A small group of science teachers in Missouri is using the coronavirus as a teachable moment that's aligned to the Next Generation Science Standards.

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.

Districts are reconfiguring services, offering hazard pay, and partnering with food banks to keep up with a growing, unprecedented demand for food services during the school shutdown.

Holly Oakley
Oct 4, 2006; 26:10129-10140
Neurobiology of Disease

Rafael G. Almeida
Oct 18, 2017; 37:10023-10034
Viewpoints

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

Corey M. Ziemba
Oct 16, 2024; 44:e0349242024-e0349242024
Systems/Circuits

John M. Beggs
Dec 3, 2003; 23:11167-11177
BehavioralSystemsCognitive

Holly Oakley
Oct 4, 2006; 26:10129-10140
Neurobiology of Disease

Recent visual experience heavily influences our visual perception, but how neuronal activity is reshaped to alter and improve perceptual discrimination remains unknown. We recorded from populations of neurons in visual cortical area V4 while two male rhesus macaque monkeys performed a natural image change detection task under different experience conditions. We found that maximizing the recent experience with a particular image led to an improvement in the ability to detect a change in that image. This improvement was associated with decreased neural responses to the image, consistent with neuronal changes previously seen in studies of adaptation and expectation. We found that the magnitude of behavioral improvement was correlated with the magnitude of response suppression. Furthermore, this suppression of activity led to an increase in signal separation, providing evidence that a reduction in activity can improve stimulus encoding. Within populations of neurons, greater recent experience was associated with decreased trial-to-trial shared variability, indicating that a reduction in variability is a key means by which experience influences perception. Taken together, the results of our study contribute to an understanding of how recent visual experience can shape our perception and behavior through modulating activity patterns in the mid-level visual cortex.

Neuronal cytotoxic edema is implicated in neuronal injury and death, yet mitigating brain edema with osmotic and surgical interventions yields poor clinical outcomes. Importantly, neuronal swelling and its downstream consequences during early brain development remain poorly investigated, and new treatment approaches are needed. We explored Ca²⁺-dependent downstream effects after neuronal cytotoxic edema caused by diverse injuries in mice of both sexes using multiphoton Ca²⁺ imaging in vivo [Postnatal Day (P)12–17] and in acute brain slices (P8–12). After different excitotoxic insults, cytosolic GCaMP6s translocated into the nucleus after a few minutes in a subpopulation of neurons, persisting for hours. We used an automated morphology-detection algorithm to detect neuronal soma and quantified the nuclear translocation of GCaMP6s as the nuclear to cytosolic intensity (N/C ratio). Elevated neuronal N/C ratios occurred concurrently with persistent elevation in Ca²⁺ loads and could also occur independently from neuronal swelling. Electron microscopy revealed that the nuclear translocation was associated with the increased nuclear pore size. The nuclear accumulation of GCaMP6s in neurons led to neocortical circuit dysfunction, mitochondrial pathology, and increased cell death. Inhibiting calpains, a family of Ca²⁺-activated proteases, prevented elevated N/C ratios and neuronal swelling. In summary, in the developing brain, we identified a calpain-dependent alteration of nuclear transport in a subpopulation of neurons after disease-relevant insults leading to long-term circuit dysfunction and cell death. The nuclear translocation of GCaMP6 and other cytosolic proteins after acute excitotoxicity can be an early biomarker of brain injury in the developing brain.

The visual world is richly adorned with texture, which can serve to delineate important elements of natural scenes. In anesthetized macaque monkeys, selectivity for the statistical features of natural texture is weak in V1, but substantial in V2, suggesting that neuronal activity in V2 might directly support texture perception. To test this, we investigated the relation between single cell activity in macaque V1 and V2 and simultaneously measured behavioral judgments of texture. We generated stimuli along a continuum between naturalistic texture and phase-randomized noise and trained two macaque monkeys to judge whether a sample texture more closely resembled one or the other extreme. Analysis of responses revealed that individual V1 and V2 neurons carried much less information about texture naturalness than behavioral reports. However, the sensitivity of V2 neurons, especially those preferring naturalistic textures, was significantly closer to that of behavior compared with V1. The firing of both V1 and V2 neurons predicted perceptual choices in response to repeated presentations of the same ambiguous stimulus in one monkey, despite low individual neural sensitivity. However, neither population predicted choice in the second monkey. We conclude that neural responses supporting texture perception likely continue to develop downstream of V2. Further, combined with neural data recorded while the same two monkeys performed an orientation discrimination task, our results demonstrate that choice-correlated neural activity in early sensory cortex is unstable across observers and tasks, untethered from neuronal sensitivity, and therefore unlikely to directly reflect the formation of perceptual decisions.

