The state will be required to test all students using grade level tests, except for those with significant cognitive disabilities.

An increasing number of schools are replacing snow days with remote learning, but some plan to stick with the snow day tradition for now.

Here's a clue: the governor has said the teachers' unions need to be punched in the face.

New Jersey leads the states on Quality Counts 2020’s summative rankings based on previous years’ data. But the annual report card shows plenty of work needed all around as the pressure mounts.

Recent Census data finds households in the South and Midwest lagging those in other regions in access to remote learning technologies and learning interactions with teachers and family members.

The scene at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School and the surrounding area after the shootings shifted from chaos and panic to grief, anger, and calls for swift and aggressive action to prevent other school attacks.

The Manchester district in the Granite State has worked to develop its own content standards. How do they differ from the common core?

In Arkansas, Ohio, and Wisconsin, educators and advocates will be on this year's ballot for governor, a position that will inevitably have an outsized role in shaping education policy.

Bethany Hill, the principal at Central Elementary School in Cabot, Ark., shuns a formal office in favor of roving around classrooms, hallways, the playground, and the cafeteria, where she can be as close as possible to teachers and students all day.

The Minnesota Star Tribune review found that similar to traditional district schools, the highest performing charters generally served wealthier families.

Wyoming once again takes the top spot in Quality Counts' annual ranking of the states on school finance, while 22 states receive grades between C-minus and D-minus.

Recent Census data finds households in the South and Midwest lagging those in other regions in access to remote learning technologies and learning interactions with teachers and family members.

The former Edmonton Oilers general manager has a new gig.

Timo Meier scored the go-ahead goal late in the second period, Jacob Markstrom made 33 saves and the New Jersey Devils snapped Florida’s seven-game winning streak by beating the Panthers 4-1 on Tuesday night.

In Kodiak, Alaska, a school district with deep ties to the U.S. Coast Guard has been walloped by the government shutdown with hundreds of families going without paychecks. And news of a deal to temporarily reopen the government was doing little to allay the community's anxieties.

Where did Texas A&M land in the latest CFP bracket? Here’s the College Football Playoff picture for the Aggies and their path to the championship.

Miami landed 9th in the latest CFP bracket. Here’s the College Football Playoff picture for the Hurricanes and path to the championship.

Penn State football landed Xth in the second CFP rankings. Here’s the College Football Playoff picture for the Nittany Lions.

The second College Football Playoff Top 25 rankings were revealed on Tuesday and the now-7-2

From time to time, but not very often, former special-teams coordinators become NFL head coaches.

Governors in several natural resource-dependent states said recently they will have to continue to cut public education funding because prices for oil and coal have not rebounded.

A school leader outlines how research findings on reducing achievement gaps are reflected in practice at her New Mexico school.

A federal investigation of Chicago's failures to respond to sexual violence in schools raises troubling questions for school districts nationwide.

Campaigns to get rid of police in schools catch a wave of momentum in some communities, but activists still face deep resistance from educators nationally.

EAU CLAIRE— This weekend saw the first basketball games for Blugold men’s and women’s basketball during the Market & Johnson Blugold Tip-Off Tournament. The games were the first to be played at the Sonnentag Event Center, a part of the new $122 million multi-purpose facility which opened earlier this year. The event center has a capacity of 3,500 people for sporting events as compared to the ...

Xinying Guo
Oct 23, 2024; 44:e0727242024-e0727242024
Cellular

Laura Medlock
Apr 13, 2022; 42:3133-3149
Systems/Circuits

Yasmin L. Hurd
Oct 16, 2019; 39:8250-8258
Symposium and Mini-Symposium

Krista L. Hyde
Mar 11, 2009; 29:3019-3025
Development Plasticity Repair

Umut Güçlü
Jul 8, 2015; 35:10005-10014
BehavioralSystemsCognitive

Matthew F. Glasser
Aug 10, 2011; 31:11597-11616
BehavioralSystemsCognitive

α-Neurexins are essential and highly expressed presynaptic cell-adhesion molecules that are frequently linked to neuropsychiatric and neurodevelopmental disorders. Despite their importance, how the elaborate extracellular sequences of α-neurexins contribute to synapse function is poorly understood. We recently characterized the presynaptic gain-of-function phenotype caused by a missense mutation in an evolutionarily conserved extracellular sequence of neurexin-3α (A687T) that we identified in a patient diagnosed with profound intellectual disability and epilepsy. The striking A687T gain-of-function mutation on neurexin-3α prompted us to systematically test using mutants whether the presynaptic gain-of-function phenotype is a consequence of the addition of side-chain bulk (i.e., A687V) or polar/hydrophilic properties (i.e., A687S). We used multidisciplinary approaches in mixed-sex primary hippocampal cultures to assess the impact of the neurexin-3α^A687 residue on synapse morphology, function and ligand binding. Unexpectedly, neither A687V nor A687S recapitulated the neurexin-3α A687T phenotype. Instead, distinct from A687T, molecular replacement with A687S significantly enhanced postsynaptic properties exclusively at excitatory synapses and selectively increased binding to neuroligin-1 and neuroligin-3 without changing binding to neuroligin-2 or LRRTM2. Importantly, we provide the first experimental evidence supporting the notion that the position A687 of neurexin-3α and the N-terminal sequences of neuroligins may contribute to the stability of α-neurexin–neuroligin-1 trans-synaptic interactions and that these interactions may specifically regulate the postsynaptic strength of excitatory synapses.

