suggest that these oscillatory excitations are consistent, reproducible, and controllable.

Triggered activity, which can lead to ventricular arrhythmias and cardiac sudden death, has been largely attributed to sub-cellular phenomena, such as early or delayed afterdepolarizations, and thus to date has largely been studied in isolated single cardiomyocytes. However, these findings have been difficult to translate to tissue and organ-scale experiments, as well-coupled cardiac tissue has notably different electrical properties. This underscores the significance of the study's methodological advances: the use of a constant depolarizing current in a subset of (illuminated) cells to reliably result in triggered activity could facilitate the more consistent evaluation of triggered activity at various scales. An experimental prep that is both repeatable and controllable (i.e., both initiated and terminated through the same means).

The authors also substantially explored phase space and single-cell analyses to document how this "hidden" bi-stable phenomenon can be uncovered during emergent collective tissue behavior. Calibration and testing of different aspects (e.g., light intensity, illuminated surface area, electrical pulse frequency, electrical pulse count) and other deeper analyses, as illustrated in Appendix 2, Figures 3-8, are significant and commendable.

Given that the study is computational, it is surprising that the authors did not replicate their findings using well-validated adult ventricular cardiomyocyte action potential models, such as ten Tusscher 2006 or O'Hara 2011. This may have felt out of scope, given the nice alignment of rat cardiomyocyte data between in vitro and in silico experiments. However, it would have been helpful peace-of-mind validation, given the significant ionic current differences between neonatal rat and adult ventricular tissue. It is not fully clear whether the pulse trains could have resulted in the same bi-stable oscillatory behavior, given the longer APD of humans relative to rats. The observed phenomenon certainly would be frequency-dependent and would have required tedious calibration for a new cell type, albeit partially mitigated by the relative ease of in silico experiments.

For all its strengths, there are likely significant mechanistic differences between this optogenetically tied oscillatory behavior and triggered activity observed in other studies. This is because the constant light-elicited depolarizing current is disrupting the typical resting cardiomyocyte state, thereby altering the balance between depolarizing ionic currents (such as Na+ and Ca2+) and repolarizing ionic currents (such as K+ and Ca2+). The oscillatory excitations appear to later emerge at the border of the illuminated region and non-stimulated surrounding tissue, which is likely an area of high source-sink mismatch. The authors appear to acknowledge differences in this oscillatory behavior and previous sub-cellular triggered activity research in their discussion of ectopic pacemaker activity, which is canonically expected more so from genetic or pathological conditions. Regardless, it is exciting to see new ground being broken in this difficult-to-characterize experimental space, even if the method illustrated here may not necessarily be broadly applicable.

Reviewer #2 (Public review):

Summary:

In this study, Tulloch et al. developed two modified massively parallel reporter assays (MPRAs) and applied them to identify cis-regulatory modules (CRMs) - genomic regions that activate gene expression, controlling retinal gene expression. These CRMs usually function at specific developmental stages and in distinct cell types to orchestrate retinal development. Studying them provides insights into how retinal progenitor cells give rise to various retinal cell types.

The first assay, named locus-specific MPRA (LS-MPRA), tests all genomic regions within 150-300 kb of the gene of interest, rather than relying on previously predicted candidate regulatory elements. This approach reduces potential bias introduced during candidate selection, lowers the cost of synthesizing a library of candidate sequences, and simplifies library preparation. The LS-MPRA libraries were electroporated into mouse retinas in vivo or ex vivo. To benchmark the method, the authors first applied LS-MPRA near stably expressed retinal genes (e.g., Rho, Cabp5, Grm6, and Vsx2), and successfully identified both known and novel CRMs. They then used LS-MPRA to identify CRMs in embryonic mouse retinas, near Olig2 and Ngn2, genes expressed in subsets of retinal progenitor cells. Similar experiments were conducted in chick retinas and postnatal mouse retinas, revealing some CRMs with conserved activity across species and developmental stages.

Although the study identified CRMs with robust reporter activity in Olig2+ or Ngn2+ cells, the data do not provide sufficient evidence to support the claims that these CRMs regulate Olig2 or Ngn2, rather than other nearby genes, in a cell-type-specific manner. For example, the authors propose that three regions (NR1/2/3) regulate Olig2 specifically in retinal progenitor cells based on: (1) the three regions are close to Olig2, (2) increased Olig2 expression and NR1/2/3 activity upon Notch inhibition, and (3) reporter activity observed in Olig2+ cells (though also present in many Olig2- cells). While these are promising findings, they do not directly support the claims.

The second assay, called degenerate MPRA (d-MPRA), introduces random point mutations into CRMs via error-prone PCR to assess the impact of sequence variations on regulatory activity. This approach was used on NR1/2/3 to identify mutations that alter CRM activity, potentially by influencing transcription factor binding. The authors inferred candidate transcription factors, such as Mybl1 and Otx2, through motif analysis, co-expression with Olig2 (based on single-cell RNA-seq), and CUR&RUN profiling. While some transcription factors identified in this way overlapped with the d-MPRA results, others did not. This raises questions about how well d-MPRA complements other methods for identifying transcriptional regulators.

Strengths:

(1) The study introduces two technically robust MPRA protocols that offer advantages over standard methods, such as avoiding reliance on predefined candidate regions, reducing cost and labor, and minimizing selection bias.

(2) The identified regulatory elements and transcription factors contribute to our understanding of gene regulation in retinal development and may have translational potential for cell-type-specific gene delivery into developing retinas.

Weaknesses:

(1) The claims for gene-specific and cell type-specific CRMs would benefit from further validation using complementary approaches, such as CRISPR interference or Prime editing.

Reviewer #2 (Public review):

The study by Chen, Deng et al. aims to develop an efficient viral transneuronal tracing method that allows efficient retrograde tracing in the larval zebrafish. The authors utilize pseudotyped-rabies virus that can be targeted to specific cell types using the EnvA-TvA systems. Pseudotyped rabies virus has been used extensively in rodent models and, in recent years, has begun to be developed for use in adult zebrafish. However, compared to rodents, the efficiency of spread in adult zebrafish is very low (~one upstream neuron labeled per starter cell). Additionally, there is limited evidence of retrograde tracing with pseudotyped rabies in the larval stage, which is the stage when most functional neural imaging studies are done in the field. In this study, the authors systematically optimized several parameters of rabies tracing, including different rabies virus strains, glycoprotein types, temperatures, expression construct designs, and elimination of glial labeling. The optimal configurations developed by the authors are up to 5-10 fold higher than more typically used configurations.

The results are convincing and support the conclusions. There are some additional changes that are recommended:

(1) The new data included in the response to reviewer's letter are important to support the main conclusions and should be included in the manuscript.

(2) Line 357-362: This section should include all of the Author response image and associated details. Additionally, the Author response image 3 is at odds with Fig 2-supplement 1G. In Author response image 3, ~75% of glial cells labeled at 4 dpi loses their fluorescence by 10 dpi. However, Figure 2-supplement 1G shows that glial overall labeling increases ~2 fold from 4 dpi to 10 dpi. This would suggest that the de novo labeling rate for glia is much higher than the net labeling rate calculated from the convergence index. The authors should clarify these findings.

Reviewer #2 (Public review):

Summary:

In the present study, the authors, using a mouse model of Fragile X syndrome, explore the intriguing hypothesis that restricting food access over the daily schedule will improve sleep patterns and subsequently enhanced behavioral capacities. By restricting food access from 12h to 6h over the nocturnal period (the active period for mice), they show, in these KO mice, an improvement in the sleep pattern accompanied by reduced systemic levels of inflammatory markers and improved behavior. These data, using a classical mouse model of neurodevelopmental disorder (NDD), suggest that modifying eating patterns might improve sleep quality, leading to reduced inflammation and enhanced cognitive/behavioral capacities in children with NDD.

Overall, the paper is well-written and easy to follow. The rationale of the study is generally well introduced. Data are globally sound. The interpretation is overall supported by the provided data.

Reviewer #2 (Public review):

5-methylcytosine (5mC) is a key epigenetic mark in DNA and plays a crucial role in regulating gene expression in many eukaryotes including humans. The DNA methyltransferases (DNMTs) that establish and maintain 5mC, are conserved in many species across eukaryotes, including animals, plants, and fungi, mainly in a CpG context. Interestingly, 5mC levels and distributions are quite variable across phylogenies with some species even appearing to have no such DNA methylation.

This interesting and well-written paper discusses continuation of some of the authors' work published several years ago. In that previous paper, the laboratory demonstrated that DNA methylation pathways coevolved with DNA repair mechanisms, specifically with the alkylation repair system. Specifically, they discovered that DNMTs can introduce alkylation damage into DNA, specifically in the form of 3-methylcytosine (3mC). (This appears to be an error in the DNMT enzymatic mechanism where the generation 3mC as opposed to its preferred product 5-methylcytosine (5mC), is caused by the flipped target cytosine binding to the active site pocket of the DNMT in an inverted orientation.) The presence of 3mC is potentially toxic and can cause replication stress, which this paper suggests may explain the loss of DNA methylation in different species. They further showed that the ALKB2 enzyme plays a crucial role in repairing this alkylation damage, further emphasizing the link between DNA methylation and DNA repair.

The co-evolution of DNMTs with DNA repair mechanisms suggest there can be distinct advantages and disadvantages of DNA methylation to different species which might depend on their environmental niche. In environments that expose species to high levels of DNA damage, high levels of 5mC in their genome may be disadvantageous. This present paper sets out to examine the sensitivity of an organism to genotoxic stresses such as alkylation and oxidation agents as the consequence of DNMT activity. Since such a study in eukaryotes would be complicated by DNA methylation controlling gene regulation, these authors cleverly utilize Escherichia coli (E.coli) and incorporate into it the DNMTs from other bacteria that methylate the cytosines of DNA in a CpG context like that observed in eukaryotes; the active sites of these enzymes are very similar to eukaryotic DNMTs and basically utilize the same catalytic mechanism (also this strain of E.coli does not specifically degrade this methylated DNA) .

The experiments in this paper more than adequately show that E. coli expression of these DNMTs (comparing to the same strain without the DNMTS) do indeed show increased sensitivity to alkylating agents and this sensitivity was even greater than expected when a DNA repair mechanism was inactivated. Moreover, they show that this E. coli expressing this DNMT is more sensitive to oxidizing agents such as H2O2 and has exacerbated sensitivity when a DNA repair glycosylase is inactivated. Both propensities suggest that DNMT activity itself may generate additional genotoxic stress. Intrigued that DNMT expression itself might induce sensitivity to oxidative stress, the experimenters used a fluorescent sensor to show that H2O2 induced reactive oxygen species (ROS) are markedly enhanced with DNMT expression. Importantly, they show that DNMT expression alone gave rise to increased ROS amounts and both H2O2 addition and DNMT expression has greater effect that the linear combination of the two separately. They also carefully checked that the increased sensitivity to H2O2 was not potentially caused by some effect on gene expression of detoxification genes by DNMT expression and activity. Finally, by using mass spectroscopy, they show that DNMT expression led to production of the 5mC oxidation derivatives 5-hydroxymethylcytosine (5hmC) and 5-formylcytosine (5fC) in DNA. 5fC is a substrate for base excision repair while 5hmC is not; more 5fC was observed. Introduction of non-bacterial enzymes that produce 5hmC and 5fC into the DNMT expressing bacteria again showed a greater sensitivity than expected. Remarkedly, in their assay with addition of H2O2, bacteria showed no growth with this dual expression of DNMT and these enzymes.

Overall, the authors conduct well thought-out and simple experiments to show that a disadvantageous consequence of DNMT expression leading to 5mC in DNA is increased sensitivity to oxidative stress as well as alkylating agents.

Again, the paper is well-written and organized. The hypotheses are well-examined by simple experiments. The results are interesting and can impact many scientific areas such as our understanding of evolutionary pressures on an organism by environment to impacting our understanding about how environment of a malignant cell in the human body may lead to cancer.

In a new revised version of the paper, the authors have adequately addressed issues put forth by other reviewers. The result is even a better manuscript. Additions to the Results and Discussion sections and a new Supplemental Figure 2 give further credence to their conclusions.

Reviewer #2 (Public review):

Summary:

This manuscript by Soegyono et al. describes a series of experiments designed to probe the involvement of dopamine D1 and D2 neurons within the nucleus accumbens shell in outcome-specific Pavlovian-instrumental transfer (osPIT), a well-controlled assay of cue-guided action selection based on congruent outcome associations. They used an optogenetic approach to phasically silence NAc shell D1 (D1-Cre mice) or D2 (A2a-Cre mice) neurons during a subset of osPIT trials. Both manipulations disrupted cue-guided action selection but had no effects on negative control measures/tasks (concomitant approach behavior, separate valued guided choice task), nor were any osPIT impairments found in reporter-only control groups. Separate experiments revealed that selective inhibition of NAc shell D1 but not D2 inputs to ventral pallidum was required for osPIT expression, thereby advancing understanding of the basal ganglia circuitry underpinning this important aspect of decision making.

Strengths:

The combinatorial viral and optogenetic approaches used here were convincingly validated through anatomical tract-tracing and ex vivo electrophysiology. The behavioral assays are sophisticated and well-controlled to parse cue and value-guided action selection. The inclusion of reporter-only control groups is rigorous and rules out nonspecific effects of the light manipulation. The findings are novel and address a critical question in the literature. Prior work using less decisive methods had implicated NAc shell D1 neurons in osPIT but suggested that D2 neurons may not be involved. The optogenetic manipulations used in the current study provide a more direct test of their involvement and convincingly demonstrate that both populations play an important role. Prior work had also implicated NAc shell connections to ventral pallidum in osPIT, but the current study reveals the selective involvement of D1 but not D2 neurons in this circuit. The authors do a good job of discussing their findings, including their nuanced interpretation that NAc shell D2 neurons may contribute to osPIT through their local regulation of NAc shell microcircuitry.

Weaknesses:

The current study exclusively used an optogenetic approach to probe the function of D1 and D2 NAc shell neurons. Providing a complementary assessment with chemogenetics or other appropriate methods would strengthen conclusions, particularly the novel demonstration of D2 NAc shell involvement. Likewise, the null result of optically inhibiting D2 inputs to the ventral pallidum leaves open the possibility that a more complete or sustained disruption of this pathway may have impaired osPIT.

Reviewer #2 (Public review):

This manuscript describes an experiment in which subjects learned to apply an XOR rule in a task in which an initial color cue conditioned the instruction ("press left" or "press right") conveyed by a subsequent shape.

This manuscript gives the impression of being written to address a sophisticated computational framework, but the experiment was not designed to test this framework. Stated differently, the memory-as-resource-for-computations framework may not be needed to account for the results presented here. Variants of this task have been used for decades, often in the context of prospective processing, and although the authors emphasize a dimensionality reduction operation, the task may actually only require the recoding of retrospectively relevant sensory information into the prospectively relevant rule that is needed to guide the response on that trial. Consequently, many of the claims are only partially supported.

The framework invoked by the authors is summarized in the second paragraph of the manuscript:

"Insights from machine learning and computational neuroscience further highlight the idea that memory processes can be viewed as a resource for computations rather than a passive mechanism for storage (Dasgupta & Gershman, 2021; Ehrlich & Murray, 2022). In this light, working memory adapts computations to the current task demands (Dasgupta & Gershman, 2021); pre-computed information can be stored in working memory, and thus reduce the computation time at the moment of the decision (Braver, 2012; Hunt et al., 2021). This perspective is further supported by computational modelling of neural circuits that contends that working memory will change neural geometry in a way that supports the temporal decomposition of computations (Ehrlich & Murray, 2022). This work suggests that the computational load at the moment of action can be thus alleviated by decomposing complex operations into several simple problems solved sequentially in time."

However, the relevance, certainly the necessity, of this framework leads to mischaracterizations of some elements of the task (including about a hypothesis), the emphasis of constructs that don't actually exist in the task, some logical inconsistencies, and the repeated invocation of operations like "dimensionality reduction" despite the fact that the authors find no evidence for them.

Beginning with the final point, the task presented here is a variant of a Badre-style hierarchical control task, one requiring solution at the second order of abstraction (i.e., the color conditions the interpretation of the shape [2nd order], which then determines the correct response [1st order]. These operations can be accomplished without dimensionality reduction by simply carrying out the remapping instructed by each element. For example, on a trial beginning with a blue color cue, the subject can use a lookup table to translate this into the rule "square = left; diamond = right". When the shape is subsequently presented, the subject responds according to this rule. This is really no different from any of the several studies that have shown prospective recoding of information in working memory, including the work from the 1990s in nonhuman primates, and several subsequent studies using fMRI in humans beginning in the 2000s. Importantly, this account does not involve dimensionality reduction in any overt way. If it were the case that the more recent computational work indicates that this operation of "prospective recoding" does, in fact, entail dimensionality reduction on this type of task, that would be interesting. However, I don't see evidence that this is the case. Although the authors carry out several analyses of shattering dimensionality, I do not find any that track this measure across epochs within the trial, an approach that would presumably capture epoch-to-epoch dimensionality reduction, if it occurred.

With regard to mischaracterization of a hypothesis, the authors state: "We hypothesised that working memory processes control the dimensionality of neural representations by selecting features for maintenance. We tested this prediction by exploring the learning dynamics of the colour representation." However, what is described here is not a test of a prediction about dimensionality reduction. Rather, it's a test of a prediction that color decoding would not persist after color offset. To describe this as "dimensionality reduction" misrepresents/mischaracterizes what's happening, which is the translation of color (on any trial, a low-dimensional variable) into the rule that was cued by that color. It is a translation of what kind of information is being represented, as opposed to a dimensionality reduction applied to a representation.

With regard to constructs that don't actually exist, it is unclear what the reality is in the study of a "color pair"? I.e., because colors are never presented together, nor associated in some way, this would seem to be a device that's helpful to the authors for thinking about how their task might be solved, rather than a fundamental aspect of the task that the reader needs to understand. Furthermore, the example given here wasn't helpful for this reader. (What WAS helpful was the description of the two possible strategies and accompanying references to Mayr & Kleigel and to Vandierendonck.)

With regard to logical inconsistencies, one is the notion that color is irrelevant. This is not true, in a literal sense, because if every color cue were rendered as the same monochromatic patch, one wouldn't be able to solve the task. What the authors could do to make their point is perhaps refer to Strategy 1, which corresponds to a less efficient way to solve the task.

Also inconsistent is the relation of the present work to a previous study carried out by this group in nonhuman primates. That task did not include a working memory delay, and so this is difficult to reconcile the comparison that the authors draw with this task with the many suggestions that they make that it's something about WM, per se, that allows for the efficient performance of this task.

"Crucially, the irrelevant feature was only discarded during the delay after it entered working memory." This statement is in direct contradiction with the authors' own reporting of the results: "Decoding analyses demonstrated that colour information peaked in the early colour locked period of the trial and then rapidly declined over time to reach chance levels before the delay-locked period, 𝑐𝑙𝑢𝑠𝑡𝑒𝑟 1: 0.082 − 0.484 𝑚𝑠, 𝑝 = 0.006 (Fig. 2c)."

Other areas where I had difficulties include:

(1) "These results suggest that participants rapidly discarded irrelevant colour information. Only information relevant for performance (context) entered working memory and was maintained."<br /> Although this may be the case, each of the four colors also instructed a rule, and so what's being documented in this study is the translation of a cue into a rule, not the transformation of a "meaningless color" into a "meaningful context." It is very possible that if the authors only used two colors, one for each rule (i.e., one for each "context"), they'd get the same decoding results.

(2) "A defining characteristic of low-dimensional task representations is that they can be easily cross-generalised to different sensory instances of the same task."<br /> This result is difficult to reconcile with the loss of color decoding with color offset. Must it not mean that the rule is being represented differently when cued, e.g., by blue vs. by pink, or by green vs. by khaki? If this is true, then this would also argue against the idea of dimensionality reduction during the delay period, because subjects will, in effect, have swapped needing to represent one of four colors with needing to represent one of four rules.

(3) The authors assert that "cross-colour generalisation of context in the delay period is already implied by the significant context decoding combined with the absence of irrelevant colour coding."<br /> This is contradicted, however, by the failure of the direct test of cross-color decoding!

(4) "Taken together, these findings imply that participants constructed abstract representations of task features but that the mechanism responsible for this transformation relied heavily on discarding colour information early in trial time."

This statement does not follow from the data because no mechanism is being directly measured. Rather, it's simply the case that after translating the color to a rule, the color is no longer needed and so is no longer kept in an active state. There is certainly no evidence for "heavy reliance".

Reviewer #2 (Public review):

Summary:

Several animals and plants adjust their physiology and behavior to seasons. These changes are timed to precede the seasonal transitions, maximizing chances of survival and reproduction. The molecular mechanisms used for this process are still unclear. Studies in mammals and birds have shown that the expression of deiodinase type-1, 2, and 3 (Dio1, 2, 3) in the hypothalamus spikes right before the transition to winter phenotypes. Yet, whether this change is required or an unrelated product of the seasonal changes has not been shown, particularly because of the genetic intractability of the animal models used to study seasonality. Here, the authors show for the first time a direct link between Dio3 expression and the modulation of circannual rhythms.

Strengths:

The work is concise and presents the data in a clear manner. The data is, for the most part, solid and supports the author's main claims. The use of CRISPR is a clear advancement in the field. This is, to my knowledge, the first study showing a clear (i.e., causal) role of Dio3 in the circannual rhythms in mammals. Having established a clear component of the circannual timing and a clean approach to address causality, this study could serve as a blueprint to decipher other components of the timing mechanism. It could also help to enlighten the elusive nature of the upstream regulators, in particular, on how the integration of day length takes place, maybe within the components in the Pars tuberalis, and the regulation of tanycytes.

Weaknesses:

Due to the nature of the CRISPR manipulation, the low N number is a clear weakness. This is compensated by the fact that the phenotypes shown here are strong enough. Also, this is the only causal evidence of Dio3's role; thus, additional evidence would have significantly strengthened the author's claims. The use of the non-responsive population of hamsters also helps, but it falls within the realm of correlations. Additionally, the consequences of the mutations generated by CRISPR are not detailed; it is not clear if the mutations affect the expression of Dio3 or generate a truncation or deletion, resulting in a shorter protein.

Reviewer #2 (Public review):

Summary:

Koh and colleagues investigate the broader sensory role of LITE-1, a gustatory receptor previously linked to UV light detection in C. elegans. Their study explores whether LITE-1 also mediates avoidance of specific chemical stimuli-namely, high concentrations of diacetyl and 2,3-pentanedione. They show that LITE-1 is required in the ADL and ASK neurons for calcium responses to diacetyl, and that its expression in body-wall muscles is sufficient to trigger hypercontraction upon odorant exposure. Molecular docking suggests both odorants may directly bind to LITE-1 with micromolar affinity. These findings suggest LITE-1 may act as a multimodal receptor for both light and chemical stimuli.

Strengths:

(1) Methodological Precision: The study is technically strong, with well-executed calcium imaging and quantitative behavioral assays that clearly show neural and muscular responses to chemical stimuli.

(2) Novelty and Scope: The work presents a compelling case for LITE-1 functioning as a multimodal sensor, which is an intriguing expansion of its known role.

(3) Potential Impact: If validated, the findings could significantly advance the understanding of sensory integration in C. elegans, and the tools developed may be broadly useful to the research community.

(4) Relevance to the Field: The study adds to evidence that C. elegans uses non-canonical sensory pathways and may inspire further exploration of multimodal receptor functions in other systems.

Weaknesses:

(1) Lack of Rescue Experiments: The absence of rescue experiments makes it difficult to definitively link the observed phenotypes to loss of lite-1.

(2) Single Loss-of-Function Approach: The reliance on a single genetic mutant limits interpretability. Additional strategies such as RNAi (e.g., neuron-specific knockdown) would provide stronger evidence.

(3) Unclear Neuronal Contribution: While calcium responses in ADL and ASK are reduced, it's unclear which neuron(s) are necessary for behavioral avoidance. Cell-specific rescue or knockdown experiments are needed.

(4) Unvalidated Docking Data: The molecular docking predictions lack experimental validation. Site-directed mutagenesis would be needed to support claims of direct interaction.

(5) Limited Odorant Specificity Testing: Docking analysis does not include non-binding odorants, making it difficult to assess binding specificity.

(6) Incomplete Quantification: Some calcium imaging results (e.g., in AWA neurons of unc-13 mutants) lack statistical comparisons, which limits their interpretive value.

Reviewer #2 (Public review):

Summary:

In their manuscript, Bodas et al present a chronological analysis of the development of the axonal MPS in embryonic DRG neurons, using a series of biochemical assays coupled with STED nanoscopy. Several interesting conclusions, well supported by the data presented, are drawn that further our understanding of bII-spectrin axonal recruitment and on the role of microtubules and actin dynamics during the early MPS formation and at the latter stages of neuronal maturation.

Strengths:

The assays presented are well-designed, and the results obtained clearly support the main conclusions drawn by the authors. Their findings highlight important aspects of cytoskeleton regulation and dynamics required for MPS formation/maintenance, i.e, during different stages of neuronal development, that remained undocumented.

Weaknesses:

The study is mostly limited to biochemical assays followed by STED microscopy to analyse MPS periodicity and (in certain cases) axonal diameter. Functional implications of the manipulations done are lacking, as well as analyses of axonal integrity/degeneration. This is a relevant aspect, as some of the effects observed may be a secondary effect of decreased neuronal/axonal viability.

Reviewer #2 (Public review):

Summary:

Nishimura and colleagues present findings of a behavioral and neurobiological dissociation of associative and nonassociative components of Stress Enhanced Fear Responding (SEFR).

Strengths:

This is a strong paper that identifies the PVT as a critical brain region for SEFR responses using a variety of approaches, including immunohistochemistry, fiber photometry, and bidirectional chemogenetics. In addition, there is a great deal of conceptual innovation. The authors identify a dissociable behavior to distinguish the effects of PVT function (among other brain regions).

Weaknesses:

(1) The authors find a lack of difference between the Stress and No Stress groups in pPVT activity during SEFL conditioning with fiber photometry but an increase in freezing with Gq DREADD stimulation. How do authors reconcile this difference in activity vs function?

(2) Because the PVT plays a role in defensive behaviors, it would be beneficial to show fiber photometry data during freezing bouts vs exclusively presented during tone a shock cue presentations.

(3) Similar to the above point, were other defensive behaviors expressed as a result of footshock stress or PVT manipulations?

(4) Tone attenuation in Figure 8 seems to be largely a result of minimal freezing to a 115-dB tone. While not a major point of the paper, a more robust fear response would be convincing.

(5) In the open field test, the authors measure total distance. It would be beneficial to also show defensive behavioral (escape, freezing, etc) bouts expressed.

(6) The authors, along with others, show a behavioral and neural dissociation of footshock stress on nonassociative vs associative components of stress; however, the nonassociative components as a direct consequence of the stress seem to be necessary for enhancement of associative aspects of fear. Can authors elaborate on how these systems converge to enhance or potentiate fear?

(7) In the discussion, authors should elaborate on/clarify the cell population heterogeneity of the PVT since authors later describe PVT neurons as exclusively glutamatergic.

Reviewer #2 (Public review):

Zhe Li and colleagues investigate how mice exposed to visual threats and rewards balance their decisions in favour of consuming rewards or engaging in defensive actions. By varying threat intensity and reward value, they first confirm previous findings showing that defensive responses increase with threat intensity and that there is habituation to the threat stimulus. They then find that water-deprived mice have a reduced probability of escaping from low contrast visual looming stimuli when water or sucrose are offered in the environment, but that when the stimulus contrast is high, the presence of sucrose or water increases the probability of escape. By analysing behaviour metrics such as the latency to flee from the threat stimulus, they suggest that this increase in threat sensitivity is due to increased vigilance. Analysis of this behaviour as a function of social hierarchy shows that dominant mice have higher threat sensitivity, which is also interpreted as being due to increased vigilance. These results are captured by a drift diffusion model variant that incorporates threat intensity and reward value.

The main contribution of this work is to quantify how the presence of water or sucrose in water-deprived mice affects escape behaviour. The differential effects of reward between the low and high contrast conditions are intriguing, but I find the interpretation that vigilance plays a major role in this process is not supported by the data. The idea that reward value exerts some form of graded modulation of the escape response is also not supported by the data. In addition, there is very limited methodological information, which makes assessing the quality of some of the analyses difficult, and there is no quantification of the quality of the model fits.