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.

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.

A SpaceX mission arrived at the International Space Station with two astronauts instead of four to leave room for NASA astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore on the return trip in early 2025

NTE-SENER Uses SolidWorks Software to Design Sophisticated Research and Exercise System for NASA

Football, wrestling and competitive cheer pose a high risk for COVID-19 spread, while swimming and golf are at the low end of the risk scale developed by a national panel.

To help ease the transition to remote instruction, educators have launched virtual professional learning communities to share resources, ask questions, and give advice.

As schools plan for fall instruction, educators must take the opportunity to rework math instruction so it's equitable for all students, two math organizations said in a new paper.

Football, wrestling and competitive cheer pose a high risk for COVID-19 spread, while swimming and golf are at the low end of the risk scale developed by a national panel.

Amid a surge of coronavirus cases across the country, schools are suspending games, practices, and training and conditioning sessions after players or coaches tested positive.

Very carefully, experts say, while understanding that federal laws governing special education were not written with online education in mind.

The two national teachers' unions and other prominent groups are seeking $175 billion for state K-12 budgets, $13 billion in dedicated aid for special education, and more to help schools deal with the coronavirus.

Four science educators share their experiences adapting to online instruction, including through collaborative learning and the use of online labs.

Sixty posts—including commentaries, videos and infographics—are listed, with practical advice for teachers dealing with remote teaching now and in the future.

Keep it simple, keep it flexible, and keep the routine familiar are among the suggestions three educators give in assigning students work while distance learning.

What you say about the coronavirus depends on the child's developmental stage. Here are examples of the best age-appropriate language for discussing the pandemic.

NASA's Roman Space Telescope has successfully integrated the Roman Coronagraph, a vital step in detecting planets far beyond our solar system. This tool will help block starlight, enabling the telescope to capture faint planetary light. The coronagraph marks a significant advancement in exoplanet detection, allowing the telescope to observe planets 100 million times fainter than their stars. The mission will provide insights into dark energy, exoplanets, and more, paving the way for future observatories like the Habitable Worlds Observatory.

La División de Salud Pública (DPH) están alentando fuertemente a los que asistieron al evento del rodeo que no estaba permitido en el Rancho El en Bridgeville el 6 de septiembre 2020 a que se hagan la prueba del coronavirus lo más pronto posible en un lugar que le sea conveniente.

Announced greenfield projects into China plummeted in early 2020 with the US and Europe taking the lion's share of global foreign investment. 

China's coronavirus outbreak is having a seismic effect in Asia and beyond, writes Lawrence Yeo.

Wavteq's Henry Loewendahl discusses which sectors retain potential for foreign investment amid the current global crisis 

The pandemic is likely to hit the Middle East’s more fragile countries hardest.

The fallout from the pandemic looks set to stall trade and investment to Latin America.

Check here each week to keep up with the latest from John MacArthur's pulpit at Grace Community Church.

Check here each week to keep up with the latest from John MacArthur's pulpit at Grace Community Church.

La enseñanza bíblica en profundidad de John MacArthur lleva la verdad transformadora de la Palabra de Dios a millones de personas cada día.

La enseñanza bíblica en profundidad de John MacArthur lleva la verdad transformadora de la Palabra de Dios a millones de personas cada día.

Asteroids that regularly fly between Earth, Venus and Mars could provide radiation shielding for human missions to explore neighbouring planets

Feedback digs into a baffling ad for a mobile game and identifies a new and devilish way to advertise a product online: make it as confusing as possible to encourage people to click (it worked on Feedback)

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