High-dimensional topographic organization of visual features in the primate temporal lobe.

The inferotemporal cortex supports our supreme object recognition ability. Numerous studies have been conducted to elucidate the functional organization of this brain area, but there are still important questions that remain unanswered, including how this organization differs between humans and non-human primates. Here, we use deep neural networks trained on object categorization to construct a 25-dimensional space of visual features, and systematically measure the spatial organization of feature preference in both male monkey brains and human brains using fMRI. These feature maps allow us to predict the selectivity of a previously unknown region in monkey brains, which is corroborated by additional fMRI and electrophysiology experiments. These maps also enable quantitative analyses of the topographic organization of the temporal lobe, demonstrating the existence of a pair of orthogonal gradients that differ in spatial scale and revealing significant differences in the functional organization of high-level visual areas between monkey and human brains.

Upregulation of circular RNA hsa_circ_0007534 predicts unfavorable prognosis for NSCLC and exerts oncogenic properties in vitro and in vivo.

Emerging evidence documented the key functions of circular RNAs (circRNAs) in various malignancies. Nevertheless, the research relevant to the clinical value and functions of circRNAs in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) is still very limited. In this study, we performed qRT-PCR to assess the levels of hsa_circ_0007534 in NSCLC tissues and cell lines and evaluated its clinical significance using Fisher's exact test, Kaplan-Meier analysis and Cox regression analysis. Additionally, loss-of-function and gain-of-function experiments were performed to detect whether hsa_circ_0007534 could affect cell proliferation, apoptosis, metastatic properties and epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) in A549 and H1299 cells. Further xenograft study was carried out to validate the in vitro data. The results indicated that hsa_circ_0007534 was up-regulated in both NSCLC tissue samples and cell lines and this up-regulation is linked to lymph node invasion and advanced TNM stage. Hsa_circ_0007534 could also function as an unfavorable prognostic indicator for the patients with NSCLC. For the part of functional assays, down-regulation of hsa_circ_0007534 suppressed cell growth, migratory and invasive capacities; facilitating cell apoptosis in A549 and H1299 cells. Conversely, up-regulation of hsa_circ_0007534 caused the opposite biological behaviors. What's more, animal experiments validated the oncogenic role of hsa_circ_0007534. Ultimately, the present study indicates that hsa_circ_0007534 might be a potential NSCLC-associated prognostic/therapeutic target.