(1) The main measure of vigilance in this work is reaction time. While reaction time can indeed be affected by vigilance, reaction times can vary as a function of many variables, and be different for the same level of vigilance. For example, a primate performing the random dot motion task exhibits differences in reaction times that can be explained entirely by the stimulus strength. Reaction time is therefore not a sound measure of vigilance, and if a goal of this work is to investigate this parameter, then it should be measured. There is some attempt at doing this for a subset of the data in Figure 3H, by looking at differences in the action of monitoring the visual field (presumably a rearing motion, though this is not described) between the first and second trials in the presence of sucrose. I find this an extremely contrived measure. What is the rationale for analysing only the difference between the first and second trials? Also, the results are only statistically significant because the first trial in the sucrose condition happens to have zero up action bouts, in contrast to all other conditions. I am afraid that the statistics are not solid here. When analysing the effects of dominance, a vigilance metric is the time spent in the reward zone. Why is this a measure of vigilance? More generally, measuring vigilance of threats in mice requires monitoring the position of the eyes, which previous work has shown is biased to the upper visual field, consistent with the threat ecology of rodents.

(2) In both low and high contrast conditions, there are differences in escape behaviour between no reward and water or sucrose presence, but no statistically significant differences between water and sucrose (eg, Figure 3B). I therefore find that statements about reward value are not supported by the data, which only show differences between the presence or absence of reward. Furthermore, there is a confound in these experiments, because according to the methods, mice in the no-reward condition were not water deprived. It is thus possible that the differences in behaviour arise from differences in the underlying state.

(3) There is very little methodological information on behavioural quantification. For example, what is hiding latency? Is this the same are reaction time? Time to reach the safe zone? What exactly is distance fled? I don't understand how this can vary between 20 and 100cm. Presumably, the 20cm flights don't reach the safe place, since the threat is roughly at the same location for each trial? How is the end of a flight determined? How is duration measured in reward zone measures, e.g., from when to when? How is fleeing onset determined?

(4) There is little methodological information on how the model was fit (for example, it is surprising that in the no reward condition, the r parameter is exactly 0. What this constrained in any way), and none of the fit parameters have uncertainty measures so it is not possible to assess whether there are actually any differences in parameters that are statistically significant.

Reviewer #2 (Public review):

Summary:

This is a compelling and methodologically rich manuscript. The authors used a variety of methods, including psychophysics, computational modeling, and artificial neural networks, to reveal a non-monotonic, center-surround "Mexican-hat" profile of expectation in orientation space. Their data convincingly extend analogous findings in attention and working memory, and the modeling nicely teases apart sharpening vs. shift mechanisms.

Strengths:

The findings are novel and important in elucidating the potential neural mechanisms by which expectation shapes perception. The authors conducted a series of well-designed psychophysical experiments to careful examination of the profile of expectation's modulation. Computational modeling also provides further insights, linking the neural mechanisms of expectation to behavioral results.

Weaknesses:

There are several aspects that could be strengthened or clarified.

(1) The sharpening model of expectation can predict surround suppression. The authors could further clarify how the cancellation model predicts a monotonic profile of expectation (Figure 1C) with the highest response at the expected orientation, while the cancellation model suggests a suppression of neurons tuned toward the expected stimulus.

(2) I'm a bit concerned about whether the profile solely arises from modulation of expectation. The two auditory cues are each associated with a fixed orientation, which may be confounded by other cognitive processes like visual working memory or attention (which I think the authors also discussed). Although the authors tried to use SFD task to render orientation task-irrelevant, luminance edges (i.e., orientation) and spatial frequency in gratings are highly intertwined and orientation of the gratings may help recall the first grating's SF (fixed at 0.9 c/{degree sign}), especially given the first and second grating's orientations are not very different (4.8{degree sign}).

(3) For each of the expected orientations (20{degree sign} or 70{degree sign}), the unexpected ones are linearly separable (i.e., all unexpected ones lie on one side of the expected angle). This might further encourage people to shift their attended or expected orientation, according to the optimal tuning hypothesis. Would this provide an alternative explanation to the tuning shift that the authors found?

(4) It is great that the authors conducted computational modeling to elucidate the potential neuronal mechanisms of expectation. But I think the sharpening hypothesis (e.g., reviewed in de Lange, Heilbron & Kok, 2018) focuses on the neural population level, i.e., narrowing of population tuning profile, while the authors conducted the sharpening at the neuronal tuning level. However, the sharpening of population does not necessarily rely on the sharpening of individual neuronal tuning. For example, neuronal gain modulation can also account for such population sharpening. I think similar logic applies to the orientation adjustment experiment. The behavioral level shift does not necessarily suggest a similar shift at the neuronal level. I would recommend that the authors comment on this.

(5) If the orientation adjustment experiment suggests that both sharpening and shifting are present at the same time, have the authors tried combining both in their computational model?

Reviewer #2 (Public review):

Summary:

The work by Claudi et al. presents a framework for constructing continuous attractor neural networks (CANs) with user-defined topologies and integration capabilities. The framework unifies and generalizes classical attractor models and includes simulations across a range of topologies, including ring, torus, sphere, Möbius band, and Klein bottle. A key contribution of the paper is the introduction of Killing vectors to enable integration on non-parallelizable manifolds. However, the need for Killing vectors currently appears hypothetical, as biologically discovered manifolds-such as rings and tori-do not require them.

Moreover, throughout the manuscript, the authors claim to be addressing "biologically plausible" attractor networks, yet the constraints required by their construction - such as exact symmetry, fine-tuning of weights, and idealized geometry-seem incompatible with biological variability. It appears that "biologically plausible" is effectively used to mean "capable of integration." While these issues do not diminish the contributions of the work, they should be acknowledged and addressed more explicitly in the text. I applaud the authors for their interesting work. Below are my major and minor concerns.

Strengths:

(1) Theoretical framework for integrating CANs<br /> The paper introduces a systematic method for constructing continuous attractor networks (CANs) with arbitrary topologies. This goes beyond classical models and includes novel topologies such as the Möbius band, sphere, and Klein bottle. The approach generalizes well-known ring and torus attractor models and provides a unified view of their construction, dynamics, and integration capabilities.

(2) Novel use of killing vector fields<br /> A key theoretical innovation is the introduction of Killing vectors to support velocity integration on non-parallelizable manifolds. This is mathematically elegant and extends the domain of tractable attractor models.

(3) Insightful simulations across manifolds<br /> The paper includes detailed simulations demonstrating bump attractor dynamics across a range of topologies.

Weaknesses:

(1) Biological plausibility is overstated<br /> Despite frequent use of the term "biologically plausible," the models rely on assumptions (e.g., symmetric connectivity, perfect geometries, fine-tuning) that are not consistent with known biological networks, and the authors do not incorporate heterogeneity, noise, or constraints like Dale's law.

(2) Continuum of states not directly demonstrated<br /> The authors claim to generate a continuum of stable states but do not provide direct evidence (e.g., Jacobian analysis with zero eigenvalues along the manifold). This weakens the central claim about the nature of the attractor.

(3) Lack of clarity around assumptions<br /> Several assumptions and analyses (e.g., symmetry breaking, linearity, stability conditions) are introduced without justification or overstated. The analytical rigor in discussing alternative solutions and bifurcation behavior is limited.

(4) Scalability to high dimensions<br /> The authors claim their method scales better than learning-based approaches. This should be better discussed.

Major Concerns

(1) Biological plausibility

The claim that the proposed framework is "biologically plausible" is misleading, as it is unclear what the authors mean by this term. Biological plausibility could include features such as heterogeneity in synaptic weights, randomness in tuning curves, irregular geometries, or connectivity constraints consistent with known biological architectures (e.g., Dale's law, multiple cell types). None of these elements is implemented in the current framework. Furthermore, it is not clear whether the framework can be extended to include such features-for example, CANs with heterogeneous connections or tuning curves. The connectivity matrix is symmetric to allow an energy-based description and analytical tractability, which is fine, but not a biologically realistic constraint. I recommend removing or significantly qualifying the use of the term "biologically plausible."

(2) Continuum of stable states<br /> While the authors claim their model generates a continuum of stable states, this is not demonstrated directly in their simulations or in a stability analysis (though there are some indirect hints). One way to provide evidence would be to compute the Jacobian at various points along the manifold and show that it possesses (approximately) zero eigenvalues in the tangent/on-manifold directions at each point (e.g., see Ságodi et al. 2024 and others). It would be especially valuable to provide such analysis for the more complex topologies illustrated in the paper.

(3) Assumptions, limitations, and analytical rigor<br /> Some assumptions and derivations lack justification or are presented without sufficient detail. Examples include:

• Line 126: "If the homogeneous state (all neurons equally active) were unstable, there must exist some other stable state, with broken symmetry." Is this guaranteed? In the ring model with ReLU activation, there could also be unbounded solutions-not just bump solutions-and, in principle, there could also be oscillatory or other solutions. In general, multiple states can co-exist, with differing stability. It appears the authors only analyze the homogeneous case and do not study the stability or bifurcations of other solutions, limiting their theoretical work.

• Line 122: "The conditions for the formation..." What are these conditions, precisely? A citation or elaboration would be helpful. Why is the assumption σ≪L necessary, and how does it impact the construction or conclusions?

• The theory relies heavily on exact symmetries and fine-tuned parameters. Indeed, in line 106, the authors write: "We seek interaction weights consistent with the formation, through symmetry breaking." Is this symmetry-breaking necessary for all CANs? Or is it a limitation specific to hand-crafted models (see also below)? There is insufficient discussion of such limitations. For example, it is difficult to envision how the authors' framework might form attractor manifolds with different geometries or heterogeneous tuning curves.

(4) Comparison with models of learned attractors<br /> While the connectivity patterns of learned attractors often resemble classical hand-crafted models (e.g., see also Vafidis et al. 2022), this is not always the case. If initial conditions include randomness or if the geometry of the attractor deviates from standard forms, the solutions can diverge significantly from hand-designed architectures. Such biologically realistic conditions highlight the limitations the hand-crafted CANs like those proposed here. I suggest updating the discussion accordingly.

(5) High-Dimensional Manifolds<br /> The authors argue that their method scales better than training-based approaches in high dimensions and that it is straightforward to extend their framework to generate high-dimensional CANs. It would be useful for the authors to elaborate further. First, it is unclear what k refers to in the expression k^M used in the introduction. Second, trained neural networks seem to exhibit inductive bias (e.g., Cantar et al. 2021; Bordelon & Pehlevan 2022; Darshan & Rivkind 2022), which may mitigate such scaling issues. To support their claim, the authors could also provide an example of a high-dimensional manifold and show that their framework efficiently supports a (semi-)continuum of stable states.

Reviewer #2 (Public review):

Summary:

The authors aimed to investigate the temporal dynamics of how prior experiences shape learning in new complex environments by examining whether the brain reuses abstract structural components from those experiences. They employed a sequence learning task based on graph factorization and recorded neural activity using magnetoencephalography (MEG) to investigate how the underlying graph factors are reused to support learning and inference in a new graph. MEG data was derived from passive stimulus presentation trials, and behavior was assessed through a small number of probe trials testing either experienced or inferred successions in the graph. Representational similarity analysis of the MEG data was performed at a quite aggregated level (the principal components explaining 80% of the variance). The authors report (1) enhanced neural similarity among stimuli that belong to the same graph-factor as well as (2) a correlation between abstract role representations, corresponding to particular positions in the graph, and performance in experience-probes but not in inference-probes.

Strengths & Weaknesses:

(1) The first finding is considered evidence for representational alignment of the graph factors. However, alignment seems to be just one possible arrangement underlying the increased similarity between stimuli of the same vs different graph factors. For instance, a simple categorical grouping of stimuli belonging to the same graph, rather than their structural alignment, could also underlie the reported effect. The wording should be adjusted to avoid overinterpretation.

(2) The second finding of abstract role representations is indeed expected for structural generalisation. While the data presents an interesting indication, its interpretability is constrained by a lack of testing for generalization of the effect to other graph structures (e.g., to rule out graph-specific strategies) as well as the absence of a link to transfer performance in inference-probes. The authors argue that the experienced transitions the classifier was trained on might be more similar in process to the experience-probes than the inference-probes. However, as inference-probes are the key measure of transfer, one could argue that if abstract role representations truly underlie transfer learning, they should be evident in the common neural signal.

(3) The authors write, "we observed a qualitative pattern indicative of increased neural similarity between stimuli that adhered to the same underlying subprocess across task phases. (...) There was a statistically significant interaction effect of condition x graph factor spanning approximately 300 - 680 ms post-stimulus onset". I conclude there was no significant main effect of graph factor, but the relevant statistics are not reported. The authors should report and discuss the complete statistics.

(4) The RSA is performed on highly aggregated data (the PCs that explained 80% of the variance). Could the authors include their rationale for this choice (e.g. over-analysis of sensor-level data)? In case sensor-level analyses have been conducted as well, maybe there are comparisons or implications of the chosen approach that are useful to mention in the discussion. The authors should provide the average and distribution of the number of PCs underlying their analyses.

(5) While the paper is well-written overall, it would benefit from more explicitly identifying the concrete research question and advancing through the results. The authors state their aim as understanding the "temporal dynamics of compositional generalisation", revealing "at which moment during neural information processing are they assembled". They conclude with "providing evidence for temporally resolved neural dynamics that support compositional generalization" and "we show the neural dynamics (...) presented across different task phases...". It remains somewhat vague what specific insight about the process is provided through the temporal resolution (e.g., is the time window itself meaningful, if so, it should be contextualized; is the temporal resolution critical to dissociate subprocesses). The different task phases -initial learning and transfer- are the necessary conditions to investigate transfer learning, but do not by themselves offer a particularly resolved depiction of the process.

Overall, the findings are congruent with prior research on neural correlates of structural abstraction. They offer an elegant, well-suited task design to study compositional representations, replicating the authors' earlier finding and providing temporal information on structural generalisation in a sequence learning task.

Reviewer #2 (Public review):

Summary:

This is a short and straightforward paper describing BOLD fMRI and depth electrode measurements from two regions of the fusiform gyrus that show either higher or lower BOLD responses to faces vs. objects (which I will call face-positive and face-negative regions). In these regions, which were studied separately in two patients undergoing epilepsy surgery, spiking activity increased for faces relative to objects in the face-positive region and decreased for faces relative to objects in the face-negative region. Interestingly, about 30% of neurons in the face-negative region did not respond to objects and decreased their responses below baseline in response to faces (absolute suppression).

Strengths:

These patient data are valuable, with many recording sessions and neurons from human face-selective regions, and the methods used for comparing face and object responses in both fMRI and electrode recordings were robust and well-established. The finding of absolute suppression could clarify the nature of face selectivity in human fusiform gyrus, since previous fMRI studies of the face-negative region could not distinguish whether face < object responses came from absolute suppression, or just relatively lower but still positive responses to faces vs. objects.

Weaknesses:

The authors claim that the results tell us about both 1) face-selectivity in the fusiform gyrus, and 2) the physiological basis of the BOLD signal. However, I would like to see more of the data that supports the first claim included in the paper.

The authors report that ~30% of neurons showed absolute suppression, but those data are not shown separately from the neurons that only show relative reductions. It is difficult to evaluate the absolute suppression claim from the short assertion in the text alone (lines 105-106), although this is a critical claim in the paper.

Comments on revisions:

The authors have provided a figure showing one example neuron that shows absolute suppression in their response to reviewers; I would recommend including a similar panel in one of the paper figures showing data averaged across all neurons classified as showing absolute suppression.

Reviewer #2 (Public review):

Summary:

Methods to infer action potentials from fluorescence-based measurements of intracellular calcium dynamics are important for optical measurements of activity across large populations of neurons. The variety of existing methods can be separated into two broad classes: a) model-independent approaches that are trained on ground truth datasets (e.g., deep networks), and b) approaches based on a model of the processes that link action potentials to calcium signals. Models usually contains parameters describing biophysical variables, such as rate constants of the calcium dynamics and features of the calcium indicator. The method presented here, PGBAR, is model-based and uses a Bayesian approach. A novelty of PGBAR is that static parameters and state variables are jointly estimated using particle Gibbs sampling, a sequential Monte Carlo technique that can efficiently sample the latent embedding space.

Strengths:

A main strength of PGBAR is that it provides probability distributions rather than point estimates of spike times. This is different from most other methods and may be an important feature in cases when estimates of uncertainty are desired. Another important feature of PGBAR is that it estimates not only the state variable representing spiking activity, but also other variables such as baseline fluctuations and stationary model variables, in a joint process. PGBAR can therefore provide more information than various other methods. The information in the github repository is well-organized.

Weaknesses:

On the other hand, the accuracy of spike train reconstructions is not higher than that of other model-based approaches, and clearly lower than the accuracy of a model-independent approach based on a deep network. The authors demonstrate convincingly that PGBAR can resolve inter-spike intervals in the range of 5 ms using fluorescence data obtained with a very fast genetically encoded calcium indicator at very high sampling rates (line scans at >= 1 kHz).

Reviewer #5 (Public review):

Xie et al. present a data set of impressive size to study changes in sex-biased gene expression. A clear strength that sets the study apart from previous work is the use of age-matched outbred individuals raised in the same environment, which minimizes non-genetic variance, and the comparison of closely related taxa. Also in contrast to many previous studies, while gonads, which have often been the focus of sex-biased gene expression studies, are not ignored, multiple gonadal tissues are being compared to an array of somatic tissues. The study design therefore can offer a particularly rich and nuanced view of how sex differences change across tissues and over short evolutionary times.

I liked the idea of summarizing over the mean expression of gene sets, instead of just using numbers of DEGs for comparisons, even though the introduction of the term "Sex-Biased Index (SBI)" seems somewhat of an overkill. The summary analyses are definitely useful to visualize variability in sex-biased gene expression programs. The authors find that the expression patterns of sex-biased genes change faster than those of non-sex-biased genes - but only in somatic tissues. They also provide some evidence that this correlates with higher rates of potentially adaptive coding sequence changes in the taxa where expression is sex-biased, with the proviso that a stronger modeling framework would have made these inferences more robust.

I was most surprised by the finding that the fast change in expression patterns is linked to different gene expression modules becoming sex-biased in the different taxa studied. This is in my eyes a remarkable observation that could not have been predicted from previous knowledge.

The use of human GTEx and patient scRNA-seq data is a nice addition, although there are known confounding issues with these resources, given that these are not random samples and environmental conditions are uncontrolled. Nevertheless, as the human data echo the trends seen with the much more rigorous mouse data set, I do not have principal objections to this addition. Furthermore, the human data do allow the authors to conclude that only very few genes with sex-biased expression are shared in the soma of mice and humans.

In summary, I believe that this contribution has the potential to fundamentally change how we see sex-biased gene expression differences in vertebrates, given that the author's conclusions are grounded in a data set of compelling quality and size.

Reviewer #2 (Public review):

Summary:

In this manuscript, submitted to Review Commons (journal agnostic), Coward and colleagues report on the role of insulin/IGF axis in podocyte gene transcription. They knocked out both the insulin and IGFR1 mice. Dual KO mice manifested a severe phenotype, with albuminuria, glomerulosclerosis, renal failure and death at 4-24 weeks.

Long read RNA sequencing was used to assess splicing events. Podocyte transcripts manifesting intron retention were identified. Dual knock-out podocytes manifested more transcripts with intron retention (18%) compared wild-type controls (18%), with an overlap between experiments of ~30%.

Transcript productivity was also assessed using FLAIR-mark-intron-retention software. Intron retention w seen in 18% of ciDKO podocyte transcripts compared to 14% of wild-type podocyte transcripts (P=0.004), with an overlap between experiments of ~30% (indicating the variability of results with this method). Interestingly, ciDKO podocytes showed downregulation of proteins involved in spliceosome function and RNA processing, as suggested by LC/MS and confirmed by Western blot.

Pladienolide (a spliceosome inhibitor) was cytotoxic to HeLa cells and to mouse podocytes but no toxicity was seen in murine glomerular endothelial cells.

The manuscript is generally clear and well-written. Mouse work was approved in advance. The four figures are generally well-designed, with bars/superimposed dot-plots.

Methods are generally well described. It would be helpful to say that tissue scoring was performed by an investigator masked to sample identity.

Specific comments:

(1) Data are presented as mean/SEM. In general, mean/SD or median/IQR are preferred to allow the reader to evaluate the spread of the data. There may be exceptions where only SEM is reasonable.

(2) It would be useful to for the reader to be told the number of over-lapping genes (with similar expression between mouse groups) and the results of a statistical test comparing WT and KO mice. The overlap of intron retention events between experimental repeats was about 30% in both knock-out podocytes. This seems low and I am curious to know whether this is typical for typical for this method; a reference could be helpful.

(3) Please explain "adjusted p value of 0.01." It is not clear how was it adjusted. The number of differentially-expressed proteins between the two cell types was 4842.

Comments on revision plan:

The authors suggest additional experiments that should address my concerns and probably the other reviewers' concerns.

I encourage the authors to proceed with their proposed experiments and revisions.

Reviewer #2 (Public review):

Summary:

The study by Rowley and Sedigh-Sarvestani presents modeling data suggesting that map reversals in mouse lateral extrastriate visual cortex do not coincide with areal borders, but instead represent borders between subregions within a single area V2. The authors propose that such an organization explains the partial coverage in higher-order areas reported by Zhuang et al., (2017). The scheme revisits an organization proposed by Kaas et al., (1989), who interpreted the multiple projection patches traced from V1 in the squirrel lateral extrastriate cortex as subregions within a single area V2. Kaas et al's interpretation was challenged by Wang and Burkhalter (2007), who used a combination of topographic mapping of V1 connections and receptive field recordings in mice. Their findings supported a different partitioning scheme in which each projection patch mapped a specific topographic location within single areas, each containing a complete representation of the visual field. The area map of mouse visual cortex by Wang and Burkhalter (2007) has been reproduced by hundreds of studies and has been widely accepted as ground truth (CCF) (Wang et al., 2020) of the layout of rodent cortex. In the meantime, topographic mappings in marmoset and tree shew visual cortex made a strong case for map reversals in lateral extrastriate cortex, which represent borders between functionally diverse subregions within a single area V2. These findings from non-rodent species raised doubts about whether during evolution, different mammalian branches have developed diverse partitioning schemes of the cerebral cortex. Rowley and Sedigh-Sarvestani favor a single master plan in which, across evolution, all mammalian species have used a similar blueprint for subdividing the cortex.

Strengths:

The story illustrates the enduring strength of science in search of definitive answers.

Weaknesses:

To me, it remains an open question whether Rowley and Sedigh-Sarvestani have written the final chapter of the saga. A key reason for my reservation is that the areas the maps used in their model are cherry-picked. The article disregards published complementary maps, which show that the entire visual field is represented in multiple areas (i.e. LM, AL) of lateral extrastriate cortex and that the map reversal between LM and AL coincides precisely with the transition in m2AChR expression and cytoarchitecture (Wang and Burkhalter, 2007; Wang et al., 2011). Evidence from experiments in rats supports the gist of the findings in the mouse visual cortex (Coogan and Burkhalter, 1993).

(1) The selective use of published evidence, such as the complete visual field representation in higher visual areas of lateral extrastriate cortex (Wang and Burkhalter, 2007; Wang et al., 2011) makes the report more of an opinion piece than an original research article that systematically analyzes the area map of mouse visual cortex we have proposed. No direct evidence is presented for a single area V2 with functionally distinct subregions.

(2) The article misrepresents evidence by commenting that m2AChR expression is mainly associated with the lower field. This is counter to published findings showing that m2AChR spans across the entire visual field (Gamanut et al., 2018; Meier et al., 2021). The utility of markers for delineating areal boundaries is discounted, without any evidence, in disregard of evidence for distinct areal patterns in early development (Wang et al., 2011). Pointing out that markers can be distributed non-uniformly within an area is well-familiar. m2AChR is non-uniformly expressed in mouse V1, LM and LI (Ji et al., 2015; D'Souza et al., 2019; Meier et al., 2021). Recently, it has been found that the patchy organization within V1 plays a role in the organization of thalamocortical and intracortical networks (Meier et al., 2025). m2AChR-positive patches and m2AChR-negative interpatches organize the functionally distinct ventral and dorsal networks, notably without obvious bias for upper and lower parts of the visual field.

(3) The study has adopted an area partitioning scheme, which is said to be based on anatomically defined boundaries of V2 (Zhuang et al., 2017). The only anatomical borders used by Zhuang et al. (2017) are those of V1 and barrel cortex, identified by cytochrome oxidase staining. In reality, the partitioning of the visual cortex was based on field sign maps, which are reproduced from Zhuang et al., (2017) in Figure 1A. It is unclear why the maps shown in Figures 2E and 2F differ from those in Figure 1A. It is possible that this is an oversight. But maintaining consistent areal boundaries across experimental conditions that are referenced to the underlying brain structure is critical for assigning modeled projections to areas or sub-regions. This problem is evident in Figure 2F, which is presented as evidence that the modeling approach recapitulates the tracings shown in Figure 3 of Wang and Burkhalter (2007). The dissimilarities between the modeling and tracing results are striking, unlike what is stated in the legend of Figure 2F.

(4) The Rowley and Sedigh-Sarvestani find that the partial coverage of the visual field in higher order areas shown by Zhuang et al (2017) is recreated by the model. It is important to caution that Zhuang et al's (2017) maps were derived from incomplete mappings of the visual field, which was confined to -25-35 deg of elevation. This underestimates the coverage we have found in LM and AL. Receptive field mappings show that LM covers 0-90 deg of azimuth and -30-80 elevation (Wang and Burkhalter, 2007). AL covers at least 0-90 deg of azimuth and -30-50 deg of elevation (Wang and Burkhalter, 2007; Wang et al., 2011). These are important differences. Partial coverage in LM and AL underestimates the size of these areas and may map two projection patches as inputs to subregions of a single area rather than inputs to two separate areas. Complete, or nearly complete, visual representations in LM and AL support that each is a single area. Importantly, both areas are included in a callosal-free zone (Wang and Burkhalter, 2007). The surrounding callosal connections align with the vertical meridian representation. The single map reversal is marked by a transition in m2AChR expression and cytoarchitecture (Wang et al., 2011).

(5) The statement that the "lack of visual field overlap across areas is suggestive of a lack of hierarchical processing" is predicated on the full acceptance of the mappings by Zhuang et al (2017). Based on the evidence reviewed above, the reclassification of visual areas proposed in Figure 1C seems premature.

(6) The existence of lateral connections is not unique to rodent cortex and has been described in primates (Felleman and Van Essen, 1991).

(7) Why the mouse and rat extrastriate visual cortex differ from those of many other mammals is unclear. One reason may be that mammals with V2 subregions are strongly binocular.

Reviewer #2 (Public review):

Summary:

The manuscript from the Rice lab by Gangadharan et al. investigates the polymerization mechanism of the yeast microtubule polymerase Stu2. The lab has published a number of articles demonstrating the structural basis by which the two TOG domains of Stu2 each bind free tubulin heterodimers, and has developed a tethered polymerization model by which the TOG domains drive polymerization by shuttling those tubulin subunits onto the microtubule plus end. A second model was proposed by Nithianantham et al. (eLife, 2018) based on a closed-to-open transitional state in which Stu2 unfurls and loads two longitudinally associated tubulin heterodimers onto the microtubule plus end. While the second model is not directly tested, the current work aims to further characterize/model the tethered polymerization model using a kinetic framework developed by Breitsprecher et al. for Ena/VASP actin polymerization activity, using a model that is enzymatic (EMBO J., 2011). The general architecture and function of Ena/VASP on actin polymerization versus Stu2 on microtubule polymerization is a reasonable relation and hits upon, as the authors note, potential convergent mechanistic evolution across distinct cytoskeletal networks. The model effectively treats tubulin as the substrate, and the polymerized microtubule plus end as the product. If Stu2 is "enzymatic" in this framework, the model predicts it would behave with Michaelis-Menten kinetics, that there would a Vmax, and polymerase activity would either be "affinity limited" by TOG:tubulin affinity (KD) and/or "kinetically limited" by TOG:tubulin association (Kon) and transfer of tubulin to the microtubule plus end (Kt). The authors find that the Brietsprecher model works well for Stu2 activity, and that Stu2 best aligns with a "kinetically limited" model. The work is interesting and adds to the growing elucidation of the Stu2 microtubule polymerase model. While yeast microtubule polymerases are somewhat distinct in their architecture, there is significant overlap that findings from the manuscript can be utilized to inform the mechanisms of larger, more complex microtubule polymerases such as human ch-TOG.

