SEARCH · bioRxiv Science

Results for “animal behavior and cognition”

Search indexed bioRxiv preprints in genomics, neuroscience, cell biology and bioinformatics. Read source abstracts and check manuscript versions; preprints are not peer reviewed.

Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.

499 records · Page 12Linked to original sources

bioRxiv2026

The interaction between NC(p7)1-55 and p6 may regulate interactions with nucleic acids during assembly through modulation of Gag folding.

We present the solution structures of HIV-1 proteins NC(p7)1-55 corresponding to the full-length NC(p7) and mature p6. The studies were carried in water and, to mimic the membrane, in micellar DPC (Dodecylphosphocholine) conditions. Our results unravel for the first time the structure adopted by the N-terminal amino acids of the free NC(p7)1-55, with the formation of a small helix spanning residues F6 to R10. Our NMR and Fluorescence Anisotropy data disclose an interaction between NC(p7)1-55 and p6 both in water and DPC, with respective Kd of 2.5mM and 370 mM at 23{degrees}C. The interaction is thus strengthened in lipidic conditions. Protein p6 stabilizes the N-terminus of NC(p7)1-55 while increasing at the same time the dynamic of the first zinc finger. Although the entire p6 sequence is involved in the interaction, we show that its C-terminal region is particularly sensitive to the presence of NC(p7)1-55, with a propensity of forming a a helix ranging from amino acids S111 to F116. This study brings experimental evidence of a direct protein-protein interaction between p6 and the N-terminal region of NC(p7)1-55. We further show that such interaction is readily accommodated within the NC(p15) framework and hypothesize that it may facilitate the selective assembly of assembly of the viral genomic RNA (gRNA) in the cell.

biophysics↗

bioRxiv2026

Systematic Evaluation of Nasal Immune Cell Sampling and Antigen-specific T cell Detection using Cryopreserved Nasal Swabs

The upper respiratory tract is a key entry point for pathogens, yet local tissue-resident memory T cells (Trm) remain underexplored compared to peripheral blood. We systematically compared nasal curettes and 8 different swab types for immune cell collection, assessing yield, operator variability, and T cell phenotypes across the three turbinates and nasopharynx. The use of flocked swabs yielded higher immune cell numbers while being similarly tolerated, especially with reduced sampling duration. Nasal Trm subsets were consistent across the turbinates, whereas nasopharyngeal Trm displayed a more recently recruited phenotype. Multiple cryopreservation media were evaluated and all demonstrated high viability after thawing. Antigen-specificity was assessed using the activation induced marker (AIM) assay, peptideHLA tetramers and bulk TCR-sequencing following expansion. Notably, influenza-specific T cell frequencies were reliably detected by AIM and correlated between fresh and cryopreserved nasal samples. Downregulation of the CD3/TCR complex was observed in nasal samples. These findings establish a robust approach for nasal Trm profiling, demonstrating that cryopreservation preserves functional antigen-specific T cells. This work enables centralized, minimally invasive nasal T cell analysis for multicenter studies, including mucosal vaccination trials and controlled human infection models.

immunology↗

bioRxiv2026

Readout-dependent time-of-flight weighting of absorption and flow in interferometric diffuse optics

Joint optical measurement of hemoglobin and blood-flow dynamics could provide a compact route to richer functional monitoring of tissue physiology. However, hybrid diffuse-optical systems commonly optimize photon time-of-flight (TOF) for individual readouts, even when absorption and flow are recovered from the same acquisition. Here, we asked whether a single TOF window can optimally preserve both signals. Dual-wavelength TOF-iSCOS recovered absorption, hemoglobin and relative blood-flow index (BFI) from the same interferometrically sensed optical field, while Early, Middle and Late photon windows provided progressively greater weighting of longer and deeper photon paths. During forearm cuff occlusion in 11 adults, absorption and flow showed markedly different TOF dependence: Late-gate BFI responses were retained, whereas absorption decreased to a median Late/Early ratio of 0.18. The resulting readout-by-TOF interaction was positive in all 11 participants (median 2.61 octaves, 95% bootstrap CI 2.44-3.22; exact sign-test P = 9.8 x 10-4). Readout-specific gate selection increased held-out response retention by 24.8% (95% CI 8.8-42.5%) relative to a single common gate. We then tested the approach during prefrontal working-memory activation in seven participants using a higher-load 2-back task relative to a low-load 0-back control. Late-gate BFI increased in all seven participants (+5.07%, 95% CI 1.46-8.68%; P = 0.014) and remained positive after adjustment using an Early-TOF signal, whereas hemoglobin responses were less consistent. Layered Monte Carlo modeling showed that the same detected photon histories acquire different absorption and dynamic-scattering sensitivity across TOF, linking the experimental effects to anatomy- and geometry-conditioned tissue weighting. Within the present geometry and photon budget, the central result is therefore not that one readout is intrinsically superior, but that absorption and flow recovered from the same optical field retain physiological information differently across photon time-of-flight.

