Current Biology
Dispatches
or whether these observations were
merely correlated. The new work now
sheds light on this question by
demonstrating that reduced availability of
POLG itself is sufficient to inhibit selfish
mtDNA proliferation (Figure 1).
These findings showcase the exciting
discovery that the availability of a vital
resource needed for mtDNA replication
not only determines overall mtDNA copy
number within a cell, but also the relative
fitness of different mtDNA variants.
Moreover, given that the expression of the
mtDNA polymerase gene was previously
shown to be important for the proliferation
of a selfish mtDNA in nematodes [9], these
findings raise the interesting possibility
that the underlying mechanism is widely
conserved between distantly related
species. As the field of mitochondrial
genetics moves forward, it will likely prove
illuminating to more fully explore the ways
in which the availability of vital resources
can be modified to alter the
competitiveness of selfish genomes.
Auditory Perception: A Rhythm Reflecting the Past
Benedikt Zoefel
MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
Correspondence: benedikt.zoefel@mrc-cbu.cam.ac.uk
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2019.10.061
Previous research has demonstrated that auditory perception fluctuates rhythmically after a cue. New
research shows that these ‘behavioural oscillations’ critically depend on expectations from preceding
stimulation.
The human brain is an active constructor
of its own world [1]. It structures input into
meaningful units or objects, stores and
recalls relevant information, explores its
environment, and interprets incoming
stimuli based on previous experience.
This leads to a complex pattern of neural
activation, which needs to be coordinated
to avoid interference and increase
efficiency of the brain’s operation. It has
been proposed that brain oscillations are
such a coordinator of brain activity,
rhythmically alternating between a
prioritization of sensory processing, and
phases of reduced stimulus uptake during
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These studies promise to provide insights
into both evolution and mitochondrial
diseases.
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DNA. PLoS Biol. 6, e10.
which resources might be used for other
functions (such as exploration or
interpretation) [2,3]. A new study by Ho
et al. [4], reported in this issue of Current
Biology, provides important evidence that
these oscillations indeed represent an
active, brain-initiated sampling
mechanism, driven by expectations about
upcoming input. These results not only
indicate that oscillations structure
information flow in the brain, but that they
can be adjusted to when and where they
are predicted to be useful.
Most of our insights into oscillation-
based mechanisms of stimulus
5. Lieber, T., Jeedigunta, S.P., Palozzi, J.M.,
Lehmann, R., and Hurd, T.R. (2019).
Mitochondrial fragmentation drives selective
removal of deleterious mtDNA in the germline.
Nature 570, 380–384.
6. Chiang, A.C.-Y., McCartney, E., O’Farrell, P.H.,
and Ma, H. (2019). A genome-wide screen
reveals that reducing mitochondrial DNA
polymerase can promote elimination of
deleterious mitochondrial mutations. Curr. Biol.
29, 4330–4336.
7. Zhang, Y., Chen, Y., Gucek, M., and Xu, H.
(2016). The mitochondrial outer membrane
protein MDI promotes local protein synthesis
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1057.
8. Zhang, Y., Wang, Z.H., Liu, Y., Chen, Y., Sun, N.,
Gucek, M., Zhang, F., and Xu, H. (2019). PINK1
inhibits local protein synthesis to limit
transmission of deleterious mitochondrial DNA
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9. Lin, Y.F., Schulz, A.M., Pellegrino, M.W., Lu, Y.,
Shaham, S., and Haynes, C.M. (2016).
Maintenance and propagation of a deleterious
mitochondrial genome by the mitochondrial
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416–419.
processing come from
electrophysiological or
neurophysiological correlates of visual
perception. Here, a behavioural variable
of interest is typically correlated with a
rhythmic neural process (brain
oscillations). It has, for instance, been
shown that the probability of detecting a
visual target co-varies with a 7-Hz rhythm
measured over frontal
electroencephalography (EEG) sensors in
humans [5]. But arguably the strongest
evidence for the functional relevance of
these oscillations comes from measuring
them in the output of a system that is
Current Biology
Dispatches
A Target
Preceded by targets in same ear (congruent)
Preceded by targets in other ear (incongruent)
Figure 1. Behavioural oscillations depend on preceding input.
Schematic illustration of the paradigm used by Ho et al. [4], and interpretation of their results. (A) In each trial, a binaural noise cue is followed by a target which is
presented monaurally at various delays. This target produces rhythmic fluctuations in neural sensitivity in subsequent trials, but only in circuits responsible for the
location of that target. This oscillatory process is therefore only visible in congruent (blue), but not incongruent trials (orange). (B) Participants’ accuracy — the
probability of correctly identifying target location — reflects this sampling rhythm, out-of-phase between the two ears. (C) Participants’ tendency to respond (‘left’