Strengths:

The manuscript invokes the enzymatic model of Breitsprecher et al. used for Ena/VASP and conducts an elegant series of (mostly established) experiments to determine whether Stu2 microtubule polymerase activity aligns with the model, which they conclude does align, supported by the data/results obtained.

Weaknesses:

The authors used biolayer interferometry to measure TOG:tubulin affinity. The affinities obtained were significantly higher than the lab obtained in an earlier publication using analytical ultracentrifugation. While differences in buffer and salt conditions may underlie these differences, additional runs using comparable buffer systems, or the use of a third independent assay to measure affinities, would have added rigor.

The discussion could be expanded to better compare and contrast the results with both existing polymerase models introduced in the introduction, as well as expanded to look at reversible enzymatic activity (microtubule depolymerization at low to zero tubulin concentrations) and microtubule plus versus minus end activity.

Reviewer #2 (Public review):

Summary:

The paper describes the high-resolution structure of KdpFABC, a bacterial pump regulating intracellular potassium concentrations. The pump consists of a subunit with an overall structure similar to that of a canonical potassium channel and a subunit with a structure similar to a canonical ATP-driven ion pump. The ions enter through the channel subunit and then traverse the subunit interface via a long channel that lies parallel to the membrane to enter the pump, followed by their release into the cytoplasm.

Strengths:

The work builds on the previous structural and mechanistic studies from the authors' and other labs. While the overall architecture and mechanism have already been established, a detailed understanding was lacking. The study provides a 2.1 Å resolution structure of the E1-P state of the transport cycle, which precedes the transition to the E2 state, assumed to be the rate-limiting step. It clearly shows a single K+ ion in the selectivity filter of the channel and in the canonical ion binding site in the pump, resolving how ions bind to these key regions of the transporter. It also resolves the details of water molecules filling the tunnel that connects the subunits, suggesting that K+ ions move through the tunnel transiently without occupying well-defined binding sites. The authors further propose how the ions are released into the cytoplasm in the E2 state. The authors support the structural findings through mutagenesis and measurements of ATPase activity and ion transport by surface-supported membrane (SSM) electrophysiology.

Weaknesses:

While the results are overall compelling, several aspects of the work raised questions. First, the authors determined the structure of the pump in nanodiscs under turnover conditions and observed several structural classes, including E1-P, which is detailed in the paper. Two other structural classes were identified, including one corresponding to E2. It is unclear why they are not described in the paper. Notably, the paper considers in some detail what might occur during the E1-P to E2 state transition, but does not describe the 3.1 Å resolution map for the E2 state that has already been obtained. Does the map support the proposed structural changes?

The paper relies on the quantitative activity comparisons between mutants measured using SSM electrophysiology. Such comparisons are notoriously tricky due to variability between SSM chips and reconstitution efficiencies. The authors should include raw traces for all experiments in the supplementary materials, explain how the replicates were performed, and describe the reproducibility of the results. Related to this point above, size exclusion chromatography profiles and reconstitution efficiencies for mutants should be shown to facilitate comparison between measured activities. For example, could it be that the inactive V496R mutant is misfolded and unstable?

Similarly, are the reduced activities of V496W and V496H (and many other mutants) due to changes in the tunnel or poor biochemical properties of these variants? Without these data, the validity of the ion transport measurements is difficult to assess.

The authors propose that the tunnel connecting the subunits is filled with water and lacks potassium ions. This is an important mechanistic point that has been debated in the field. It would be interesting to calculate the volume of the tunnel and estimate the number of ions that might be expected in it, given their concentration in bulk. It may also be helpful to provide additional discussion on whether some of the observed densities correspond to bound ions with low occupancy.

Reviewer #2 (Public review):

Summary:

This study explores an important question concerning the developmental trajectory of wave 1 ovarian follicles, leveraging valuable tools such as lineage tracing and single-cell RNA sequencing. These approaches position the authors well to dissect early follicle dynamics. The study would benefit from more in-depth analysis, including quantification using the lineage-traced ovaries, and comparison of wave 1 and 2 follicular cells per stage within the single cell dataset.

Strengths:

This study aims to address an important question regarding the developmental trajectories of wave 1 ovarian follicles and how they differ from wave 2 follicles that contribute to long-term fertility. This is an important topic, as many studies on ovarian follicle development rely on samples collected at perinatal timepoints in the mouse, which primarily represent wave 1 follicles, to infer later fertility. The research group has the tools and expertise necessary to tackle these questions.

Weaknesses:

Wave 1 follicles are quantified based on the criteria of oocytes larger than 20 µm located within the medullary region, using whole-mount staining. However, the boundary between the medulla and cortex appears somewhat arbitrary. Quantification using FOXL2-lineage-traced ovaries provides a more reliable method for identifying wave 1 follicles. As the developmental trajectory of wave 1 follicles has been well described in Zhang et al. 2013, it would be valuable to provide a more detailed quantification of both labeled and unlabeled follicles by specific follicle stages. In fact, in Zhang et al. 2013, the authors demonstrated that lineage-labeled primordial follicles can be found at the cortex-medulla boundary, suggesting that the observation of labeled "border follicles" is not unexpected. Quantification by follicle stage would provide greater insight into the timing and development of these follicles.

Similarly, the analysis of wave 1 follicle loss should be performed on lineage-traced ovaries using cell death markers to demonstrate the loss of oocytes and granulosa cells, while confirming the preservation of theca and interstitial cells. In particular, granulosa cell loss should be assessed directly with cell death markers in lineage-traced ovaries, rather than from the loss of tamoxifen-labeled cells, as labeling efficiency varies between follicles (Figure 2G).

Single-cell RNA sequencing presents a valuable dataset capturing the development of first-wave follicles. The use of a 40µm cell strainer during cell collection for the 10x platform may explain the exclusion of larger oocytes. However, it is still surprising that no oocytes were captured at all. The central question, how wave 1 follicular cells differ from wave 2 cells, should be investigated in more depth, with results validated on FOXL2-lineage-traced ovaries (i.e., Wnt4 staining in wave 1 antral follicles versus wave 2 using lineage-traced ovaries). This analysis should span all stages of follicle development. It also appears to be a missed opportunity that the single-cell sequencing analysis was not performed on lineage-traced ovaries, which would have enabled more definitive identification of wave 1-derived cells.

Finally, this study does not directly assess fertility outcomes and should therefore refrain from drawing conclusions about the fertility potential of wave 1 follicles.

Reviewer #2 (Public review):

The manuscript presents a valuable contribution to the field of ACE structural biology and dynamics by providing the first complete full-length dimeric ACE structure in four distinct states. The study integrates cryo-EM and molecular dynamics simulations to offer important insights into ACE dynamics. The depth of analysis is commendable, and the combination of structural and computational approaches enhances our understanding of the protein's conformational landscape.

Reviewer #2 (Public review):

Summary:

The manuscript entitled "Mitochondrial Protein FgDML1 Regulates DON Toxin Biosynthesis and Cyazofamid Sensitivity in Fusarium graminearum by affecting mitochondrial homeostasis" identified the regulatory effect of FgDML1 in DON toxin biosynthesis and sensitivity of Fusarium graminearum to cyazofamid. The manuscript provides a theoretical framework for understanding the regulatory mechanisms of DON toxin biosynthesis in F. graminearum and identifies potential molecular targets for Fusarium head blight control. The paper is innovative, but there are issues in the writing that need to be addressed and corrected.

Weaknesses:

(1) The authors speculate that cyazofamid treatment caused upregulation of the assembly factors, leading to a change in the conformation of the Qi protein, thus restoring the enzyme activity of complex III. But no speculation was given in the discussion as to why this would lead to the upregulation of assembly factors, and how the upregulation of assembly factors would change the protein conformation, and is there any literature reporting a similar phenomenon? I would suggest adding this to the discussion.

(2) Would increased sensitivity of the mutant to cell wall stress be responsible for the excessive curvature of the mycelium?

(3) The vertical coordinates of Figure 7B need to be modified with positive inhibition rates for the mutants.

Reviewer #2 (Public review):

Summary:

The manuscript by Borghi and colleagues provides evidence that the combination of intermittent theta burst TMS stimulation and gamma transcranial alternating current stimulation (γtACS) targeting the precuneus increases long-term associative memory in healthy subjects compared to iTBS alone and sham conditions. Using a rich dataset of TMS-EEG and resting-state functional connectivity (rs-FC) maps and structural MRI data, the authors also provide evidence that dual stimulation increased gamma oscillations and functional connectivity between the precuneus and hippocampus. Enhanced memory performance was linked to increased gamma oscillatory activity and connectivity through white matter tracts.

Strengths:

The combination of personalized repetitive TMS (iTBS) and gamma tACS is a novel approach to targeting the precuneus, and thereby, connected memory-related regions to enhance long-term associative memory. The authors leverage an existing neural mechanism engaged in memory binding, theta-gamma coupling, by applying TMS at theta burst patterns and tACS at gamma frequencies to enhance gamma oscillations. The authors conducted a thorough study that suggests that simultaneous iTBS and gamma tACS could be a powerful approach for enhancing long-term associative memory. The paper was well-written, clear, and concise.

Comments on Revision:

I thank the authors for their thoughtful responses to my first review and their inclusion of more detailed methodological discussion of their rationale for the stimulation protocol conditions and timing. Regarding the apparent difference in connectivity at baseline between conditions, the explanation that this is due to intrinsic dynamics, state, or noise implies the baseline is reflecting transient changes in dynamics rather than a true or stable baseline. Based on this, it looks like iTBS solely is significantly greater than the baseline before the iTBS and _γtACS condition but maybe not that much lower than post-stimulation period for iTBS and _γtACS. A longer baseline period should be used to ensure transient states are not driving baseline levels such that these endogenous fluctuations would average out. This also raises questions about whether the effect of iTBS and _γtACS or iTBS alone are dependent on the intrinsic state at the time when stimulation begins. Their additional clarification of memory scoring is helpful but also reveals that the effect of dual iTBS+_γtACS specifically on the association between faces and names is just significant. This modest increase in associative memory should be taken into consideration when interpreting these findings.

Reviewer #2 (Public review):

Summary:

In the current study, the authors aim to identify the mode of action/molecular mechanism of characterized a fungicide, quinofumelin, and its biological impact on transcriptomics and metabolomics in Fusarium graminearum and other Fusarium species. Two sets of data were generated between quinofumelin and no treatment group, and differentially abundant transcripts and metabolites were identified, suggesting a potential role of pyrimidine biosynthesis. Upon studying the genetic mutants of the uridine/uracil biosynthesis pathway with quinofumelin treatment and metabolite supplementation, combining in vitro biochemical assay of quinofumelin and F.graminearum dihydroorotate dehydrogenase protein, the authors identified that quinofumelin inhibits the dihydroorotate dehydrogenase and blocks downstream metabolite biosynthesis, limiting fungal metabolism and growth.

Strengths:

Omics datasets were leveraged to understand the physiological impact of quinofumelin, showing the intracellular impact of the fungicide. The characterization of FgDHODHII deletion strains with supplemented metabolites clearly showed the impact of the enzyme on fungal growth. Corroborating in vitro and in vivo data revealed the direct interaction of quinofumelin with Fusarium protein target.

Potential Impact:

Understanding this new mechanism could facilitate rational design or screen for molecules targeting the same pathway, or improve binding affinity and inhibitor potency. Confirming the target of quinofumelin may also help understand its resistance mechanism, and further development of other inhibitory molecules against the target.

Reviewer #2 (Public review):

The manuscript by Ma et al. reports the identification of three unrelated people who are heterozygous for de novo missense variants in PLCG1, which encodes phospholipase C-gamma 1, a key signaling protein. These individuals present with partially overlapping phenotypes, including hearing loss, ocular pathology, cardiac defects, abnormal brain imaging results, and immune defects. None of the patients present with all of the above phenotypes. PLCG1 has also been implicated as a possible driver for cell proliferation in cancer.

The three missense variants found in the patients result in the following amino acid substitutions: His380Arg, Asp1019Gly, and Asp1165Gly. PLCG1 (and the closely related PLCG2) have a single Drosophila ortholog called small wing (sl). sl-null flies are viable but have small wings with ectopic wing veins and supernumerary photoreceptors in the eye. As all three amino acids affected in the patients are conserved in the fly protein, in this work Ma et al. tested whether they are pathogenic by expressing either reference or patient variant fly or human genes in Drosophila and determining the phenotypes produced by doing so.

Expression in Drosophila of the variant forms of PLCG1 found in these three patients is toxic; highly so for Asp1019Gly and Asp1165Gly, much more modestly for His380Arg. Another variant, Asp1165His which was identified in lymphoma samples and shown by others to be hyperactive, was also found to be toxic in the Drosophila assays. However, a final variant, Ser1021Phe, identified by others in an individual with severe immune dysregulation, produced no phenotype upon expression in flies.

Based on these results, the authors conclude that the PLCG1 variants found in patients are pathogenic, producing gain-of-function phenotypes through hyperactivity. In my view, the data supporting this conclusion are robust, despite the lack of a detectable phenotype with Ser1021Phe, and I have no concerns about the core experiments that comprise the paper.

Fig. 6, the last in the paper, provides information about PLCG1 structure and how the different variants would affect it. It shows that His380, Asp1019 and Asp1165 all lie within catalytic domains or intramolecular interfaces, and that variants in the latter two affect residues essential for autoinhibition. It also shows that Ser1021 falls outside the key interface occupied by Asp1019, but more could have been said about the potential effects of Ser1021Phe.

Overall, I believe the authors fully achieved the aims of their study. The work will have a substantial impact because it reports the identification of novel disease-linked genes, and because it further demonstrates the high value of the Drosophila model for finding and understanding gene-disease linkages.

Comments on revisions:

The single recommendation I made on the original version, which was to further examine H380 mutants, has been satisfactorily addressed in the revised version.

Reviewer #2 (Public review):

Summary:

The first part of the manuscript quantifies the proportion of goal-arm specific and task-phase specific cells during the learning and learned conditions, and similar to their previously published Muysers et al. (2025) paper, find that the task-phase coding cells (Muysers et al. call them path equivalent cells) increase in the learned condition. However, compared to the Muysers et al. 2025 paper, this work quantifies the proportion of cells that change coding type across learning and learned conditions. The second part of the paper reports firing sequences using a sequence similarity clustering-based method that the group developed previously and applied to hippocampal data in the past.

Strengths:

Identifying sequences by a clustering method in which sequence patterns of individual events are compared is an interesting idea.

Weaknesses:

Further controls are needed to validate the results.

Reviewer #2 (Public review):

Summary:

This manuscript presents the JAX Animal Behavior System (JABS), an integrated mouse phenotyping platform that includes modules for data acquisition, behavior annotation, and behavior classifier training and sharing. The manuscript provides details and validation for each module, demonstrating JABS as a useful open-source behavior analysis tool that removes barriers to adopting these analysis techniques by the community. In particular, with the JABS-AI module, users can download and deploy previously trained classifiers on their own data, or annotate their own data and train their own classifiers. The JABS-AI module also allows users to deploy their classifiers on the JAX strain survey dataset and receive an automated behavior and genetic report.

Strengths:

(1) The JABS platform addresses the critical issue of reproducibility in mouse behavior studies by providing an end-to-end system from rig setup to downstream behavioral and genetic analyses. Each step has clear guidelines, and the GUIs are an excellent way to encourage best practices for data storage, annotation, and model training. Such a platform is especially helpful for labs without prior experience in this type of analysis.

(2) A notable strength of the JABS platform is its reuse of large amounts of previously collected data at JAX Labs, condensing this into pretrained pose estimation models and behavioral classifiers. JABS-AI also provides access to the strain survey dataset through automated classifier analyses, allowing large-scale genetic screening based on simple behavioral classifiers. This has the potential to accelerate research for many labs by identifying particular strains of interest.

(3) The ethograph analysis will be a useful way to compare annotators/classifiers beyond the JABS platform.

Weaknesses:

(1) The manuscript as written lacks much-needed context in multiple areas: what are the commercially available solutions, and how do they compare to JABS (at least in terms of features offered, not necessarily performance)? What are other open-source options? How does the supervised behavioral classification approach relate to the burgeoning field of unsupervised behavioral clustering (e.g., Keypoint-MoSeq, VAME, B-SOiD)? What kind of studies will this combination of open field + pose estimation + supervised classifier be suitable for? What kind of studies is it unsuited for? These are all relevant questions that potential users of this platform will be interested in.

(2) Throughout the manuscript, I often find it unclear what is supported by the software/GUI and what is not. For example, does the GUI support uploading videos and running pose estimation, or does this need to be done separately? How many of the analyses in Figures 4-6 are accessible within the GUI?

(3) While the manuscript does a good job of laying out best practices, there is an opportunity to further improve reproducibility for users of the platform. The software seems likely to perform well with perfect setups that adhere to the JABS criteria, but it is very likely that there will be users with suboptimal setups - poorly constructed rigs, insufficient camera quality, etc. It is important, in these cases, to give users feedback at each stage of the pipeline so they can understand if they have succeeded or not. Quality control (QC) metrics should be computed for raw video data (is the video too dark/bright? are there the expected number of frames? etc.), pose estimation outputs (do the tracked points maintain a reasonable skeleton structure; do they actually move around the arena?), and classifier outputs (what is the incidence rate of 1-3 frame behaviors? a high value could indicate issues). In cases where QC metrics are difficult to define (they are basically always difficult to define), diagnostic figures showing snippets of raw data or simple summary statistics (heatmaps of mouse location in the open field) could be utilized to allow users to catch glaring errors before proceeding to the next stage of the pipeline, or to remove data from their analyses if they observe critical issues.

Reviewer #2 (Public review):

In this paper, Griswold and Van Hooser investigate what happens if animals are exposed to patterned visual experience too early, before its natural onset. To this end, they make use of the benefits of the ferret as a well-established animal model for visual development. Ferrets naturally open their eyes around postnatal day 30; here, Griswold and Van Hooser opened either one or both eyes prematurely. Subsequent recordings in the mature primary visual cortex show that while some tuning properties like orientation and direction selectivity developed normally, the premature visual exposure triggered changes in temporal frequency tuning and overall firing rates. These changes were widespread, in that they occurred even for neurons responding to the eye that was not opened prematurely. These results demonstrate that the nature of the visual input well before eye opening can have profound consequences on the developing visual system.

The conclusions of this paper are well supported by the data, but in the initially submitted version of the paper, there were a few questions regarding the data processing and suggestions for the discussion:

(1) The assessment of the tuning properties is based on fits to the data. Presumably, neurons for which the fits were poor were excluded? It would be useful to know what the criteria were, how many neurons were excluded, and whether there was a significant difference between the groups in the numbers of neurons excluded (which could further point to differences between the groups).

(2) For the temporal frequency data, low- and high-frequency cut-offs are defined, but then only used for the computation of the bandwidth. Given that the responses to low temporal frequencies change profoundly with premature eye opening, it would be useful to directly compare the low- and high-frequency cut-offs between groups, in addition to the index that is currently used.

(3) In addition to the tuning functions and firing rates that have been analyzed so far, are there any differences in the temporal profiles of neural responses between the groups (sustained versus transient responses, rates of adaptation, latency)? If the temporal dynamics of the responses are altered significantly, that could be part of an explanation for the altered temporal tuning.

(4) It would be beneficial for the general interpretation of the results to extend the discussion. First, it would be useful to provide a more detailed discussion of what type of visual information might make it through the closed eyelids (the natural state), in contrast to the structured information available through open eyes. Second, it would be useful to highlight more clearly that these data were collected in peripheral V1 by discussing what might be expected in binocular, more central V1 regions. Third, it would be interesting to discuss the observed changes in firing rates in the context of the development of inhibitory neurons in V1 (which still undergo significant changes through the time period of premature visual experience chosen here).

Reviewer #2 (Public review):

Summary:

Tsurumi et al. show that recurrent neural networks can learn state and value representations in simple reinforcement learning tasks when trained with random feedback weights. The traditional method of learning for recurrent network in such tasks (backpropogation through time) requires feedback weights which are a transposed copy of the feed-forward weights, a biologically implausible assumption. This manuscript builds on previous work regarding "random feedback alignment" and "value-RNNs", and extends them to a reinforcement learning context. The authors also demonstrate that certain non-negative constraints can enforce a "loose alignment" of feedback weights. The author's results suggest that random feedback may be a powerful tool of learning in biological networks, even in reinforcement learning tasks.

Strengths:

The authors describe well the issues regarding biologically plausible learning in recurrent networks and in reinforcement learning tasks. They take care to propose networks which might be implemented in biological systems and compare their proposed learning rules to those already existing in literature. Further, they use small networks on relatively simple tasks, which allows for easier intuition into the learning dynamics.

Weaknesses:

The principles discovered by the authors in these smaller networks are not applied to larger networks or more complicated tasks with long temporal delays (>100 timesteps), so it remains unclear to what degree these methods can scale or can be used more generally.

Reviewer #2 (Public review):

Summary:

This study investigates the role of KIF7, a ciliary kinesin involved in the Sonic Hedgehog (SHH) signaling pathway, in cortical development using Kif7 knockout mice. The researchers examined embryonic cortex development (mainly at E14.5), focusing on structural changes and neuronal migration abnormalities.

Strengths:

(1) The phenotype observed is interesting, and the findings provide neurodevelopmental insight into some of the symptoms and malformations seen in patients with KIF7 mutations.

(2) The authors assess several features of cortical development, including structural changes in layers of the developing cortex, connectivity of the cortex with thalamus, as well as migration of cINs from CGE and MGE to cortex.

Comments on revisions:

The authors have made significant and thoughtful responses as well as experimental additions to the authors comments. Their efforts are appreciated and the manuscript is much improved.

Reviewer #2 (Public review):

Summary:

The paper by Chao et al offers a reimplementation of the SpliceAI algorithm in PyTorch so that the model can more easily/efficiently be retrained. They apply their new implementation of the SpliceAI algorithm, which they call OpenSpliceAI, to several species and compare it against the original model, showing that the results are very similar and that in some small species, pre-training on other species helps improve performance.

Strengths:

On the upside, the code runs fine, and it is well documented.

Weaknesses:

The paper itself does not offer much beyond reimplementing SpliceAI. There is no new algorithm, new analysis, new data, or new insights into RNA splicing. There is no comparison to many of the alternative methods that have since been published to surpass SpliceAI. Given that some of the authors are well-known with a long history of important contributions, our expectations were admittedly different. Still, we hope some readers will find the new implementation useful.

Reviewer #2 (Public review):

Hawes et al. investigated the role of striatal neurons in the patch compartment of the dorsal striatum. Using Sepw1-Cre line, the authors combined a modified version of the light/dark transition box test that allows them to examine locomotor activity in different environmental valence with a variety of approaches, including cell-type-specific ablation, miniscope calcium imaging, fiber photometry, and opto-/chemogenetics. First, they found ablation of patchy striatal neurons resulted in an increase in movement vigor when mice stayed in a safe area or when they moved back from more anxiogenic to safe environments. The following miniscope imaging experiment revealed that a larger fraction of striatal patchy neurons was negatively correlated with movement speed, particularly in an anxiogenic area. Next, the authors investigated differential activity patterns of patchy neurons' axon terminals, focusing on those in GPe, GPi, and SNr, showing that the patchy axons in SNr reflect movement speed/vigor. Chemogenetic and optogenetic activation of these patchy striatal neurons suppressed the locomotor vigor, thus demonstrating their causal role in the modulation of locomotor vigor when exposed to valence differentials. Unlike the activation of striatal patches, such a suppressive effect on locomotion was absent when optogenetically activating matrix neurons by using the Calb1-Cre line, indicating distinctive roles in the control of locomotor vigor by striatal patch and matrix neurons. Together, they have concluded that nigrostriatal neurons within striatal patches negatively regulate movement vigor, dependent on behavioral contexts where motivational valence differs.

The strengths of this work include the use of multiple experimental approaches, including genetic/viral ablation of patch neurons, miniscope single-cell imaging, as well as projection-specific recording of axonal activity by fiber photometry, and causal manipulation of the neurons by chemogenetic and optogenetics. Although similar findings were reported previously, the authors' results will be of value owing to multiple levels of investigation. In my view, this study will add to the important literature by demonstrating how patch (striosomal) neurons in the striatum controls movement vigor.

Reviewer #2 (Public review):

Summary:

In this manuscript, the authors investigate the role of the microtubule-binding protein EML3 during cortical development through the generation and characterization of an Eml3 mouse mutant. The authors focus mainly on the effects of EML3 loss on brain development, although Eml3 mouse mutants also present with developmental delay and growth restriction, and die perinatally due to respiratory distress caused by delayed maturation of the lungs. The main finding in the developing cortex is the presence of focal neuronal ectopias, which contain neurons from all cortical layers, as revealed by immunostaining. The authors use electron microscopy to show that ectopias seem to be caused by disruption to the pial basement membrane at early stages of development, which allows neurons to breach through it. To find a functional link between EML3 and the observed phenotype, studies are conducted that demonstrate expression of EML3 in radial glia cells and mesenchymal cells, both cell types involved in the formation and maintenance of the pial basement membrane. Furthermore, interaction partners for EML3 are identified through coIP-MS analysis, including tubulin beta-3, 14-3-3 proteins, and cytoplasmic dynein light chain. However, mice carrying a mutant EML3 allele engineered to abolish the interaction between EML3 and cytoplasmic dynein light chain do not recapitulate any of the symptoms of complete EML3 loss.

Strengths:

The manuscript offers several important strengths that contribute significantly to the field. This study presents the first characterization of Eml3 knockout animals, providing novel insights into the role of Eml3 in vivo. Information on Eml3 function so far was restricted to cell culture data, so the results in this manuscript start to fill an important gap in our knowledge about this microtubule-binding protein. The experimental approach is carefully designed, with appropriate controls that ensure the reliability of the data. Moreover, the authors have addressed a key challenge in the analysis, namely the developmental delay of the knockout animals. By implementing a strategy to match developmental stages between wild-type and knockout groups, they allow for meaningful and valid comparisons between the two genotypes. Importantly, the authors have successfully generated three different Eml3 mutant mouse lines (knockout, floxed, and with disrupted binding to cytoplasmic dynein light chain), which are very valuable tools for the broader scientific community to further study the roles of this gene in development and disease in the future.

Weaknesses:

While the manuscript presents valuable data, there are also several weaknesses that limit the overall impact of the study. Most notably, there is no clear mechanistic link established between the loss of Eml3 function and the observed phenotype, leaving the biological significance of the findings somewhat speculative, as it is not straightforward how a microtubule-associated protein can have an impact on the stability of the pial basement membrane. In this respect, but also in general for the whole manuscript, there seems to be a considerable amount of experimental work that has been conducted but is not presented, possibly due to the negative nature of the results. At least some of those results could be shown, particularly (but not only) the stainings for the composition of the ECM components. Additionally, the phenotype reported appears to be dependent on the genetic background, as it is absent in the CD1 strain. This observation raises concerns as to how robust the results are and how much they can be generalized to other mouse strains, but, more importantly, to humans. There is no data included in the manuscript about the generation and analysis of the Eml3AAA/AAA mouse line. This is an important omission, especially as no details on the validation or phenotypic characterization of this additional mouse line are provided. Including these elements would greatly strengthen the rigor and interpretability of the work, especially if that mouse line is to be shared with the scientific community.

Reviewer #2 (Public review):

Summary:

Autophagy (macroautophagy) is known to be essential for muscle function in flies and mammals. To date, many mitophagy (selective mitochondrial autophagy) receptors have been identified in mammals and other species. While loss of mitophagy receptors has been shown to impair mitochondrial degradation (e.g., OPTN and NDP52 in Parkin-mediated mitophagy and NIX and BNIP3 in hypoxia-induced mitophagy) at the level of cultured cells, it remains unclear, especially under physiological conditions in vivo. In this study, the authors revealed that one of the receptors BNIP3 plays a critical role in mitochondrial degradation during muscle remodeling in vivo.

Overall, the manuscript provides solid evidence that BNIP3 is involved in mitophagy during muscle remodeling with in vivo analyses performed. In particular, all experiments in this study are well designed. The text is well written and the figures are very clear.

Strengths:

(1) In each experiment, appropriate positive and negative controls are used to indicate what is responsible for the phenomenon observed by the authors: e.g. FIP200, Atg18, Stx17 siRNAs during DIOM remodeling in Fig2 and Full, del-LIR, del-MER in Fig5.

(2) Although the transcriptional dynamics of DIOM remodeling during metamorphosis is autophagy-independent, the transcriptome data obtained by the authors would be valuable for future studies.

