Biology subjects

Georges, S.

Publications and source records attributed to Georges, S..

3 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2026

Human auditory cortex preferentially tracks speech over music without explicit attention

Our brains constantly filter incoming sounds to understand our environment. While extensively studied in adults, how this ability develops across childhood remains unclear. We recorded intracranial brain activity from 54 participants aged 4-21 while they watched movie clips containing simultaneous speech and music. We used deep neural networks to separate the mixed audio into isolated speech and music streams, then built encoding models to determine which stream best predicted neural responses in the auditory cortex. Although participants heard only the original mixture with no instruction to attend to either stream, higher-order auditory regions including the superior temporal gyrus (STG), superior temporal sulcus (STS) and middle temporal gyrus (MTG), responded preferentially to speech. This speech-bias strengthened with age in STG, suggesting that this region progressively sharpens its representation of socially relevant sound across development. These findings indicate that speech prioritization in the developing brain emerges automatically, without directed attention.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2025

Temporal dynamics of macrophages transcriptional profiles during zebrafish wound healing

Macrophages participate to wound healing by contributing to host defense and orchestrating inflammation and repair. They adapt dynamically to the wound microenvironment by adopting diverse polarization states, which are determinant of wound outcome, influencing whether healing is successful or becomes chronic. The zebrafish embryo, widely used for live imaging of immune responses, is a powerful model to study macrophage behavior after injury. However, the transcriptional landscape of polarized macrophages in this model during wound healing remains insufficiently characterized. Here, we employ bulk RNA sequencing to characterize macrophage transcriptional programs following tail fin wounding a robust model for studying sterile inflammation. Our findings reveal that zebrafish macrophages undergo large transcriptomic changes along different wound healing phases, particularly between 2 and 5 hours post-amputation, suggesting a fast reprogramming leading to different functional states. We further show that, at 2h, macrophages acquire a pro-inflammatory profile with a gene signature closed to M1 signature. At 5h, macrophages express genes involved in immunoregulation and healing associated with shutoff of pro-inflammatory pathways and the activation of glucose and glycogen metabolism. Finally, we show that macrophage reprogramming becomes deeply attenuated by 29h. Our findings provide a foundation for understanding macrophage polarization in zebrafish, revealing underpinning molecular mechanisms, including both specific and evolutionarily conserved pathways with a potential impact on translational medicine.

immunology↗

bioRxiv2023

Chimeric protein EWS-FLI1 drives cell proliferation in Ewing Sarcoma via overexpression of KCNN1.

Ewing sarcoma (ES) is characterized by chimeric fusion proteins, which act as oncogenes. Over the last decade, patient survival has not increased, especially for high risk patients. Knowing that ion channels are studied for their implication in tumorigenesis, the aim of this work is to study the involvement of the SK1 potassium channels in ES. RNA-Seq analyses showed a high restricted expression of KCNN1, the gene encoding SK1, only in ES patients, and its expression is inversely correlated with patient survival. EWS-FLI1 silencing demonstrated the regulation of KCNN1 by these fusion proteins, which bind at GGAA microsatellites near KCNN1 promoter. In addition, KCNN1 has been shown to be involved in the regulation of ES cell proliferation, its silencing being associated with a slowing of the cell cycle. Finally, KCNN1 expression modulates membrane potential and calcium flux suggesting the role of calcium in KCNN1 driving cell proliferation. These results highlight that KCNN1 is a direct EWS-FLI1 and EWS-ERG target, and is involved in the regulation of ES cell proliferation, making it an interesting therapeutic target in ES.

cancer biology↗