Biology subjects

Wang, S.-F.

Publications and source records attributed to Wang, S.-F..

5 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2024

Hsa_circ_0001304 promotes vascular smooth muscle cell autophagy and neointimal hyperplasia through the YTHDF2/mTOR axis

IntroductionAberrant autophagy in vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMCs) is associated with the progression of cardiovascular diseases. Recently, circular RNAs (circRNAs) have gradually been reported to regulate autophagy in VSMCs. ObjectivesThis study aims to investigate the role of hsa_circ_0001304 in VSMC autophagy and its underlying mechanism. MethodsThe combined use of dual-luciferase reporter gene assay, MeRIP-qRT-PCR, RIP-qRT-PCR, etc., was performed to verify the regulatory axis, hsa_circ_0001304/miR-636/YTHDF2/mTOR. Cell autophagy detection was performed to uncover the role of hsa_circ_0001304 on VSMC autophagy. The mouse carotid artery ligation model was conducted to assess the role of hsa_circ_0001304 on vascular neointimal hyperplasia. ResultsHsa_circ_0001304 acts as a sponge for miR-636, leading to an increase in the protein levels of YTHDF2. Subsequently, the YTHDF2 promotes the degradation of mTOR mRNA by binding to the latters m6A modification sites. Thus, by regulating the miR-636/YTHDF2/mTOR axis, hsa_circ_0001304 activates VSMC autophagy, aggravating neointimal hyperplasia. ConclusionOur findings suggest that autophagy-related hsa_circ_0001304 could serve as a novel therapeutic target for neointimal hyperplasia-related cardiovascular diseases. Including spacesOur study documents a novel VSMC autophagy-related circRNA, namely circ-1304, which activates VSMC autophagy through the miR-636/YTHDF2/mTOR axis, thereby exacerbating neointimal hyperplasia. Targeting autophagy-related circ-1304 may contribute to the treatment of neointimal hyperplasia-associated cardiovascular diseases.

molecular biology↗

bioRxiv2022

Representational integration and differentiation in the human hippocampus following goal-directed navigation

As we learn, dynamic memory processes build structured knowledge across our experiences. Such knowledge enables the formation of internal models of the world that we use to plan, make decisions, and act. Recent theorizing posits that mnemonic mechanisms of differentiation and integration - which at one level may seem to be at odds - both contribute to the emergence of structured knowledge. We tested this possibility using fMRI as human participants learned to navigate within local and global virtual environments over the course of three days. Pattern similarity analyses on entorhinal cortex, hippocampus, and ventromedial prefrontal cortex patterns revealed evidence that differentiation and integration work concurrently to build local and global environmental representations, and that variability in integration relates to differences in navigation efficiency. These results offer new insights into the neural machinery and the underlying mechanisms that translate experiences into structured knowledge that allows us to navigate to achieve goals.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2020

Representations of local spatial information in the human medial temporal lobe duringmemory-guided navigation

The hippocampus (HC) and surrounding medial temporal lobe (MTL) cortical regions play a critical role in spatial navigation and episodic memory. However, it remains unclear how the interaction between the HCs conjunctive coding and mnemonic differentiation contributes to neural representations of spatial environments. Multivariate functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) analyses enable examination of how human HC and MTL cortical regions encode multidimensional spatial information to support memory-guided navigation. We combined high-resolution fMRI with a virtual navigation paradigm in which participants relied on memory of the environment to navigate to goal locations in two different virtual rooms. Within each room, participants were cued to navigate to four learned locations, each associated with one of two reward values. Pattern similarity analysis revealed that when participants successfully arrived at goal locations, activity patterns in HC and parahippocampal cortex (PHC) represented room-goal location conjunctions and activity patterns in HC subfields represented room-reward-location conjunctions. These results add to an emerging literature revealing hippocampal conjunctive representations during goal-directed behavior.

animal behavior and cognition↗

bioRxiv2019

Hippocampal subfields integrate information about past temporal and cognitive contexts

The hippocampus plays a critical role in supporting episodic memory, in large part by binding together experiences and items with surrounding contextual information. At present, however, little is known about the roles of different hippocampal subfields in supporting this item-context binding. To address this question, we constructed a task in which items were affiliated with differing types of context - cognitive associations that vary at the local, item level and membership in temporally organized lists that linked items together at a global level. Participants made item recognition judgments while undergoing high-resolution fMRI imaging. We performed voxel pattern similarity analyses to answer the question of how human hippocampal subfields represent retrieved information about cognitive states and the time at which a past event took place. As participants recollected previously presented items, activity patterns in the CA23DG subregion carried information about prior cognitive states associated with these items. We found no evidence to suggest reinstatement of information about temporal context at the level of list membership, but exploratory analyses revealed representations of temporal context at a coarse level in conjunction with representations of cognitive contexts. Results are consistent with characterizations of CA23DG as a critical site for binding together items and contexts in the service of memory retrieval.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2018

Dissociable medial temporal pathways for encoding emotional item and context information

Emotional experiences are typically remembered with a greater sense of recollection than neutral experiences, but memory benefits for emotional items do not typically extend to their source contexts. Item and source memory have been attributed to different subregions of the medial temporal lobes (MTL), but it is unclear how emotional item recollection fits into existing models of MTL function and, in particular, what is the role of the hippocampus. To address these issues, we used high-resolution functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to examine MTL contributions to successful emotional item and context encoding. The results showed that emotional items were recollected more often than neutral items. Whereas amygdala and perirhinal cortex (PRC) activity supported the recollection advantage for emotional items, hippocampal and parahippocampal cortex activity predicted subsequent source memory for both types of items, reflecting a double dissociation between anterior and posterior MTL regions. In addition, amygdala activity during encoding modulated the relationships of PRC activity and hippocampal activity to subsequent item recollection and source memory, respectively. Specifically, whereas PRC activity best predicted subsequent item recollection when amygdala activity was relatively low, hippocampal activity best predicted source memory when amygdala activity was relatively high. We interpret these findings in terms of complementary compared to synergistic amygdala-MTL interactions. The results suggest that emotion-related enhancements in item recollection are supported by an amygdala-PRC pathway, which is separable from the hippocampal pathway that binds items to their source context.

neuroscience↗