eLife Assessment

This study provides direct and compelling evidence that lamellipodial protrusions dynamically adjust Arp2/3 complex incorporation in response to mechanical counterforces, while also modulating cellular responsiveness to upstream signals like Rac GTPase. By combining endogenous labeling, live-cell imaging, and optogenetic signaling activation, the work demonstrates how adhesion state and physicochemical perturbations reproducibly alter branched actin organization, offering a fundamental advance over previous works. The findings deliver significant insights that will resonate broadly with cell biologists and biochemists studying actin dynamics and mechanotransduction.

eLife Assessment

In this study, Yuan and colleagues perform transcriptomic and epigenomic experiments to study open chromatin regions and transcripts that change upon larval settlement in the sponge Amphimedon. The authors present compelling evidence to show that sponge larvae prepare for receiving an environmental cue (sunset) by extensively modifying their chromatin accessibility in the vicinity of genes that are going to be regulated during metamorphosis. The study represents a fundamental advance in understanding the fine genetic control of larval settlement and has significance beyond the immediate field of sponge larval biology.

eLife Assessment

This large-scale comparative study of odorant receptor (OR) genes across more than 100 insect species, combining sequence- and structure-based approaches, aims to explore the evolution of this large gene family involved in the detection of odorant signals by olfactory neurons. This useful work uncovers a structural feature unique to the odorant receptor co-receptor Orco that reduces ligand binding affinity. However, the strength of evidence is incomplete: the pipeline for in silico identification of odorant receptor genes lacks validation through comparison with known odorant receptor repertoires from previously studied species, and claims regarding odor response spectra, evolutionary, and ecological interpretations are not fully supported by the analyses.

eLife Assessment

The study presents useful findings on the behavioral effects of nicotine exposure, suggesting the Drosophila larva as a potential model organism for studying underlying neural circuits. However, the evidence supporting the claims of the authors is incomplete and would benefit from more rigorous analysis and explanations. The study falls short of identifying the neural mechanisms and is therefore of interest to those with an interest in pharmacology and behavior.

eLife Assessment

This work provides an important modeling-based framework for understanding the processes of temporal integration in the claustrum. These mechanisms could support a broader range of integrative brain function. The manuscript presents solid evidence for how claustrum may integrate temporal disparate signals via a novel computational phenomenon with neural dynamics evolving along neural trajectories as opposed to settling into fixed-point attractor states.

eLife Assessment

This important advancement in the field of neurotransmission delivers a novel toolkit for in vivo visualization of vesicular transporters for ACh, GABA, glutamate and monoamines in C. elegans. With the application of newly developed neuron-specific knockout methods for these vesicular transporters, the results convincingly demonstrate that over 10% of the neurons studied show transporter co-expression that may be correlated with co-transmission. These findings and toolkit will be of interest towards the study of neural circuit function.

eLife Assessment

In this important study, the authors used a zebrafish model and scRNAseq analysis to show that a subset of keratinocytes within melanoma microenvironment highly up-regulate Twist and undergo Epithelial-Mesenchymal Transition (EMT). Surprisingly, when overexpressing Twist in keratinocytes, the resulting alteration in keratinocytes is inhibitory for melanoma invasion in both zebrafish and human cell culture models. The results are supported by convincing experimental data that provide new insights into the interactions between melanoma cells and their environment.

eLife Assessment

This important work advances our understanding of the single neuron coding types in the mouse gustatory cortex and the functional roles of these neurons for perceptual decision-making. The conclusions are based on compelling evidence from rigorous behavioral experiments, high-density electrophysiology, sophisticated data analysis, and neural network modeling with in silico perturbations of functionally-identified units. This work will be of broad interest to systems neuroscientists.

eLife Assessment

This study presents valuable findings on the physiological and computational underpinnings of the accumulation of intermittent glimpses of sensory evidence. The evidence supporting the claims of the authors is solid, although a more exhaustive characterisation of how the different signals interact would have strengthened the study. The work will be of interest to cognitive and systems neuroscientists working on decision-making.

eLife Assessment

This valuable cross-sectional longitudinal study leverages high-definition transcranial direct current stimulation to the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex to examine its effect on procrastination behavior over an extended time span. The cross-sectional longitudinal study provided evidence for how stimulating DLPFC impacts reveal-world procrastination behavior. Support for the conclusions is incomplete owing to missing information about the analyses, and results, as well as some potential alternative interpretations.

eLife Assessment

This study provides valuable insights with convincing evidence detailing altered tactile perception in a mouse model of ASD (Fmr1 mice), paralleling sensory abnormalities in Fragile X and autism. Its main strength lies in the use of a novel and quantitative tactile categorization task and the careful dissection of behavioral performance across training and difficulty levels, suggesting that deficits may stem from an interaction between sensory and cognitive processes. The behavioral experiments are well executed and set the stage for subsequent mechanistic, causal, and computational approaches. The work is relevant to those interested in autism, cognition, and/or sensory processing.

eLife Assessment

Du et al. present a valuable study examining neural activation in medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) subpopulations projecting to the basolateral amygdala (BLA) and nucleus accumbens (NAc) during behavioral tasks assessing anxiety, social preference, and social dominance. The strength of the evidence linking in vivo neural physiology to behavioral outcomes was considered solid; however, the slice electrophysiology data and their interpretation were less well received. Overall, the reviewers felt that the revised work provides insight into how distinct mPFC→BLA and mPFC→NAc pathways influence anxiety, exploration, and social behaviors.

eLife Assessment

This manuscript examines the evolution of molluscan shells using single-cell analyses of the adult mantle of Crassostrea gigas and compares these data with previous datasets from embryonic and larval stages of this species and other spiralians. The authors provide important support for a scenario in which secretory cells are broadly conserved across spiralians, and the incorporation of lineage-restricted genes contributes to the evolution of molluscan shells. While some of the conclusions of the authors are convincing, many aspects of the manuscript remain incomplete and could be improved, especially aspects of cell-type classification and validation.

eLife Assessment

This study presents a valuable perspective on platelet-mediated fibrin compaction, proposing that fibrin fibers undergo "winding" or coiling, an intriguing framework with potential implications for thrombosis and clot mechanics. However, the evidence supporting an active platelet-driven winding mechanism remains incomplete, relying largely on correlative observations without direct or quantitative validation of the proposed dynamics. Overall, the work is thought-provoking and of clear interest to the field, but stronger mechanistic evidence will be required to substantiate the central claims.

