29 research outputs found
Long-term coding of personal and universal associations underlying the memory web in the human brain
Neurons in the medial temporal lobe (MTL), a critical area for declarative memory, have been shown to change their tuning in associative learning tasks. Yet, it is unclear how durable these neuronal representations are and if they outlast the execution of the task. To address this issue, we studied the responses of MTL neurons in neurosurgical patients to known concepts (people and places). Using association scores provided by the patients and a web-based metric, here we show that whenever MTL neurons respond to more than one concept, these concepts are typically related. Furthermore, the degree of association between concepts could be successfully predicted based on the neuronsâ response patterns. These results provide evidence for a long-term involvement of MTL neurons in the representation of durable associations, a hallmark of human declarative memory
Levodopa induces apoptosis in cultured neuronal cellsâA possible accelerator of nigrostriatal degeneration in Parkinson's disease?
Choosing Wisely: Determining performance of unjustified imaging in a large healthcare system
BLM helicase protein negatively regulates stress granule formation through unwinding RNA G-quadruplex structures
International audienceAbstract Bloom's syndrome (BLM) protein is a known nuclear helicase that is able to unwind DNA secondary structures such as G-quadruplexes (G4s). However, its role in the regulation of cytoplasmic processes that involve RNA G-quadruplexes (rG4s) has not been previously studied. Here, we demonstrate that BLM is recruited to stress granules (SGs), which are cytoplasmic biomolecular condensates composed of RNAs and RNA-binding proteins. BLM is enriched in SGs upon different stress conditions and in an rG4-dependent manner. Also, we show that BLM unwinds rG4s and acts as a negative regulator of SG formation. Altogether, our data expand the cellular activity of BLM and shed light on the function that helicases play in the dynamics of biomolecular condensates