bioengineering↗

bioRxiv2026

The first OpenBind release: An open experimental structure-affinity dataset and benchmark for structure-based AI

High-quality experimental datasets that link protein-ligand structures with binding affinity data are essential for developing and evaluating structure-based machine learning methods. To help address this need, we established OpenBind as an open-science initiative to generate large-scale experimental datasets for structure-based AI and molecular discovery. Here, we describe the first public OpenBind release, which, to the best of our knowledge, is the largest public single-target experimental structure-affinity dataset. The dataset focuses on enteroviral 2A protease, comprising 925 crystallographic binding events from 699 compounds and associated affinity measurements for 601 compounds. It combines structures from an initial fragment screen and follow-on molecules, together with affinity data, linking experimentally determined protein-ligand binding modes to biophysical measurements within a coherent antiviral discovery campaign. We used this dataset to evaluate protein-ligand structure prediction, binding-affinity prediction, and virtual screening using representative structure-based methods, including docking and cofolding. This exposed several challenges that are central to practical structure-based modelling: docking performance depends strongly on binding-pocket conformation, poses are difficult to rank, and structure-based affinity prediction remains challenging. Fine-tuning OpenFold3-p2 on the fragment-screen structures substantially improved pose prediction and virtual screening for related follow-on compounds, demonstrating how early-stage experimental structures can support target-specific model adaptation.

bioinformatics↗

bioRxiv2026

Rate of meristem initiation driven by the MADS-WUS axis contributes to floral survival and inflorescence evolution in grasses

Crop domestication has repeatedly shaped inflorescence architecture to improve floral production, but mechanisms coordinating the rate of floral initiation, maturation and survival remain unclear. Combining morphometry, modelling and molecular genetic analyses, we show that floral production in the indeterminate barley (Hordeum vulgare L.) inflorescence follows an "initiate fast-die young" strategy orchestrated by a main MADS-box gene, SPIKELET INITIATION AND FERTILITY (SIF). SIF accomplishes this duality by coordinately terminating the inflorescence meristem via WUSCHEL and activating the floral meristem via APETALA1 (Vrn-H1). Hereby, the ancestral SIF "slow" allele promotes a timely commitment to floral maturation, whereas the derived "fast" allele permits more floral initiations. Postdomestication selection of SIF alleles thus enables diversified reproductive strategies in barley populations to maintain yield traits in the field. Finally, we show that a lineage-specific SIF duplication contributed to meristem fate transition and inflorescence evolution during Triticeae cold adaptation. Our results establish developmental rate as a key driver of architectural innovation and reproductive success.

plant biology↗

bioRxiv2026

Molecular and functional profiling distinguishes PACS1 syndrome variant from PACS1 loss-of-function in iNeurons

PACS1 syndrome is a rare neurodevelopmental disorder caused by a recurrent de novo missense variant (p.R203W) in the PACS1 protein. However, it remains unclear whether the p.R203W variant acts through a loss-of-function or alternative mechanism. Here, we used isogenic iPSC-derived neurons (iNs) to directly compare the effects of PACS1 p.R203W to complete loss of PACS1 function. Using a combination of proteomic, biochemical and electrophysiological approaches, we identified molecular and functional phenotypes associated with each genotype. While PACS1(+/R203W) and PACS1(-/-) iNs shared phenotypic abnormalities, the overall molecular and functional consequences of the p.R203W variant were distinct from those caused by PACS1 deficiency. Notably, PACS1(+/R203W) presented with unique proteomic and kinase signaling signatures and a shift in stimulus dependent excitability. These findings demonstrate that PACS1 syndrome is not caused by a simple loss of function and instead support a non-loss-of-function mechanism. Lastly, our interactome analysis suggests that the p.R203W variant retains aspects of canonical PACS1 function while acquiring novel molecular interactions that could contribute to PACS1 syndrome pathogenesis. Altogether, these findings provide a framework for future mechanistic studies and therapeutic development in PACS1 syndrome. GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT O_FIG O_LINKSMALLFIG WIDTH=200 HEIGHT=98 SRC="FIGDIR/small/747101v1_ufig1.gif" ALT="Figure 1"> View larger version (20K): org.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@d1522corg.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@69e4dforg.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@30eebcorg.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@899b9d_HPS_FORMAT_FIGEXP M_FIG C_FIG