eLife Assessment

This study introduces the "Training Village," a valuable system for which solid evidence shows that it enables group-housed rodents to autonomously learn complex tasks while preserving natural social interactions. The platform is flexible, allowing animals to learn multiple tasks sequentially and supporting applications in continual learning. This approach is likely to be of broad interest to behavioral researchers using rodent models in systems and cognitive neuroscience.

eLife Assessment

This study provides a valuable contribution to our understanding of the neural basis of perceptual decision-making by jointly modeling behavioral outcomes and EEG signals in a contrast comparison task. The methods and analyses are solid, systematically comparing standard models assuming continuous evidence accumulation with models that track evidence without temporal integration (extrema detection). The authors show that behavior and neural signals are equally consistent with both alternatives, highlighting limitations in current modeling approaches and questioning the generality of evidence accumulation mechanisms.

eLife Assessment

This fundamental work significantly advances our understanding of the circuit-level implementation of predictive processing by elucidating the functional influence between putative prediction error neurons in layer 2/3 and putative internal representation neurons in layer 5. The evidence demonstrating that neither the hierarchical nor the non-hierarchical variant of predictive processing fully accounts for the presented data is convincing. Moving forward, this line of work would benefit from explicitly comparing different theories, thereby clearly articulating the points raised in this paper.

eLife Assessment

This study presents a valuable finding on the mutational landscape and expression profile of ZNF molecules in 23 Kenyan women with breast cancer. The evidence supporting the claims of the authors is solid, although inclusion of a larger number of patient samples, more statistical details and sufficient comparison with existing large-scale datasets would have strengthened the study. The work will be of interest to medical biologists working in the field of breast cancer.

eLife Assessment

This valuable study characterises the activity of motor units from two of the three anatomical subdivisions ("heads") of the triceps muscle while mice walked on a treadmill at various speeds. Altogether, this is the most thorough characterisation of motor unit activity in walking mice to date, providing convincing evidence for probabilistic recruitment of motor units that differed between the two heads.

eLife Assessment

The authors use single molecule imaging and in vivo loop-capture genomic approaches to investigate estrogen mediated enhancer-target gene activation in human cancer cells. These potentially important results suggest that ER-alpha can, in a temporal delay, activate a non-target gene TFF3, which is in proximity to the main target gene TFF1, even though the estrogen responsive enhancer does not loop with the TFF3 promoter. To explain these results, the authors invoke a transcriptional condensate model. The claim of a temporal delay and effects of the target gene transcription on the non-target gene expression are supported by solid evidence but there is no direct evidence of the role of a condensate in mediating this effect. The reviewers appreciate that the authors have done a lot of work to strengthen the study. This work will be of interest to those studying transcriptional gene regulation and hormone-aggravated cancers.

eLife Assessment

This important study provides a detailed characterization of individual sarcomeres' contractility and of their synchrony in spontaneously beating cardiomyocytes derived from human induced pluripotent stem cells. The combination of high-resolution tracking, statistical analysis and mesoscopic modeling leads to compelling evidence that sarcomeres operate as dynamically unstable units, leading to stochastic heterogeneities in their contraction-elongation cycles depending on substrate stiffness. The work will be relevant to scientists interested in muscle biophysics, nonlinear dynamics and synchronization phenomena in biological systems.

eLife Assessment

This is a theoretical analysis that gives compelling evidence that length control of bundles of actin filaments undergoing assembly and disassembly emerges even in the absence of a length control mechanism at the individual filament level. Furthermore, the length distribution should exhibit a variance that grows quadratically with the average bundle length. The experimental data are compatible with these fundamental theoretical findings, but further investigations are necessary to make the work conclusive concerning the validity of the inferences for filamentous actin structures in cells.

eLife Assessment

This valuable study explores changes in the Drosophila microbiome in response to environmental temperature over more than ten years. The evidence showing that temperature leads to diversification of bacterial clades is solid, but additional information would help clarify how subspecies competition impacts microbiome composition and the host. The work will interest researchers working with microbiomes, microbial ecology, and evolutionary biology.

eLife Assessment

This important work demonstrates the role of physically linking the core and CTD kinase modules of TFIIH via separate domains of subunit Tfb3 in confining RNA Polymerase II Serine 5 CTD phosphorylation to promoter regions of transcribed genes in budding yeast. The main findings, resulting from analyses of viable Tfb3 mutants in which the linkage between TFIIH core and kinase modules has been severed, are supported by solid evidence from in vitro and in vivo experiments. The new findings raise the intriguing possibility that the Tfb3-mediated connection between core and kinase modules of TFIIH is an evolutionary addition to an ancestral state of physically unconnected enzymes.

eLife Assessment

This manuscript addresses an important question in clinical neuroscience: the use of the theta/beta ratio as a biomarker of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). The study takes an exceptional "multiverse" analysis approach to show that aperiodic activity differences between healthy controls and people with ADHD are driving the apparent theta/beta ratio differences. From a neuroscientific perspective, this is a critical finding because it has a major impact on guiding research on the diagnosis and treatment of ADHD.

eLife Assessment

This valuable study presents a comprehensive comparison of human and macaque monkey behavior across a range of visual perceptual phenomena. The use of a unified oddball visual search paradigm enables direct cross-species comparison while minimizing task-related confounds. It provides solid evidence that visual perception is largely similar between these two species, with some interesting exceptions. These insights into qualitative and quantitative differences between species are relevant for evaluating macaques as a model organism for understanding human vision.

eLife Assessment

This valuable study examined the geometry of visual object representations across hierarchically organized stages of the mouse visual cortex. The use of large-scale training and recording techniques provides solid evidence for changes along the hierarchy that may contribute to invariant object recognition. These findings, particularly if they could be supported by further analyses and clarifications to rule out alternative explanations, including influences of low-level features on behavior and neural activity, help establish the potential usefulness of the mouse to understand the neural basis of object recognition.

eLife Assessment

This important study investigates the impact of BRCA1/2 mutations on immunotherapy in lung adenocarcinoma using multi-omics approaches. The detailed genetic analysis of two cancer genes (BRCA1 and BRCA2) demonstrated their new roles in causing the tumor microenvironment in lung cancer. The solid findings of this study provide an essential foundation for further developing drugs targeting BRCA1/2 in lung cancer therapy.

