A collection of stories you may have missed.

While the Lady Vols volunteered at the Girls Inc. basketball clinic, they reminded Nicky Anosike of her own Tennessee teammates

Tennessee soccer earned an NCAA Tournament berth for the fourth straight season and will face No. 7 seed Virginia Tech in the first round Friday

Lady Vols basketball relied on its best 3-point shooting night of the season to close out a win over Middle Tennessee State on Tuesday

Tallahassee, FL - The South Georgia Technical College Lady Jets dropped a hard fought three-point loss, 50 – 47, to the nationally ranked Eastern Florida State College Titans before rallying to a 66 – 60 victory over Tallahassee State College in the Tallahassee Community College Classic this weekend to move to 3 – 1 on the season. “We put ourselves in a position to beat a very talented team ...

Marloes J. A. G. Henckens
Aug 12, 2009; 29:10111-10119
BehavioralSystemsCognitive

Mahsa Altafi
Oct 23, 2024; 44:e0518242024-e0518242024
Systems/Circuits

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.

Neural circuits supporting innate behaviors, such as feeding, exploration, and social interaction, intermingle in the lateral hypothalamus (LH). Although previous studies have shown that individual LH neurons change their firing relative to the baseline during one or more behaviors, the firing rate dynamics of LH populations within behavioral episodes and the coordination of behavior-related LH populations remain largely unknown. Here, using unsupervised graph-based clustering of LH neurons firing rate dynamics in freely behaving male mice, we identified distinct populations of cells whose activity corresponds to feeding, specific times during feeding bouts, or other innate behaviors—social interaction and novel object exploration. Feeding-related cells fired together with a higher probability during slow and fast gamma oscillations (30–60 and 60–90 Hz) than during nonrhythmic epochs. In contrast, the cofiring of neurons signaling other behaviors than feeding was overall similar between slow gamma and nonrhythmic epochs but increased during fast gamma oscillations. These results reveal a neural organization of ethological hierarchies in the LH and point to behavior-specific motivational systems, the dysfunction of which may contribute to mental disorders.

Large-scale genome-wide association studies (GWASs) have associated intronic variants in PDE4B, encoding cAMP-specific phosphodiesterase-4B (PDE4B), with increased risk for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), as well as schizophrenia and substance use disorders that are often comorbid with it. However, the pathophysiological mechanisms of genetic risk involving PDE4B are poorly understood. To examine the effects of PDE4B variation on phenotypes with translational relevance to psychiatric disorders, we focused on PDE4B missense variant M220T, which is present in the human genome as rare coding variant rs775201287. When expressed in HEK-293 cells, PDE4B1-M220T exhibited an attenuated response to a forskolin-elicited increase in the intracellular cAMP concentration. In behavioral tests, homozygous Pde4b^M220T male mice with a C57BL/6JJcl background exhibited increased reactivity to novel environments, startle hyperreactivity, prepulse inhibition deficits, altered cued fear conditioning, and enhanced spatial memory, accompanied by an increase in cAMP signaling pathway-regulated expression of BDNF in the hippocampus. In response to a traumatic event (10 tone–shock pairings), neuronal activity was decreased in the cortex but enhanced in the amygdala and hippocampus of Pde4b^M220T mice. At 24 h post-trauma, Pde4b^M220T mice exhibited increased startle hyperreactivity and decreased plasma corticosterone levels, similar to phenotypes exhibited by PTSD patients. Trauma-exposed Pde4b^M220T mice also exhibited a slower decay in freezing at 15 and 30 d post-trauma, demonstrating enhanced persistence of traumatic memories, similar to that exhibited by PTSD patients. These findings provide substantive mouse model evidence linking PDE4B variation to PTSD-relevant phenotypes and thus highlight how genetic variation of PDE4B may contribute to PTSD risk.

Further to Council-endorsed adjustments to the 2016-17 Programme of Work and Budget (PWB) made in 2015, an assessment of the technical capacity of the Organization by a team of independent [...]

World Food Day is coming up this Monday, October 16. This year’s theme, Change the future of migration. Invest in food security and rural development, highlights FAO’s work in [...]

Click here to access the presentation by QU Dongyu.

Tod Machover, an MIT professor whose classroom produced Guitar Hero and Rock Band, talks about a future in which everyone can make music

More on Kathleen Turner and her show at Arena Stage: http://j.mp/T0IkkZ Before taking the stage in "Red Hot Patriot: The Kick-Ass Wit of Molly Ivins," Academy Award nominee Kathleen Turner discusses the woman who inspired the show.

Marine biologist Nancy Knowlton discusses a research trip to the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, in Panama, where she and her collaborators collected data on coral reef populations. Reef sustainability is closely tied to coral reproduction. Then director of the Center for Marine Biodiversity and Conservation at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, Knowlton, who has since been hired to lead the Smithsonian's Ocean Initiative, has reservations about the long-term future of corals

In July 1925, a young science teacher named John Scopes was in court, accused of contravening the Butler Act—a Tennessee law that prohibited the teaching of evolution in schools.