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2026

LINC00536 regulates transcriptional repressor TRPS1 in breast cancer

Metastatic breast cancer with complex molecular mechanisms of progression accounts for most cancer related deaths in women. To improve diagnosis and drug development, it is important to identify novel biomarkers and critical molecular pathways involved in tumor initiation and progression. Here, we profiled and analyzed the expression of long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) from three distinct stages of tumor initiation and progression (hyperplasia, adenoma, and carcinoma). We performed RNAseq on tumor and mammary epithelial cells derived from ROSAmT/mG tumor and non-tumor mice. We identified 1913 differentially expressed protein coding genes and 324 lncRNAs in breast cancer cells of all stages compared with normal mammary epithelial cells. Pearson correlation analysis correlated 93 differentially expressed lncRNAs with protein coding genes, providing a comprehensive lncRNA-protein coding genes co-expression network. Among them, we focused on Gm19303 which was paired with the differentially expressed protein coding gene, transcriptional repressor GATA binding 1 (Trps1), and identified its human counterpart as LINC00536. Both LINC00536 and TRPS1 are only overexpressed in breast cancer and correlate with poor prognosis of patient from the TCGA and GTEx databases. Single cell RNAseq data from the Atlas of Human breast cancers further confirmed that TRPS1 is upregulated in human breast cancer compared to normal human mammary tissue with highest expression in ER+ subgroup. In summary, our study explored the potential role of lncRNAs in breast cancer initiation and progression. *Implications statement: Our findings imply that human LINC00536/TRPS1 serves as a novel and early biomarker of cancer progression and a potential therapeutic target for breast cancer.

cancer biology↗

bioRxiv2026

Phylogeny and Species Delimitation in Isoxylosteum, a Lonicera Clade Endemic to the Himalayan-Tibetan-Hengduan Region

The Himalayan-Tibetan-Hengduan (HTH) region is the richest biodiversity hotspot for high-elevation plants. However, owing to its remote and physically challenging topography as well as the trans-national nature of the region, many taxonomic problems in the area remain unresolved, particularly in the Himalaya. This, in turn, has impeded our understanding of the assembly of its extraordinary high-elevation flora. Here, we resolve phylogenetic relationships and delimit species in a distinctive clade of honeysuckles that is endemic to the HTH, the Isoxylosteum clade of Lonicera, using restriction-site associated DNA sequencing (RADseq) and morphological data. Five species complexes of Isoxylosteum have standardly been recognized. Three of these complexes are highly variable and have been divided into several varieties or species each. Phylogenetic, population structure, and morphological analyses of leaf and floral traits from samples collected across the range of the clade support the recognition of five species, including a species that has most often been recognized as a variety of L. rupicola (L. rupicola var. minuta). Instead, we find that it is sister to L. spinosa. This is surprising because the geographic range of L. minuta is contiguous with the other varieties of L. rupicola in the northern Hengduan region but widely separated from L. spinosa whose range lies mainly to the west of the Tibetan plateau. On close examination we find that several morphological and ecological traits also support a closer relation of L. minuta to L. spinosa. None of the other eight previously recognized varieties and species were supported. Floral traits showed high discriminatory power, correctly classifying 89% of samples to species. By comparison, leaf dimensions classified species with 59% accuracy. Our results identify diagnostic morphological apomorphies for each recognized species and major clade and provide a revised taxonomic framework for Isoxylosteum.

evolutionary biology↗

bioRxiv2026

Modelling and measuring effects of shear stress in extrusion bioprinting of endothelial- epithelial cell co-cultures