eLife Assessment

This study examines the role of the fungal pathogen Candida albicans in the progression of colorectal cancer, a relevant and urgent topic given the global incidence of colon cancer. While the findings are useful and provide solid experimental work and insight into how Candida may contribute to tumor progression, the small patient sample size, reliance on in vitro models, and absence of in vivo validation may limit its impact. This work will interest scientists studying cancer progression and the role played by pathogens.

eLife Assessment

This paper presents a collection of analyses relating structure and function in the whole-brain Drosophila EM connectome and whole-brain calcium imaging data. The linkage of detailed anatomical structure with population activity is of broad interest in circuit neuroscience in light of increasingly detailed brain maps, but the methods used made the evidence inadequate due to a lack of consideration of neurotransmitter identity and technical issues with the network analysis. The conclusions are useful for specific network observations, but a more thorough analysis of the anatomical and functional data is needed to support the overall claims.

eLife Assessment

This useful study addresses the interesting question of how immune cells recognise infected erythrocytes in malaria. It proposes the parasite protein PfGBP-130 as an interaction partner of the human cell surface protein LFA 1, which could help explain how NK cells recognize infected erythrocytes. The conclusions are partially supported by pull-down and cell-based activation data. However, the overall evidence of direct interaction at the cell-cell interface and downstream effects is incomplete; stronger evidence is required to demonstrate surface exposure of PfGBP-130, as well as a direct role of this antigen in killing.

eLife Assessment

This manuscript investigates inter-hemispheric interactions in the olfactory system of Xenopus tadpoles. Using a combination of electrophysiology, pharmacology, imaging, and uncaging, the transection of the contralateral nerve is shown to lead to larger odor responses in the un-manipulated hemisphere, and implicates dopamine signaling, likely originating from the lateral pallium, in this process. The study convincingly uses a rich and sophisticated array of tools to investigate olfactory coding, and uncovers valuable mechanisms of signaling likely to be conserved across vertebrates.

eLife Assessment

This important study addresses the unresolved and long-debated question of whether atypical protein kinase C is required for the maintenance of synaptic potentiation and long-term memory. The convincing results confirm previous findings that persistent activity of PKMζ is required for lasting potentiation of hippocampal synapses and spatial memory. The study also adds new genetic evidence to support the earlier suggestion that enhanced expression of PKC iota/lambda compensates for the genetic reduction of PKM zeta to support synaptic potentiation and memory.

eLife Assessment

This valuable study reports that the ALDH-abundant cells display stem cell properties and may play a key role in the endometrial epithelial development in the mouse. The data supporting the main conclusion are solid, although further improvements are needed to strengthen the conclusions. This work will be of great interest to reproductive biologists and biomedical researchers working on women's reproductive health.

eLife Assessment

This important study examines the evolution of virulence and antibiotic resistance in Staphylococcus aureus under multiple selection pressures, specifically host immune function and antibiotic exposure. The evidence presented is convincing, supported by rigorous phenotypic and genomic data from within-host evolution experiments. The manuscript now provides a nuanced and robust interpretation of how pathogens adapt to complex selective landscapes.

eLife Assessment

This important study shows that action potentials undergo frequency-dependent failure along the axons of fast-spiking interneurons during sustained high-frequency firing, offering a mechanistic explanation for why inhibition may fail to restrain seizures. The evidence is solid, though additional analyses could further strengthen the mechanistic interpretation. The work will be of broad interest to neuroscientists studying axonal physiology, cortical inhibition, and epilepsy.

eLife Assessment

This valuable study contributes to the field of neuro-glial biology by establishing a direct causal link between astrocytic metabolism (glycolysis) and the structural wiring of neural circuits. Connecting the metabolic-synaptic mechanism to locomotor reorientation in the dopaminergic circuit offers new insights into how energy metabolism shapes circuit assembly and function. The evidence offers a solid foundation, moving logically from molecular mechanisms to circuit-level anatomy and finally to behavior; however, several central conclusions currently exceed the direct evidence presented. With appropriate calibration of claims and interpretations and/or additional clarifying experiments, the manuscript has the potential to make a significant contribution to our understanding of glial regulation of circuit assembly.

eLife Assessment

This important study by Kong et al. systematically and rigorously dissects the gene regulatory network underlying melanoma and breast cancer risk at the multi-cancer 2q33 locus. The authors provide compelling evidence that rs3769823 is a key functional variant that acts through allele-preferential binding of the transcription factors E4F1 and IRF2 to regulate CASP8 and FLACC1 in a cell-type-specific manner. The work makes a significant contribution to understanding the mechanisms operating at multi-cancer risk loci.

eLife Assessment

This important study introduces an innovative synthetic nanobody approach to probe the function of the bacterial SMC complex. The work is a compelling example of the potential of this approach. The authors generate protein chimeras to provide convincing evidence that their identified nanobodies target the coiled-coil region of the SMC subunit, demonstrating that this region is critical for SMC function in vivo. Overall, the work is significant for the fields of genome organisation, SMC protein biology, synthetic biology, and bacterial cell biology.

[Editors' note: this paper was reviewed by Review Commons.]

eLife Assessment

This valuable study focuses on a unique morphogenetic module, the junction-based lamellipodia (JBL). It provides a biomechanical understanding of how JBLs control endothelial cell-cell junctional remodelling to generate lumenised, multicellular blood vessels. The manuscript represents a robust, thoughtfully executed, and convincing study that uses high-resolution time-lapse imaging combined with pharmacological treatments to advance our understanding of lumen formation in vascular development.

eLife Assessment

This important study presents a technically rigorous and carefully controlled analysis of the signalling potential of cancer-associated gain-of-function Notch alleles. The work is clearly presented, and the experiments are robust, comprehensive, and well-controlled. While some data primarily establish the system or report negative findings, the comparative approach in a well-characterized model provides convincing mechanistic evidence for how these Notch variants function. This study will be of interest to researchers in both developmental and cancer biology.

eLife Assessment

This manuscript offers valuable structural and mechanistic insights into the assembly of the Type II internal ribosome entry site (IRES) from encephalomyocarditis virus (EMCV) and the translation initiation complex, revealing a direct interaction between the IRES and the 40S ribosomal subunit. A solid experimental strategy, combining cryo-EM analysis, complementary biochemistry, and detailed structural comparisons, provides mechanistic insights into IRES-based translation initiation systems. This paper will attract researchers in cap-independent translation, host-pathogen interactions, and virology.

