USP31 confers radio-resistance in cervical cancer cells via ferroptosis pathway by deubiquitinating and stabilizing GPX4.

Ubiquitin-specific peptidase 31 (USP31), a member of the deubiquitinating enzyme family, linked to the pathogenesis of cervical cancer (CC). Despite this association, the precise mechanisms underlying its role remain inadequately understood. Recent studies have identified ferroptosis as a potential mechanism contributing to radiotherapy-mediated tumor suppression and the development of radioresistance.

Surround modulation is predominantly orientation-unspecific in macaque V1.

Surround modulation is a fundamental property of V1 neurons, playing critical roles in stimulus integration and segregation. It is believed to be orientation-specific, as neurons' responses at preferred orientations are suppressed more by iso-oriented surrounds than by cross-oriented surrounds. Here, we investigated an alternative hypothesis that surround modulation is primarily orientation-unspecific, in that the observed "orientation-specific" surround effects actually reflect overall gain changes that affect neurons tuned to all orientations.

Crossmodal to unimodal transfer of temporal perceptual learning.

Subsecond temporal processing is crucial for activities requiring precise timing. Here, we investigated perceptual learning of crossmodal (auditory-visual or visual-auditory) temporal interval discrimination (TID) and its impacts on unimodal (visual or auditory) TID performance. The research purpose was to test whether learning is based on a more abstract and conceptual representation of subsecond time, which would predict crossmodal to unimodal learning transfer.

Population coding for figure-ground texture segregation in macaque V1 and V4.

Object recognition often involves the brain segregating objects from their surroundings. Neurophysiological studies of figure-ground texture segregation have yielded inconsistent results, particularly on whether V1 neurons can perform figure-ground texture segregation or just detect texture borders. To address this issue from a population perspective, we utilized two-photon calcium imaging to simultaneously record the responses of large samples of V1 and V4 neurons to figure-ground texture stimuli in awake, fixating macaques.

Ocular dominance-dependent binocular combination of monocular neuronal responses in macaque V1.

Primates rely on two eyes to perceive depth, while maintaining stable vision when either one eye or both eyes are open. Although psychophysical and modeling studies have investigated how monocular signals are combined to form binocular vision, the underlying neuronal mechanisms, particularly in V1 where most neurons exhibit binocularity with varying eye preferences, remain poorly understood. Here, we used two-photon calcium imaging to compare the monocular and binocular responses of thousands of simultaneously recorded V1 superficial-layer neurons in three awake macaques.

Perceptual learning of motion direction discrimination: Location specificity and the uncertain roles of dorsal and ventral areas.

One interesting observation of perceptual learning is the asymmetric transfer between stimuli at different external noise levels: learning at zero/low noise can transfer significantly to the same stimulus at high noise, but not vice versa. The mechanisms underlying this asymmetric transfer have been investigated by psychophysical, neurophysiological, brain imaging, and computational modeling studies. One study (PNAS 113 (2016) 5724-5729) reported that rTMS stimulations of dorsal and ventral areas impair motion direction discrimination of moving dot stimuli at 40% coherent ("noisy") and 100% coherent (zero-noise) levels, respectively.