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At least 775 records · Page 43Linked to original sources
PubMed2005

NMDA receptors mediate olfactory learning and memory in Drosophila.

BACKGROUND: Molecular and electrophysiological properties of NMDARs suggest that they may be the Hebbian "coincidence detectors" hypothesized to underlie associative learning. Because of the nonspecificity of drugs that modulate NMDAR function or the relatively chronic genetic manipulations of various NMDAR subunits from mammalian studies, conclusive evidence for such an acute role for NMDARs in adult behavioral plasticity, however, is lacking. Moreover, a role for NMDARs in memory consolidation remains controversial. RESULTS: The Drosophila genome encodes two NMDAR homologs, dNR1 and dNR2. When coexpressed in Xenopus oocytes or Drosophila S2 cells, dNR1 and dNR2 form functional NMDARs with several of the distinguishing molecular properties observed for vertebrate NMDARs, including voltage/Mg(2+)-dependent activation by glutamate. Both proteins are weakly expressed throughout the entire brain but show preferential expression in several neurons surrounding the dendritic region of the mushroom bodies. Hypomorphic mutations of the essential dNR1 gene disrupt olfactory learning, and this learning defect is rescued with wild-type transgenes. Importantly, we show that Pavlovian learning is disrupted in adults within 15 hr after transient induction of a dNR1 antisense RNA transgene. Extended training is sufficient to overcome this initial learning defect, but long-term memory (LTM) specifically is abolished under these training conditions. CONCLUSIONS: Our study uses a combination of molecular-genetic tools to (1) generate genomic mutations of the dNR1 gene, (2) rescue the accompanying learning deficit with a dNR1+ transgene, and (3) rapidly and transiently knockdown dNR1+ expression in adults, thereby demonstrating an evolutionarily conserved role for the acute involvement of NMDARs in associative learning and memory.

Amino Acid Sequence↗
PubMed1996

Self-determination instructional strategies for youth with learning disabilities.

The concept of self-determination is rapidly gaining attention and acceptance within the disability fields. The focus on self-determination is particularly strong in the transition-from-school-to-adulthood movement. The recent Individuals With Disabilities Education Act of 1990 mandated that students with disabilities be involved in the development of their transition plans and that students' preferences and interests be taken into account as transition plans are developed. This article describes four self-determination models and examines several instructional programs and strategies to promote self-determination in students with learning disabilities. Emerging issues in self-determination are examined, and the research and policy implications of these issues are discussed. These issues include (a) redefinition of roles, (b) the importance of taking risks, (c) individual versus group orientation for self-determination, and (d) the importance of early experiences.

Curriculum↗
PubMed2000

Conditionally immortal neuroepithelial stem cell grafts reverse age-associated memory impairments in rats.

In order to investigate the effects of stem cell grafts on water maze deficits in aged (22-month-old) rats, three groups of aged rats, assigned by pre-training latency scores to unimpaired, impaired control and impaired grafted groups, were compared with young (five-month-old) controls, six to eight weeks after implantation of cells from the conditionally immortal Maudsley hippocampal stem cell line, clone 36 (MHP36 stem cell line), in the cortex, striatum and hippocampus. Grafted rats were substantially superior to their matched impaired aged controls, and learned to find the platform as rapidly as unimpaired aged rats, although young controls were more efficient than all aged groups in several measures of spatial search during training. On the probe trial, however, aged rats with grafts showed significantly better recall of the precise position of the platform than any other group, including young controls, possibly indicating some perseveration. A further comparison found that groups of unimpaired and moderately impaired aged rats showed far less improvement from water maze pre-training to acquisition phases than young controls, indicative of progressive deficits over time. Histological investigation showed that beta-galactosidase-positive MHP36 cells migrated widely from the implantation sites to infiltrate the striatal matrix, all hippocampal fields and areas of the cortex. Grafted cells showed both astrocytic and neuronal morphologies, with cells of pyramidal and granular appearance in appropriate hippocampal strata.Taken together, these results indicate that neuroepithelial stem cell grafts extensively colonize the aged rat brain and substantially reverse progressive cognitive decline associated with ageing.