eLife Assessment

This is a valuable study on single-cell transcriptomic analyses, focused on morphogenesis of the zebrafish inner ear in wildtype and lmx1bb mutants. The supporting evidence is mostly convincing, but incomplete in parts.

eLife Assessment

This study analyzes the temporal dynamics of gene expression following TNF stimulation in macrophages. The work brings valuable data and new methodological approaches to implicate the splicing rate of certain introns as a mechanism regulating mature mRNA expression. This will be of interest to audiences in RNA biology and innate immune response regulation. The experimental design is solid for the core findings, although in places the data limit the conclusions.

eLife Assessment

In this important manuscript, Matsuda and colleagues present a model describing the regulation of tracheal tubulogenesis in Drosophila melanogaster embryos. The authors support this model using convincing approaches that combine novel experimental results with previously published work from their group. While some conclusions are consistent with earlier studies, the present manuscript introduces distinct molecular markers not previously reported, which reinforce the authors' prior findings. In addition, the manuscript analyses, using experimental strategies, the requirement of the Dpp and EGFR signalling pathways for the maintenance of trachealess (trh), one of the key transcription factors governing tracheal development.

eLife Assessment

This important work advances our understanding of intraflagellar transport, ciliogenesis, and ciliary-based signaling, by identifying the interactions of IFT172 with IFT-A components, ubiquitin-binding, and ubiquitination, mediated by IFT172 C-terminus and its role in ciliogenesis and ciliary signaling. The evidence supporting the findings is convincing. This paper will be of interest to cell biologists and biochemists, especially those working on cilia and signaling.

eLife Assessment

This valuable study reports the architectural reorganization of the uterine luminal epithelium during the implantation period. The data presented are solid, although improvements are needed. This work is of interest to reproductive biologists and physicians practicing reproductive medicine.

eLife Assessment

This manuscript provides valuable high-resolution structural insights into the interaction between vaccine-elicited antibodies and SARS‑CoV‑2 evolution. The evidence is solid; however, the conclusions could be strengthened with further experimentation and analysis.

eLife Assessment

This valuable study compares orthogonal approaches for detecting RNA chemical modifications and provides a helpful framework for improving the reliability of direct RNA sequencing-based identification of RNA modifications. The evidence supporting the technical benchmarking claims is solid. However, support for the broader biological conclusions is not as strong, and the quantitative interpretation of the results, as well as the limitations of the underlying models, would benefit from further clarification.

eLife Assessment

This well-designed study offers important insights into the development of infants' responses to music based on the exploration of EEG neural auditory responses and video-based movement analysis. The compelling results revealed that evoked responses emerge between 3 and 12 months of age, but no age group demonstrated evidence of coordinated movements to music. This study will be of significant interest to developmental psychologists and neuroscientists, as well as researchers interested in music processing and in the translation of perception into action.

eLife Assessment

This study provides important insights into how tumorous germline stem cells (GSCs) in the Drosophila melanogaster ovary can mimic niche function and suppress the differentiation of neighboring cells. The findings that GSC tumors can incorporate non-mutant cells and inhibit their differentiation are compelling and extend current understanding of stem cell-niche interactions. However, the evidence supporting the conclusion that GSC tumors produce BMP ligands to mediate this effect remains incomplete, due to concerns regarding the quality and interpretation of the HCR-FISH data.

eLife Assessment

This study presents a valuable theoretical exploration on the electrophysiological mechanisms of ionic currents via gap junctions in hippocampal CA1 pyramidal-cell models, and their potentially unique contribution to local field potentials (LFPs). The biophysical foundations of transmembrane electric dipoles, and the associated argument points, are generally compelling. Experimental constraints on gap junctions and strictly quantitative matching between chemical vs. junctional inputs have been hard to achieve. This computational investigation thus offers a specific way to enhance conceptual understanding and provides interesting testable predictions, which would be of great interest to experimental neurophysiologists who interpret relevant recordings.

eLife Assessment

In this useful paper, the authors present a comprehensive method for the purification of recombinant Snake Venom Metalloproteinases (SVMPs) using the MultiBac expression system, explain the self-activation of the enzymes by Zn2+ incubation, and establish high-throughput screening (HTS) techniques. The authors addressed a key problem: producing a substantial amount of pure and enzymatically active SVMPs required for structural and functional studies. Altogether, this work builds a solid foundation for the large-scale production of active SVMPs for future biochemical and structural characterization as well as for drug discovery, albeit leaving certain caveats about the universal applicability of the described methodology for the production of any recombinant SVMPs.

eLife Assessment

This study provides valuable data on the role of Hsd17b7, a gene involved in cholesterol biosynthesis, as a potential regulator of mechanosensory hair cell function. The authors used both zebrafish and the HEI cell line to examine the effects of deletion of Hsd17b7 on hair cell function and survival. While the study presents convincing evidence, the effect sizes observed across several experiments, including functional readouts such as the acoustic startle response, are modest, which raises questions about the biological significance of the proposed mechanism.

eLife Assessment

This important study describes computationally designed proteins that bind to the chemokine CCL25. The authors present evidence that some binders simply prevent chemokine binding to the CCR9 receptor, while one binder changes the downstream signaling triggered by chemokine binding. The evidence is solid overall, but some uncertainty remains with respect to functional selectivity due to sensitivity differences between functional assays and the degree of binder selectivity between the large family of chemokine ligands.

eLife Assessment

This study presents a valuable theoretical exploration on the electrophysiological mechanisms of ionic currents via gap junctions in hippocampal CA1 pyramidal-cell models, and their potential contribution to local field potentials (LFPs) that is different from the contribution of chemical synapses. The biophysical argument regarding electric dipoles appears solid, but the evidence would be stronger if their predictions are tested against experiments. A shortage of model validation and strictly comparable parameters used in the comparisons between chemical vs. junctional inputs makes the modeling approach incomplete; once strengthened, the finding can be of broad interest to electrophysiologists, who often make recordings from regions of neurons interconnected with gap junctions.

eLife Assessment

This study resolves a cryo-EM structure of the GPCR, human GPR30, which responds to bicarbonate and regulates cellular responses to pH and ion homeostasis. Understanding the ligand and the mechanism of activation is important to the field of receptor signaling and potentially facilitates drug development targeting this receptor. Structures and functional assays provide solid evidence for a potential bicarbonate binding site.