Extrusion-based bioprinting enables the development of tissue-like constructs; however, the impact of printing-associated shear stress on cell viability and function remains a critical consideration. To address this, we developed a comprehensive workflow combining rheological characterization, computational fluid dynamics (CFD) modelling, and experimental validation to predict and assess shear stress effects during bioprinting. The rheological properties of gelatin methacryloyl (GelMA) at 5 % (w/v, 20 {degrees}C) and 10 % (30 {degrees}C) concentrations were modelled, comparing various non-Newtonian regression models. CFD simulations were validated using micro-particle image velocimetry, showing agreement between predicted and measured velocities. The impact of bioprinting-associated shear stress on cell viability was assessed using a co-culture of human umbilical vein endothelial cells and breast epithelial cells. Immediate post-printing analysis revealed increased apoptosis in GelMA 5 % (w/v, 20 {degrees}C), although 10 % (w/v) GelMA demonstrated higher shear stress levels compared to 5 % GelMA. After 1 day of culture in crosslinked hydrogels, apoptosis increased in extrusion pressure, demonstrating the impact of low levels of acute shear stress. This workflow provides a robust methodology for predicting acute shear stress impacts during bioprinting, laying the foundation for future optimization studies.

bioengineering↗

bioRxiv2026

Hexose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase deficiency disrupts hepatic fatty acid homeostasis and induces triglyceride accumulation

Hexose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase (H6PD) catalyzes the first two steps of an endoplasmic reticulum-specific pentose phosphate pathway, regenerating luminal NADPH levels in the process. Its function remains insufficiently well understood. Since expression of H6PD is notably high in the liver, we aimed to assess its role in hepatic metabolism. Considering the central role of the liver in lipid synthesis, breakdown and storage, we focused our efforts specifically on studying the effect of H6PD on hepatic lipid metabolism. An H6PD knockout mice strain was generated and characterized by liquid chromatography-high-resolution mass spectrometry (LC-HRMS)-based lipidomic and proteomic analyses of liver tissue. Lipidomics analysis revealed an overall increase in hepatic triglycerides and a specific increase in unsaturated long-chain triglycerides in H6PD knockout mice. Intracellular lipid accumulation was confirmed through Nile Red staining of liver sections. Functional enrichment analysis of proteomics data from the H6PD deficient mice identified a corresponding upregulation of multiple fatty acid metabolism-associated pathways. Additionally, an H6PD knockout AML12 cell line was generated through CRISPR/Cas9 and characterized by lipid staining and functional assays to assess metabolic outcomes. Loss of H6PD led to intracellular lipid accumulation, reduced mitochondrial {beta}-oxidation and increased sensitivity to lipotoxicity, even though fatty acids remained the cells' primary mitochondrial fuel. Ultimately, our results indicate that H6PD plays an as-of-yet undescribed role in hepatic lipid metabolism, implying a link between the availability of NADPH within the endoplasmic reticulum and fatty acid homeostasis.

systems biology↗

bioRxiv2026

Integrated Transcriptomic and CRISPR Dependency Analysis Prioritizes a CDK1-AURKB Mitotic Vulnerability Axis in Diffuse Intrinsic Pontine Glioma

Diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma (DIPG), now classified within diffuse midline glioma, H3K27-altered, remains a lethal pediatric brainstem tumor with limited therapeutic options. Here, we integrated public DIPG transcriptomic datasets, protein-protein interaction modeling, functional enrichment, immune deconvolution, survival analysis, and DepMap CRISPR dependency data to nominate candidate mitotic vulnerabilities. Differential expression analysis comparing 27 DIPG tumors with 6 brainstem low-grade glioma comparator samples identified a proliferative transcriptional program enriched for chromosome segregation, nuclear division, and cell-cycle pathways. Network analysis prioritized a compact mitotic hub module containing CDK1, AURKB, TOP2A, CDC20, CDCA8, and related G2/M regulators. CIBERSORT analysis of an independent DIPG cohort inferred low cytotoxic T-cell signal, consistent with an immune-cold phenotype, although immune-cell fractions require orthogonal validation. Survival analysis showed that neither inferred immune scores nor a composite mitotic hub score significantly stratified overall survival. DepMap CRISPR gene-effect data nominated CDK1, AURKB, TOP2A, and BIRC5 as candidate dependencies across brain tumor models. These findings provide a computational framework for prioritizing mitotic vulnerabilities in DIPG and support experimental validation in disease-relevant models.

