A leadership program for young Black men looks to confront racism in law enforcement. Corey Mitchell explains.

In addition to a delay, Wisconsin had to eliminate certain questions from its Smarter Balanced exam, after opting not to use the adaptive testing feature of the test.

AdvancED, the national accreditation company, has for the last two years operated Wyoming's entire accreditation process but the state will now do the work on its own.

State of the States: Education highlights from latest governor's address before the legislature.

A statewide education intranet has helped Delaware’s school districts and its individual schools stay connected, and has bolstered the state’s efforts to collect data.

Mike Matthews wrote several sexist and racist blog posts a decade ago that were recently unearthed.

In her forthcoming budget, Gov. Ruth Ann Minner will propose expanding her full-day-kindergarten initiative to 11 districts and nine charter schools.

This Quality Counts 2019 Highlights Report captures all the data you need to assess your state's performance on key educational outcomes.

A statewide initiative aims to enroll half the state's high school students into career pathways to close a "skills gap."

Stephanie Hirsh recently visited several schools in Delaware to see first-hand the impact of the state's redesigned professional learning system.

This Quality Counts 2019 Highlights Report captures all the data you need to assess your state's performance on key educational outcomes.

This Quality Counts 2020 Highlights Report captures all the data you need to assess your state's performance on key educational outcomes.

Legislation to provide funds to poor and rural school districts will likely die in the legislative session this year.

New Hampshire's education commissioner nominee Frank Edelblut, a businessman, Republican and school choice proponent, has been criticized throughout the state for his lack of education experience.

The school district, which serves about 11,200 students, postponed opening because of the protests following the death of Michael Brown, the 18-year-old black teenager who was shot by a white police officer.

Randy L. Buckner
Aug 24, 2005; 25:7709-7717
Neurobiology of Disease

AP Georgopoulos
Nov 1, 1982; 2:1527-1537
Articles

Bradley Voytek
Sep 23, 2015; 35:13257-13265
BehavioralSystemsCognitive

During adolescence, cannabis experimentation is common, and its association with interindividual variations in brain maturation well studied. Cellular and molecular underpinnings of these system-level relationships are, however, unclear. We thus conducted a three-step study. First, we exposed adolescent male mice to -9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) or a synthetic cannabinoid WIN 55,212-2 (WIN) and assessed differentially expressed genes (DEGs), spine numbers, and dendritic complexity in their frontal cortex. Second, in human (male) adolescents, we examined group differences in cortical thickness in 34 brain regions, using magnetic resonance imaging, between those who experimented with cannabis before age 16 (n = 140) and those who did not (n = 327). Finally, we correlated spatially these group differences with gene expression of human homologs of mouse-identified DEGs. The spatial expression of 13 THC-related human homologs of DEGs correlated with cannabis-related variations in cortical thickness, and virtual histology revealed coexpression patterns of these 13 genes with cell-specific markers of astrocytes, microglia, and a type of pyramidal cells enriched in dendrite-regulating genes. Similarly, the spatial expression of 18 WIN-related human homologs of DEGs correlated with group differences in cortical thickness and showed coexpression patterns with the same three cell types. Gene ontology analysis indicated that 37 THC-related human homologs are enriched in neuron projection development, while 33 WIN-related homologs are enriched in processes associated with learning and memory. In mice, we observed spine loss and lower dendritic complexity in pyramidal cells of THC-exposed animals (vs controls). Experimentation with cannabis during adolescence may influence cortical thickness by impacting glutamatergic synapses and dendritic arborization.

Emerging research in nonhuman animals implicates cerebellar projections to the ventral tegmental area (VTA) in appetitive behaviors, but these circuits have not been characterized in humans. Here, we mapped cerebello-VTA white matter connectivity in a cohort of men and women using probabilistic tractography on diffusion imaging data from the Human Connectome Project. We uncovered the topographical organization of these connections by separately tracking from parcels of cerebellar lobule VI, crus I/II, vermis, paravermis, and cerebrocerebellum. Results revealed that connections between the cerebellum and VTA predominantly originate in the right cerebellar hemisphere, interposed nucleus, and paravermal cortex and terminate mostly ipsilaterally. Paravermal crus I sends the most connections to the VTA compared with other lobules. We discovered a mediolateral gradient of connectivity, such that the medial cerebellum has the highest connectivity with the VTA. Individual differences in microstructure were associated with measures of negative affect and social functioning. By splitting the tracts into quarters, we found that the socioaffective effects were driven by the third quarter of the tract, corresponding to the point at which the fibers leave the deep nuclei. Taken together, we produced detailed maps of cerebello-VTA structural connectivity for the first time in humans and established their relevance for trait differences in socioaffective regulation.