(3) In addition to the simple observation that loss of BNIP3 causes mitochondrial accumulation, the authors further observed that, by combining siRNA against STX17, which is required for fusion of autophagosomes with lysosomes, BNIP3 KO abolishes mitophagosome formation, which will provide solid evidence for BNIP3-mediated mitophagy. Furthermore, using a Gal80 temperature-sensitive approach, the authors showed that mitochondria derived from larval muscle, but not those synthesized during hypertrophy, remain in BNIP3 KO fly muscles.

Weaknesses:

(1) Because BNIP3 KO causes mitochondrial accumulation, it is expected that adult flies will have some physiological defects, but this has not been fully analyzed or sufficiently mentioned in the manuscript.

(2) In Fig 5, the authors showed that BNIP3 binds to Atg18a by co-IP, but no data are provided on whether MER-mut or del-MER attenuates the affinity for Atg18a.

Comments on revisions: The authors answered all the reviewer's concerns.

Reviewer #2 (Public review):

This study provides an experimental and computational framework to examine and understand how C. elegans make decisions while foraging environments with patches of food. The authors show that C. elegans reject or accept food patches depending on a number of internal and external factors.

The key novelty of this paper is the explicit demonstration of behavior analysis and quantitative modeling to elucidate decision-making processes. In particular, the description of the exploring vs. exploiting phases, and sensing vs. non-sensing categories of foraging behavior based on the clustering of behavioral states defined in a multi-dimensional behavior-metrics space, and the implementation of a generalized linear model (GLM) whose parameters can provide quantitative biological interpretations.

The work builds on the literature of C. elegans foraging by adding the reject/accept framework.

Reviewer #2 (Public review):

Summary:

In short, the paper presents a theoretical framework that predicts how resources should be optimally distributed between receptors and optics in eyes.

After revision of an already excellent contribution, the manuscript is now even better. The authors have responded carefully to all reviewer comments.

Strengths:

The authors build on the principle of resource allocation within an organism and develop a formal theory for optimal distribution of resources within an eye between the receptor array and the optics. Because the two parts of eyes, receptor arrays and optics, share the same role of providing visual information to the animal it is possible to isolate these from resource allocation in the rest of the animal. This allows for a novel and powerful way of exploring the principles that govern eye design. By clever and thoughtful assumptions/constraints, the authors have built a formal theory of resource allocation between the receptor array and the optics for two major types of compound eye as well as for camera-type eyes. The theory is formalized with variables that are well characterized in a number of different animal eyes, resulting in testable predictions.

The authors use the theory to explain a number of design features that depend on different optimal distribution of resources between the receptor array and the optics in different types of eye. As an example, they successfully explain why eye regions with different spatial resolution should be built in different ways. They also explain differences between different types of eye, such as long photoreceptors in apposition compound eyes and much shorter receptors in camera type eyes. The predictive power in the theory is impressive.

To keep the number of parameters at a minimum, the theory was developed for two types of compound eye (neural superposition, and apposition) and for camera-type eyes. It is possible to extend the theory to other types of eye, although it would likely require more variables and assumptions/constraints to the theory. It is thus good to introduce the conceptual ideas without overdoing the applications of the theory.

The paper extends a previous theory, developed by the senior author, that develops performance surfaces for optimal cost/benefit design of eyes. By combining this with resource allocation between receptors and optics, the theoretical understanding of eye design takes a major leap and provides entirely new sets of predictions and explanations for why eyes are built the way they are.

The paper is well written and even though the theory development in the Results may be difficult to take in for many biologists, the Discussion very nicely lists all the major predictions under separate headings, and here the text is more tuned for readers that are not entirely comfortable with the formalism of the Results section. I must point out though that the Results section is kept exemplary concise. The figures are excellent and help explain concepts that otherwise may go above the head of many biologists.

Reviewer #2 (Public review):

Summary:

In this study, the authors seek to discover putative gene regulatory interactions underlying the lineage bifurcation process of neural progenitor cells in the embryonic mouse anterior brainstem into GABAergic and glutamatergic neuronal subtypes. The authors analyze single-cell RNA-seq and single-cell ATAC-seq datasets derived from the ventral rhombomere 1 of embryonic mouse brainstems to annotate cell types and make predictions or where TFs bind upstream and downstream of the effector TFs using computational methods. They add data on the genomic distributions of some of the key transcription factors, and layer these onto the single cell data to develop a model of the transcription factors interactions that define this fate choice.

Strengths:

The authors use a well-defined fate decision point from brainstem progenitors that can make two very different kinds of neurons. They already know the key TFs for selecting the neuronal type from genetic studies, so they focus their gene regulatory analysis on the mechanisms that are immediately upstream and downstream of these key factors. The authors use a combination of single-cell and bulk sequencing data, prediction and validation, and computation.

Weaknesses:

The study does not go as far as to experimentally test the transcription factor network from their model.

Reviewer #2 (Public review):

Summary:

This study characterized the function of SLC35G3, a putative transmembrane UDP-N-acetylglucosamine transporter, in spermatogenesis. They showed that SLC35G3 is testis-specific and expressed in round spermatids. Slc35g3-null males were sterile, but females were fertile. Slc35g3-null males produced a normal sperm count, but sperm showed subtle head morphology. Sperm from Slc35g3-null males have defects in uterotubal junction passage, ZP binding, and oocyte fusion. Loss of SLC35G3 causes abnormal processing and glycosylation of a number of sperm proteins in the testis and sperm. They demonstrated that SLC35G3 functions as a UDP-GlcNAc transporter in cell lines. Two human SLC35G3 variants impaired their transporter activity, implicating these variants in human infertility.

Strengths:

This study is thorough. The mutant phenotype is strong and interesting. The major conclusions are supported by the data. This study demonstrated SLC35G3 as a new and essential factor for male fertility in mice, which is likely conserved in humans.

Weaknesses:

Some data interpretations need to be revised.

Reviewer #2 (Public review):

Qiu et al. present active and inactive state dimeric structures of GPR3 with and without the previously identified inverse agonist AF64394. The manuscript combines cryo-EM processing, mutagenesis studies, and live-cell cAMP measurements to provide insights into the mechanism of action of AF64394 as a negative allosteric modulator of GPR3. All resolved structures show the density of a presumably hydrophobic endogenous, co-purified ligand in the orthosteric receptor binding pocket, supporting previous publications by this and other groups that endogenous lipids are endogenous ligands of GPR3. However, the authors also show that none of the proposed endogenous lipids (e.g., oleoylethanolamide) are able to further increase cAMP in living cells in a GPR3-dependent manner when applied exogenously. These data are in contrast to previous studies, but are of interest to the field as they may suggest that GPR3 expressed in different cell types is already saturated by endogenous lipids.

The overall findings are novel and exciting. GPR3 has not previously been proposed to assemble into a homodimeric complex, and no information has been published on where AF64394 binds to the receptor. Several comparative analyses between GPR3 and its close relatives, GPR6 and GPR12, including live cell experiments with GPR3/6 chimera, provide intriguing mechanistic explanations for the different dimerisation behaviour and activity of AF64394 at this GPCR cluster.

The only weakness of the study is that the population shift towards homodimer induced by AF6439, as suggested by 2D classifications of purified GPR3, is not supported by live cell experiments. The fact that AF64394 reduces GPR3-mediated cAMP production in a concentration-dependent manner may also be due to mechanisms independent of homodimerisation. Therefore, a live cell assay that directly detects dimer formation and/or dissociation upon different stimuli would significantly strengthen the findings of Qiu et al.

Reviewer #2 (Public review):

The mechanisms governing autophagic membrane expansion remain incompletely understood. ATG2 is known to function as a lipid transfer protein critical for this process; however, how ATG2 is coordinated with the broader autophagic machinery and endomembrane systems has remained elusive. In this study, the authors employ an elegant proximity labeling approach and identify two ER-Golgi intermediate compartment (ERGIC)-localized proteins-Rab1 and ARFGAP1-as novel regulators of ATG2 during autophagic membrane expansion.

Their findings support a model in which autophagosome formation occurs within a specialized subdomain of the ER that is enriched in both ER exit sites (ERES) and ERGIC, providing valuable mechanistic insight. The overall study is well-executed and offers an important contribution to our understanding of autophagy.

Specific Comments

(1) Integration with Prior Literature<br /> The data convincingly implicate the ERES-ERGIC interface in autophagosome biogenesis. It would strengthen the manuscript to discuss previous studies reporting ERES and ERGIC remodeling and formation of ERERS-ERGIC contact sites (PMID: 34561617; PMID: 28754694) in the context of the current findings.

(2) Experimental Conditions<br /> In Figures 2A-C and Figure 4, it is unclear how the cells were treated. Were they starved in EBSS? This information should be included in the corresponding figure legends.

(3) LC3 Lipidation vs. Cleavage<br /> In Figure 2A, ARFGAP1 knockdown appears to reduce LC3 lipidation without affecting Halo-LC3 cleavage. Clarifying this observation would help readers better understand the functional specificity of ARFGAP1 in the pathway.

(4) Use of HT-mGFP in Figure 2C<br /> It should be clarified whether the assay in Figure 2C was performed in the presence of HT-mGFP. Explaining the rationale would aid the interpretation of the results.

(5) COPII Inhibition Strategy<br /> The authors used the dominant-active SAR1(H79G) mutant to inhibit COPII function. While this is effective in in vitro budding assays, the GDP-locked mutant SAR1(T39N) has been shown to be more effective in blocking COPII-mediated trafficking in cells. Including SAR1(T39N) in the analysis would provide stronger support for the conclusions.

Reviewer #2 (Public review):

Summary:

There are two accounts in the literature that propose that expectations suppress activity of neurons that are (a) not tuned to the expected stimulus to increase the signal-to-noise ratio for expected stimuli (sharpening model) or (b) tuned to the expected stimulus to highlight novel information (dampening model). One recent account, the opposing process theory, brings the two models together and suggests that both processes occur, but at different time points: initial sharpening is followed by later dampening of the neural activity of the expected stimulus. In this study, the authors aim to test the opposing process theory in a statistical learning task by applying multivariate EEG analyses and find evidence for the opposing process theory based on the within-trial dynamics.

Strengths:

This study addresses a very timely research question about the underlying mechanisms of expectation suppression. The applied EEG decoding approach offers an elegant way to investigate the temporal characteristics of expectation effects. A strength of the study lies in the experimental design that aims to control for repetition effects, one of the common confounds in prediction suppression studies. The reported results are novel in the field and have the potential to improve our understanding of expectation suppression in visual perception.

Weaknesses:

Although some of the findings are in line with the opposing process theory, especially the EEG results only partly support the hypothesis. While the initial dampening effect occurs in the grand average ERP and in image memory decoding, the expected later sharpening effect is lacking. Moreover, some methodological decisions still remain arbitrary. One of the interesting aspects of the study - prediction decoding - had to be removed due to the fact that it could not be disentangled from category decoding. This weakens the overall scope and impact of the manuscript.

Reviewer #2 (Public review):

In this manuscript, the authors present a model to explain how working memory (WM) encodes both existence and timing simultaneously using transient synaptic augmentation. A simple yet intriguing idea.

The model presented here has the potential to explain what previous theories like 'active maintenance via attractors' and 'liquid state machine' do not, and describe how novel sequences are immediately stored in WM. Altogether, the topic is of great interest to those studying higher cognitive processes, and the conclusions the authors draw are certainly thought-provoking from an experimental perspective. However, several questions remain that need to be addressed.

The study relates to the well-known computational theory for working memory, which suggests short-term synaptic facilitation is required to maintain working memory, but doesn't rely on persistent spiking. This previous theory appears similar to the proposed theory, except for the change from facilitation to augmentation. A more detailed explanation of why the authors use augmentation instead of facilitation in this paper is warranted: is the facilitation too short to explain the whole process of WM? Can the theory with synaptic facilitation also explain the immediate storage of novel sequences in WM?

In Figure 1, the authors mention that synaptic augmentation leads to an increased firing rate even after stimulus presentation. It would be good to determine, perhaps, what the lowest threshold is to see the encoding of a WM task, and whether that is biologically plausible.

In the middle panel of Figure 4, after 15-16 sec, when the neuronal population prioritizes with the second retro-cue, although the second retro-cue item's synaptic spike dominates, why is the augmentation for the first retro-cue item higher than the second-cue augmentation until the 20 sec?

Reviewer #2 (Public review):

The authors have addressed my comments in this revised version of their manuscript. PointTree is an improved method for the reconstruction of neuronal anatomy that will be useful for neuroscientists.

In this manuscript, Cai et al. introduce PointTree, a new automated method for the reconstruction of complex neuronal projections. This method has the potential to drastically speed up the process of reconstructing complex neurites. The authors use semi-automated manual reconstruction of neurons and neurites to provide a 'ground-truth' for comparison between PointTree and other automated reconstruction methods. The reconstruction performance is evaluated for precision, recall and F1-score and positions. The performance of PointTree compared to other automated reconstruction methods is impressive based on these 3 criteria.

As an experimentalist, I will not comment on the computational aspects of the manuscript. Rather, I am interested in how PointTree's performance decrease in noisy samples. This is because many imaging datasets contain some level of background noise for which the human eye appears essential for accurate reconstruction of neurites. Although the samples presented in Figure 5 represent an inherent challenge for any reconstruction method, the signal to noise ratio is extremely high (also the case in all raw data images in the paper). It would be interesting to see how PointTree's performance change in increasingly noisy samples, and for the author to provide general guidance to the scientific community as to what samples might not be accurately reconstructed with PointTree.

Reviewer #2 (Public review):

In this manuscript, the authors investigated how partial loss of SynGap1 affects inhibitory neurons derived from the MGE in the auditory cortex, focusing on their synaptic inputs and excitability. While haplo-insufficiently of SynGap1 is known to lead to intellectual disabilities, the underlying mechanisms remain unclear.

This is the third revision of the manuscript that has improved further, and the main issues were addressed. Specifically, the Authors addressed the contradiction of mEPSC and sEPSC data of the previous version by new experiments and revision of the manuscript text. While alternative explanations are still possible, the new control experiments provide necessary background for reproducibility and the manuscript text puts the observations in the right context. Furthermore, the manuscript now appropriately emphasizes that anatomical analysis was restricted to somatic excitatory synapses. Thus, the readers will be aware of the potential limitations of these measurements.

Strengths:

The questions are novel and relevant. Most of the issues in the experimental design are solved or answered.

Weaknesses:

Despite the interesting and novel questions, there are potential alternative interpretations of the observations, but these cannot be addressed within the breadth of a single paper.

Reviewer #2 (Public review):

Summary:

In Cheong et al., the authors analyze a new motor system (ventral nerve cord) connectome of Drosophila. Through proofreading, cross-referencing with another female VNC connectome, they define key features of VNC circuits with a focus on descending neurons (DNs), motor neurons (MNs), and local interneuron circuits. They define DN tracts, MNs for limb and wing control and their nerves (although their sample suffers for a subset of MNs). They establish connectivity between DNs and MNs (minimal). They perform topological analysis of all VNC neurons including interneurons. They focus specifically on identifying core features of flight circuits (control of wings and halteres), leg control circuits with a focus on walking rather than other limbed behaviors (grooming, reaching, etc.), intermediate circuits like those for escape (GF). They put these features in the context of what is known or has been posited about these various circuits.

Strengths

Some strengths of the manuscript include the matching of new DN and MN types to light microscopy, including serial homology of leg motor neurons. This is a valuable contribution that will certainly open up future lines of experimental work. As well, the analysis of conserved connectivity patterns within each leg neuromere and interconnecting connectivity patterns between neuromeres will be incredibly valuable. The standard leg connectome is very nice. Finally, the finding of different connectivity statistics (degrees of feedback) in different neuropils is quite interesting and will stimulate future work aimed at determining its functional significance.

Weaknesses

The degradation of many motor neurons is unfortunate. Figure 5 supplement 1 shows that roughly 50% of the leg motor neurons have significantly compromised connectivity data, whereas for non-leg motor neurons, few seem to be compromised. As well, the infomap communities don't seem to be so well controlled/justified. Community detection can be run on any graph - why should I believe that the VNC graph is actually composed of discrete communities? Perhaps this comes from a lack of familiarity with the infomap algorithm, but I imagine most readers will be similarly unfamiliar with it, so more work should be done to demonstrate the degree to which these communities are really communities that connect more within than across communities.

Reviewer #2 (Public review):

This manuscript describes the role of the production of c-di-AMP on the chlamydial developmental cycle. The main findings remain the same. The authors show that overexpression of the dacA-ybbR operon results in increased production of c-di-AMP and early expression of transitionary and late genes. The authors also knocked down the expression of the dacA-ybbR operon and reported a modest reduction in the expression of both hctA and omcB. The authors conclude with a model suggesting the amount of c-di-AMP determines the fate of the RB, continued replication, or EB conversion.

Overall, this is a very intriguing study with important implications however, the data is very preliminary, and the model is very rudimentary. The data support the observation that dramatically increased c-di-AMP has an impact on transitionary gene expression and late gene expression suggesting dysregulation of the developmental cycle. This effect goes away with modest changes in c-di-AMP (detaTM-DacA vs detaTM-DacA (D164N)). However, the model predicts that low levels of c-di-AMP delays EB production is not not well supported by the data. If this prediction were true then the growth rate would increase with c-di-AMP reduction and the data does not show this. The levels of c-di-AMP at the lower levels need to be better validated as it seems like only very high levels make a difference for dysregulated late gene expression. However, on the low end it's not clear what levels are needed to have an effect as only DacAopMut and DacAopKD show any effects on the cycle and the c-di-AMP levels are only different at 24 hours.

The authors responded to reviewers' critiques by adding the overexpression of DacA without the transmembrane region. This addition does not really help their case. They show that detaTM-DacA and detaTM-DacA (D164N) had the same effects on c-di-AMP levels but the figure shows no effects on the developmental cycle.

Describing the significance of the findings:

The findings are important and point to very exciting new avenues to explore the important questions in chlamydial cell form development. The authors present a model that is not quantified and does not match the data well.

Describing the strength of evidence:

The evidence presented is incomplete. The authors do a nice job of showing that overexpression of the dacA-ybbR operon increases c-di-AMP and that knockdown or overexpression of the catalytically dead DacA protein decreases the c-di-AMP levels. However, the effects on the developmental cycle and how they fit the proposed model are less well supported.

Overall this is a very intriguing finding that will require more gene expression data, phenotypic characterization of cell forms, and better quantitative models to fully interpret these findings.

Reviewer #2 (Public review):

Fuchs et al. propose a framework for action recognition based on pose estimation. They integrate functions from DeepLabCut and MMAction2, two popular machine learning frameworks for behavioral analysis, in a new package called ASBAR.

They test their framework by:

Running pose estimation experiments on the OpenMonkeyChallenge (OMC) dataset (the public train + val parts) with DeepLabCut

Also annotating around 320 images pose data in the PanAf dataset (which contains behavioral annotations). They show that the ResNet-152 model generalizes best from the OMC data to this out-of-domain dataset.

They then train a skeleton-based action recognition model on PanAf and show that the top-1/3 accuracy is slightly higher than video-based methods

Reviewer #2 (Public review):

Summary:

In this study, the authors use a mechanical model to investigate how the geometry and deformations of myosin II filaments influence their force generation. They introduce a force generation efficiency that is defined as the ratio of the total generated force and the maximal force that the motors can generate. By changing the architecture of the myosin II filaments, they study the force generation efficiency in different systems: two filaments, a disorganized bundle, and a 2D network. In the simple two-filament systems, they found that in the presence of actin cross-linking proteins motors cannot add up their force because of steric hindrances. In the disorganized bundle, the authors identified a critical overlap of motors for cooperative force generation. This overlap is also influenced by the arrangement of the motor on the filaments and influenced by the length of the bare zone between the motor heads.

Strengths:

The strength of the study is the identification of organizational principles in myosin II filaments that influence force generation. It provides a complementary mechanistic perspective on the operation of these motor filaments. The force generation efficiency and the cooperative overlap number are quantitative ways to characterize the force generation of molecular motors in clusters and between filaments. These quantities and their conceptual implications are most likely also applicable in other systems.

Weaknesses:

The detailed model that the authors present relies on over 20 numerical parameters that are listed in the supplement. Because of this vast number of parameters, it is not clear how general the findings are. On the other hand, it was not obvious how specific the model is to myosin II, meaning how well it can describe experimental findings or make measurable predictions. Although the authors partially addressed this point in the revisions, I still think it is not easy to see what are the fundamental principles that govern the behavior and how they could be different for different motor proteins.

The model seems to be quantitative, but the interpretation and connection to real experiments is rather qualitative in my point of view.

Reviewer #2 (Public review):

Summary:

This paper uses large-scale publication data to examine the dynamics of interdisciplinarity and international collaborations in research journals. The main finding is that interdisciplinarity and internationalism have been increasing over the past decades, especially in prestigious general science journals.

Strengths:

The paper uses a state-of-the-art large-scale publication database to examine the dynamics of interdisciplinarity and internationalism. The analyses span over a century and in major scientific fields in natural sciences, engineering, and social sciences. The study is well designed and has provided a range of robustness tests to enhance the main findings. The writing is clear and well organized.

Weaknesses:

While the research provides interesting perspectives for the reader to learn about the trends of journal preferences, I have a few points for the authors to consider that might help strengthen their work.

The first thing that comes to mind is the epistemic mechanism of the study. Why should there be a joint discussion combining internationalism and interdisciplinarity? While internationalism is the tendency to form multinational research teams to work on research projects, interdisciplinarity refers to the scope and focus of papers that draw inspiration from multiple fields. These concepts may both fall into the realm of diversity, but it remains unclear if there is any conceptual interplay that underlies the dynamics of their increase in research journals.

It is also unclear why internationalization is increasing. Although the authors have provided a few prominent examples in physics, such as CERN and LAGO, which are complex and expensive experimental facilities that demand collective efforts and investments from the global scientific community, whether some similar concerns or factors drive the growth of internationalism in other fields remains unknown. I can imagine that these concerns do not always apply in many fields, and the authors need to come up with some case studies in diverse fields with some sociological theory to support their empirical findings.

The authors use Shannon entropy as a measure of diversity for both internationalism and interdisciplinarity. However, entropy may fail to account for the uneven correlations between fields, and the range of value chances when the number of categories changes. The science of science and scientometrics community has proposed a range of diversity indicators, such as the Rao-Stirling index and its derivatives. One obvious advantage of the RS index is that it explicitly accounts for the heterogeneous connections between fields, and the value ranges from 0 to 1. Using more state-of-the-art metrics to quantify interdisciplinarity may help strengthen the data analytics.

Reviewer #2 (Public review):

Summary:

The authors investigate EI balance in the CA3-CA1 projections, emphasizing synaptic depletion and the implied rebalancing of excitatory and inhibitory projections onto a single CA1 Pyramidal cell. They present physiological results with optical stimulation in CA3 and measuring various response features in CA1, showing signatures consistent with the adjustment of EI balance. In particular, the authors emphasize a transient effect where the neuron escapes from EI balance, which can be used for mismatch detection. They partially replicate these results in a computational model that looks at detailed properties of synaptic plasticity in CA1.

Strengths:

The authors provide compelling evidence that non-specific modulation of synaptic plasticity, combined with their differential effects on excitatory and inhibitory neurons, can be used by CA1 excitatory neurons to detect changes in the population activity of CA3 neurons. Indeed, they provide insight into the potential computational role of transient EI imbalance.

Weaknesses:

The authors observe that‬ "little‬‭ is‬‭ known‬‭ about‬‭ how‬‭ EI‬‭ balance‬ itself evolves dynamically due to activity-driven plasticity in sparsely active networks.‬" This is an overstatement, or better an understatement, given the extensive literature on EI balance (e.g. Wen W, Turrigiano GG. Keeping Your Brain in Balance: Homeostatic Regulation of Network Function. Ann Rev Neurosci. 2024. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-neuro-092523-110001 PMID:38382543). This way of framing the question does a disservice to the field and fails to contextualize the current research properly.

The evidence is incomplete because the authors do not show a specific relationship between synaptic change in CA1 and EI balance adjustment, i.e., the alternative could be that this is an unspecific effect unrelated to the specific regulation of EI balance and its functional role in the hippocampus and the cortex. Indeed, the paper drifts from addressing EI balance to elucidating the mismatch detection. The second shortcoming is that they do not show that the stimulation of the CA3 neurons occurs in a physiologically realistic regime, nor do they analyze what the impact will be of the excitatory transient in "mismatch detection", and CA1, when this would occur at the level of the whole population, i.e., the physiological impossibility of triggering uncontrolled chaotic excitatory responses. In particular, when we consider CA3 as an attractor memory system, the range of deviations (mismatches) that a CA1 neuron can be exposed to and detect, given the model presented in this paper, might be below those generated due to CA3 pattern-completion dynamics. In addition, the match between the model and the physiological results is not fully quantified, leaving it to the reader to make a leap of faith.

In addition, the manuscript suffers from poor analysis and presentation. The work could be improved by putting more effort into translating results into insightful metrics.

Overall, the authors have not achieved their original aim to show that the observed phenomenon is relevant to computation in CA1 or the brain outside of a highly controlled in vitro setup and reductionist single cell model.

The authors combine several techniques for in vitro whole-cell patch-clamp recordings with patterned optical stimulation of the CA3 network in the mouse hippocampus, which is consistent with the state-of-the-art.

They introduce a metric of similarity between expected and observed response patterns, called gamma. The name is confusing given the wide use of the label gamma for oscillation frequencies above 20 Hz. Gamma is calculated as (E*O)/(E-O). This means that gamma approximates infinity as the difference goes to 0, to mention one of the problems. This metric is not interpretable, and it is not clear why the authors did not follow a standard approach, e.g., likelihood, correlation, or percent error.

The authors aim to replicate the physiological results with an "abstract‬‭ model‬ of‬‭ the‬‭ hippocampal‬‭ FFEI‬‭ network. In practice, this is a conductance-based model of a single CA1 neuron, including chemical‬ kinetics-based‬‭ multi-step‬‭ neurotransmitter‬‭ vesicle‬‭ release‬‭. This is an abstraction from the FFEI network that the paper starts with. It raises the question whether this is the right level at which to model the computational impacts of EI imbalance on CA1 neurons. Given the highly reduced model they have elaborated, the generalization to the complete CA3-CA1 network that the authors suggest can be achieved in the discussion is overoptimistic. Network models of CA3 and C1 must be considered, together with afferents from the entorhinal cortex to accomplish this generalization.

The authors reveal a potentially interesting physiological feature of CA1 excitatory neurons under very specific stimulus conditions. It could warrant follow-up studies to place EI imbalance in a physiologically realistic context.

Reviewer #2 (Public review):

Summary:

This useful study combines atomic force microscopy with genetic manipulations of the lamin meshwork and microinjection of cytoskeletal depolymerizing drugs to probe the mechanical responses of intracellular organelles to combinations of cytoskeletal perturbations. This study demonstrates both local and distal responses of intracellular organelles to mechanical forces and shows that these responses are affected by disruption of the actin, microtubule, and lamin cytoskeletal systems. Interpretation of these effects is limited by the absence of key data determining whether acute microinjection of cytoskeleton-depolymerizing drugs has complete or partial effects on the targeted cytoskeletal networks.

Strengths:

This study uses a sensitive micromanipulation system to apply and visualize the effects of force on intracellular organelles.

Weaknesses:

The choice to deliver cytoskeleton-depolymerizing drugs by local microinjection is unusual, and it is unclear to what extent actin and microtubule filaments are actually depolymerized immediately after microinjection and on the minutes-length timescale being evaluated in this study. This omission limits the interpretation of these data.

Reviewer #2 (Public review):

Summary:

Essoh and colleagues present a thorough and elegant study identifying the central amygdala and BNST as key sources of CRF input to the dorsal striatum. Using monosynaptic rabies tracing and electrophysiology, they show direct connections to cholinergic interneurons. The study builds on previous findings that CRF increases CIN firing, extending them by measuring acetylcholine levels in slices and applying optogenetic stimulation of CRF+ fibers. It also uncovers a novel interaction between alcohol and CRF signaling in the striatum, likely to spark significant interest and future research.

Strengths:

A key strength is the integration of anatomical and functional approaches to demonstrate these projections and assess their impact on target cells, striatal cholinergic interneurons.

Weaknesses:

The nature of the interaction between alcohol and CRF actions on cholinergic neurons remains unclear. Also, further clarification of the ACh sensor used and others is required

Reviewer #2 (Public review):

This article reviews the studies on the relationship between slow oscillation (SO)-spindle (SP) coupling and memory consolidation. It innovatively employs non-normal circular linear correlations through a Bayesian meta-analysis. A systematic analysis of the retrieved studies highlighted that co-coupling of SO and the fast SP's phase and amplitude at the frontal part better predicts memory consolidation performance.