eLife Assessment

This is an important study on the role of the neurokinin-2 receptor (NK2R) as a regulatory node connecting intestinal lipid metabolism, mucosal immunity, and the gut microbiome, bidirectionally regulating enterocyte lipid uptake, lipid droplet storage, chylomicron output, and systemic metabolic parameters in DIO mice. The authors present solid evidence linking Tacr2 deletion to reprogrammed epithelial lineage allocation, dampened immune gene expression, and male-biased protection from DSS colitis, despite dysbiotic microbiota. However, the causal evidence for some mechanistic and pro-inflammatory NK2R claims remains incomplete and potentially confounding, requiring additional cell-type-specific and functional experiments.

eLife Assessment

This useful study identified XAP5 as an ancient transcriptional regulator critical for primary ciliogenesis. The evidence supporting the conceptual framework linking evolutionary conservation to functional specialization in primary ciliogenesis remains incomplete. This work will be of interest to developmental biologists and to those studying diseases caused by ciliopathies.

eLife Assessment

These findings are important because they suggest that more selective JAK inhibition, particularly targeting JAK1 or JAK2, can effectively reduce organ pathology and pathogenic IFN-γ-producing immune cells in AIRE deficiency, refining therapeutic strategies beyond broad JAK inhibition. The work highlights JAK2 inhibition as a promising and potentially more targeted clinical approach for treating autoimmunity in this setting. The evidence is solid and moderately strong, building on the prior efficacy of ruxolitinib and supported by comparative studies in Aire-deficient models, though further validation in human systems would strengthen translational confidence.

eLife Assessment

This is a valuable study that investigates the role of the long non-coding RNA Dreg1 for the development, differentiation, or maintenance of group 2 ILC (ILC2). The authors generate Dreg1-/- mice and show solid evidence for a reduction of group 2 innate lymphoid cells (ILC2). However, the strength of evidence supporting and analysing the impact of Dreg1 on Gata3 expression, a transcription factor required for ILC2 cell fate decisions, remains incomplete. This study will be of interest to immunologists.

eLife Assessment

This valuable study reports a spatiotemporal atlas of mouse placental development and explores the role of glycogen trophoblast cells in fetal viability. Solid data are presented to support the main conclusion. This work will be of great interest to developmental DNA reproductive biologists.

eLife Assessment

This important study introduces LUNA, a new autofocusing method that achieves nanoscale precision and robustly corrects focus drift during time-lapse microscopy, improving imaging under temperature shifts. The authors exploit this technical advance to investigate the bacterial cold shock response, providing convincing evidence that individual cells continue to grow and divide in a highly coordinated process that cannot be observed in population-level measurements. This work offers a technical and conceptual framework for reconciling discrepancies between bulk and single-cell growth measurements, with broad relevance for cell biology and microbiology.

eLife Assessment

The authors proposed two hypotheses: first, that methamphetamine induces neuroinflammation, and second, that it alters neuronal stem cell differentiation. These are valuable hypotheses, and the authors provided in vivo observations of the methamphetamine response in mice. However, concerns about data interpretation, and the current evidence is incomplete, requiring further experimental validation.

eLife Assessment

This important cross-species study tests whether the corpus callosum contains parallel, segregated pathways for ipsilateral and contralateral visual-field information, rather than mixed inputs from the two hemispheres. A major strength is its use of a combination of high-field functional magnetic resonance inaging and Bayesian population receptive field (pRF) modelling in humans with viral tracing in mice to offer complementary evidence for pathway segregation. At present, the evidence supporting the authors' claims is incomplete and would benefit from ruling out potential confounds that could mimic tract segregation in the human white-matter pRF data and the mouse anatomical tracing results, and from sharpening claims about laminar specificity.

eLife Assessment

This study presents valuable findings regarding cardiac and autonomic effects of seizures and epilepsy, with relevance to sudden unexpected death in epilepsy (SUDEP). They present solid evidence that genetic deletion of the potassium-chloride co-transporter in hypothalamic corticotropin-releasing hormone (CRH) neurons exacerbates bradycardia and enhances autonomic disturbances in a mouse model of temporal lobe epilepsy. However, the evidence that this deletion produces chronic hyperexcitability of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis was incomplete, leaving a mechanistic gap. This work will be of interest to neuroscientists working on epilepsy, the HPA axis, and autonomic control.

eLife Assessment

This is a useful study, bolstering our understanding of spatial reference frames of visual perception. The high-resolution data and sophisticated analyses confirm and enhance earlier findings that visual representations operate in a predominantly retinotopic reference frame throughout the visual hierarchy in the human cortex. However, these analyses are currently incomplete, leaving open the possibility that eye-position gain and or spatiotopic representations may also be present.

eLife Assessment

This fundamental study reports convincing evidence for early verbal episodic memory formation. The findings demonstrate that speaker identity is a crucial feature, enabling episodic-like memories from birth, and will be of interest to cognitive neuroscientists working on brain development, memory, language learning and social cognition.

eLife Assessment

This valuable study presents a framework for a shareable data analysis pipeline aimed at improving reproducibility in neuroscience. The evidence for robustness and inter-laboratory operability is convincing. Overall, this work will be of interest to neuroscientists engaged in the analysis of large-scale neuronal recordings.

eLife Assessment

This study provides fundamental insight by identifying C. elegans SET-19 as a key enzyme that deposits H3K23me to somatic chromatin. The evidence is compelling, using a broad and modern toolkit of biochemical, genetic, and genome-wide analyses that consistently support the main claims. The significance of the study is further strengthened by the fact that H3K23me is an understudied histone modification, which is also conserved in mammals.

eLife Assessment

This valuable study examines the subcellular dynamics of the mammalian circadian clock proteins PER2, CRY1, and CK1, providing solid evidence that CK1 modulates the PER2-CRY1 interaction and drives the cytoplasmic localization of PER2 complexes. This could play a key role in modulating transcriptional repression by PER2, CRY1, and CK that contributes to the molecular circadian clock. There are minor concerns regarding the overexpression of the clock proteins in this study.

[Editors' note: this paper was previously reviewed by another journal.]

eLife Assessment

This manuscript presents a valuable study of the activity and functional relevance of different circuits in the dentate gyrus of mice performing a pattern separation task. Convincing evidence is presented to support the paper's central conclusions. The study is likely to be of interest to those studying the subregional organization and cell type-specific functions of the dentate gyrus.