Alzheimer's disease (AD) and Alzheimer's disease-related dementias (ADRDs) are broad-impact multifactorial neurodegenerative diseases. Their complexity presents unique challenges for developing effective therapies. This review highlights research presented at the 2024 Society for Neuroscience meeting which emphasized the gut microbiome's role in AD pathogenesis by influencing brain function and neurodegeneration through the microbiota–gut–brain axis. This emerging evidence underscores the potential for targeting the gut microbiota to treat AD/ADRD.

Cochlear hair cells (HCs) sense sound waves and allow us to hear. Loss of HCs will cause irreversible sensorineural hearing loss. It is well known that DNA damage repair plays a critical role in protecting cells in many organs. However, how HCs respond to DNA damage and how defective DNA damage repair contributes to hearing loss remain elusive. In this study, we showed that cisplatin induced DNA damage in outer hair cells (OHCs) and promoted OHC loss, leading to hearing loss in mice of either sex. Cisplatin induced the expression of Brca1, a DNA damage repair factor, in OHCs. Deficiency of Brca1 induced OHC and hearing loss, and further promoted cisplatin-induced DNA damage in OHCs, accelerating OHC loss. This study provides the first in vivo evidence demonstrating that cisplatin mainly induces DNA damage in OHCs and that BRCA1 promotes repair of DNA damage in OHCs and prevents hearing loss. Our findings not only demonstrate that DNA damage–inducing agent generates DNA damage in postmitotic HCs but also suggest that DNA repair factors, like BRCA1, protect postmitotic HCs from DNA damage–induced cell death and hearing loss.

Reelin, a secreted glycoprotein, plays a crucial role in guiding neocortical neuronal migration, dendritic outgrowth and arborization, and synaptic plasticity in the adult brain. Reelin primarily operates through the canonical lipoprotein receptors apolipoprotein E receptor 2 (Apoer2) and very low-density lipoprotein receptor (Vldlr). Reelin also engages with noncanonical receptors and unidentified coreceptors; however, the effects of which are less understood. Using high-throughput tandem mass tag (TMT) liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS)-based proteomics and gene set enrichment analysis (GSEA), we identified both shared and unique intracellular pathways activated by Reelin through its canonical and noncanonical signaling in primary murine neurons of either sex during dendritic growth and arborization. We observed pathway cross talk related to regulation of cytoskeleton, neuron projection development, protein transport, and actin filament-based process. We also found enriched gene sets exclusively by the noncanonical Reelin pathway including protein translation, mRNA metabolic process, and ribonucleoprotein complex biogenesis suggesting Reelin fine-tunes neuronal structure through distinct signaling pathways. A key discovery is the identification of aldolase A, a glycolytic enzyme and actin-binding protein, as a novel effector of Reelin signaling. Reelin induced de novo translation and mobilization of aldolase A from the actin cytoskeleton. We demonstrated that aldolase A is necessary for Reelin-mediated dendrite growth and arborization in primary murine neurons and mouse brain cortical neurons. Interestingly, the function of aldolase A in dendrite development is independent of its known role in glycolysis. Altogether, our findings provide new insights into the Reelin-dependent signaling pathways and effector proteins that are crucial for dendritic development.

Perivascular mural cells including vascular smooth cells (VSMCs) and pericytes are integral components of the vascular system. In the central nervous system (CNS), pericytes are also indispensable for the blood–brain barrier (BBB), blood–spinal cord barrier, and blood–retinal barrier and play key roles in maintaining cerebrovascular and neuronal functions. However, the functional specifications of pericytes between CNS and peripheral organs have not been resolved at the genetic and molecular levels. Hence, the generation of reliable CNS pericyte-specific models and genetic tools remains very challenging. Here, we report a new CNS pericyte marker in mice. This putative cation-transporting ATPase 13A5 (Atp13a5) marker was identified through single-cell transcriptomics, based on its specificity to brain pericytes. We further generated a knock-in model with both tdTomato reporter and Cre recombinase. Using this model to trace the distribution of Atp13a5-positive pericytes in mice, we found that the tdTomato reporter reliably labels the CNS pericytes, including the ones in spinal cord and retina but not peripheral organs. Interestingly, brain pericytes are likely shaped by the developing neural environment, as Atp13a5-positive pericytes start to appear around murine embryonic day 15 (E15) and expand along the cerebrovasculature. Thus, Atp13a5 is a specific marker of CNS pericyte lineage, and this Atp13a5-based model is a reliable tool to explore the heterogeneity of pericytes and BBB functions in health and diseases.