Regarding the moderator of age, this study not only provided evidence of the effect across all age groups but also the effect in a younger age group (without the small sample of elders that has a large gap from the younger age groups). The ageing effects become less pronounced, but the model still shows a moderate effect.

Reviewer #2 (Public review):

The revised manuscript by Altan et al. includes some real improvements to the visualizations and explanations of the authors' thesis statement with respect to fMRI measurements of pRF sizes. In particular, the deposition of the paper's data has allowed me to probe and refine several of my previous concerns. While I still have major concerns about how the data are presented in the current draft of the manuscript, my skepticism about data quality overall has been much alleviated. Note that this review focuses almost exclusively on the fMRI data as I was satisfied with the quality of the psychophysical data and analyses in my previous review.

Major Concerns

(I) Statistical Analysis

In my previous review, I raised the concern that the small sample size combined with the noisiness of the fMRI data, a lack of clarity about some of the statistics, and a lack of code/data likely combine to make this paper difficult or impossible to reproduce as it stands. The authors have since addressed several aspects of this concern, most importantly by depositing their data. However their response leaves some major questions, which I detail below.

First of all, the authors claim in their response to the previous review that the small sample size is not an issue because large samples are not necessary to obtain "conclusive" results. They are, of course, technically correct that a small sample size can yield significant results, but the response misses the point entirely. In fact, small samples are more likely than large samples to erroneously yield a significant result (Button et al., 2013, DOI:10.1038/nrn3475), especially when noise is high. The response by the authors cites Schwarzkopf & Huang (2024) to support their methods on this front. After reading the paper, I fail to see how it is at all relevant to the manuscript at hand or the criticism raised in the previous review. Schwarzkopf & Huang propose a statistical framework that is narrowly tailored to situations where one is already certain that some phenomenon (like the adaptation of pRF size to spatial frequency) either always occurs or never occurs. Such a framework is invalid if one cannot be certain that, for example, pRF size adapts in 98% of people but not the remaining 2%. Even if the paper were relevant to the current study, the authors don't cite this paper, use its framework, or admit the assumptions it requires in the current manuscript. The observation that a small dataset can theoretically lead to significance under a set of assumptions not appropriate for the current manuscript is not a serious response to the concern that this manuscript may not be reproducible.

To overcome this concern, the authors should provide clear descriptions of their statistical analyses and explanations of why these analyses are appropriate for the data. Ideally, source code should be published that demonstrates how the statistical tests were run on the published data. (I was unable to find any such source code in the OSF repository.) If the effects in the paper were much stronger, this level of rigor might not be strictly necessary, but the data currently give the impression of being right near the boundary of significance, and the manuscript's analyses needs to reflect that. The descriptions in the text were helpful, but I was only able to approximately reproduce the authors analyses based on these descriptions alone. Specifically, I attempted to reproduce the Mood's median tests described in the second paragraph of section 3.2 after filtering the data based on the criteria described in the final paragraph of section 3.1. I found that 7/8 (V1), 7/8 (V2), 5/8 (V3), 5/8 (V4), and 4/8 (V3A) subjects passed the median test when accounting for the (40) multiple comparisons. These results are reasonably close to those reported in the manuscript and might just differ based on the multiple comparisons strategy used (which I did not find documented in the manuscript). However, Mood's median test does not test the direction of the difference-just whether the medians are different-so I additionally required that the median sigma of the high-adapted pRFs be greater than that of the low-adapted pRFs. Surprisingly, in V1 and V3, one subject each (not the same subject) failed this part of the test, meaning that they had significant differences between conditions but in the wrong direction. This leaves 6/8 (V1), 7/8 (V2), 4/8 (V3), 5/8 (V4), and 4/8 (V3A) subjects that appear to support the authors' conclusions. As the authors mention, however, this set of analyses runs the risk of comparing different parts of cortex, so I also performed Wilcox signed-rank tests on the (paired) vertex data for which both the high-adapted and low-adapted conditions passed all the authors' stated thresholds. These results largely agreed with the median test (only 5/8 subjects significant in V1 but 6/8 in in V3A, other areas the same, though the two tests did not always agree which subjects had significant differences). These analyses were of course performed by a reviewer with a reviewer's time commitment to the project and shouldn't be considered a replacement for the authors' expertise with their own data. If the authors think that I have made a mistake in these calculations, then the best way to refute them would be to publish the source code they used to threshold the data and to perform the same tests.

Setting aside the precise values of the relevant tests, we should also consider whether 5 of 8 subjects showing a significant effect (as they report for V3, for example) should count as significant evidence of the effect? If one assumes, as a null hypothesis, that there is no difference between the two conditions in V3 and that all differences are purely noise, then a binomial test across subjects would be appropriate. Even if 6 of 8 subjects show the effect, however (and ignoring multiple comparisons), the p-value of a one-sided binomial test is not significant at the 0.05 level (7 of 8 subjects is barely significant). Of course, a more rigorous way to approach this question could be something like an ANOVA, and the authors use an ANOVA analysis of the medians in the paragraph following their use of Mood's median test. However, ANOVA assumes normality, and the authors state in the previous paragraph that they employed Mood's median test because "the distribution of the pRF sizes is zero-bounded and highly skewed" so this choice does not make sense. The Central Limits Theorem might be applied to the medians in theory, but with only 8 subjects and with an underlying distribution of pRF sizes that is non-negative, the relevant data will almost certainly not be normally distributed. These tests should probably be something like a Kruskal-Wallis ANOVA on ranks.

All of the above said, my intuition about the data is currently that there are significant changes to the adapted pRF size in V2. I am not currently convinced that the effects in other visual areas are significant, and I suspect that the paper would be improved if authors abandoned their claims that areas other than V2 show a substantial effect. Importantly, I don't think this causes the paper to lose any impact-in fact, if the authors agree with my assessments, then the paper might be improved by focusing on V2. Specifically, the authors' already discuss psychophysical work related to the perception of texture on pages 18 and 19 and link it to their results. V2 is also implicated in the perception of texture (see, for example, Freeman et al., 2013; DOI:10.1038/nn.3402; Ziemba et al., 2016, DOI:10.1073/pnas.1510847113; Ziemba et al., 2019; DOI:10.1523/JNEUROSCI.1743-19.2019) and so would naturally be the part of the visual cortex where one might predict that spatial frequency adaptation would have a strong effect on pRF size. This neatly connects the psychophysical and imaging sides of this project and could make a very nice story out of the present work.

(II) Visualizations

The manuscript's visual evidence regarding the pRF data also remains fairly weak (but I found the pRF size comparisons in the OSF repository and Figure S1 to be better evidence-more in the next paragraph). The first line of the Results section still states, "A visual inspection on the pRF size maps in Figure 4c clearly shows a difference between the two conditions, which is evident in all regions." As I mentioned in my previous review, I don't agree with this claim (specifically, that it is clear). My impression when I look at these plots is of similarity between the maps, and, where there is dissimilarity, of likely artifacts. For example, the splotch of cortex near the upper vertical meridian (ventral boundary) of V1 that shows up in yellow in the upper plot but not the lower plot also has a weirdly high eccentricity and a polar angle near the opposite vertical meridian: almost certainly not the actual tuning of that patch of cortex. If this is the clearest example subject in the dataset, then the effect looks to me to be very small and inconsistently distributed across the visual areas. That said, I'm not convinced that the problem here is the data-rather, I think it's just very hard to communicate a small difference in parameter tuning across a visual area using this kind of side-by-side figure. I think that Figure S2, though noisy (as pRF maps typically are), is more convincing than Figure 4c, personally. For what it's worth, when looking at the data myself, I found that plotting log(𝜎(H) / 𝜎(L)), which will be unstable when noise causes 𝜎(H) or 𝜎(L) to approach zero, was less useful than plotting plotting (𝜎(H) - 𝜎(L)) / (𝜎(H) + 𝜎(L)). This latter quantity will be constrained between -1 and 1 and shows something like a proportional change in the pRF size (and thus should be more comparable across eccentricity).

In my opinion, the inclusion of the pRF size comparison plots in the OSF repository and Figure S1 made a stronger case than any of the plots of the cortical surface. I would suggest putting these on log-log plots since the distribution of pRF size (like eccentricity) is approximately exponential on the cortical surface. As-is, it's clear in many plots that there is a big splotch of data in the compressed lower left corner, but it's hard to get a sense for how these should be compared to the upper right expanse of the plots. It is frequently hard to tell whether there is a greater concentration of points above or below the line of equality in the lower left corner as well, and this is fairly central to the paper's claims. My intuition is that the upper right is showing relatively little data (maybe 10%?), but these data are very emphasized by the current plots.
The authors might even want to consider putting a collection of these scatter-plots (or maybe just subject 007, or possible all subjects' pRFs on a single scatter-plot) in the main paper and using these visualizations to provide intuitive supporting for the main conclusions about the fMRI data (where the manuscript currently use Figure 4c for visual intuition).

Minor Comments

(1) Although eLife does not strictly require it, I would like to see more of the authors' code deposited along with the data (especially the code for calculating the statistics that were mentioned above). I do appreciate the simulation code that the authors added in the latest submission (largely added in response to my criticism in the previous reviews), and I'll admit that it helped me understand where the authors were coming from, but it also contains a bug and thus makes a good example of why I'd like to see more of the authors' code. If we set aside the scientific question of whether the simulation is representative of an fMRI voxel (more in Minor Comment 5, below), Figures 1A and the "AdaptaionEffectSimulated.png" file from the repository (https://osf.io/d5agf) imply that only small RFs were excluded in the high-adapted condition and only large RFs were excluded in the low-adapted condition. However, the script provided (SimlatePrfAdaptation.m: https://osf.io/u4d2h) does not do this. Lines 7 and 8 of the script set the small and large cutoffs at the 30th and 70th percentiles, respectively, then exclude everything greater than the 30th percentile in the "Large RFs adapted out" condition (lines 19-21) and exclude anything less than the 70th percentile in the "Small RFs adapted out" condition (lines 27-29). So the figures imply that they are representing 70% of the data but they are in fact representing only the most extreme 30% of the data. (Moreover, I was unable to run the script because it contains hard-coded paths to code in someone's home directory.) Just to be clear, these kinds of bugs are quite common in scientific code, and this bug was almost certainly an honest mistake.

(2) I also noticed that the individual subject scatter-plots of high versus low adapted pRF sizes on the OSF seem to occasionally have a large concentration of values on the x=0 and y=0 axes. This isn't really a big deal in the plots, but the manuscript states that "we denoised the pRF data to remove artifactual vertices where at least one of the following criteria was met: (1) sigma values were equal to or less than zero ..." so I would encourage the authors to double-check that the rest of their analysis code was run with the stated filtering.

(3) The manuscript also says that the median test was performed "on the raw pRF size values". I'm not really sure what the "raw" means here. Does this refer to pRF sizes without thresholding applied?

(4) The eccentricity data are much clearer now with the additional comments from the authors and the full set of maps; my concerns about this point have been met.

(5) Regarding the simulation of RFs in a voxel (setting aside the bug), I will admit both to hoping for a more biologically-grounded situation and to nonetheless understanding where the authors are coming from based on the provided example. What I mean by biologically-grounded: something like, assume a 2.5-mm isotropic voxel aligned to the surface of V1 at 4{degree sign} of eccentricity; the voxel would span X to Y degrees of eccentricity, and we predict Z neurons with RFs in this voxel with a distribution of RF sizes at that eccentricity from [reference], etc. eventually demonstrating a plausible pRF size change commensurate to the paper's measurements. I do think that a simulation like this would make the paper more compelling, but I'll acknowledge that it probably isn't necessary and might be beyond the scope here.

Reviewer #2 (Public review):

Summary:

The manuscript "Dual transcranial electromagnetic stimulation of the precuneus-hippocampus network boosts human long-term memory" by Borghi and colleagues provides evidence that the combination of intermittent theta burst TMS stimulation and gamma transcranial alternating current stimulation (γtACS) targeting the precuneus increases long-term associative memory in healthy subjects compared to iTBS alone and sham conditions. Using a rich dataset of TMS-EEG and resting-state functional connectivity (rs-FC) maps and structural MRI data, the authors also provide evidence that dual stimulation increased gamma oscillations and functional connectivity between the precuneus and hippocampus. Enhanced memory performance was linked to increased gamma oscillatory activity and connectivity through white matter tracts.

Strengths:

The combination of personalized repetitive TMS (iTBS) and gamma tACS is a novel approach to targeting the precuneus, and thereby, connected memory-related regions to enhance long-term associative memory. The authors leverage an existing neural mechanism engaged in memory binding, theta-gamma coupling, by applying TMS at theta burst patterns and tACS at gamma frequencies to enhance gamma oscillations. The authors conducted a thorough study that suggests that simultaneous iTBS and gamma tACS could be a powerful approach for enhancing long-term associative memory. The paper was well-written, clear, and concise.

Weaknesses:

(1) The study did not include a condition where γtACS was applied alone. This was likely because a previous work indicated that a single 3-minute γtACS did not produce significant effects, but this limits the ability to isolate the specific contribution of γtACS in the context of this target and memory function

(2) The authors applied stimulation for 3 minutes, which seems to be based on prior tACS protocols. It would be helpful to present some rationale for both the duration and timing relative to the learning phase of the memory task. Would you expect additional stimulation prior to recall to benefit long-term associative memory?

(3) How was the burst frequency of theta iTBS and gamma frequency of tACS chosen? Were these also personalized to subjects' endogenous theta and gamma oscillations? If not, were increases in gamma oscillations specific to patients' endogenous gamma oscillation frequencies or the tACS frequency?

(4) The authors do a thorough job of analyzing the increase in gamma oscillations in the precuneus through TMS-EEG; however, the authors may also analyze whether theta oscillations were also enhanced through this protocol due to the iTBS potentially targeting theta oscillations. This may also be more robust than gamma oscillations increases since gamma oscillations detected on the scalp are very low amplitude and susceptible to noise and may reflect activity from multiple overlapping sources, making precise localization difficult without advanced techniques.

(5) Figure 4: Why are connectivity values pre-stimulation for the iTBS and sham tACS stimulation condition so much higher than the dual stimulation? We would expect baseline values to be more similar.

(6) Figure 2: How are total association scores significantly different between stimulation conditions, but individual name and occupation associations are not? Further clarification of how the total FNAT score is calculated would be helpful.

Reviewer #2 (Public review):

Summary:

This brief communication aims to clarify interactions between the dopamine (DA) and serotonin (5HT) systems of mice. The authors use optogenetic stimulation of DA neurons in the VTA or of 5HT neurons in the DRN, while monitoring the fluorescence of DA and 5HT sensors in the nucleus accumbens (NAc) and dorsal striatum (DS) using fiber photometry. The authors report on a small release of DA in the NAc following DRN stimulation, which they attribute to glutamate co-release onto VTA DA neurons using slice electrophysiology. The authors also report on cocaine-induced 5-HT release in the striatum.

Strengths:

This is a topic well worth studying.

Weaknesses:

In its current form, this is an incomplete and underpowered study that does little to clarify the complicated relationship that exists between DA and 5HT in the mammalian brain under physiological conditions or during cocaine use.

Reviewer #2 (Public review):

Summary:

This work proposes a new platform to study social cognition in a more naturalistic setting. The authors give an overview of previous work that extends from static unidirectional paradigms (i.e., subject is presented with social stimuli such as still images or faces), to more dynamic unidirectional paradigms (i.e., the subject is presented with movies, or another individual's behavior) to dyadic interactions in a laboratory setting or in real life (i.e., interacting with a real person). Overall, this literature demonstrates that findings from realistic social situations can differ dramatically from unidirectional laboratory settings. Moreover, current and previous work are put in the perspective of an experimental framework that has tightly controlled experimental set-ups and low ecological validity on one end, and high ecological validity, naturalistic, without any experimental constraints on the other end, and all that is in between. The authors frame previous work along a spectrum, ranging from highly controlled, low-ecological-validity experiments to naturalistic, unconstrained approaches with high ecological validity, situating their current work within this continuum. They focus on a specific sub-domain of social interactions, i.e., goal-directed contexts in which interactions are purposeful for solving joint tasks or obtaining rewards. This new dyadic interaction platform claims to embed tight experimental control in a naturalistic face-to-face social interaction with the goal of investigating social information processing in bidirectional, dynamic social interactions.

Strengths:

The proposed dyadic interaction platform (DIP) is highly flexible, accommodating diverse visual displays, interactive components, and recording devices, making it suitable for various experiments.

The manuscript does a good job of highlighting the strengths and weaknesses of the various display options. This clarity allows readers to easily assess which display best suits their specific experimental setup and objectives.

One of the platform's key strengths is its versatility, allowing the same experimental setup to be used across multiple species and developmental stages, and enabling NHPs and humans to be studied as subjects within the same paradigm. Highlighting this capability could further underscore the platform's broad applicability.

Weaknesses:

The manuscript emphasizes the importance of ecological validity alongside tight experimental control, a significant challenge in naturalistic neuroscience. While the platform achieves tight control, the ecological validity of such a set-up remains questionable and warrants further testing and validation. For example, while the platform is designed to be more naturalistic in principle, its application to NHPs is still complex and may be comparably constrained as traditional NHP research. To realize its full potential for animal studies, the platform should be combined with complementary methodologies - such as wireless electrophysiology and freely moving paradigms - to truly achieve a balance between ecological validity and experimental control. Further validation in this direction could significantly enhance its utility.

The manuscript is somewhat lengthy and occasionally reads more like a review paper, which slightly shifts the focus away from the primary emphasis on the innovative technological advancement and the considerable effort invested in optimizing this new platform. Streamlining the presentation to more directly highlight these key contributions could enhance clarity and impact.

Overall, there is compelling evidence supporting the feasibility and value of DIP for investigating specific types of social interactions, particularly in contexts where individuals share a workspace and have full transparency regarding their opponent's actions. While I believe that DIP has the potential to significantly impact the field, which is supported by preliminary data, its broader applicability remains an open question. This platform aligns well with recent initiatives aimed at enhancing ecological validity in neuroscience research across both human and animal models. To maximize its impact, it would be beneficial to more explicitly situate this work within that broader movement, emphasizing its relevance and potential to advance ecologically valid approaches in the field.

Reviewer #2 (Public review):

Summary:

This is a remarkable study, one of a kind. The authors trace the entire huge superfamily containing Wnt proteins which origins remained obscure before this work. Even more amazingly, they show that Wnts originated from transmembrane enzymes. The work is masterfully executed and presented. The conclusions are strongly supported by multiple lines of evidence. Illustrations are beautifully crafted. This is an exemplary work of how modern sequence and structure analysis methods should be used to gain unprecedented insights into protein evolution and origins.

Significance:

Wnts are essential in animal development and their studies attracted significant attention. Therefore, this work is of high importance. Moreover, the authors delineated the entire superfamily consisting of many families with unique functional roles throughout all domains of live. The broad reach of this work further elevates its significance.

Reviewer #2 (Public review):

Summary:

In this study, the authors build a statistical model that stochastically samples from a time-interval distribution of reorientation rates. The form of the distribution is extracted from a large array of behavioral data, is then used to describe not only the dynamics of individual worms (including the inter-individual variability in behavior), but also the aggregate population behavior. The authors note that the model does not require any assumptions about behavioral state transitions, or evidence accumulation, as has been done previously, but rather that the stochastic nature of behavior is "simply the product of stochastic sampling from an exponential function".

Strengths:

This model provides a strong juxtaposition to other foraging models in the worm. Rather than evoking a behavioral transition function (that might arise from a change in internal state or the activity of a cell type in the network), or evidence accumulation (which again maps onto a cell type, or the activity of a network) - this model explains behavior via the stochastic sampling of a function of an exponential decay. The underlying model and the dynamics being simulated, as well as the process of stochastic sampling are well described, and the model fits the exponential function (equation 1) to data on a large array of worms exhibiting diverse behaviors (1600+ worms from Lopez-Cruz et al). The work of this study can explain or describe the inter-individual diversity of worm behavior across a large population. The model is also able to capture two aspects of the reorientations, including the dynamics (to switch or not to switch) and the kinetics (slow vs fast reorientations). The authors also work to compare their model to a few others including the Levy walk (whose construction arises from a Markov process) to a simple exponential distribution, all of which have been used to study foraging and search behaviors.

Weaknesses:

The weaknesses are one of framework, which may nonetheless stir discussion and motivate new ideas based on these results.

First, the examples the authors cite where a Gillespie algorithm is used to sample from a distribution, be it the kinetics associated with chemical dynamics, or a Lotka-Volterra Competition Model, there are underlying processes that govern the evolution of the dynamics, and thus the sampling from distributions. In one of their references for instance, the stochasticity arises from the birth and death rates, thereby influencing the genetic drift in the model. In these examples, the process governing the dynamics (and thus generating the distributions from which one samples) are distinct from the behavior being studied. In this manuscript, the distribution being sampled from is the exponential decay function of the reorientation rate. That the model performs well, and matches the data is commendable, but it is unclear how that could not be the case if the underlying function generating the distribution was fit to the data.

The second weakness is related to the first, in that absent an underlying mechanism or framework, one is left wondering what insight the model provides. Stochastic sampling a function generated by fitting the data to produce stochastic behavior is where one ends up in this framework. But if that is the case, what do we learn about how the foraging is happening. The authors suggest that the decay parameter M can be considered a memory timescale, which offers some suggestion, but then go on to say that the "physical basis of M can come from multiple sources". Here is where one is left for want: Molecular dynamics models that generate distributions can point to certain properties of the model, such as the binding kinetics (on and off rates, etc.) as explanations for the mechanisms generating the distributions, and therefore point to how a change in the biology affects the stochasticity of the process. It is unclear how this model provides such a connection.

The authors provide possible roadmaps, but where they lead and how to relate that back to testable mechanistic studies remains unclear. Weighing the significance of the finding relative to the weaknesses appears to depend on how one feels about the possible mechanisms the authors identify in their responses.

Reviewer #2 (Public review):

Summary:

The authors use the TRAP2 mouse line to label dentate gyrus cells active during and enriched environment paradigm and cut brain slices from these animals one week later to determine whether granule cells (GC) and semilunar granule cells (SGC) labelled during the exposure share common features. They particularly focus on the role of SGCs and potential circuit mechanisms by which they could be selectively embedded in the labelled assembly. The authors claim that SGCs are disproportionately recruited into IEG expressing assemblies due to intrinsic firing characteristics but cannot identify any contributing circuit connectivity motives in the slice preparation, although they claim that an increased correlation between spontaneous synaptic currents in the slice could signify common synaptic inputs as the source of assembly formation.

Strengths:

The authors chose a timely and relevant question, namely, how memory-bearing neuronal assemblies, or 'engrams', are established and maintained in the dentate gyrus. After the initial discovery of such memory-specific ensembles of immediate-early gene expressing engrams in 2012 (Ramirez et al.) this issue has been explored by several high-profile studies that have considerably expanded our understanding of the underlying molecular and cellular mechanisms, but still leave a lot of unanswered questions.

Weaknesses:

(1) The authors claim that recurrent excitation from SGCs onto GCs or other SGCs is irrelevant because they did not find any connections in 32 simultaneous recordings (plus 63 in the next experiment). Without a demonstration that other connections from SGCs (e.g. onto mossy cells or interneurons) are preserved in their preparation and if so at what rates, it is unclear whether this experiment is indicative of the underlying biology or the quality of the preparation. The argument that spontaneous EPSCs are observed is not very convincing as these could equally well arise from severed axons (in fact we would expect that the vast majority of inputs are not from local excitatory cells). The argument on line 418 that SGCs have compact axons isn't particularly convincing either given that the morphologies from which they were derived were also obtained in slice preparations and would be subject to the same likelihood of severing the axon. Finally, even in paired slice recordings from CA3 pyramidal cells the experimentally detected connectivity rates are only around 1% (Guzman et al., 2016). The authors would need to record from a lot more than 32 pairs (and show convincing positive controls regarding other connections) to make the claim that connectivity is too low to be relevant.

The authors now provide evidence that at least some synaptic connections are preserved by recruiting GC assemblies with channelrhodopsin, resulting in feedback inhibition which supports their argument.

(2) Another concern is that optogenetic GC stimulation rarely ever evokes feedback inhibition onto other cells which contrasts with both other in vitro (e.g. Braganza et al., 2020) and in vivo studies (Stefanelli et al., 2016) studies. Without a convincing demonstration that monosynaptic connections between SGCs/GCs and interneurons in both directions is preserved at least at the rates previously described in other slice studies (e.g. Geiger et al., 1997, Neuron, Hainmueller et al., 2014, PNAS, Savanthrapadian et al., 2014, J. Neurosci). The authors now provide evidence that at least some synaptic connections are preserved by stimulating a random subset of granule cells optogenetically, although it still remains unclear how the rate of connectivity compares to other studies or a live organism.

(3) Probably the most convincing finding in this study is the higher zero-time lag correlation of spontaneous EPSCs in labelled vs. unlabeled pairs. Unfortunately, the authors use spontaneous EPSCs to begin with, which likely represent a mixture of spontaneous release from severed axons, minis, and coordinated discharge from intact axon segments or entire neurons, make it very hard to determine the meaning and relevance of this finding. The authors now show the baseline EPSC rates and conventional Cross correlograms (CCG; see e.g. English et al., 2017, Neuron; Senzai and Buzsaki, 2017, Neuron) lending more support to this conclusion.

(4) Finally, one of the biggest caveats of the study is that the ensemble is labelled a full week before the slice experiment and thereby represents a latent state of a memory rather than encoding, consolidation, or recall processes. The authors acknowledge that in the discussion but they should also be mindful of this when discussing other (especially in vivo) studies and comparing their results to these. For instance, Pignatelli et al 2018 show drastic changes in GC engram activity and features driven by behavioral memory recall, so the results of the current study may be very different if slices were cut immediately after memory acquisition (if that was possible with a different labelling strategy), or if animals were re-exposed to the enriched environment right before sacrificing the animal. The authors discuss this limitation appropriately.

There are also a few minor issues limiting the extent of interpretations of the data:

(1) Only about 7% of the 'engram' cells are re-activated one week after exposure (line 147), it is unclear how meaningful this assembly is given the high number of cells that may either be labelled unrelated to the EE or no longer be part of the memory-related ensemble.

(2) Line 215: The wording '32 pairwise connections examined' suggests that there actually were synaptic connections; would recommend altering the wording to 'simultaneously recorded cells examined' to avoid confusion.

Reviewer #2 (Public review):

Summary:

In this manuscript, Frelih et al, investigate the relationship between aperiodic neural activity, as measured by EEG, and working memory performance, and compares this to the more commonly analyzed periodic, and in particular theta, measures that are often associated with such tasks. To do so, they analyze a primary dataset of 57 participants engaging in an n-back task, as well as a replication dataset, and use spectral parameterization to measure periodic and aperiodic features of the data, across time. In the revision, the authors have clarified some key points, and added a series of additional analyses and controls, including the use of an additional method, that helps to complement the original analyses and further corroborates their claims. In doing so, they find both periodic and aperiodic features that relate to the task dynamics, but importantly, the aperiodic component appears to explain away what otherwise looks like theta activity in a more traditional analysis. This study therefore helps to establish that aperiodic activity is a task-relevant dynamic feature in working memory tasks and may be the underlying change in many other studies that reported 'theta' changes, but did not use methods that could differentiate periodic and aperiodic features.

Strengths:

Key strengths of this paper include that it addresses an important question - that of properly adjudicating which features of EEG recordings relate to working memory tasks - and in doing so provides a compelling answer, with important implications for considering prior work and contributing to understanding the neural underpinnings of working memory. The revision is improved by showing this using an additional analysis method. I do not find any significant faults or error with the design, analysis, and main interpretations as presented by this paper, and as such, find the approach taken to be a valid and well-enacted. The use of multiple variants of the working memory task, as well as a replication dataset significantly strengthens this manuscript, by demonstrating a degree of replicability and generalizability. This manuscript is also an important contribution to motivating best practices for analyzing neuro-electrophysiological data, including in relation to using baselining procedures. I think the updates in the revision have helped to clarify the findings and impact of this study.

Weaknesses:

Overall, I do not find any obvious weaknesses with this manuscript and it's analyses that challenge the key results and conclusions. Updates through the revision have addressed my previous points about adding some additional notes on the methods and conclusions.

Reviewer #3 (Public review):

Summary:

This study concerns how macaque visual cortical area MT represents stimuli composed of more than one speed of motion.