versus ‘right’) is biased by stimulation history, with an additional rhythmic component in trials in which their bias is confirmed. In panels B and C, ‘left’ and ‘right’
refer to the target location in preceding trials.
assumed to rely on such oscillations (cf.
[6]). And indeed, several recent studies
have revealed rhythmicity in behavior
itself. An approach common to these
studies is the presentation of a cue,
assumed to reset oscillations, and to test
perception at various delays after this
cue, thereby sampling the hypothesized
behavioural oscillation. Landau and Fries
[7] demonstrated that visual perception
oscillates after such a cue, with an overall
sampling rhythm of 8 Hz, and other
studies have confirmed this finding in
related paradigms [8,9]. In 2017, Ho and
colleagues [10] reported similar effects in
the auditory system, a much less
investigated domain in terms of oscillatory
processes. They showed that the
perception of a monaural target,
presented after the onset of binaural
noise, fluctuates rhythmically at a
frequency of 6–8 Hz.
With an elegant design, the new study
[4] builds on, and critically advances, the
described previous work. Human
participants were again cued with binaural
noise (Figure 1A). They were then asked to
identify the ear of origin of a subsequent
monaural target, presented at various
delays after noise onset (which remained
present throughout the trial). Importantly,
targets could occur in either the same ear
as in the preceding trials (congruent trial)
or in the other ear (incongruent trial). The
authors then tested whether the
hypothesized oscillation in performance is
modulated by the congruency of the
trial — by participants’ prediction of target
location. Interestingly, the tendency to
respond ‘left’ or ‘right’ (the response bias,
B C
Correctly identified targets
Congruent (right)
More
Fewer
Cue-target interval
or criterion) fluctuated at a frequency of
9 Hz, but only in congruent trials. In
addition, accuracy (defined as correctly
reporting target location) did not peak for
both ears at the same time, but at near-
opposite phases of the 9-Hz rhythm, in line
with a previous study [10].
This finding is remarkable in several
respects. First, it demonstrates that the
observed oscillation is not only a simple
resonance phenomenon, reacting
passively to a brief impulse, and without
obvious functional role. Instead, the cue
seems to trigger a process that
rhythmically samples a location that is
predicted based on recent experience.
Second, as illustrated in Figure 1, this
behavioural study gives us important
insights into underlying neural
mechanisms, to a degree that might have
been challenging to achieve in brain
imaging data. The results revealed that
participants rhythmically alternate in their
tendency to report the location of the
target (‘left’ versus ‘right’), but only in trials
in which the target was presented at the
predicted location. Importantly,
predictions were identical in congruent
and incongruent trials, with the only
difference that they were confirmed in the
former and violated in the latter. If this
oscillation exclusively reflected the
participants’ prediction, it should
therefore also be visible in incongruent
trials — which was not the case.
Therefore, the effect must originate from
circuits that specifically process the
expected location of the target (or
‘acoustic space’, as the authors suggest).
In these circuits, neural sensitivity (or
Current Biology 29, R1301–R1325, December 16, 2019 R1319
Congruent (left) Congruent (left)
More
left
Response
Incongruent (left)
Congruent (right)
Incongruent More
right
Incongruent (right)
Cue-target interval
Current Biology
excitability) changes rhythmically, but not
in those tuned to the unexpected target
location (Figure 1A). This pattern is
mirrored in both the number of correctly
identified target locations (Figure 1B) and
the tendency to respond (Figure 1C), with
an oscillation in behaviour only for
congruent trials. Stimulation history did
not improve participants’ overall ability to
discriminate target locations, suggesting
that these location-specific, rhythmic
boosts in neural sensitivity result in
changes in subjective perception, not
necessarily in improvements on a
decisional level (cf. [11]).
What do these results mean for our
understanding of brain oscillations in the
auditory system? In contrast to the visual
system, audition does not seem to
operate rhythmically all the time [12]. This
has been explained by the fast-fluctuating
nature of auditory information, making
audition particularly vulnerable to
information loss during the phase of
reduced sensory processing [13]. This
loss of information might be reduced if the
oscillatory ‘window of opportunity’ for
sensory uptake is aligned with predicted
important events [12,14]. Brain
oscillations need to be resettable for this
alignment to be achieved [15]. Ho et al. [4]
might have tapped into such a
mechanism, with oscillations reset by the
cue, ‘waiting’ for subsequent rhythmic
events to occur at the expected location.
Such events are ubiquitous in the auditory
environment [16], and the auditory system
might be specialized to adjust to them [12].
The importance of a phase-reset for
oscillations to operate in the auditory
 Current Biology