"Le Lyonnais" descended into the depths off the coast of Massachusetts after colliding with the "Adriatic," a sailing vessel that left the floundering steamship to fend for itself

A new exhibition in New York celebrates Berthe Weill, an often overlooked but visionary figure who jumpstarted the careers of many of modern art's giants

A new exhibition spotlights the Spanish artist's printmaking talents, which he began honing in his 20s. In the decades that followed, he produced thousands of breathtaking creations

The species may have been carried to the Sacramento–San Joaquin Delta in ballast water on ships

The technique of visualizing axon pathways in the embryonic ventral nerve cord using antibody labeling has been fundamental to our understanding of the genetic and developmental mechanisms underlying nervous system wiring in Drosophila. High-resolution microscopic examination of the ventral nerve cord remains an essential component of many experiments in Drosophila developmental neuroscience. Although it is possible to examine the ventral nerve cord in intact whole-mount embryos, to collect the highest-quality images it is often useful to isolate the nervous system away from the other embryonic tissues through embryo dissection. This protocol describes methods for dissecting ventral nerve cords from Drosophila embryos that have been fixed and stained via immunofluorescence or horseradish peroxidase (HRP) immunohistochemistry. The process of making fine dissection needles for this purpose from electrolytically sharpened tungsten wire is also described. Dissected and mounted ventral nerve cords can be examined and imaged using a variety of microscopy techniques including differential interference contrast (DIC) optics, epifluorescence, or confocal microscopy.

Buenos Aires, Argentinen :: Die Mannschaft der Logos Hope zeigt mit Jugend mit einer Mission alten Menschen Gottes Liebe

In einer Kleinstadt im Kaukasus finden Kinder neue Hoffnung.

A 15-year-old from Kitchener, Ont., faces 29 charges in connection to a line of swatting calls between May and October 2024, police announced Monday. The charges come after officers investigated calls made threats to schools, businesses, public areas and residences but all turned out to be false.

Israeli airstrikes have killed at least 46 people in the Gaza Strip over the past 24 hours — including 11 in an Israeli-declared humanitarian zone, medics said — as the country missed a deadline set by Washington to allow more humanitarian aid into the Palestinian enclave. 

After Canada Post workers gave a 72-hour notice to strike early Tuesday, some Calgary business owners are worried about what this means for holiday season sales. 

North American door control system leader's engineering work is critical for passenger safety

Customers highlight ability to see flow of gasses, liquids, and heat helps designers anticipate and correct flaws early in the design process

Longtime U.K. office furniture maker streamlines custom, quality product development

New 3D CAD software increases productivity, quality, and efficiency

The U.K. 's No. 1 water utility uses 3D CAD software to achieve right-first-time design

Zhejiang Sanhua Co., Ltd. Purchases 160-Plus Seats of CAD, Simulation, and Product Data Management Software

SOLIDWORKS Helps Companies Automate Documentation, Analysis, and Data Management for Compliance

Fast Deployment Makes it Easy to Focus on Core Business Rather Than Managing Technology

3D ContentCentral Community Reaches 1 Million Users; Launch of MySolidWorks, a New Free Service that Aggregates Community Knowledge

The Freedom Climbers remain encouraged through increasing altitudes and dropping temperatures as they continue upward to Mt. Everest Base Camp and Kala Patthar Peak.

Even a simple thing like baking Christmas cookies can lead to an opportunity for sharing the gospel message.

A team from Freedom Climb visits a project of OM Guatemala and is a huge blessing to the team and the families involved.

OM Ships partners with Christian ministries and celebrates four years of service for Logos Hope.

Ministering in a country at war is not fun – but a privilege. Ukraine is going through intense emotions and people are open to Kingdom conversations.

Turning organic waste into bio-fuel and French-fry oil into bio-diesel; all these are innovative ways of building sustainable income for the church in Kaharlyk.

OM MTI shares the love of Jesus and empowers children and families in Cambodia through English classes that prepare students for future employment.

At first glance, it could seem that teenagers just really, really hate high school. But Yale researchers found deeper student engagement issues.

U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos recently spoke at Council of the Great City Schools annual legislative and policy conference in Washington, D.C. Here are some of her remarks.

With schools unable to conduct in-person evaluations, schools must find new ways to determine if students need English-language-learner support services.

When some students are online and others in school buildings, how can teachers make sure everyone is learning what they need to learn?

Smaller classes could help bridge the gap between home and school, writes former teacher Marc Vincenti.

A collection of news stories from this week.

An Illinois judge has dismissed the nation's first class-action lawsuit against a state high school association over its handling of concussions, ruling that it had made strides in that regard since the filing of the lawsuit.