Strengths:

The study is valuable because little is known about how the visual pathway segments and preserves information about multiple stimuli. The study presents compelling evidence that (on average) MT neurons shift from faster-speed-takes-all at low speeds to representing the average of the two speeds at higher speeds. An additional strength of the study is the inclusion of perceptual reports from both humans and one monkey participant performing a task in which they judged whether the stimuli involved one vs two different speeds. Ultimately, this study raises intriguing questions about how exactly the response patterns in visual cortical area MT might preserve information about each speed, since such information is potentially lost in an average response as described here.

Reviewer #2 (Public review):

In this valuable manuscript, Lin et al attempt to examine the role of long non coding RNAs (lncRNAs) in human evolution, through a set of population genetics and functional genomics analyses that leverage existing datasets and tools. Although the methods are incomplete and at times inadequate, the results nonetheless point towards a possible contribution of long non coding RNAs to shaping humans, and suggest clear directions for future, more rigorous study.

Comments on revisions:

I thank the authors for their revision and changes in response to previous rounds of comments. As it had been nearly two years since I last saw the manuscript, I reread the full text to familiarise myself again with the findings presented. While I appreciate the changes made and think they have strengthened the manuscript, I still find parts of it a bit too speculative or hyperbolic. In particular, I think claims of evolutionary acceleration and adaptation require more careful integration with existing human/chimpanzee genetics and functional genomics literature. For example:

Line 155: "About 5% of genes have significant sequence differences in humans and chimpanzees," This statement needs a citation, and a definition of what is meant by 'significant', especially as multiple lines below instead mention how it's not clear how many differences matter, or which of them, etc.

line 187: "Notably, 97.81% of the 105141 strong DBSs have counterparts in chimpanzees, suggesting that these DBSs are similar to HARs in evolution and have undergone human-specific evolution." I do not see any support for the inference here. Identifying HARs and acceleration relies on a far more thorough methodology than what's being presented here. Even generously, pairwise comparison between two taxa only cannot polarise the direction of differences; inferring human-specific change requires outgroups beyond chimpanzee.

line 210: "Based on a recent study that identified 5,984 genes differentially expressed between human-only and chimpanzee-only iPSC lines (Song et al., 2021), we estimated that the top 20% (4248) genes in chimpanzees may well characterize the human-chimpanzee differences" I do not agree with the rationale for this claim, and do not agree that it supports the cutoff of 0.034 used below. I also find that my previous concerns with the very disparate numbers of results across the three archaics have not been suitably addressed.

I also think that there is still too much of a tendency to assume that adaptive evolutionary change is the only driving force behind the observed results in the results. As I've stated before, I do not doubt that lncRNAs contribute in some way to evolutionary divergence between these species, as do other gene regulatory mechanisms; the manuscript leans down on it being the sole, or primary force, however, and that requires much stronger supporting evidence. Examples include, but are not limited to:

line 230: "These results reveal when and how HS lncRNA-mediated epigenetic regulation influences human evolution." This statement is too speculative.

Line 268: "yet the overall results agree well with features of human evolution." What does this mean? This section is too short and unclear.

Line 325: "and form 198876 HS lncRNA-DBS pairs with target transcripts in all tissues." This has not been shown in this paper - sequence based analyses simply identify the *potential* to form pairs.

Line 423: "Our analyses of these lncRNAs, DBSs, and target genes, including their evolution and interaction, indicate that HS lncRNAs have greatly promoted human evolution by distinctly rewiring gene expression." I do not agree that this conclusion is supported by the findings presented - this would require significant additional evidence in the form of orthogonal datasets.

I also return briefly to some of my comments before, in particular on the confounding effects of gene length and transcript/isoform number. In their rebuttal the authors argued that there was no need to control for this, but this does in fact matter. A gene with 10 transcripts that differ in the 5' end has 10 times as many chances of having a DBS than a gene with only 1 transcript, or a gene with 10 transcripts but a single annotated TSS. When the analyses are then performed at the gene level, without taking into account the number of transcripts, this could introduce a bias towards genes with more annotated isoforms. Similarly, line 246 focuses on genes with "SNP numbers in CEU, CHB, YRI are 5 times larger than the average." Is this controlled for length of the DBS? All else being equal a longer DBS will have more SNPs than a shorter one. It is therefore not surprising that the same genes that were highlighted above as having 'strong' DBS, where strength is impacted by length, show up here too.

Reviewer #2 (Public review):

Summary:

The authors perform coarse grained and all atom simulations to provide a mechanism for loop extrusion that is involved in genome compaction.

Strengths:

The simulations are very thoughtful. They provide insights into the translocation process, which is only one of the mechanisms. Much of the analyses is very good. Over all the study advances the use of simulations in this complicated systems.

Weaknesses:

Even the authors point out several limitations, which cannot be easily overcome in the paper because of the paucity of experimental data. Nevertheless, the authors could have done so to illustrate the main assertion that loop extrusion occurs by the motor translocating on DNA. They should mention more clearly that there are alternative theories that have accounted for a number of experimental data,

Reviewer #2 (Public review):

Based on the controversy of whether the Desmodium intercrop emits bioactive volatiles that repel the fall armyworm, the authors conducted this study to assess the effects of the volatiles from Desmodium plants in the push-pull system on behavior of FAW oviposition. This topic is interesting and the results are valuable for understanding the push-pull system for the management of FAW, the serious pest. The methodology used in this study is valid, leading to reliable results and conclusions. I just have a few concerns and suggestions for the improvement of this paper:

(1) The volatiles emitted from D. incanum were analyzed and their effects on the oviposition behavior of FAW moth were confirmed. However, it would be better and useful to identify the specific compounds that are crucial for the success of the push-pull system.

(2) That would be good to add "symbols" of significance in Figure 4 (D).

(3) Figure A is difficult for readers to understand.

(4) It will be good to deeply discuss the functions of important volatile compounds identified here with comparison with results in previous studies in the discussion better.

Comments on revisions:

The authors addressed all my concerns, and I believe that the current version is appropriate for publication.

Reviewer #2 (Public review):

Summary:

This study investigates the influence of prior stimuli over multiple time scales in a position discrimination task, using pupillometry data and a reanalysis of EEG data from an existing dataset. The authors report consistent history-dependent effects across task-related, task-unrelated, and stimulus-related dimensions, observed across different time scales. These effects are interpreted as reflecting a unified mechanism operating at multiple temporal levels, framed within predictive coding theory.

Strengths:

The goal of assessing history biases over multiple time scales is interesting and resonates with both classic (Treisman & Williams, 1984) and recent work (Fritsche et al., 2020; Gekas et al., 2019). The manipulations used to distinguish task-related, unrelated, and stimulus-related reference frames are original and promising.

Weaknesses:

I have several concerns regarding the text, interpretation, and consistency of the results, outlined below:

(1) The abstract should more explicitly mention that conclusions about feedforward mechanisms were derived from a reanalysis of an existing EEG dataset. As it is, it seems to present behavioral data only.

(2) The EEG task seems quite different from the others, with location and color changes, if I understand correctly, on streaks of consecutive stimuli shown every 100 ms, with the task involving counting the number of target events. There might be different mechanisms and functions involved, compared to the behavioral experiments reported.

(3) How is the arbitrary choice of restricting EEG decoding to a small subset of parieto-occipital electrodes justified? Blinks and other artifacts could have been corrected with proper algorithms (e.g., ICA) (Zhang & Luck, 2025) or even left in, as decoders are not necessarily affected by noise. Moreover, trials with blinks occurring at the stimulus time should be better removed, and the arbitrary selection of a subset of electrodes, while reducing the information in input to the decoder, does not account for trials in which a stimulus was missed (e.g., due to blinks).

(4) The artifact that appears in many of the decoding results is puzzling, and I'm not fully convinced by the speculative explanation involving slow fluctuations. I wonder if a different high-pass filter (e.g., 1 Hz) might have helped. In general, the nature of this artifact requires better clarification and disambiguation.

(5) Given the relatively early decoding results and surprisingly early differences in decoding peaks, it would be useful to visualize ERPs across conditions to better understand the latencies and ERP components involved in the task.

(6) It is unclear why the precision derived from IEM results is considered reliable while the accuracy is dismissed due to the artifact, given that both seem to be computed from the same set of decoding error angles (equations 8-9).

(7) What is the rationale for selecting five past events as the meso-scale? Prior history effects have been shown to extend much further back in time (Fritsche et al., 2020).

(8) The decoding bias results, particularly the sequence of attraction and repulsion, appear to run counter to the temporal dynamics reported in recent studies (Fischer et al., 2024; Luo et al., 2025; Sheehan & Serences, 2022).

(9) The repulsive component in the decoding results (e.g., Figure 3h) seems implausibly large, with orientation differences exceeding what is typically observed in behavior.

(10) The pattern of accuracy, response times, and precision reported in Figure 3 (also line 188) resembles results reported in earlier work (Stewart, 2007) and in recent studies suggesting that integration may lead to interference at intermediate stimulus differences rather than improvement for similar stimuli (Ozkirli et al., 2025).

(11) Some figures show larger group-level variability in specific conditions but not others (e.g., Figures 2b-c and 5b-c). I suggest reporting effect sizes for all statistical tests to provide a clearer sense of the strength of the observed effects.

(12) The statement that "serial dependence is associated with sensory stimuli being perceived as more similar" appears inconsistent with much of the literature suggesting that these effects occur at post-perceptual stages (Barbosa et al., 2020; Bliss et al., 2017; Ceylan et al., 2021; Fischer et al., 2024; Fritsche et al., 2017; Sheehan & Serences, 2022).

(13) If I understand correctly, the reproduction bias (i.e., serial dependence) is estimated on a small subset of the data (10%). Were the data analyzed by pooling across subjects?

(14) I'm also not convinced that biases observed in forced-choice and reproduction tasks should be interpreted as arising from the same process or mechanism. Some of the effects described here could instead be consistent with classic priming.

Reviewer #2 (Public review):

Summary:

The G1 and G2 variants of the Apolipoprotein L1 (APOL1) gene are well-established risk factors for chronic kidney disease. While macrophages have been implicated in the pathogenesis of APOL1-mediated kidney diseases (AMKD), the precise impact of the G1 and G2 APOL1 variants on macrophage function and the underlying molecular mechanisms remains insufficiently characterized. In this manuscript, the authors investigate pathological phenotypes in macrophages carrying the G1 and G2 APOL1 variants. They report an accumulation of neutral lipids and activation of pro-inflammatory pathways, which appear to be at least partly driven by an accumulation of the polyamine spermidine and upregulation of the spermidine synthesis pathway. These findings reveal a pro-inflammatory role for G1 and G2 APOL1 in macrophages and identify the spermidine synthesis pathway as a potential therapeutic target.

Strengths:

The authors employ a comprehensive set of approaches to characterize macrophage phenotypes, including assessments of lipid accumulation, pro-inflammatory cytokine release, responses to M2-polarizing cytokines, autophagy, mitochondrial function, and metabolic profiling. The reversal of pathological phenotypes in G1 and G2 APOL1 macrophages by the polyamine synthesis inhibitor α-difluoromethylornithine provides compelling evidence supporting a causal role for spermidine in mediating APOL1 variant-associated dysfunction. Furthermore, the inclusion of both mouse and human models strengthens the translational relevance of the findings.

Weaknesses:

The manuscript would benefit from a clearer articulation of the specific role macrophages play in the pathogenesis of APOL1-associated kidney diseases to better emphasize the significance of the study. Additionally, the experimental design lacks a clear, logical progression, and the rationale behind some experiments is insufficiently justified, making certain conclusions difficult to fully support based on the presented data. Given the availability of established animal models of APOL1-associated kidney diseases, it is unclear why the authors chose to derive macrophages from the bone marrow of G1 and G2 APOL1 mice for in vitro assays rather than isolating and testing macrophages in vivo within these models. In vitro assays may exaggerate macrophage responses compared to physiological conditions, which could affect the interpretation of the data. Addressing this point would strengthen the manuscript.

Reviewer #2 (Public review):

Summary:

The molecular signature of tendon stem cells is not fully identified. The endogenous location of tendon stem cells within native tendon is also not fully elucidated. Several molecular markers have been identified to isolate tendon stem cells but they lack tendon specificity. Using the declining tendon repair capacity of mature mice, the authors compared the transcriptome landscape and activity of juvenile (2 weeks) and mature (6 weeks) tendon cells of mouse Achilles tendons and identified CD55 and CD248 as novel surface markers for tendon stem cells. CD55+ CD248+ FACS-sorted cells display a preferential tendency to differentiate into tendon cells compared to CD55neg CD248neg cells.

Strengths:

The authors generated a lot of data of juvenile and mature Achilles tendons, using scRNAseq, snRNAseq, ATACseq strategies. This constitutes a resource datasets.

Weaknesses:

The analyses and validation of identified genes are not complete and could be pushed further. The endogenous expression of newly-identified genes in native tendons would be informative. The comparison of scRNAseq and snRNAseq datasets for tendon cell populations would strengthen the identification of tendon cell populations.

Reviewer #2 (Public review):

Summary:

The manuscript, by Xu and Peng, et al. investigates whether co-expression of 2 T cell receptor (TCR) clonotypes can be detected in FoxP3+ regulatory CD4+ T cells (Tregs) and if it is associated with identifiable phenotypic effects. This paper presents data reanalyzing publicly available single-cell TCR sequencing and transcriptional analysis, convincingly demonstrating that dual TCR co-expression can be detected in Tregs, both in peripheral circulation as well as among Tregs in tissues. They then compare metrics of TCR diversity between single-TCR and dual TCR Tregs, as well as between Tregs in different anatomic compartments, finding the TCR repertoires to be generally similar though with dual TCR Tregs exhibiting a less diverse repertoire and some moderate differences in clonal expansion in different anatomic compartments. Finally, they examine the transcriptional profile of dual TCR Tregs in these datasets, finding some potential differences in expression of key Treg genes such as Foxp3, CTLA4, Foxo3, Foxo1, CD27, IL2RA, and Ikzf2 associated with dual TCR-expressing Tregs, which the authors postulate implies a potential functional benefit for dual TCR expression in Tregs.

Strengths:

This report examines an interesting and potentially biologically significant question, given recent demonstrations that dual TCR co-expression is a much more common phenomenon than previously appreciated (approximately 15-20% of T cells) and that dual TCR co-expression has been associated with significant effects on the thymic development and antigenic reactivity of T cells. This investigation leverages large existing datasets of single-cell TCRseq/RNAseq to address dual TCR expression in Tregs. The identification and characterization of dual TCR Tregs is rigorously demonstrated and presented, providing convincing new evidence of their existence.

Weaknesses:

The existence of dual TCR expression by Tregs has previously been demonstrated in mice and humans, limiting the novelty of the reported findings. The presented results should be considered in the context of these prior important findings. The focus on self-citation of their previous work, using the same approach to measure dual TCR expression in other datasets. limits the discussion of other more relevant and impactful published research in this area. Also, Reference #7 continues to list incorrect authors. The authors do not present a balanced or representative description of the available knowledge about either dual TCR expression by T cells or TCR repertoires of Tregs.

The approach used follows a template used previously by this group for re-analysis of existing datasets generated by other research groups. The descriptions and interpretations of the data as presented are still shallow, lacking innovative or thoughtful approaches that would potentially be innovation or provide new insight.

This demonstration of dual TCR Tregs is notable, though the authors do not compare the frequency of dual TCR co-expression by Tregs with non-Tregs. This limits interpreting the findings in the context of what is known about dual TCR co-expression in T cells. The response to this criticism in a previous review is considered non-responsive and does not improve the data or findings.

Comparison of gene expression by single- and dual TCR Tregs is of interest, but as presented is difficult to interpret. The interpretations of the gene expression analyses are somewhat simplistic, focusing on single-gene expression of some genes known to have function in Tregs. However, the investigators continue to miss an opportunity to examine larger patterns of coordinated gene expression associated with developmental pathways and differential function in Tregs (Yang. 2015. Science. 348:589; Li. 2016. Nat Rev Immunol. Wyss. 2016. 16:220; Nat Immunol. 17:1093; Zenmour. 2018. Nat Immunol. 19:291). No attempt to define clusters is made. No comparison is made of the proportions of dual TCR cells in transcriptionally-defined clusters. The broad assessment of key genes by single- and dual TCR cells is conceptually interesting, but likely to be confounded by the heterogeneity of the Treg populations. This would need to be addressed and considered to make any analyses meaningful.

The study design, re-analysis of existing datasets generated by other scientific groups, precludes confirmation of any findings by orthogonal analyses.

Reviewer #2 (Public review):

Summary:

Here, the Fischer et al. attempt to understand the role of parental care, specifically the transport of offspring, in the development of the amphibian microbiome. The amphibian microbiome is an important study system due to its association with host health and disease outcomes. This study provides vertical transfer of bacteria through parental transport of tadpoles as one mechanism, among others, influencing tadpole microbiome composition. This paper gives insight into the relative roles of the environment, species, and parental care in amphibian microbiome assembly.

The authors determine the time of bacterial colonization during tadpole development using PCR, observing that tadpoles were not colonized by bacteria prior to hatching from the vitelline membrane. This is an important finding for amphibian microbiome research and I would be curious to see if this is seen broadly across amphibian species. By doing this, the impact of transport can be more accurately assessed in their laboratory experiments. The authors found that caregiver species influenced community composition, with transported tadpoles sharing a greater proportion of their skin communities with the transporting species.

In a comparison of three sympatric amphibian species that vary in their reproductive strategies, the authors found that tadpole community diversity was not reflective of habitat diversity, but may be associated with the different reproductive strategies of each species. Parental care explained some of the variance of tadpole microbiomes between species, however, transportation by conspecific adults did not lead to more similar microbiomes between tadpoles and adults compared to species that do not exhibit parental transport. This finding is in agreement with the understanding that the amphibian microbiome is distinct between developmental stages (eggs/tadpoles/adults) and also that amphibian microbiome composition is generally species specific.

When investigating contributions of caretakers to transported offspring, the authors found that tadpole-adult pairs with a history of direct contact were not more similar than tadpole-adult pairs lacking that history. This conclusion was surprising when considering the direct contact between the adults and tadpoles, however if only certain taxa from the adults are capable of colonizing tadpoles, then one could expect that similar ASVs might be donated between tadpole-adult pairs.

I did not find any major weaknesses in my review of this paper. I think that the data and conclusions here are of value to other researchers looking into the assembly of the amphibian microbiome. This paper offers insight into how tadpole-transport could influence the microbiome and adds to our overall understanding of amphibian microbiome assembly across the varied life histories of frogs.

Reviewer #2 (Public review):

This is a short yet very clear manuscript demonstrating that two methods (END-seq and S1-END-seq), previously developed in the Nussenzweig laboratory to study DSBs in the genome, can also be applied to the 5' ends of mammalian telomeres and the accumulation of telomeric single-stranded DNA.

The authors first validate the applicability of END-seq using different approaches and confirm that mammalian telomeres preferentially end with an ATC 5' end through a mechanism that requires intact POT1 (POT1a in mice). They then extend their analysis to cells that maintain telomeres through the ALT mechanism and demonstrate that, in these cells as well, telomeres frequently end in an ATC 5' sequence via a POT1-dependent mechanism. Using S1-END-seq, the authors further show that ALT telomeres contain single-stranded DNA and estimate that each telomere in ALT cells harbors at least five regions of ssDNA.

I find this work very interesting and incisive. It clearly demonstrates that END-seq can be applied with unprecedented depth and precision to the study of telomeric features such as the 5' end and ssDNA. The data are very clear and thoroughly interpreted, and the manuscript is well written. The results are carefully analyzed and effectively presented. Overall, I find this manuscript worthy of publication, as the optimized END-seq methods described here will likely be widely utilized in the telomere field.

Also, the authors have satisfactorily addressed my previous comments.

Reviewer #2 (Public review):

This paper measures associations between RNA transcript levels and important reproductive traits in the model organism C. elegans. The authors go beyond determining which gene expression differences underlie reproductive traits, but also (1) build a model that predicts these traits based on gene expression and (2) perform experiments to confirm that some transcript levels indeed affect reproductive traits. The clever study design allows the authors to determine which transcript levels impact reproductive traits, and also which transcriptional differences are driven by stochastic vs environmental differences. In sum, this is a comprehensive study that highlights the power of gene expression as a driver of phenotype, and also teases apart the various factors that affect the expression levels of important genes.

Overall, this study has many strengths, is very clearly communicated, and has no substantial weaknesses that I can point to.

One question that emerges for me is whether these findings apply broadly. In other words, I wonder whether gene expression levels are predictive of other phenotypes in other organisms. I think this question has largely been explored in microbes, where some studies (PMID: 17959824) but not others (PMID: 38895328) found that differences in gene expression were predictive of phenotypes like growth rate. Microbes are not the focus here, and instead, the discussion is mainly focused on using gene expression to predict health and disease phenotypes in humans. This feels a little complicated since humans have so many different tissues. Perhaps an area where this approach might be useful is in examining infectious single-cell populations (bacteria, tumors, fungi). But I suppose this idea might still work in humans, assuming the authors are thinking about targeting specific tissues for RNAseq.

In sum, this is a great paper that really got me thinking about the predictive power of gene expression and where/when it could inform about (health-related) phenotypes.

Comments on revisions: No additional comments

Reviewer #2 (Public review):

Summary:

The manuscript from Prado-Mantilla and co-workers addresses mechanisms of embryonic epidermis development, focusing on the intermediate layer cells, a transient population of suprabasal cells that contributes to the expansion of the epidermis through proliferation. Using bulk-RNA they show that these cells are transcriptionally distinct from the suprabasal spinous cells and identify specific marker genes for these populations. They then use transgenesis to demonstrate that one of these selected spinous layer-specific markers, the transcription factor MafB is capable of suppressing proliferation in the intermediate layers, providing a potential explanation for the shift of suprabasal cells into a non-proliferative state during development. Further, lineage tracing experiments show that the intermediate cells become granular cells without a spinous layer intermediate. Finally, the authors show that the intermediate layer cells express high levels of contractility-related genes than spinous layers and overexpression of cytoskeletal regulators accelerates differentiation of spinous layer cells into granular cells.

Overall, the manuscript presents a number of interesting observations on the developmental stage-specific identities of suprabasal cells and their differentiation trajectories, and points to a potential role of contractility in promoting differentiation of suprabasal cells into granular cells. The precise mechanisms by which MafB suppresses proliferation, how the intermediate cells bypass the spinous layer stage to differentiate into granular cells and how contractility feeds into these mechanisms remain open. Interestingly, while the mechanosensitive transcription factor YAP appears differentially active in the two states, it is shown to be downstream rather than upstream of the observed differences in mechanics.

Strengths:

The authors use a nice combination of RNA sequencing, imaging, lineage tracing and transgenesis to address the suprabasal to granular layer transition. The imaging is convincing and the biological effects appear robust. The manuscript is clearly written and logical to follow.

Weaknesses:

While the data overall supports the authors claims, there are a few minor weaknesses that pertain to the aspect of the role of contractility, The choice of spastin overexpression to modulate contractility is not ideal as spastin has multiple roles in regulating microtubule dynamics and membrane transport which could also be potential mechanisms explaining some of the phenotypes. Use of Arghap11 overexpression mitigates this effect to some extent but overall it would have been more convincing to manipulate myosin activity directly. It would also be important to show that these manipulations increase the levels of F-actin and myosin II as shown for the intermediate layer. It would also be logical to address if further increasing contractility in the intermediate layer would enhance the differentiation of these cells.

Despite these minor weaknesses, the manuscript is overall of high quality, sheds new light on the fundamental mechanisms of epidermal stratification during embryogenesis and will likely be of interest to the skin research community.

Reviewer #2 (Public Review):

Summary:

In this manuscript, Fujita et al. characterized the neutrality indexes of several protein mutants in S. cerevisiae and uncovered that mox-YG and Gpm1-CCmut can be expressed as abundant as 40% of total proteins without causing severe growth defects. The authors then looked at the transcriptome and proteome of cells expressing excess mox-YG to investigate how protein burden affects yeast cells. Based on RNA-seq and mass-spectrometry results, the authors uncover that cells with excess mox-YG exhibit nitrogen starvation, respiration increase, inactivated TORC1 response, and decreased ribosomal abundance. The authors further showed that the decreased ribosomal amount is likely due to nucleoli defects, which can be partially rescued by nuclear exosome mutations.

Strengths:

Overall, this is a well-written manuscript that provides many valuable resources for the field, including the neutrality analysis on various fluorescent proteins and glycolytic enzymes, as well as the RNA-seq and proteomics results of cells overexpressing mox-YG. Their model on how mox-YG overexpression impairs the nucleolus and thus leads to ribosomal abundance decline will also raise many interesting questions for the field.

Weaknesses:

The authors concluded from their RNA-seq and proteomics results that cells with excess mox-YG expression showed increased respiration and TORC1 inactivation. I think it will be more convincing if the authors can show some characterization of mitochondrial respiration/membrane potential and the TOR responses to further verify their -omic results.

In addition, the authors only investigated how overexpression of mox-YG affects cells. It would be interesting to see whether overexpressing other non-toxic proteins causes similar effects, or if there are protein-specific effects. It would be good if the authors could at least discuss this point considering the workload of doing another RNA-seq or mass-spectrum analysis might be too heavy.

Reviewer #2 (Public review):

Summary:

This study investigates a low abundance microRNA signature in extracellular vesicles to subtype pancreatic cancer and for early diagnosis. In this revision, there remain several major and minor issues.

Strengths:

The authors did a comprehensive job with numerous analyses of moderately sized cohorts to describe the clinical and translational significance of their miRNA signature.

Weaknesses:

The weaknesses of the study largely revolve around a lack of clarity about the methodology used and the validation of their findings.

(1) The WGCNA analysis was critical to identify the EV miRNAs associated with imaging features, but the "cut-off criteria" for MM and GS have no clear justification. How were these cut-offs determined? How sensitive were the results to these cut-offs?

(2) The authors now clarify that patients for the sub-study on differentiating early stage from benign pancreatic lesions were matched by age and that the benign pancreatic lesions were predominantly IPMNs. This scientific design is flawed. The CT features extracted likely differentiate solid from cystic pancreatic lesions, and the miRNA signature is doing the same. The authors need to incorporate the following benign controls into their imaging analysis and their EV miRNA analysis: pancreatitis and normal pancreata.

(3) For the radiomics features, the authors should include an additional external validation set to better support the ability to use these features reproducibly, especially given that the segmentation was manual and reliant on specific people.

(4) The DF selection process still lacks cited references as originally requested in the first review.

(5) In Figure 2, more quantitative details are needed in the manuscript. The reviewers failed to incorporate this and only responded in their rebuttal. Add details to the manuscript as originally requested.

(6) It is still not clear what Figure 4A is illustrating as regards to model performance. The authors need to state in the manuscript very clearly what they are showing in the figure and what the modules represent.

(7) Figure 5 and the descriptions for the public serum miRNA datasets need more details. Were these pancreatic cancers all adenocarcinoma, what stage, age range, sex distribution, comorbid conditions were the cases? Were the controls all IPMNs or were there other conditions in the controls?

(8) The subtype results in figures 6 and 7 are not convincing. An association on univariate analysis is not sufficient. The explanation that clinical data is not available to do a multivariable analysis indicates that the authors do not have the ability to claim that they have identified unique subtypes that have clinical relevance. A thorough evaluation of the prognostic significance and the associated molecular features of these tumors is needed.

Summary:

There remain key details and validation experiments to better support the conclusions of the study.

Reviewer #2 (Public review):

Summary:

The manuscript by Zhu et al. describes phenotypes associated with the loss of the gene ifc using a Drosophila model. The authors suggest their findings are relevant to understanding the molecular underpinnings of a neurodegenerative disorder, HLD-18, which is caused by mutations in the human ortholog of ifc, DEGS1.

The work begins with the authors describing the role for ifc during fly larval brain development, demonstrating its function in regulating developmental timing, brain size, and ventral nerve cord elongation. Further mechanistic examination revealed that loss of ifc leads to depleted cellular ceramide levels as well as dihydroceramide accumulation, eventually causing defects in ER morphology and function. Importantly, the authors showed that ifc is predominantly expressed in glia and is critical for maintaining appropriate glial cell numbers and morphology. Many of the key phenotypes caused by the loss of fly ifc can be rescued by overexpression of human DEGS1 in glia, demonstrating the conserved nature of these proteins as well as the pathways they regulate. Interestingly, the authors discovered that the loss of lipid droplet formation in ifc mutant larvae within the cortex glia, presumably driving the deficits in glial wrapping around axons and subsequent neurodegeneration, potentially shedding light on mechanisms of HLD-18 and related disorders.