The brain's extracellular matrix (ECM) regulates neuronal plasticity and animal behavior. ECM staining shows a net-like structure around a subset of neurons, a ring-like structure at the nodes of Ranvier, and diffuse staining in the interstitial matrix. However, understanding the structural features of ECM deposition across various neuronal types and subcellular compartments remains limited. To visualize the organization pattern and assembly process of the hyaluronan-scaffolded ECM in the brain, we fused a HaloTag to hyaluronan proteoglycan link protein 1, which links hyaluronan and proteoglycans. Expression or application of the probe in primary rat neuronal cultures enables us to identify spatial and temporal regulation of ECM deposition and heterogeneity in ECM aggregation among neuronal populations. Dual-color birthdating shows the ECM assembly process in culture and in vivo. Sparse expression in mouse brains of either sex reveals detailed ECM architectures around excitatory neurons and developmentally regulated dendritic ECM. Our study uncovers extensive structural features of the brain's ECM, suggesting diverse roles in regulating neuronal plasticity.

Impaired inhibitory synapse development is suggested to drive neuronal hyperactivity in autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and epilepsy. We propose a novel mechanism by which astrocytes control the development of parvalbumin (PV)-specific inhibitory synapses in the hippocampus, implicating ephrin-B/EphB signaling. Here, we utilize genetic approaches to assess functional and structural connectivity between PV and pyramidal cells (PCs) through whole-cell patch–clamp electrophysiology, optogenetics, immunohistochemical analysis, and behaviors in male and female mice. While inhibitory synapse development is adversely affected by PV-specific expression of EphB2, a strong candidate ASD risk gene, astrocytic ephrin-B1 facilitates PV->PC connectivity through a mechanism involving EphB signaling in PV boutons. In contrast, the loss of astrocytic ephrin-B1 reduces PV->PC connectivity and inhibition, resulting in increased seizure susceptibility and an ASD-like phenotype. Our findings underscore the crucial role of astrocytes in regulating inhibitory circuit development and discover a new role of EphB2 receptors in PV-specific inhibitory synapse development.

Experience- and activity-dependent transcription is a candidate mechanism to mediate development and refinement of specific cortical circuits. Here, we demonstrate that the activity-dependent transcription factor myocyte enhancer factor 2C (MEF2C) is required in both presynaptic layer (L) 4 and postsynaptic L2/3 mouse (male and female) somatosensory (S1) cortical neurons for development of this specific synaptic connection. While postsynaptic deletion of Mef2c weakens L4 synaptic inputs, it has no effect on inputs from local L2/3, contralateral S1, or the ipsilateral frontal/motor cortex. Similarly, homozygous or heterozygous deletion of Mef2c in presynaptic L4 neurons weakens L4 to L2/3 excitatory synaptic inputs by decreasing presynaptic release probability. Postsynaptic MEF2C is specifically required during an early postnatal, experience-dependent, period for L4 to L2/3 synapse function, and expression of transcriptionally active MEF2C (MEF2C-VP16) rescues weak L4 to L2/3 synaptic strength in sensory-deprived mice. Together, these results suggest that experience- and/or activity-dependent transcriptional activation of MEF2C promotes development of L4 to L2/3 synapses. Additionally, MEF2C regulates the expression of many pre- and postsynaptic genes in postnatal cortical neurons. Interestingly, MEF2C was necessary for activity-dependent expression of many presynaptic genes, including those that function in transsynaptic adhesion and neurotransmitter release. This work provides mechanistic insight into the experience-dependent development of specific cortical circuits.

Seven guest collaborators bring new eyes to a Smithsonian museum founder’s collection of American art

A recent exhibition shows how soldiers sent in votes during the Civil War and World War II, as many Americans would in 2020 following the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic

From the microwave to the food processor, the book author and television personality tried many appliances and devices to figure out the best ways to use them for her audience

A new exhibition co-presented by the National Portrait Gallery and the Archives of American Art explores the seminal artist’s work

FAO Director-General José Graziano da Silva will be away from Rome during the next few weeks. During this period he will be involved in a range of [...]

The first in a series of Conference side events, the high-level panel on Small Island Developing States (SIDS) was held on Saturday. The aim of this event was to present [...]

Bogotá- Latin America and the Caribbean is at a decisive juncture in its history. Thanks to its advancements in social, economic, and production-based terms, the region is on its way to [...]

Since the 1990s, rural transformations have helped millions of people exit poverty while remaining in rural areas. This underscores an important fact: revitalising rural economies helps create jobs for rural [...]