Rodent jaws evolved structurally to support dual functionality, for either biting or chewing food. Rodent hands also function dually during food handling, for actively manipulating or statically holding food. How are these oral and manual functions coordinated? We combined electrophysiological recording of muscle activity and kilohertz kinematic tracking to analyze masseter and hand actions as mice of both sexes handled food. Masseter activity was organized into two modes synchronized to hand movement modes. In holding/chewing mode, mastication occurred as rhythmic (~5 Hz) masseter activity while the hands held food below the mouth. In oromanual/ingestion mode, bites occurred as lower-amplitude aperiodic masseter events that were precisely timed to follow regrips (by ~200 ms). Thus, jaw and hand movements are flexibly coordinated during food handling: uncoupled in holding/chewing mode and tightly coordinated in oromanual/ingestion mode as regrip–bite sequences. Key features of this coordination were captured in a simple model of hierarchically orchestrated mode-switching and intramode action sequencing. We serendipitously detected an additional masseter-related action, tooth sharpening, identified as bouts of higher-frequency (~13 Hz) rhythmic masseter activity, which was accompanied by eye displacement, including rhythmic proptosis, attributable to masseter contractions. Collectively, the findings demonstrate how a natural, complex, and goal-oriented activity is organized as an assemblage of distinct modes and complex actions, adapted for the divisions of function arising from anatomical structure. These results reveal intricate, high-speed coordination of disparate effectors and show how natural forms of dexterity can serve as a model for understanding the behavioral neurobiology of multi-body-part coordination.

GABAergic inhibitory interneurons comprise many subtypes that differ in their molecular, anatomical, and functional properties. In mouse visual cortex, they also differ in their modulation with an animal’s behavioral state, and this state modulation can be predicted from the first principal component (PC) of the gene expression matrix. Here, we ask whether this link between transcriptome and state-dependent processing generalizes across species. To this end, we analysed seven single-cell and single-nucleus RNA sequencing datasets from mouse, human, songbird, and turtle forebrains. Despite homology at the level of cell types, we found clear differences between transcriptomic PCs, with greater dissimilarities between evolutionarily distant species. These dissimilarities arise from two factors: divergence in gene expression within homologous cell types and divergence in cell-type abundance. We also compare the expression of cholinergic receptors, which are thought to causally link transcriptome and state modulation. Several cholinergic receptors predictive of state modulation in mouse interneurons are differentially expressed between species. Circuit modelling and mathematical analyses suggest conditions under which these expression differences could translate into functional differences.

Written by the former chief historian of NASA, the book examines the evolution of our cosmic understanding—from early civilizations to the present day

Further to the Director-General’s speech delivered to the 159^th Session of the FAO Council this morning, Monday 4 June and specifically with reference to the letter from [...]

The Alvin Ailey dance troupe performs from its signature Revelations

Listen for the subtle clicks of the eland bull's knees

This year marks the 100 year anniversary of Japan's gift of cherry blossoms to Washington, D.C.

From the stars moving across the night sky to clouds moving over snow-capped mountains, photographer John Eklund captures the beauty of the region

Read more at http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/aroundthemall/2008/12/music-of-the-tropics-balinese-drum-troupe-performs-at-the-sackler/ Bells and gongs are the sounds behind Gamelan music, which has different variants from one Indonesian island to the next.

Staff writer Abigail Tucker recounts the scene of a beach littered with horseshoe crabs and a sky filled with red knots. Read more at http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/Return-of-the-Sandpiper.html

The banana duct-taped to a wall was created to be a "reflection on what we value." An upcoming auction may deliver an answer

Hay River RCMP say they believe two weekend incidents, including one in which a person was shot, are linked to drugs and organized crime.