Dispatches

system, how long they linger if no rhythmic
input follows, and other experimental
parameters that might have been critical
for the observed results (such as binaural
noise) remain unknown, opening up
exciting questions for future studies.
These studies also need to clarify how
much the observed alternation between
ears (Figure 1B) [10] depends on the
specific experimental protocol.
Participants knew that targets would
either appear in one ear or the other (but
not in both). This is unlikely to happen in a
more natural scenario, in which sounds in
the two ears often differ in their intensity
(inter-aural level difference), but only
marginally in their timing (inter-aural time
difference). It needs to be tested whether a
similar sampling mechanism, alternating
between the two ears, exists during
binaural input. Modelling studies might be
able to reveal whether such a mechanism
is advantageous as compared to an in-
phase sampling of both ears.
What exactly happens during phases of
reduced sensory processing, when brain
resources might be needed for other
purposes? Where in the brain are different
phases of the oscillatory cycle
coordinated, and adjusted to both internal
and external events? Although the answer
to these questions is largely unknown, it
has been suggested that phases of higher
visual sensitivity alternate with phases of
active exploration (for example, via
saccades), controlled by fronto-parietal
networks [3]. In the auditory system,
equivalent phases of exploration, and the
conductor of the oscillatory symphony,
remain to be identified. Fully
understanding the oscillatory cycle and
the underlying neural circuits might be the
key to understand how the brain can
coordinate and optimize a complex
pattern of interacting neural processes
with such an apparent ease.
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16. Ding, N., Patel, A.D., Chen, L., Butler, H., Luo,
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Morrone, M.C. (2017). Auditory sensitivity and modulations in speech and music. Neurosci.
decision criteria oscillate at different Biobehav. Rev. 81, 181–187.
Microbial Ecology: How to Fight the
Establishment
Katherine M. Moccia and Sarah L. Lebeis*
Department of Microbiology, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN 48996, USA
*Correspondence: slebeis@utk.edu
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2019.10.067
Creating microbial consortia capable of consistently producing desired
qualities requires a detailed understanding of community interactions.
A new paper demonstrates the role of historical contingency in
Arabidopsis thaliana leaf-microbiome formation using an adaptable
experimental approach, which could be applied to other host
organisms.

1. Buzsaki, G. (2019). The Brain from Inside Out

(Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press).
2. Wutz, A., Muschter, E., van Koningsbruggen,
M.G., Weisz, N., and Melcher, D. (2016).
Temporal integration windows in neural
processing and perception aligned to
saccadic eye movements. Curr. Biol. 26,
1659–1668.
3. Fiebelkorn, I.C., and Kastner, S. (2019). A
rhythmic theory of attention. Trends Cogn. Sci.
23, 87–101.
Over the last decade, emerging
sequencing technologies have been used
with great success to reveal the microbial
components of diverse hosts and
environments. To predictably recreate
and harness microbial communities,
however, it is critical not only to identify
the players involved, but also to define the
rules of community assembly. The plant
Arabidopsis thaliana is uniquely suited as
a model in which to dissect the
determinants of microbiome formation
due to the extensive availability of host
genetic resources and the high
culturability of its microbiota in both
above- and below-ground tissues — the
phyllosphere and rhizosphere,
respectively [1,2]. Constructing synthetic

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