bioinformatics↗

bioRxiv2026

Neural spiketrains and population vectors entangle neural representations

Neural recordings are usually analyzed by comparing neural spiketrains or comparing time bins (population vectors). If multiple variables drive the neural activity these comparisons will be affected by all of them. Our aim is to disentangle these different latent variables or covariates that drive neural activity and reveal their structure and geometry. The central idea of the paper is that a matrix is disentangled when its rows and columns are local on each other, a condition we call bidirectional locality. In such a matrix, rows and columns encode the same geometry and they respond to only one localized part of it. This suggests finding bidirectional local matrices in a given data matrix, from which we can recover the geometry of the covariates driving it in a straightforward way. We present two ways of doing just this. The first method, coherent projections, works by finding non-negative projections of the neural data matrix (neurons by time bins) that are bidirectionally local. The second method, clumps, works by finding dense submatrices of the neural data matrix, that each identify a local region of one covariate. We apply these methods to two neural datasets, showing that they can separate grid cell modules and reveal a movement-driven low-dimensional structure in the motor cortex.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2026

Half-match recombination drives bridge RNA-guided excision and off-target insertion

IS110-family bridge recombinases are a recently identified class of compact, RNA-guided editors in which a bridge RNA (bRNA) directs the recombination of a donor DNA into a target site. In the current model, the bRNA engages fully complementary donor and target sequences within a single synaptic complex to drive double-stranded recombination, implying that the transposon is cut from its donor site rather than copied, yet neither the strandedness of the excised intermediate nor the requirement for full complementarity has been tested directly. Here we reconstituted IS621 recombination in a cell-free transcription-translation system, building representative arrangements of the excision and insertion reactions and characterizing the outcomes. We find that IS621 predominantly excises a single strand, releasing a single-stranded circle and leaving the donor site intact, consistent with copy-and-paste transposition. By introducing mismatches into the bRNA target sequences, we further find that excision proceeds independently of target-site complementarity, relying strictly on donor-arm recognition; we term this "half-match" recombination, because a substrate matching only half of the bRNA is sufficient. We also find half-match activity during insertion, both in vitro and in a published genome-editing experiment, where it accounts for approximately half of non-target insertion reads. Half-match recombination provides both a mechanistic explanation for off-target insertion and a framework for the rational design of high-fidelity bridge recombinases.

molecular biology↗

bioRxiv2026

An ancestral pronephric contribution reveals the multilineage origin of the teleost gonad and revises the evolution of vertebrate gonadogenesis

Challenging the paradigm that pronephric field contribution to gonadal formation would be an amniote innovation, we demonstrate this trait is ancestral to bony vertebrates. Using cell lineage tracing, single-cell and spatial transcriptomics, and functional validation, we show that the teleost gonad arises from three distinct embryonic tissues, the pronephros, the coelomic epithelium, and the lateral plate mesoderm, in contrast to amniotes. This multi-tissue origin generates an unexpected lineage-based cellular diversity. Further cross-species comparisons over medaka, mouse, chicken and turtle unravel how lineage-specific deviations shape early gonadal development. Specifically, we map these variations amongst the different gene regulatory networks, outlining their physiological implications for specialized gonadal functions. Our results support a model in which heterochronic shifts are coupled to regulatory rewiring of conserved gene networks, driving lineage-specific developmental trajectories through a canalized developmental system drift.

developmental biology↗

bioRxiv2026

RECON infers regions of interest from H&E images and reconstructs whole-slide molecular profiles at single-cell resolution

Spatial omics technologies resolve molecular expression and spatial architecture at single-cell resolution, but profiling whole slides remains costly. In practice, only a few regions of interest (ROIs) are profiled, leaving the rest of the tissue unmeasured. S2-omics was the first framework to unify ROI selection with out-of-ROI prediction, but it operates on superpixels rather than individual cells and predicts discrete cell types rather than continuous molecular profiles. Superpixel-based representations do not explicitly preserve cell boundaries, while categorical cell-type labels cannot quantify molecular expression within cells. Here we present RECON, a two-stage framework that performs ROI inference and whole-slide molecular reconstruction at single-cell resolution, predicting both continuous molecular profiles and discrete cell-type labels. In the first stage, RECON extracts morphological and microenvironmental features from individual cells to identify a representative ROI for spatially resolved single-cell molecular profiling. In the second stage, RECON trains deep learning models on molecular measurements acquired within the selected ROI and reconstructs transcriptomic or proteomic profiles for all remaining cells on the slide. Benchmarked against pathologist annotations, RECONs ROI selection outperforms the superpixel-based S2-omics approaches (IoU: 0.75 versus 0.64). For transcriptomics, refining the modeling unit from superpixels to single cells improves per-gene Pearson correlation by 22%. For proteomics, RECON surpasses the current state-of-the-art method, ROSIE, across all 16 markers, with a median per-cell Pearson correlation of 0.91 versus 0.84. Moreover, RECON delineates tumour boundaries and regions with distinct immune-cell densities, and highlights candidate tertiary lymphoid structures. Together, these results demonstrate that RECON enables informative ROI selection and whole-slide molecular reconstruction at single-cell resolution for both spatial transcriptomics and spatial proteomics.