Strengths:

Overall, the manuscript is thorough in its analysis of ifc function and mechanism. The data images are high quality, the experiments are well controlled, and the writing is clear. There are, however, some concerns that need to be addressed prior to publication.

Weaknesses:

The authors adequately addressed the previously indicated weaknesses, and no new weaknesses have been identified.

Reviewer #2 (Public review):

Summary:

The authors aimed to investigate how IL-4 modulates the reactive state of microglia in the context of neuropathic pain. Specifically, they sought to determine whether IL-4 drives an increase in CD11c+ microglial cells, a population associated with anti-inflammatory responses, and whether this change is linked to the suppression of neuropathic pain. The study employs a combination of behavioral assays, pharmacogenetic manipulation of microglial populations, and characterization of microglial markers to address these questions.

Strengths:

Strengths: The methodological approach in this study is robust, providing convincing evidence for the proposed mechanism of IL-4-mediated microglial regulation in neuropathic pain. The experimental design is well thought out, utilizing two distinct neuropathic pain models (SpNT and SNI), each yielding different outcomes. The SpNT model demonstrates spontaneous pain remission and an increase in the CD11c+ microglial population, which correlates with pain suppression. In contrast, the SNI model, which does not show spontaneous pain remission, lacks a significant increase in CD11c+ microglia, underscoring the specificity of the observed phenomenon. This design effectively highlights the role of the CD11c+ microglial population in pain modulation. The use of behavioral tests provides a clear functional assessment of IL-4 manipulation, and pharmacogenetic tools allow for precise control of microglial populations, minimizing off-target effects. Notably, the manipulation targets the CD11c promoter, which presumably reduces the risk of non-specific ablation of other microglial populations, strengthening the experimental precision. Moreover, the thorough characterization of microglial markers adds depth to the analysis, ensuring that the changes in microglial populations are accurately linked to the behavioral outcomes.

Weaknesses:

One potential limitation of the study is that the mechanistic details of how IL-4 induces the observed shift in microglial populations are not fully explored. While the study demonstrates a correlation between IL-4 and CD11c+ microglial cells, a deeper investigation into the specific signaling pathways and molecular processes driving this population shift would greatly strengthen the conclusions. Additionally, the paper does not clearly integrate the findings into the broader context of microglial reactive state regulation in neuropathic pain.

Comments on revisions:

In the revised manuscript, the authors have successfully addressed my previous concerns as well as the other reviewers. I do not have further concerns about this study.

Reviewer #2 (Public review):

Summary:

In the current study, the authors attempt to identify correlates of protection for improved outcomes following re-challenge with ASFV. An advantage is the study design, which compares the responses to a vaccine-like mild challenge and during a virulent challenge months later. It is a fairly thorough description of the immune status of animals in terms of T cell responses, antibody responses, cytokines, and transcriptional responses, and the methods appear largely standard. The comparison between SPF and farm animals is interesting and probably useful for the field in that it suggests that SPF conditions might not fully recapitulate immune protection in the real world. I thought some of the conclusions were over-stated, and there are several locations where the data could be presented more clearly.

Strengths:

The study is fairly comprehensive in the depth of immune read-outs interrogated. The potential pathways are systematically explored. Comparison of farm animals and SPF animals gives insights into how baseline immune function can differ based on hygiene, which would also likely inform interpretation of vaccination studies going forward.

Weaknesses:

Some of the conclusions are over-interpreted and should be more robustly shown or toned down. There are also some issues with data presentation that need to be resolved and data that aren't provided that should be, like flow cytometry plots.

Reviewer #3 (Public review):

Summary:

The paper presents an in-depth analysis of the original colour of a fossil feather from the crest of a 125-million-year-old enantiornithine bird. From its shape and location, it would be predicted that such a feather might well have shown some striking colour and pattern. The authors apply sophisticated microscopic and numerical methods to determine that the feather was iridescent and brightly coloured, and possibly indicates this was a male bird that used its crest in sexual displays.

Strengths:

The 3D micro-thin-sectioning techniques and the numerical analyses of light transmission are novel and state of the art. The example chosen is a good one, as a crest feather likely to have carried complex and vivid colours as a warning or for use in sexual display. The authors correctly warn that without such 3D study feather colours might be given simply as black from regular 2D analysis, and the alignment evidence for iridescence could be missed.

Weaknesses: Trivial

Reviewer #2 (Public review):

Summary:

This manuscript seeks to determine the molecular basis of tissue patterning in the collectively migrating cells of the zebrafish posterior lateral line primordium. In particular, the authors examine the cross-regulation of canonical Wnt signaling, Fgf signaling, and the SoxB1 family members Sox1a, Sox2, and Sox3 in the migrating primordium. Using a combination of mutant lines, morphino (MO) knock down, pharmacological inhibition, and dominant-negative inhibition, the authors propose a model in which Sox2 and Sox3 in the trailing region of the primordium restricts Wnt signaling to the leading region, facilitating the formation of rosettes and the deposition of the first formed neuromast downstream of Fgf pathway activity. In contrast, sox1a is expressed in the leading region of the primordium, and the sox1ay590 -/- mutant shows little phenotype on its own. Together, the authors propose a multistep signaling loop that regulates tissue patterning during lateral line collective cell migration.

Strengths:

The zebrafish posterior lateral line primordium is a well-established model for the study of collective cell migration that is useful for genetic manipulation and live imaging. The manuscript seeks to understand the complex reciprocal regulation of signaling pathways that regulate tissue patterning of collectively migrating cells.

Weaknesses:

(1) The primary tools used in this study are inadequate to support the author's conclusions.

A. The authors state that the phenotype of the sox2y589 homozygous mutant line described in this manuscript changed across generations, but do not specify which generation is used for any given experiment. The sox2y589 mutant line is not properly verified in this manuscript, which could be done by examining ant-Sox2 antibody labeling, Western blot analysis, or complementation to the existing sox2x50 line described in Gou et al., 2018a and Gou et al., 2018b. There are also published sox1a mutant lines Lekk, et al., 2019.

B. The authors acknowledge that the sox2 MO1 used in this manuscript also alters sox3 function, but do not redo the experiments with a specific sox2 MO. In addition, the authors show that the anti-Sox2 and anti-Sox3 antibody labeling is reduced but not absent in sox2 MO1 and sox3 MO-injected embryos, but do not show antibody labeling of the sox2 MO and sox3 MO-double injected embryos to determine if there is an additional knockdown.

C. The authors examine RNA in situ hybridization patterns of sox2 and sox3 following various manipulations, but do not use anti-Sox2 and anti-Sox3 antibody labeling, which would provide more quantifiable information about changes in patterning.

(2) The manuscript lacks important experimental details and appropriate quantification of results.

A. It is unclear for most of the experiments described in this manuscript how many individual embryos were examined for each experiment and how robust the results are for each condition. Only Figure 3 includes information about the numbers for each experiment, and in all cases, the experimental manipulations are not fully penetrant, and there is no statistical analysis.

B. It is not clear at what stage most of the RNA in situ hybridizations were performed.

C. The manuscript lacks quantification of many of the experiments, making it difficult to conclude their significance.

Reviewer #2 (Public review):

This work offers an insightful contribution for researchers in computational biology, immunology, and machine learning. By employing a 3-mer embedding and CNN architecture, the authors demonstrate that it is possible to extend sequence context without exponentially increasing the model's complexity. Key findings include:

• Efficiency and Performance: Thrifty CNNs outperform traditional 5-mer models and match the performance of significantly larger models like DeepSHM.<br /> • Neutral Mutation Data: A distinction is made between using synonymous mutations and out-of-frame sequences for model training, with evidence suggesting these methods capture different aspects of SHM, or different biases in the type of data.<br /> • Open Source Contributions: The release of a Python package and pretrained models adds practical value for the community.

However, readers should be aware of the limitations. The improvements over existing models are modest, and the work is constrained by the availability of high-quality out-of-frame sequence data. The study also highlights that more complex modeling techniques, like transformers, did not enhance predictive performance, which underscores the role of data availability in such studies.

Reviewer #2 (Public review):

In this manuscript, Mella et al. investigate the effect of GFP tagging on the localization and stability of the nuclear-localized tail-anchored (TA) protein Emerin. A previous study from this group demonstrated that C-terminally GFP-tagged Emerin traffics to the plasma membrane and is eventually targeted to lysosomes for degradation. It has been suggested that the C-terminal tagging of TA proteins may shift their insertion from the post-translational TRC/GET pathway to the co-translational SRP-mediated pathway. Consistent with this, the authors confirm that C-terminal GFP tagging causes Emerin to mislocalize to the plasma membrane and subsequently to lysosomes.

In this study, they investigate the mechanism underlying this misrouting. By manipulating the cytosolic domain and the hydrophobicity of the transmembrane domain (TMD), the authors show that an ER retention sequence and increased TMD hydrophobicity contribute to Emerin's trafficking through the secretory pathway.

This reviewer had previously raised the concern that the potential role of the GFP tag within the ER lumen in promoting secretory trafficking was not addressed. In the revised manuscript, the authors respond to this concern by examining the co-localization of Emerin-GFP with the ER exit site marker Sec31A. Their data show that the presence of the C-terminal GFP tag increases Emerin's propensity to engage ER exit sites, supporting the conclusion that GFP tagging promotes its entry into the secretory pathway.

Reviewer #2 (Public review):

Summary:

The manuscript presents a valuable contribution to the field of ACE structural biology and dynamics by providing the first complete full-length dimeric ACE structure in four distinct states. The study integrates cryo-EM and molecular dynamics simulations to offer important insights into ACE dynamics. The depth of analysis is commendable, and the combination of structural and computational approaches enhances our understanding of the protein's conformational landscape.

Reviewer #2 (Public review):

Summary:

In striated muscle, myosin motors can dynamically switch between an energy-conserving OFF state and an activated ON state. This switching is important for meeting the body's needs under different physiological conditions, and previous studies have shown that disease-causing mutations associated with cardiomyopathies can affect the population of these states, leading to aberrant contractility. Studying these structural states in muscle has previously only been possible via X-ray diffraction, which requires access to a beam line. Here, Arecchi et al. demonstrate that polarized second-harmonic generation microscopy (pSGH), a technique that is more accessible, can be used to probe the ON/OFF states of myosin in both permeabilized and intact muscle.

Strengths:

(1) There is an outstanding need in the field to better understand the regulation of the ON/OFF states of myosin. Currently, this is studied using X-ray diffraction, meaning that it is accessible to only a few labs. The authors demonstrate that pSGH can be used to probe the ON/OFF states of myosin both in intact and permeabilized muscle. This is a significant advance, since it makes it possible to study these states in a standard research laboratory.

(2) The authors demonstrate that this approach can be employed in both skeletal and cardiac muscle. Importantly, it works with both porcine and mouse cardiac muscle, which are two of the most important animal models for preclinical studies.

(3) The authors manipulate the ON/OFF equilibrium using both drugs and a genetic model of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy that has been shown to modulate the ON/OFF equilibrium. Their results generally agree with previous studies conducted using X-ray diffraction as well as biochemical measurements of myosin autoinhibition.

Weaknesses:

(1) While the application of pSGH to the ON/OFF equilibrium is an important advance, there are limited new biological insights since the perturbations used here have been extensively characterized in previous studies.

(2) SGH has previously been applied to study the nucleotide-dependent orientation of myosin motors in the sarcomere (PMID: 20385845). The authors have previously interpreted the value of gamma as being a readout of lever arm position, but here, it is interpreted as a measure of ON/OFF equilibrium. When this technique is applied to intact muscle, it is not clear how to deconvolve the contributions of lever arm angle from the ON/OFF population (especially where there is a mix of states that give rise to the gamma value). This is an important limitation that is not discussed in the manuscript.

(3) The R403Q mutation has previously been shown to cause an increase in ATP usage. Here, the authors measure an elevated basal ATPase rate under relaxing conditions, and they interpret this as showing increased myosin ATPase activity intrinsic to the motors; however, care should be used in interpreting these results. Work from the Spudich lab has shown that the R403Q mutation can appear as increasing motor function in some assays but depressing motor function in others (see PMID: 32284968, 26601291). Moreover, the actin-activated ATPase rate is an order of magnitude higher than the basal ATPase rate, and thus, small changes in the basal ATPase rate are unlikely to be important for physiology.

(4) The authors interpret some of their data based on the assumption that the high concentrations of drugs cause the myosin to either adopt 100% OFF or ON states. This assumption is not validated, limiting the ability to interpret the fraction of myosins in the ON/OFF states.

(5) The ATPase measurements are innovative but hard to interpret. dATP and ATP do not have identical ATPase kinetics, meaning that it is hard to deconvolve whether the elevated ATPase rate with dATP is due to changes in the ON/OFF population and/or intrinsic ATPase activity. Similarly, mavacamten reduces the rate of phosphate release from myosin, and this effect is not strictly coupled to the formation of the OFF state (e.g., see PMID: 40118457). As such, it is difficult to deconvolve drug-based changes in the inherent ATPase kinetics of the myosin from changes in the OFF-state population.

Reviewer #2 (Public review):

Summary:

The authors used experimental evolution, repeatedly subjecting Saccharomyces cerevisiae populations to rapid liquid-nitrogen freeze-thaw cycles while tracking survival, cellular biophysics, metabolite levels, and whole-genome sequence changes. Within 25 cycles, viability rose from ~2 % to ~70 % in all independent lines, demonstrating rapid and highly convergent adaptation despite distinct starting genotypes. Evolved cells accumulated about threefold more intracellular trehalose, adopted a quiescence-like phenotype (smaller, denser, non-budding cells), showed cytoplasmic stiffening and reduced membrane damage, and re-entered growth with shorter lag traits that together protected them from ice-induced injury. Whole-genome sequencing indicated that multiple genetic routes can yield the same mechano-chemical survival strategy. A population model in which trehalose controls quiescence entry, growth rate, lag, and freeze-thaw survival reproduced the empirical dynamics, implicating physiological state transitions rather than specific mutations as the primary adaptive driver. The study therefore concludes that extreme-stress tolerance can evolve quickly through a convergent, trehalose-rich quiescence-like state that reinforces membrane integrity and cytoplasmic structure.

Strengths:

The strengths of the paper are the experimental design, data presentation and interpretation, and that it is well-written.

Weaknesses:

(1) While the phenotyping is thorough, a few more growth curves would be quite revealing to determine the extent of cross-stress protection. For example, comparing growth rates under YPD vs. YPEG (EtOH/glycerol), and measuring growth at 37ºC or in the presence of 0.8 M KCl.

(2) Is GEMS integrated prior to evolution? Are the evolved cells transformable?

(3) From the table, it looks like strains either have mutations in Ras1/2 or Vac8. Given the known requirements of Ras/PKA signaling for the G1/S checkpoint (to make sure there are enough nutrients for S phase), this seems like a pathway worth mentioning and referencing. Regarding Vac8, its emerging roles in NVJ and autophagy suggest another nutrient checkpoint, perhaps through TORC1. The common theme is rewired metabolism, which is probably influencing the carbon shuttling to trehalose synthesis.

Reviewer #2 (Public review):

Modulating the UPR by pharmacological targeting of its sensors (or regulators) provides mostly uncharted opportunities in diseases associated with protein misfolding in the secretory pathway. Spearheaded by the Kelly and Wiseman labs, ATF6 modulators were developed in previous years that act on ER PDIs as regulators of ATF6. However, hurdles in their medicinal chemistry have hampered further development. In this study, the authors provide evidence that the small molecule AA263 also targets and covalently modifies ER PDIs, with the effect of activating ATF6. Importantly, AA263 turned out to be amenable to chemical optimization while maintaining its desired activity. Building on this, the authors show that AA263 derivatives can improve the aggregation, trafficking, and function of two disease-associated mutants of secretory pathway proteins. Together, this study provides compelling evidence for AA263 (and its derivatives) being interesting modulators of ER proteostasis. Mechanistic details of its mode of action will need more attention in future studies that can now build on this.

In detail, the authors provide strong evidence that AA263 covalently binds to ER PDIs, which will inhibit the protein disulfide isomerase activity. ER PDIs regulate ATF6, and thus their finding provides a mechanistic interpretation of AA263 activating the UPR. It should be noted, however, that AA263 shows broad protein labeling (Figure 1G), which may suggest additional targets, beyond the ones defined as MS hits in this study. Also, a further direct analysis of the IRE1 and PERK pathways (activated or not by AA263) would have been a benefit, as e.g., PDIA1, a target of AA263, directly regulates IRE1 (Yu et al., EMBOJ, 2020), and other PDIs also act on PERK and IRE1. The authors interpret modest activation of IRE1/PERK target genes (Figure 2C) as an effect on target gene overlap, indeed the most likely explanation based on their selective analyses on IRE1 (ERdj4) and PERK (CHOP) downstream genes, but direct activation due to the targeting of their PDI regulators is also a possible explanation. Further key findings of this paper are the observed improvement of AAT behavior and GABAA trafficking and function. Further strength to the mechanistic conclusion that ATF6 activation causes this could be obtained by using ATF6 inhibitors/knockouts in the presence of AA263 (as the target PDIs may directly modulate the behavior of AAT and/or GABAA). Along the same line, it also warrants further investigation why the different compounds, even if all were used at concentrations above their EC50, had different rescuing capacities on the clients.

Together, the study now provides a strong basis for such in-depth mechanistic analyses.

DOI: 10.1038/s44319-025-00511-8

Resource: (ZFIN Cat# ZDB-ALT-050428-2,RRID:ZFIN_ZDB-ALT-050428-2)

Curator: @scibot

SciCrunch record: RRID:ZFIN_ZDB-ALT-050428-2

What is this?

Reviewer #2 (Public review):

In 'Developmental constraints mediate the summer solstice reversal of climate effects on European beech bud set', Rebindaine and co-authors report on two experiments on Fagus sylvatica where they manipulated temperatures of saplings between day and night and at different times of year. I enjoyed reading this paper and found it well written. I think the experiments are interesting, but I found the exact methods somewhat extreme compared to how the authors present them. Further, given that much of the experiment happened outside, I am not sure how much we can generalize from one year for each experiment, especially when conducted on one population of one species. I next expand briefly on these concerns and a few others.

Concerns:

(1) As I read the Results, I was surprised the authors did not give more information on the methods here. For example, they refer to the 'effect of July cooling' but never say what the cooling was. Once I read the methods, I feared they were burying this as the methods feel quite extreme given the framing of the paper. The paper is framed as explaining observational results of natural systems, but the treatments are not natural for any system in Europe that I have worked in. For example, a low of 2 {degree sign}C at night and 7 {degree sign}C during the day through the end of May and then 7/13 {degree sign}C in July is extreme. I think these methods need to be clearly laid out for the reader so they can judge what to make of the experiment before they see the results.

(2) I also think the control is confounded with the growth chamber experience in Experiment 1. That is, the control plants never experience any time in a chamber, but all the treatments include significant time in a chamber. The authors mention how detrimental chamber time can be to saplings (indeed, they mention an aphid problem in experiment 2), so I think they need to be more upfront about this. The study is still very valuable, but again, we may need to be more cautious in how much we infer from the results.

(3) I suggest the authors add a figure to explain their experiments, as they are very hard to follow. Perhaps this could be added to Figure 1?

(4) Given how much the authors extrapolate to carbon and forests, I would have liked to see some metrics related to carbon assimilation, versus just information on timing.

(5) Fagus sylvatica is an extremely important tree to European forests, but it also has outlier responses to photoperiod and other cues (and leafs out very late), so using just this species to then state 'our results likely are generalisable across temperate tree species' seems questionable at best.

(6) Another concern relates to measuring the end of season (EOS). It is well known that different parts of plants shut down at different times, and each metric of end of season - budset, end of radial expansion, leaf coloring, etc - relates to different things. Thus, I was surprised that the authors ignore all this complexity and seem to equate leaf coloring with budset (which can happen MONTHS before leaf coloring often) and with other metrics. The paper needs a much better connection to the physiology of end of season and a better explanation for the focus on budset. Relatedly, I was surprised that the authors cite almost none of the literature on budset, which generally suggests it is heavily controlled by photoperiod and population-level differences in photoperiod cues, meaning results may be different with a different population of plants.

(7) I didn't fully see how the authors' results support the Solstice as Switch hypothesis, since what timing mattered seemed to depend on the timing of treatment and was not clearly related to the solstice. Could it be that these results suggest the Solstice as Switch hypothesis is actually not well supported (e.g., line 135) and instead suggest that the pattern of climate in the summer months affects end-of-season timing?

Reviewer #2 (Public review):

Homologous recombination is essential for DNA double-strand break repair, with RAD51-catalyzed strand exchange at its core. This study presents a 2.64 Å resolution cryogenic electron microscopy structure of the RAD51 D-loop complex, achieved through reconstitution of a RAD51 mini-filament. The structure uncovers how specific RAD51 residues drive strand exchange, offering atomic-level insight into the mechanics of eukaryotic HR and DNA repair.

Comments on revisions:

Authors acknowledged:

"We acknowledge that there exists an extensive body of literature that has investigated the polarity of strand exchange by RecA and RAD51 under a variety of experimental conditions, and we have added a brief comment to the text to reflect this, as well as some of the key citations. Undoubtedly, and as we also mention in our reply to the public reviews, further experimental work will be needed for a full reconciliation of the available evidence."

In the revised manuscript, this is reflected in the statement:

"Our mechanistic interpretation of static D-loop structures awaits full reconciliation with earlier efforts to determine strand-exchange polarity for RecA and RAD51 measured under a variety of experimental conditions."

Among the four cited studies, my understanding (as a person who has never studied this subject of polarity) is as follows:<br /> •References 50 (EMBO J. 1997), 51 (Cell. 1995), and 52 (Nature. 2008) suggest that the strand exchange by human RAD51 occurs with a polarity opposite to that of RecA-that is, in the 5′→3′ direction relative to the complementary strand, or 3′→5′ relative to the initiating single-stranded DNA (isDNA).<br /> • In contrast, reference 49 (PNAS 1998) proposed that 5′→3′ polarity (relative to isDNA) is conserved across RecA, human RAD51, and yeast RAD51.

Given the substantial structural analysis provided in the current manuscript, it would strengthen the work to include a concise description of these earlier biochemical findings, rather than citing them without context. This would benefit readers who are not familiar with the longstanding studies in the field and allow for a more informed interpretation of how the structural observations may reconcile or contrast with previous work.

Reviewer #2 (Public review):

In this paper, the authors examine the extent to which epigenetic variation acquired during a selection treatment (as opposed to standing epigenetic variation) can contribute to adaptation in Arabidopsis. They find weak evidence for such adaptation and few differences in DNA methylation between experimental groups, which contrasts with another recent study (reference 26) that reported extensive heritable variation in response to the environment. The authors convincingly demonstrate that the conclusions of the previous study were caused by experimental error, so that standing genetic variation was mistaken for acquired (epigenetic) variation. Given the controversy surrounding the possible role of epigenetic variation in mediating phenotypic variation and adaptation, this is an important, clarifying contribution.

[Editors' note: We thank the authors for responding to the reviewers' comments.]

Reviewer #2 (Public review):

Summary:

Transcriptomics technologies play crucial roles in biological research. Technologies based on second-generation sequencing, such as Illumina RNA-seq, encounter significant challenges due to the short reads, particularly in isoform analysis. In contrast, third-generation sequencing technologies overcome the limitation by providing long reads, but they are much more expensive. The authors present a useful real-time strategy to minimize the cost of RNA sequencing with Oxford Nanopore Technologies (ONT). The revised manuscript demonstrates the utilities with four sets of experiments with convincing evidence: (1) comparation between two cell lines; (2) comparison of RNA preparation procedures; (3) comparation between heat-shock and control conditions; (4) comparison of genetic modified yeast strains. The strategy will probably guide biologists to conduct transcriptomics studies with ONT in a fast and cost-effective way, benefiting both fundamental research and clinical applications.

Strengths:

The authors have recently developed a computational tool called NanopoReaTA to perform real-time analysis when cDNA/RNA samples are sequencing with ONT (Wierczeiko et al., 2023). The advantage of real-time analysis is that sequencing can be terminated once sufficient data has been collected to save cost. In this study, the authors demonstrate how to perform comprehensive quality control during sequencing. Their results indicate that the real-time strategy is effective across different species and RNA preparation methods. The revised manuscript addresses most of the major and minor limitations identified in the previous version, including: (1) explicitly detailing the methodology for isoform analysis and presenting the corresponding results; (2) increasing sample sizes and providing a clear explanation of related considerations; (3) clarifying the issue of sequential analysis; and (4) incorporating a new heat-shock experiment that better reflects real-world biological research.

Weaknesses:

A key advantage of RNA sequencing using ONT is its ability to facilitate isoform analysis. The primary strength of real-time analysis lies in its potential to reduce costs for researchers while enabling significant biological discoveries related to isoforms. Although the authors explicitly describe their approach to isoform analysis and introduce a new experiment in the revised manuscript, the study still lacks a concrete example that clearly demonstrates the substantial impact of their tool and strategy. While such an example may be beyond the intended scope of the current work, its absence limits a better assessment of the significance of the findings. Because the evaluation of a methodological approach ultimately depends on the additional scientific value it provides in research. It is possible that the full potential of this tool will be demonstrated in future studies by the authors or other researchers.

Furthermore, while the tool integrates a set of state-of-the-art methods, it does not introduce any novel methods. Consequently, the strength of evidence can be raised to "convincing".

Reviewer #2 (Public review):

Summary

The study is an innovative and fundamental study that clarified important aspects of brain processes for integration of information from speech and iconic gesture (i.e., gesture that depicts action, movement, and shape), based on tDCS, TMS and EEG experiments. They evaluated their speech and gesture stimuli in information-theoretic ways and calculated how informative speech is (i.e., entropy), how informative gesture is, and how much shared information speech and gesture encode. The tDCS and TMS studies found that the left IFG and pMTG, the two areas that were activated in fMRI studies on speech-gesture integration in the previous literature, are causally implicated in speech-gesture integration. The size of tDC and TMS effects are correlated with entropy of the stimuli or mutual information, which indicates that the effects stems from the modulation of information decoding/integration processes. The EEG study showed that various ERP (event-related potential, e.g., N1-P2, N400, LPC) effects that have been observed in speech-gesture integration experiments in the previous literature are modulated by the entropy of speech/gesture and mutual information. This makes it clear that these effects are related to information decoding processes. The authors propose a model of how speech-gesture integration process unfolds in time, and how IFG and pMTG interact with each other in that process.

Strengths:

The key strength of this study is that the authors used information-theoretic measures of their stimuli (i.e., entropy and mutual information between speech and gesture) in all of their analyses. This made it clear that the neuro-modulation (tDCS, TMS) affected information decoding/integration and ERP effects reflect information decoding/integration. This study used tDCS and TMS methods to demonstrate that left IFG and pMTG are causally involved in speech-gesture integration. The size of tDCS and TMS effects are correlated with information-theoretic measures of the stimuli, which indicate that the effects indeed stem from disruption/facilitation of information decoding/integration process (rather than generic excitation/inhibition). The authors' results also showed correlation between information-theoretic measures of stimuli with various ERP effects. This indicates that these ERP effects reflect the information decoding/integration process.

Weaknesses:

The "mutual information" cannot capture all types of interplay of the meaning of speech and gesture. The mutual information is calculated based on what information can be decoded from speech alone and what information can be decoded from gesture alone. However, when speech and gesture are combined, a novel meaning can emerge, which cannot be decoded from a single modality alone. When example, a person produce a gesture of writing something with a pen, while saying "He paid". The speech-gesture combination can be interpreted as "paying by signing a cheque". It is highly unlikely that this meaning is decoded when people hear speech only or see gestures only. The current study cannot address how such speech-gesture integration occur in the brain, and what ERP effects may reflect such a process. The future studies can classify different types of speech-gesture integration and investigate neural processes that underlie each type. Another important topic for future studies is to investigate how the neural processes of speech-gesture integration change when the relative timing between the speech stimulus and the gesture stimulus changes.

Comments on the previous round of revisions: The authors addressed my concerns well.