Editors Assessment:

This data paper is a genome note presenting the assembly of Porites harrisoni, a stony coral species endemic to the thermally extreme southern Persian Gulf. Using ONT PromethION long nanopore reads the final genome size encompassed 626.7 Mb across 1,883 contigs, achieving a BUSCO completeness of 86.3%. This revealed significant repeat content, comprising 59.23% of the nuclear genome and highlighting a diploid structure with predominant homozygosity. A total of 27,823 protein-coding genes were annotated from this assembly, facilitating discussions on thermal resilience under climate change. The research underscores the genomic framework supporting adaptive capacities in corals, with implications for evolutionary biology and conservation science, especially in context to ongoing ocean warming.

This evaluation refers to version 1 of the preprint

eLife Assessment

This timely and fundamental study presents an innovative iPSC based co-culture system to model Kupffer cell-hepatocyte interactions and hepatotoxicity, demonstrating reciprocal acquisition of tissue identity and enhanced hepatocyte maturation. The work is convincing, supported by well-executed methodology and functional validation, including physiologically relevant, concentration-dependent hepatotoxic responses. The research approach is promising and of broad interest, further clarification of experimental design and interpretation may strengthen its impact.

eLife Assessment

The analysis of neural morphology across Heliconiini butterfly species revealed brain area-specific changes associated with new foraging behaviours. While the volume of the centre for learning and memory, the mushroom bodies, was known to vary widely across species, these new, valuable results show conservation of the volume of a center for navigation, the central complex, but with specific changes in neuropeptide expression in the noduli and in the numbers of ellipsoid body ring neurons. The presented evidence is convincing for both volumetric conservation in the central complex and fine neuroanatomical differences associated with pollen feeding, delivered by experimental approaches that are applicable to other insect species. This work will be of interest to evolutionary biologists, entomologists, and neuroscientists.

eLife Assessment

This valuable study introduces miRTarDS, a novel computational framework that predicts microRNA-target interactions based on a publicly available pretrained Sentence-BERT language model and downstream classification analysis. The strength of the evidence is incomplete, as the evaluation framework relies on unreliable ground-truth and false sets. Furthermore, the analysis fails to compare miRTarDS against existing state-of-the-art biomedical language models.

eLife Assessment

This is an important paper that reports in vivo physiological abnormalities in the hippocampus of a rat model of traumatic brain injury (TBI). In this study, authors focused on changes in theta-gamma phase coupling and action potential entrainment to theta, phenomena hypothesized to be critical for cognition. The authors provide convincing evidence of deficits in both features post-TBI and contributes new understanding to how disruptions in oscillatory coordination and spike timing may relate to cognitive impairment.

eLife Assessment

This important study details changes in the brain functional connectivity in a longitudinal cohort of Gambian children assessed outside a lab setup with functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) from age 5 to 24 months, in relation to early physical growth and cognitive flexibility capacities at preschool age. Evidence supporting conclusions on the evolution of brain connectivity is convincing and highlights a different trajectory compared with populations from high-income countries. However, analyses linking connectivity trajectories with early adverse conditions such as undernutrition and later cognitive development are only partially supported due to insufficient longitudinal data and statistical power. This study will be of significant interest to neuroscientists, psychologists and neuroimaging researchers working on infant development in relation to environmental factors.

eLife Assessment

Hoverflies are known for their sexually dimorphic visual systems and exquisite flight behaviors. This valuable study reports how two types of visual descending neurons differ between males and females in their motion- and speed-dependent responses, yet surprisingly, the behavior they control lacks any sexual dimorphism. The results convincingly support these findings, which will be of interest for studies of visuomotor transformations and network-level brain organization.

eLife Assessment

This study provides valuable insight into the role of actin protrusions in mediating early pre-endoyctic steps of human papillomavirus entry at the cell surface. Using state-of-the-art microscopy in an immortalized keratinocyte model, the authors present convincing evidence that filopodia actively promote the transfer of heparin sulfate-coated virions from the extracullar matrix to the viral entry factor CD151. These findings provide a strong framework for future studies aimed at further resolving the dynamics of virion transfer and receptor engagement.

eLife Assessment

This valuable study reports a substantial single-cell RNAseq and bulk RNAseq dataset from multiple high-grade serous ovarian cancers, including a single-cell atlas of human fallopian tube epithelium. The bioinformatic analysis investigating the lineage and location of epithelial progenitor cells is convincing, although this will require experimental validation. The work also provides a resource to examine additional features of normal fallopian tubes and ovarian cancers, and for developing methods for early detection and tumour stratification.

eLife Assessment

This important study has demonstrated that MORC2 undergoes phase separation in cells and established multiple interactions responsible for the phase separation. Upon revision, the data generally provide solid support to the claim that MORC2 condensates are functionally relevant in gene regulation and begins to demonstrate the importance of the physical properties of biological condensates. Nevertheless, there remains some weakness in the connection between condensates and function.

eLife Assessment

This study addresses an important question in gustatory neuroscience by developing a machine-learning classifier to identify distinct ingestive orofacial movement subtypes from electromyographic recordings and relating their dynamics to population-level activity in the gustatory cortex. The evidence that transitions in cortical ensemble firing are temporally associated with reorganization of ingestive movement patterns is convincing, though some aspects of the behavioral classification and neural analyses require further validation and clarification. The work provides a technically innovative framework for linking neural state dynamics to the motor expression of taste-guided decisions.

eLife Assessment

This fundamental study provides a major contribution to our understanding of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) pathogenesis by utilizing a primate model that overcomes the historical limitations of rodent paradigms. By demonstrating the retrograde and trans-synaptic spread of pathological TDP-43 from the periphery to the spinal cord and motor cortex, the authors propose a new model for the disease spreading. The evidence supporting these findings is compelling, characterized by rigorous post-mortem histological observations. This work will be of profound interest to neuroscientists and translational researchers seeking to decode the mechanisms of systemic disease progression in ALS.

eLife Assessment

This study presents a useful array of analyses of the effects of training and/or instruction to use the method of loci during episodic encoding and retrieval. A major strength of the experiment is the impressive recruitment of memory athletes and the training of novice athletes to use the method of loci, long known to improve the precision of memory recall. That said, the sheer number of results and their organization should be addressed; streamlining the results and placing them, whenever possible, in a theoretical framework. As it stands, the presented work is incomplete with respect to the major conclusions that training itself leads to neural differentiation of prefrontal cortical neural patterns, and the authors need to temper these claims.

