Biology subjects

Kashani, A.

Publications and source records attributed to Kashani, A..

3 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2026

Structural Directional Brain Behavior Asymmetry Across Cortical and Non-Cortical Regions

A substantial body of research suggests that the left and right cerebral hemispheres play differential roles in shaping human behavior. However, due to methodological considerations, most studies in this field have relied primarily on psychological methods. Here, we present exploratory neurobiological evidence suggesting that brain volume across numerous cortical and non-cortical homotopic regions may display consistent directional asymmetry in relation to a wide range of behavioral measures. Of particular note, such asymmetry recurred between contralateral homotopic areas across many behavioral parameters. The asymmetric behavioral directionality is distributed across most regions of the human brain, especially in the frontal and temporal cortices, which are particularly developed in humans. This may add a new dimension to previously described aspects of hemispheric asymmetry. In addition, it may help to understand why a marked functional asymmetry can be observed even when structural asymmetry is subtle. Moreover, these findings may shed light on how the brain modulates behavior in health and disease and may contribute to understanding processes involved in neurological and psychiatric disorders.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2020

Asymmetry Map of Human Brain in Young Adults

Although, asymmetry is a central organizational aspect of human brain, it has not been clearly described yet. Here, we have studied structural brain asymmetry in 1113 young adults using data obtained from Human Connectome Project. A significant rightward asymmetry in mean global cerebral cortical thickness, surface area and gray matter volume as well as volumes of cerebral white matter, cerebellar cortex and white matter, hippocampus, putamen, caudate nucleus, nucleus accumbens and amygdala was observed. Thalamus showed a leftward asymmetry. Regionally, most cerebral cortical regions show a significant rightward asymmetry in thickness. However, cortical surface area and gray matter volume are more evenly distributed between two hemispheres with almost half of the regions showing a leftward asymmetry. In addition, a strong correlation between cortical surface area and gray matter volume as well as their asymmetry indices was noted which results in concordant asymmetry patterns between cortical surface area and gray matter volume in most cortical regions.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2017

Expanding discovery from cancer genomes by integrating protein network analyses with in vivo tumorigenesis assays

Approaches that integrate molecular network information and tumor genome data could complement gene-based statistical tests to identify likely new cancer genes, but are challenging to validate at scale and their predictive value remains unclear. We developed a robust statistic (NetSig) that integrates protein interaction networks and data from 4,742 tumor exomes and used it to accurately classify known driver genes in 60% of tested tumor types and to predict 62 new candidates. We designed a quantitative experimental framework to compare the in vivo tumorigenic potential of NetSig candidates, known oncogenes and random genes in mice showing that NetSig candidates induce tumors at rates comparable to known oncogenes and 10-fold higher than random genes. By reanalyzing nine tumor-inducing NetSig candidates in 242 patients with oncogene-negative lung adenocarcinomas, we find that two (AKT2 and TFDP2) are significantly amplified. Overall, we illustrate a scalable integrated computational and experimental workflow to expand discovery from cancer genomes.

cancer biology↗