Reviewer #2 (Public review):

The goal of HiJee Kang et al. in this study is to explore the interaction between assemblies of neurons with similar pure-tone selectivity in mouse auditory cortex. Using holographic optogenetic stimulation in a small subset of target cells selective for a given pure tone (PTsel), while optically monitoring calcium activity in surrounding non-target cells, they discovered a subtle rebalancing process: co-tuned neurons that are not optogenetically stimulated tend to reduce their activity. The cortical network reacts as if an increased response to PTsel in some tuned assemblies is immediately offset by a reduction in activity in the rest of the PTsel-tuned assemblies, leaving the overall response to PTsel unchanged. The authors show that this rebalancing process affects only the responses of neurons to PTsel, not to other pure tones. They also show that assemblies of neurons that are not selective for PTsel don't participate in the rebalancing process. They conclude that assemblies of neurons with similar pure-tone selectivity must interact in some way to organize this rebalancing process, and they suggest that mechanisms based on homeostatic signaling may play a role.

The authors have successfully controlled for potential artefacts resulting from their optogenetic stimulation. This study is therefore pioneering in the field of the auditory cortex (AC), as it is the first to use single-cell optogenetic stimulation to explore the functional organization of AC circuits in vivo. The conclusions of this paper are very interesting. They raise new questions about the mechanisms that could underlie such a rebalancing process.

(1) This study uses an all-optical approach to excite a restricted group of neurons chosen for their functional characteristics (their frequency tuning), and simultaneously record from the entire network observable in the FOV. As stated by the authors, this approach is applied for the first time to the auditory cortex, which is a tour de force. However, such approach is complex and requires precise controls to be convincing. The authors provide important controls to demonstrate the precise ability of their optogenetic methods. In particular, holographic patterns used to excite 5 cells simultaneously may be associated with out-of-focus laser hot spots. Cells located outside of the FOV could be activated, therefore engaging other cells than the targeted ones in the stimulation. This would be problematic in this study as their tuning may be unrelated to the tuning of the targeted cells. To control for such effect, the authors have decoupled the imaging and the excitation planes, and checked for the absence of out-of-focus unwanted excitation (Suppl Fig1).

(2) In the auditory cortex, assemblies of cells with similar pure-tone selectivity are linked together not only by their ability to respond to the same sound, but also by other factors. This study clearly shows that such assemblies are structured in a way that maintains a stable global response through a rebalancing process. If a group of cells within an assembly increases its response, the rest of the assembly must be inhibited to maintain the total response.<br /> One surprising result is the clear boundary between assemblies: a rebalancing process occurring in one assembly does not affect the response in another assembly comprising cells tuned to a different frequency. However, this is slightly challenged by the data shown in Figure 3.

Figure 3B-left, for example, shows that, compared to controls, non-target 16 kHz-preferring neurons only decrease their response to a 16 kHz pure tone when the cells targeted by the opto stimulation also prefer 16 kHz, but not when the targeted cells prefer 54 kHz. However, the inverse is not entirely true. Again compared to controls, Figure 3B (right) shows that non-target 54 kHz-preferring neurons decrease their response to a 54 kHz pure tone when the targeted cells also prefer 54 kHz; however, they also tend to be inhibited when the targeted cells prefer 16 kHz.

The authors suggest this may be due to the partial activation of 54 kHz-preferring cells by 16 kHz tones and propose examining the response of highly selective neurons. The results are shown in Figure 3F. It would have been more logical to show the same results as in Figure 3B, but with the left part restricted to highly 16 kHz-selective cells and the right part to highly 54 kHz-selective cells. However, the authors chose to pool all responses to 16 kHz and 54 kHz tones in every triplet of conditions (control, opto stimulation on 16 kHz-preferring cells and opto stimulation on 54 kHz-preferring cells), which blurs the result of the analysis.

Reviewer #3 (Public review):

Summary:

Context - this is the 2nd review, of a manuscript that has already undergone some revisions.<br /> The manuscript explores ways to make self-amplifying RNA (saRNA) more silent through the inclusion of genes to inhibit the innate immune response. The readouts are predominantly expression and cell viability. They take a layered approach, adding multiple genes, as well as altering the capping of the anti-immune genes.

Strengths:

As described by the other reviewers, the authors take a stepwise approach to demonstrate that they can lead to sustained expression of the transgene.

Weaknesses:

The following weaknesses need some consideration

(1) The data show sustained expression, but do not directly show amplification. The amount of RFP is constantly decreasing over the time course. There is some evidence for the srIκBα-Smad7-SOCS1 construct. But measuring the RNA itself would be beneficial<br /> (2) The end construct is very large - it has 12 genes, this may have manufacturing considerations, affecting the translatability.

Reviewer #2 (Public review):

Summary:

The authors developed a cell-type specific fluorescence-tagging approach using a CRISPR/Cas9 induced spilt-GFP reconstitution system to visualize endogenous Bruchpilot (BRP) clusters as presynaptic active zones (AZ) in specific cell types of the mushroom body (MB) in the adult Drosophila brain. This AZ profiling approach was implemented in a high-throughput quantification process, allowing for the comparison of synapse profiles within single cells, cell types, MB compartments, and between different individuals. The aim is to analyse in more detail neuronal connectivity and circuits in this centre of associative learning. These are notoriously difficult to investigate due to the density of cells and structures within a cell. The authors detect and characterize cell-type-specific differences in BRP-dependent profiling of presynapses in different compartments of the MB, while intracellular AZ distribution was found to be stereotyped. Next to the descriptive part characterizing various AZ profiles in the MB, the authors apply an associative learning assay and detect consequent AZ re-organisation.

Strengths:

The strength of this study lies in the outstanding resolution of synapse profiling in the extremely dense compartments of the MB. This detailed analysis will be the entry point for many future analyses of synapse diversity in connection with functional specificity to uncover the molecular mechanisms underlying learning and memory formation and neuronal network logics. Therefore, this approach is of high importance for the scientific community and a valuable tool to investigate and correlate AZ architecture and synapse function in the CNS.

Weaknesses:

The results and conclusions presented in this study are, in many aspects, well-supported by the data presented. To further support the key findings of the manuscript, additional controls, comments, and possibly broader functional analysis would be helpful. In particular:

(1) All experiments in the study are based on spilt-GFP lines (BRP:GFP11 and UAS-GFP1-10). The Materials and Methods section does not contain any cloning strategy (gRNA, primer, PCR/sequencing validation, exact position of tag insertion, etc.) and only refers to a bioRxiv publication. It might be helpful to add a Materials and Methods section (at least for the BRP:GFP11 line). Additionally, as this is an on locus insertion the in BRP-ORF, it needs a general validation of this line, including controls (Western Blot and correlative antibody staining against BRP) showing that overall BRP expression is not compromised due to the GFP insertion and localizes as BRP in wild type flies, that flies are viable, have no defects in locomotion and learning and memory formation and MB morphology is not affected compared to wild type animals.

(2) Several aspects of image acquisition and high-throughput quantification data analysis would benefit from a more detailed clarification.

a) For BRP cluster segmentation it is stated in the Materials and Methods state, that intensity threshold and noise tolerance were "set" - this setting has a large effect on the quantification, and it should be specified and setting criteria named and justified (if set manually (how and why) or automatically (to what)). Additionally, if Pyhton was used for "Nearest Neigbor" analysis, the code should be made available within this manuscript; otherwise, it is difficult to judge the quality of this quantification step.

b) To better evaluate the quality of both the imaging analysis and image presentation, it would be important to state, if presented and analysed images are deconvolved and if so, at least one proof of principle example of a comparison of original and deconvoluted file should be shown and quantified to show the impact of deconvolution on the output quality as this is central to this study.

(3) The major part of this study focuses on the description and comparison of the divergent synapse parameters across cell-types in MB compartments, which is highly relevant and interesting. Yet it would be very interesting to connect this new method with functional aspects of the heterogeneous synapses. This is done in Figure 7 with an associative learning approach, which is, in part, not trivial to follow for the reader and would profit from a more comprehensive analysis.

a) It would be important for the understanding and validation of the learning induced changes, if not (only) a ratio (of AZ density/local intensity) would be presented, but both values on their own, especially to allow a comparison to the quoted, previous AZ remodelling analysis quantifying BRP intensities (ref. 17, 18). It should be elucidated in more detail why only the ratio was presented here.

b) The reason why a single instead of a dual odour conditioning was performed could be clarified and discussed (would that have the same effects?).

c) Additionally, "controls" for the unpaired values - that is, in flies receiving neither shock nor odour - it would help to evaluate the unpaired control values in the different MB compartments.

d) The temporal resolution of the effect is very interesting (Figure 7D), and at more time points, especially between 90 and 270 min, this might raise interesting results.

e) Additionally, it would be very interesting and rewarding to have at least one additional assay, relating structure and function, e.g. on a molecular level by a correlative analysis of BRP and synaptic vesicles (by staining or co-expression of SV-protein markers) or calcium activity imaging or on a functional level by additional learning assays

Reviewer #2 (Public review):

Summary:

This is an important study that examines the relationship between a Parkinson's 's-associated mutation in LRRK2 kinase and increased ERM phosphorylation in astrocytes, altered excitatory and inhibitory synapse density and function, and a reduction in astrocyte size. The scope is impressively large and includes human and mouse samples, and employs immunolabeling, whole cell patch clamp recording techniques, molecular manipulation in vivo, and BioID. Experiments have appropriate controls, and the outcomes are mostly convincing. The chief weakness is that the study emphasizes scope over depth, such that it falls short of a unifying model of LRRK2-ERM interactions and leave many outcomes difficult to interpret.

The main idea is that the G2019S Parkinson's mutation in LRRK2 increases its kinase activity and that this either directly or indirectly increases ERM phosphorylation. This excessive ERM phosphorylation is expected to occur within perisynaptic astrocytic processes, reduce astrocyte complexity, and reduce excitatory synapse density and function in ACC. Overexpression of a dominant negative ezrin (phospho-dead) in astrocytes restores their morphology and excitatory synapse density in ACC. This pathway is well supported if taken on its own. But several datapoints presented do not fit this model. The reasoning driving selectivity to ACC and not M1 is not discussed or pursued (is it relevant that pERM levels appear lower in M1 at P21? Do astrocytes in S1 from G2019S mice also show reduced territories?); the differential effects on excitatory versus inhibitory synapses does not fit the model (or is this effect also expected to lie downstream of astrocytes?). Importantly, the effects of ezrin manipulation in wildtype samples (see below) are not integrated into the model, perhaps because the data run counter to expectation.

Specific Concerns and Questions:

(1) Effects in wildtype mice are not fully incorporated into the model. Overexpressing (OE) WT ezrin appears to reduce pERM levels by about half (Figure 1i vs 4B). OE-phospho-dead ezrin also appears to reduce pERM integrated density compared to control levels (same figures). This is not discussed (see also item 2). OE phospho-dead ezrin decreases synapse density and maybe function compared to OE WT ezrin in wildtype mice (4C, 4F), but it is not clear whether or not these data differ from unmanipulated wildtype sections/slices (Figures 2 and 3) because the data are normalized. These synaptic findings in wildtype should also be joined to the morphology findings in wildtype astrocytes, where OE-phospho-dead ezrin reduces astrocyte territory similar to LRRK2-G2019S. The shared morphological outcome is discussed as a potential defect in ERM phospho/dephospho balance, but it was hard to see if this could be similarly related to changes in synapse density.

(2) Labeling for pERMs shown in wildtype mouse and control human is not convincing, but is convincing in the G2019S samples (e.g., Figure 1/S1, Figure 2) (although concentration in perisynaptic astrocytes is not clear). The data presented seem to better support the idea that the mutation confers a pathological gain of ERM phosphorylation (rather than hyperphosphorylation). If the faint labeling in wildtype and control samples is genuine, one would anticipate that pERM labeling would be different in shControl vs. shLrrk2 astrocytes.

(3) Given the data presented, it would seem that overexpressing the BirA2 ezrin construct, like wildtype ezrin, could impact astrocyte biology. If overexpressing a wildtype ezrin reduces pERM levels, then perhaps the BirA2 construct expression already favors a closed conformation. This is not so much a critique of the approach as a request for clarification and to include, if possible, whether there are reasons to believe or data to support that the BirA2 construct adopts both open and closed conformations.

Reviewer #2 (Public review):

Summary:

Park et al. have made a tool for spatiotemporally restricted knockout of the astrocytic GABA transporter GAT3, leveraging CRISPR/Cas9 and viral transduction in adult mice, and evaluated the effects of GAT3 on neural encoding of visual stimulation.

Strengths:

This concise manuscript leverages state-of-the-art gene CRISPR/Cas9 technology for knocking out astrocytic genes. This has only to a small degree been performed previously in astrocytes, and it represents an important development in the field. Moreover, the authors utilize in vivo two-photon imaging of neural responses to visual stimuli as a readout of neural activity, in addition to validating their data with ex vivo electrophysiology. Lastly, they use advanced statistical modeling to analyze the impact of GAT3 knockout. Overall, the study comes across as rigorous and convincing.

Weaknesses:

Adding the following experiments would potentially have strengthened the conclusions and helped with interpreting the findings:

(1) Neural activity is quite profoundly influenced by GAT3 knockout. Corroborating these relatively large changes to neural activity with in vivo electrophysiology of some sort as an additional readout would have strengthened the conclusions.

(2) Given the quite large effects on neural coding in visual cortex assessed på jRGECO imaging, it would have been interesting if the mouse groups could have been subjected to behavioral testing, assessing the visual system.

Reviewer #2 (Public review):

Summary:

Infants' auditory brain responses reveal processing of music (clearly different from shuffled music patterns) from the age of 3 months; however, they do not show a related increase in spontaneous movement activity to music until the age of 12 months.

Strengths:

This is a nice paper, well designed, with sophisticated analyses and presenting clear results that make a lot of sense to this reviewer. The additions of EEG recordings in response to music presentations at 3 different infant ages are interesting, and the manipulation of the music stimuli into shuffled, high, and low pitch to capture differences in brain response and spontaneous movements is good. I really enjoyed reading this work and the well-written manuscript.

Weaknesses:

I only have two comments. The first is a change to the title. Maybe the title should refer to the first "postnatal" year, rather than the first year of life. There are controversies about when life really starts; it could be in the womb, so using postnatal to refer to the period after birth resolves that debate.

The other comment relates to the 10 Principal Movements (PMs) identified. I was wondering about the rationale for identifying these different PMs and to what extent many PMs entered in the analyses may hinder more general pattern differences. Infants' spontaneous movements are very variable and poorly differentiated in early development. Maybe, instead of starting with 10 distinct PMs, a first analysis could be run using the combined Quantity of Movements (QoM) without PM distinctions to capture an overall motor response to music. Maybe only 2 PMs could be entered in the analysis, for the arms and for the legs, regardless of the patterns generated. Maybe the authors have done such an analysis already, but describing an overall motor response, before going into specific patterns of motor activation, could be useful to describe the level of motor response. Again, infants provide extremely variable patterns of response, and such variability may potentially hinder an overall effect if the QoM were treated as a cumulated measure rather than one with differentiated patterns.

Reviewer #2 (Public review):

This study explores the underlying causes of the generalized movement slowness observed in astronauts in weightlessness compared to their performance on Earth. The authors argue that this movement slowness stems from an underestimation of mass rather than a deliberate reduction in speed for enhanced stability and safety.

Overall, this is a fascinating and well-written work. The kinematic analysis is thorough and comprehensive. The design of the study is solid, the collected dataset is rare, and the model tends to add confidence to the proposed conclusions. That being said, I have several comments that could be addressed to consolidate interpretations and improve clarity.

Main comments:

(1) Mass underestimation

a) While this interpretation is supported by data and analyses, it is not clear whether this gives a complete picture of the underlying phenomena. The two hypotheses (i.e., mass underestimation vs deliberate speed reduction) can only be distinguished in terms of velocity/acceleration patterns, which should display specific changes during the flight with a mass underestimation. The experimental data generally shows the expected changes but for the 45{degree sign} condition, no changes are observed during flight compared to the pre- and post-phases (Figure 4). In Figure 5E, only a change in the primary submovement peak velocity is observed for 45{degree sign}, but this finding relies on a more involved decomposition procedure. It suggests that there is something specific about 45{degree sign} (beyond its low effective mass). In such planar movements, 45{degree sign} often corresponds to a movement which is close to single-joint, whereas 90{degree sign} and 135{degree sign} involve multi-joint movements. If so, the increased proportion of submovements in 90{degree sign} and 135{degree sign} could indicate that participants had more difficulties in coordinating multi-joint movements during flight. Besides inertia, Coriolis and centripetal effects may be non-negligible in such fast planar reaching (Hollerbach & Flash, Biol Cyber, 1982) and, interestingly, they would also be affected by a mass underestimation (thus, this is not necessarily incompatible with the author's view; yet predicting the effects of a mass underestimation on Coriolis/centripetal torques would require a two-link arm model). Overall, I found the discrepancy between the 45{degree sign} direction and the other directions under-exploited in the current version of the article. In sum, could the corrective submovements be due to a misestimation of Coriolis/centripetal torques in the multi-joint dynamics (caused specifically -or not- by a mass underestimation)?

b) Additionally, since the taikonauts are tested after 2 or 3 weeks in flight, one could also assume that neuromuscular deconditioning explains (at least in part) the general decrease in movement speed. Can the authors explain how to rule out this alternative interpretation? For instance, weaker muscles could account for slower movements within a classical time-effort trade-off (as more neural effort would be needed to generate a similar amount of muscle force, thereby suggesting a purposive slowing down of movement). Therefore, could the observed results (slowing down + more submovements) be explained by some neuromuscular deconditioning combined with a difficulty in coordinating multi-joint movements in weightlessness (due to a misestimation or Coriolis/centripetal torques) provide an alternative explanation for the results?

(2) Modelling

a) The model description should be improved as it is currently a mix of discrete time and continuous time formulations. Moreover, an infinite-horizon cost function is used, but I thought the authors used a finite-horizon formulation with the prefixed duration provided by the movement utility maximization framework of Shadmehr et al. (Curr Biol, 2016). Furthermore, was the mass underestimation reflected both in the utility model and the optimal control model? If so, did the authors really compute the feedback control gain with the underestimated mass but simulate the system with the real mass? This is important because the mass appears both in the utility framework and in the LQ framework. Given the current interpretations, the feedforward command is assumed to be erroneous, and the feedback command would allow for motor corrections. Therefore, it could be clarified whether the feedback command also misestimates the mass or not, which may affect its efficiency. For instance, if both feedforward and feedback motor commands are based on wrong internal models (e.g., due to the mass underestimation), one may wonder how the astronauts would execute accurate goal-directed movements.

b) The model seems to be deterministic in its current form (no motor and sensory noise). Since the framework developed by Todorov (2005) is used, sensorimotor noise could have been readily considered. One could also assume that motor and sensory noise increase in microgravity, and the model could inform on how microgravity affects the number of submovements or endpoint variance due to sensorimotor noise changes, for instance.

c) Finally, how does the model distinguish the feedforward and feedback components of the motor command that are discussed in the paper, given that the model only yields a feedback control law? Does 'feedforward' refer to the motor plan here (i.e., the prefixed duration and arguably the precomputed feedback gain)?

(3) Brevity of movements and speed-accuracy trade-off

The tested movements are much faster (average duration approx. 350 ms) than similar self-paced movements that have been studied in other works (e.g., Wang et al., J Neurophysiology, 2016; Berret et al., PLOS Comp Biol, 2021, where movements can last about 900-1000 ms). This is consistent with the instructions to reach quickly and accurately, in line with a speed-accuracy trade-off. Was this instruction given to highlight the inertial effects related to the arm's anisotropy? One may however, wonder if the same results would hold for slower self-paced movements (are they also with reduced speed compared to Earth performance?). Moreover, a few other important questions might need to be addressed for completeness: how to ensure that astronauts did remember this instruction during the flight? (could the control group move faster because they better remembered the instruction?). Did the taikonauts perform the experiment on their own during the flight, or did one taikonaut assume the role of the experimenter?

(4) No learning effect

This is a surprising effect, as mentioned by the authors. Other studies conducted in microgravity have indeed revealed an optimal adaptation of motor patterns in a few dozen trials (e.g., Gaveau et al., eLife, 2016). Perhaps the difference is again related to single-joint versus multi-joint movements. This should be better discussed given the impact of this claim. Typically, why would a "sensory bias of bodily property" persist in microgravity and be a "fundamental constraint of the sensorimotor system"?

Reviewer #2 (Public review):

Summary:

Chronic methamphetamine (METH) abuse leads to significant structural and functional deficits in the cortical and hippocampal regions in humans. However, the specific mechanisms underlying chronic METH-induced neurotoxicity in the hippocampus and its contribution to cognitive deficits remain poorly understood. The authors aim to address this knowledge gap using a single-cell transcriptomic atlas of the hippocampus under chronic METH exposure in mice. They present analyses of differential gene expression, cell-cell communication, pseudotemporal trajectories, and transcription factor regulation to characterize the cellular-level impact of METH abuse. However, the overall quality of the manuscript is currently very poor due to a lack of basic quality control, overly descriptive content, and unclear conclusions.

Strengths:

The major strength of this study is that it may represent the first report on the impact of METH on the hippocampus in mice. However, the authors should clarify whether similar studies have been previously conducted, as this point remains uncertain.

Weaknesses:

Despite this potential novelty, the study has numerous weaknesses. Notably, single-cell RNA sequencing was unable to capture an adequate number of neuronal populations. Neurons accounted for only approximately 0.6% of the total nuclei, representing a significant underrepresentation compared to their actual physiological proportion. Given that the behavioral effects of METH are likely mediated by neuronal dysfunction, readers would reasonably expect to see transcriptional changes in neurons. The authors should explain why they were unable to capture a sufficient number of neurons and justify how this incomplete dataset can still provide meaningful scientific insights for researchers studying METH-induced hippocampal damage and behavioral alterations.

Another significant weakness of this study is the lack of a cohesive hypothesis or overarching conclusion regarding how METH impacts neural populations. The authors provide a largely descriptive account of transcriptional alterations across various cell types, but the manuscript lacks clear, biologically meaningful conclusions. This descriptive approach makes it difficult for readers to identify the key findings or take-home messages. To improve clarity and impact, the authors should focus on developing and presenting a few plausible hypotheses or mechanistic scenarios regarding METH-induced neurotoxicity, grounded in their scRNA-seq data. Including schematic figures to illustrate these hypotheses would also help readers better understand and interpret the study.

The final major weakness of this study is its poor readability. It appears that the authors did not adequately proofread the manuscript, as there are numerous typographical errors (e.g., line 333: trisulting; line 756: essencial), unsupported scientific claims lacking citations (e.g., lines 485, 503, 749-753), and grammatically incorrect sentences (e.g., lines 470-472, 540-543, 749-753). In addition, many paragraphs are unorganized and overly descriptive, which further hinders clarity. Some figures are also problematic - too small in size and overcrowded with text in fonts that are difficult to read. It is recommended that the authors carry out quality control. There are too many typographical and grammatical errors to list individually; the authors should carefully review and revise the entire manuscript to address all of these issues.

Overall, this study could have offered some incremental new insights into neurotoxicity following chronic METH exposure, despite the poor capture of neuronal populations. However, the current manuscript feels more like a data dump than a thoughtfully constructed scientific narrative. I encourage the authors to extract and highlight meaningful biological insights from their dataset and clearly articulate these in the conclusion, ideally supported by an additional schematic figure. Furthermore, I strongly urge the authors to substantially improve the basic quality of the manuscript through careful proofreading and by seeking feedback from colleagues or other readers.

Reviewer #2 (Public review):

Summary:

This study uncovers an inhibitory pathway from the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) to pyramidal cells in the superficial sublayer of hippocampal area CA1 (CA1sup). As ACC neuron spiking tends to precede hippocampal ripples, this presents the intriguing possibility that ACC inputs are selectively inhibiting particular CA1sup neurons, which could play a role in the reactivation of task-related ensembles known to take place during hippocampal ripples. Indeed, through a generalized linear model (GLM) analysis, the authors demonstrate that the ACC activity within the 200ms immediately preceding the ripple is predictive of the ripple content.

Strengths:

The biggest strength of the work is the optogenetic manipulation experiments, which convincingly demonstrate that stimulation of ACC pyramidal neurons activates an interneuron population with symmetric spike waveforms, and inhibits parvalbumin interneurons and pyramidal cells in CA1sup but not CA1deep sublayer.

An additional strength in the GLM analysis which consistently shows that ACC activity preceding the ripple is predictive of hippocampal activity during the ripple considerably more than in shuffled data for all cells and periods tested.

Weaknesses:

The major weakness of this work is that the link with learning and memory is not very well supported.

The only evidence of rebalancing and reorganization appears to be a single statistical test (the test in Figure 1f, p=0.013) demonstrating a decrease of the GLM prediction gain from pre-task sleep to post-task sleep; the same test is repeated for subsets of the data in the rest of the figures. As the idea of rebalancing and reorganization is central to the paper as currently written, exploring it through another measure, independent of the GLM prediction gain, should be expected. The notion that this pathway is suppressed in sleep following learning can be supported by demonstrating a decrease in any of the following measures: ACC spike-triggered average CA1sup responses, cross-covariances (Wierzynski et al 2009) between ACC and CA1sup cells in post-task sleep, or ripple-triggered cross-correlations (Sirota et al. 2009).

The differences between task-active and task-inactive neurons are not convincing. The separation between task-active and task-inactive neurons is to divide a distribution that is far from bimodal into what appears to be two arbitrary groups. Similarly, the authors divide cells relative to their prediction gain ("Top PG" and "Bottom PG" in Figure 2c), which fails to select for the population of significantly predicted cells (relative to the shuffle). Within CA1sup cells, after learning, there is a significant decrease in the prediction gain for "task-inactive" cells but not "task-active" cells, but it is important to keep in mind that the "task-active" group contains only 24 neurons, and there was no difference between the two groups of cells ("task-active" vs "task-inactive") when directly compared.

Finally, it is not clear whether the identity of the pathway-responsive CA1sup neurons is fixed or whether it may change with learning. A deeper analysis into the cell pair cross-correlations or the weights of the GLM analysis may reveal whether there is a reorganization of CA1sup responses (some cells that were inhibited are no longer inhibited, and vice versa) or a dampening (the same CA1sup cells are inhibited in both cases, but the inhibition is less-pronounced in post-task sleep). The possibility of a rigid circuit dampened immediately following fear conditioning, is not discussed by the authors.

Reviewer #2 (Public review):

Summary:

In this manuscript, the authors reported two studies where they investigated the context effect of hyperaltruistic tendency in moral decision-making. They replicated the hyperaltruistic moral preference in the gain domain, where participants inflicted electric shocks to themselves or another person in exchange for monetary profits for themselves. In the loss domain, such hyperaltruistic tendency abolished. Interestingly, oxytocin administration reinstated the hyperaltruistic tendency in the loss domain. The authors also examined the correlation between individual differences in utilitarian psychology and the context effect of hyperaltruistic tendency.

Strengths:

(1) The research question - the boundary condition of hyperaltruistic tendency in moral decision-making and its neural basis - is theoretically important.<br /> (2) Manipulating the brain via pharmacological means offers causal understanding of the neurobiological basis of the psychological phenomenon in question.<br /> (3) Individual difference analysis reveals interesting moderators of the behavioral tendency.

Weaknesses:

(1) The theoretical hypothesis needs to be better justified. There are studies addressing the neurobiological mechanism of hyperaltruistic tendency, which the authors unfortunately skipped entirely.<br /> (2) There are some important inconsistencies between the preregistration and the actual data collection/analysis, which the authors did not justify.<br /> (3) Some of the exploratory analysis seems underpowered (e.g., large multiple regression models with only about 40 participants).<br /> (4) Inaccurate conceptualization of utilitarian psychology and the questionnaire used to measure it.

Comments on revisions:

The authors have addressed the weakness in the second round of revision

Reviewer #2 (Public review):

Summary:

The authors aimed to find out how and how well adult and adolescent mice discriminate tones of different frequencies and whether there are differences in processing at the level of the auditory cortex that might explain differences in behavior between the two groups. Adolescent mice were found to be worse at sound frequency discrimination than adult mice. The performance difference between the groups was most pronounced when the sounds are close in frequency and thus difficult to distinguish and could, at least in part, be attributed to the younger mice' inability to withhold licking in no-go trials. By recording the activity of individual neurons in the auditory cortex when mice performed the task or were passively listening as well as in untrained mice the authors identified differences in the way that the adult and adolescent brains encode sounds and the animals' choice that could potentially contribute to the differences in behavior.

Strengths:

The study combines behavioural testing in freely-moving and head-fixed mice, optogenetic manipulation and high density electrophysiological recordings in behaving mice to address important open questions about age differences in sound-guided behavior and sound representation in the auditory cortex.