eLife Assessment

This study provides an insight into the role of a Chi3l1 in liver macrophages during metabolic disease. The evidence is solid with the authors now addressing most concerns, although one key conclusion is not fully supported by the data presented. Overall, the work offers a useful contribution to the field.

eLife Assessment

This study presents an important examination of the role of cis-acting versus trans-acting genetic variation on DNA methylation divergence between humans and chimpanzees, including its consequences for gene expression. By differentiating fused interspecies tetraploid cell lines into multiple cell types, the study provides compelling evidence for the importance of cis-acting changes, but incomplete evidence that these changes are of importance for adaptive trait evolution in humans. This work will be of interest to biologists and evolutionary anthropologists studying the evolution and genetics of gene regulation, particularly in primates.

eLife Assessment

This study investigates the role of developmental oligodendrocytes in synchronising spontaneous activity in neuronal circuits and influencing cerebellar-dependent behaviour. The authors use advanced viral targeting techniques to deplete oligodendrocytes in a cell-specific manner, paired with in vivo calcium imaging of Purkinje cells, to establish a relationship between oligodendrocyte-mediated neuronal synchrony and complex brain function. The authors present compelling evidence of oligodendrocyte-regulated neuronal synchrony. Overall, this manuscript holds promise as an important contribution to neurodevelopment research.

eLife Assessment

In this important work, it is demonstrated that certain high-resolution cryo-EM structures can be obtained by using concentrated cell extracts without purification. The compelling results with the mammalian ribosomes demonstrate the utility of this approach for this molecule and complexes with elongation factor 2. Moreover, this work also demonstrates the utility of 2D template matching for particle picking for structure determination by single-particle averaging pipelines.

eLife Assessment

This important study convincingly shows that Vibrio bacteria act as predators of ecologically significant algae that contribute to harmful blooms in the lab and in their natural habitat, and that predation is induced by starvation. The authors suggest a working model that can be the basis for future work on this system. The study will be very impactful to those interested in the diversity of microbial predator-prey interactions and controlling toxic algal bloom.

eLife Assessment

This valuable study combines previously established mathematical models to investigate why cortical waves in starfish and Xenopus embryos propagate in opposite directions. The modeling results are solid and plausible, but remain experimentally untested. Improving the presentation and discussion of the results could make the study more accessible to a wider audience.

eLife Assessment

This study shows that combining forced cell cycle re-entry with Rbpj deletion enhances Müller glia dedifferentiation and promotes their conversion into retinal neuron-like cells in the uninjured mouse retina. It provides a valuable strategy for improving Müller glia-mediated neurogenesis and advancing regenerative potential in the mammalian retina. Overall, the data are convincing, but the conclusions would be strengthened by functional validation of the newly generated neurons and retinal performance, as well as an assessment of Müller glia long-term function and cell survival.

eLife Assessment

This important study probes the long-standing failure to resolve evolutionary relationships between the classical "spiralian" taxa - i.e., annelids, molluscs, brachiopods, platyhelminths and nemerteans - and provides convincing evidence that the branches leading to them are so short as to be unreliable guides to their relationships. This, in turn, has wide-ranging implications for our understanding of animal body plan evolution and the interpretation of early animal fossils.

eLife Assessment

The authors provide valuable findings showing that GM-CSF prevents the loss of ILC3 populations during gut inflammation and inhibits pro-inflammatory cytokine production. They combine a preclinical model of gut inflammation in zebrafish with spatial transcriptomic analysis of samples from Crohn's disease patients. Although the data provided are clear and point to an anti-inflammatory role of GM-CSF, the strength of evidence remains incomplete as no mechanistic insights into GM-CSF regulation of ILCs are provided, and the most significant mechanistic question remains unanswered: what are the signals downstream of GM-CSF that maintain the ILC3 population? This work will be of interest to immunologists.

eLife Assessment

This manuscript has convincing data that provides a high-resolution structure of the Egl-RNA complex. The findings are important to understand the formation, stability, and interactions of this complex. However, the manuscript could be improved by conducting a rigorous statistical analysis, a deeper understanding of apparent discrepancies in the stoichiometric Egl-to-RNA ratio, and exploring the specificity of this complex using a more diverse set of control RNAs.

eLife Assessment

This valuable study provides evidence that the integration of the nuclear envelope into the endoplasmic reticulum provides a mechanism for mechanical integration across this continuous membrane system. This work opens up new avenues for studying organelle membrane tension homeostasis. The evidence was found to be convincing and carefully quantified, with minor limitations that we expect to be further explored in future work.

eLife Assessment

This valuable manuscript describes ATP5I, a subunit of F1Fo-ATP synthase, as a key target of medicinal biguanides. The knockout of ATP5I in pancreatic cancer cells mimics biguanide treatment, inducing a metabolic switch from OXPHOS to glycolysis due to a compromised expression of the Complex I protein NDUFB8. This results in a markedly decreased NAD/NADH ratio and decreased cell proliferation. These solid findings point out ATP5I as a promising mitochondrial target for cancer therapies and contribute to our understanding of metformin's mechanism of action since many of its molecular mechanisms remain poorly understood.

eLife Assessment

This important study introduces an experimental approach for studying Drosophila oviposition rhythms and identifies the subset of circadian clock neurons that mediate the circadian control of oviposition. The authors resolve an inherently noisy rhythm to provide convincing evidence by using statistical averaging techniques, which help reduce this noise but at the cost of variation across individual rhythms. This paper will be of interest to anyone interested in insect ovarian physiology, circadian biology, and reproductive fitness.

eLife Assessment

This study presents valuable computational findings on the neural basis of learning new motor memories and the savings using recurrent neural networks. The evidence supporting the claims of the authors is solid, but it would benefit from more detailed discussion on the specific conditions under which savings emerges from purely implicit mechanisms. This work will be of interest to computational and experimental neuroscientists working in motor learning.

eLife Assessment

This study provides compelling evidence that action potential (AP) broadening is not a universal feature of homeostatic plasticity in response to chronic activity deprivation. By leveraging state-of-the-art methods across multiple brain regions and laboratories, the authors demonstrate that AP half-width remains largely stable, challenging previous assumptions in the field. These important findings help resolve longstanding inconsistencies in the literature and significantly advance our understanding of neuronal network homeostasis. The authors have clarified methodological differences with prior work and expanded the discussion of potential mechanisms, strengthening the interpretation of the findings without altering the central conclusions.