bioinformatics↗

bioRxiv2026

Microbial valerate is associated with CAR T dysbiosis and its supplementation enhances CAR T function in B-cell lymphoma

Anaerobe-depleting antibiotic exposure is associated with inferior progression-free survival after CD19 CAR T-cell therapy in large B-cell lymphoma, yet the cellular mechanisms linking gut dysbiosis to the CAR T-cell product and whether this imprint is reversible have remained undefined. In two independent CAR-T candidate cohorts, low stool valerate at the time of CAR-T eligibility identified a multi-metabolite-deficient dysbiotic gut microbiome state marked by depletion of fiber-fermenting commensals and loss of carbohydrate-fermentation, SCFA-biosynthesis, and amino-acid metabolism pathways. Reanalysis of single-cell RNA sequencing from 42 lymphoma patients stratified by piperacillin-tazobactam/imipenem/meropenem (PIM) exposure revealed that PIM-exposed CAR T-cell products were CD4-skewed, with significantly elevated AP-1/immediate-early gene (IEG) and cellular activation signatures that together predicted inferior progression-free survival. Ex vivo conditioning of CAR T-cells with valerate produced a chromatin and transcription factor program distinct from butyrate or propionate, characterized by KLF/SP/EGR family engagement, KLF4 promoter opening, and broad induction of AP-1/IEG and MHC class II transcripts, whereas butyrate drove broader chromatin remodeling with TBX21/EOMES/NF-{kappa}B gains and KLF2 promoter closure, and propionate induced an NFY-centered program with preferential commitment to low-mitochondrial-content states. Untargeted metabolomics confirmed valerate uptake and mitochondrial {beta}-oxidation in CAR T-cells, while dietary sodium valerate supplementation in meropenem-treated mice bearing A20 lymphoma significantly reduced tumor burden and extended survival compared with CAR T-cells alone. These findings identify stool valerate as a bedside-deployable biomarker of dysbiosis-imprinted CAR T-cell dysfunction and support ex vivo or dietary valerate supplementation as a clinically tractable strategy to improve CAR-T anti-tumor function in patients with disrupted gut microbiomes.

cancer biology↗

bioRxiv2026

A human-derived two-antibody cocktail confers prophylactic and therapeutic protection against authentic Mpox virus.

With sustained human-to-human transmission worldwide, Mpox virus remains a significant global health burden. However, there are no licensed therapeutics against Mpox, with clinical management limited to supportive care and pain management. Given the virus complex life cycles, effective treatments require the inhibition of both mature intracellular virions (MV) and extracellular virions (EV). Here, we describe the isolation of human monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) from antigen specific memory B cell using flow cytometry-based cell sorting. We also characterize the therapeutic potential of 2-mAb cocktails targeting both MV and EV using an in vitro neutralization assay and a mouse challenge model. Several developed human 2-mAb cocktails neutralized authentic Mpox in vitro. When administered 24 hours before or after Mpox challenge, the lead 2-mAb cocktail inhibited viral loads in mouse tissues, with the exception of the testes. Overall, our study identifies several human 2-mAb cocktails with therapeutic potential for controlling Mpox disease.

microbiology↗

bioRxiv2026

Episodic memory rescues working memory via pattern separation, pattern completion, and predictive recall

Working memory is capacity-limited, but interactions with episodic memory may offset this constraint. We tested moment-by-moment contributions of episodic representations to working memory by combining the N-back and Mnemonic Similarity tasks. Thirty-one participants, undergoing eye-tracking, first encoded items in a one-back task, classifying them as "same" or "similar" to their predecessor. In a subsequent two-back task, mnemonic discrimination showed a graded, item-specific benefit of prior experience: performance was best for previously compared items, whereas recognition of identical repeats was unaffected. Successful discrimination of previously compared items was accompanied by greater pupil dilation, gradually emerging gaze patterns resembling those elicited by their similar pair-mate, and higher gaze-similarity between one-back and two-back target viewing. Diverging gaze patterns between pair-mates during one-back further predicted two-back discrimination. These findings challenge working memory's characterization as an isolated system, demonstrating how it recruits episodic computations - encoding distinct traces, predicting upcoming content, and reinstating it at retrieval.

neuroscience↗