eLife Assessment

This valuable study demonstrates that the E3 ligase ITCH regulates several steps of the SARS-CoV-2 replication cycle by enhancing ubiquitination of viral envelope and membrane proteins. The phenotypic data are based on solid evidence showing a role for ITCH in distinct phases of viral replication and host processes. The findings lay the ground work for future studies to decipher detailed molecular mechanisms that explain how ITCH regulates SARS-CoV-2.

eLife Assessment

This study presents an important finding regarding how partner preference formation and pair bonding behavior are related to the oxytocin receptor gene expression in the NAc and paraventricular nucleus of the hypothalamus in prairie voles. The evidence supporting this claim is solid but could benefit from increased sample size and more thorough behavioral phenotyping. This study will be of interest to social scientists and neuroscientists who work on pair bonding and oxytocin.

eLife Assessment

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

eLife Assessment

The findings in this paper provide solid support for a hypothesis that has valuable implications at the intersection of value-based and social decision-making. The findings suggest that the brain processes rewards received for effort differently when they are earned for themselves versus someone else.

eLife Assessment

This landmark study investigates how patterned human gastruloids can provide insights into neural tube closure. Using a screen, they identified positive and negative regulators and defines the epistasis among them using optimization of micro-pattern based gastruloid protocol and CRISPRi. This technical tour de force is exceptional and one of the first studies to reveal new knowledge on human development through embryo models.

eLife Assessment

This important study employed a multi-stage behavioural paradigm of increasing cognitive complexity to investigate the role of inhibitory interneurons in the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) in avoidance behaviour in mice. The authors used imaging and optogenetic techniques, combined with this behavioural task, to show that mPFC interneurons are necessary for encoding but not for executing avoidance under threat. The evidence supporting these claims is compelling, and findings will be of interest to researchers in behavioural and systems neurosciences.

eLife Assessment

This important technical study introduces SCOPE, an optics-free spatial reconstruction method based on bidirectional sender and receiver oligonucleotides on barcoded hydrogel beads. By sequencing proximity-encoded chimeric molecules, the authors computationally reconstruct 2D and 3D spatial information at an impressive scale. The technical demonstrations in synthetic bead systems are convincing and establish proof-of-principle that large spatial domains can be reconstructed without microscopy. The methodological advance is clear and the scale is impressive. Direct validation in biological samples would help clarify what additional limitations on applicability may exist. This work will be of interest to those working on spatial mapping.

eLife Assessment

This important study investigates how the brain categorizes written words from different writing systems (e.g., alphabetic vs. non-alphabetic), shedding potential light on the neural basis of language's social‑categorization function. Overall, the evidence supporting the authors' claims is solid, though some analyses and key interpretations would benefit from fuller justification.

eLife Assessment

This important study reports that an oncogenic population in an epithelium can either be repressed or spread, depending on the tissues. This is explained by hypothesising the existence of a heterotypic tension at the boundary between different cell types, and supported by pharmacological perturbations and numerical simulations using the vertex model. The solid study conveys a key message, although some uncertainty remains regarding the origin of the heterotypic tension in relation to acto-myosin organisation in the boundary cells.

eLife Assessment

This fundamental work substantially advances our understanding of a major research question: whether collagen can be directly imaged with MRI. The evidence supporting the conclusion is compelling, with methods, data, and analyses that are more rigorous than those currently considered state-of-the-art. The work will be of high interest to MR physicists and clinicians, as collagen is the most abundant protein in the human body and plays an essential role in health.

eLife Assessment

This is a useful study that seeks to elucidate the molecular mechanisms underlying spinal motor circuit assembly. The authors demonstrate that loss of Onecut transcription factors in spinal motor neurons affects the size and spatial distribution of pre-motor interneurons. However, the study in its current form is incomplete: the data and analyses do not fully support the main conclusion that Onecut acts through Neurotrophin-3 to regulate interneuron development in a non-cell autonomous manner. The work will be of broad interest to cell and developmental biologists.

eLife Assessment

This important paper provides novel information on the function of the Drosophila ryanodine receptor (RyR) during muscle development. The authors analyze the effects of a rare human mutation that causes myopathy that affects a conserved region of the gene. They present compelling evidence that this variant affects muscle function in flies. These results suggest that Drosophila can be used as a tool for screening additional variants.

[Editors' note: this paper was reviewed by Review Commons.]

eLife Assessment

This important study uses a tripartite transdiagnostic computational framework to distinguish depression-specific, anxiety-specific, and shared psychopathology dimensions, in their relationships to mood variability and mood reactivity to reward prediction errors across multiple large non-clinical cohorts and a clinical sample. The evidence is convincing overall because the study combines large samples, a well-characterized gambling task and in-depth computational and psychometric analyses, and it replicates the depression-specific association with blunted reward prediction error-sensitivity in a clinical sample. However, the anxiety-specific effects are less consistently supported across individual datasets, may be underpowered in the clinical cohort because of comorbidity, and some aspects of the factor-analytic, risk-attitude, and mediation analyses would benefit from clearer explanation. These findings advance a mechanistic account of how distinct symptom dimensions differentially shape reward-based mood updating and variability, providing a principled framework for future transdiagnostic modeling.

eLife Assessment

This valuable study addressed a key question in epilepsy research: whether the recordings of very fast oscillations in the brain (>250Hz, fast ripples) reflect underlying pathology or might be a property that emerges from a neuronal network at random. The strengths of the study are the importance of the question, the multiple methods, and the solid evidence. However, there are limitations to the methods that should be addressed.

eLife Assessment

This study uses convincing modeling methods and analyses of rich behavioral datasets to investigate the role of attention in value-based decision making; for instance, as when choosing between two snacks. The results are valuable, as they challenge existing theories that assume that paying attention to an available option biases the eventual choice toward that option. The results suggest that the correlation between attention and decision-making is formed largely after and not before the (internal) choice process has terminated, a finding that offers an intuitively appealing rethinking of how attention and decision-making processes interact during value-based choices.

eLife Assessment

This study uses convincing modeling methods and analyses of rich behavioral datasets to investigate the role of attention in value-based decision making; for instance, as when choosing between two snacks. The results are valuable, as they challenge existing theories that assume that paying attention to an available option biases the eventual choice toward that option. The results suggest that the correlation between attention and decision-making is formed largely after and not before the (internal) choice process has terminated, a finding that offers an intuitively appealing rethinking of how attention and decision-making processes interact during value-based choices.