Aging↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Plasticity of the human auditory cortex induced by discrimination learning of non-native, mora-timed contrasts of the Japanese language.

In this magnetoencephalographic (MEG) study, we examined with high temporal resolution the traces of learning in the speech-dominant left-hemispheric auditory cortex as a function of newly trained mora-timing. In Japanese, the "mora" is a temporal unit that divides words into almost isochronous segments (e.g., na-ka-mu-ra and to-o-kyo-o each comprises four mora). Changes in the brain responses of a group of German and Japanese subjects to differences in the mora structure of Japanese words were compared. German subjects performed a discrimination training in 10 sessions of 1.5 h each day. They learned to discriminate Japanese pairs of words (in a consonant, anni-ani; and a vowel, kiyo-kyo, condition), where the second word was shortened by one mora in eight steps of 15 msec each. A significant increase in learning performance, as reflected by behavioral measures, was observed, accompanied by a significant increase of the amplitude of the Mismatch Negativity Field (MMF). The German subjects' hit rate for detecting durational deviants increased by up to 35%. Reaction times and MMF latencies decreased significantly across training sessions. Japanese subjects showed a more sensitive MMF to smaller differences. Thus, even in young adults, perceptual learning of non-native mora-timing occurs rapidly and deeply. The enhanced behavioral and neurophysiological sensitivity found after training indicates a strong relationship between learning and (plastic) changes in the cortical substrate.

Adult↗
PubMed2006

Collaborative partnerships for nursing faculties and health service providers: what can nursing learn from business literature?

Collaborative partnerships between nursing faculties and health service providers are the cornerstone of successful clinical experience for nursing students. The challenge of providing an optimal learning environment can be enormous given the turbulent and rapidly changing environment in health. The present study uses the business literature to examine what nursing can learn from business about the development of successful collaborative partnerships. The characteristics of sound partnerships are described and a set of best practice guidelines is developed. The guidelines summarize the factors considered to be essential for the effective development of collaborative partnerships. In these times of nursing shortages and high turnover high quality, collaborative partnerships between nursing faculties and the health care sector are seen as a possible solution to optimize clinical learning and therefore graduate preparedness.

Attitude of Health Personnel↗
PubMed2002

[Distance learning in postgraduate training of professionals. Example of occupational medicine specialization].

The rapid development of science, technology, economy and the society has one along with the wide recognition of lifelong education and learning society concepts. Scientific centres worldwide conduct research how the access to the information and multimedia technology could bring about positive changes in our lives including improvement in education and the learning environment. Mankind development in conformity with social progress and sustainable development faces a new educational concept of learning society and open education in the information age, supported with multimedia and data processing technology. Constrains in resources availability for broadening the access to education had led to search for alternative, more time and cost-effective systems of education. One of them is distance learning, applied with success in many countries. The benefits of distance learning are well proven and can be extended to occupational medicine. Major advantages include: the integration of studies with work experience, flexibility, allowing studies to be matched to work requirements, perceived work and leisure timing, continuity of career progression. Likewise is in Poland this form of education becomes more and more popular. The distance education systems have been seen as an investment in human resource development. The vast variety of courses and educational stages makes possible the modern method of knowledge to be easily accessible. Experience of the School of Public Health in Łódź in distance learning had shown remarkable benefits of the method with comparable quality of intramural and distance learning in respect of the knowledge and experience gained by students.

Clinical Competence↗
PubMed1989

Investigations of learning processes in infants.

This brief review has covered three major areas: what kinds of information can infants encode in the first 6 to 9 months and what methods are available to measure their responses; the status of memory functions in infancy; and current models of synaptogenesis, a process likely underlying the emerging cognitive processes during infancy. We can conclude that infants are capable of learning even from the first hours after birth and show a rapid increase in their capacity to recall information and use it for further learning. Furthermore, neurobiologic models of development are beginning to define a more detailed picture of crucial phases in the first months for learning processes. There are four notable omissions in the above points and in the material covered in this review. Mentioning these in this summary serves to caution the reader that there is much more to consider, and to point to other active areas of investigation of infants' cognitive capacities. These points also serve as a partial response to the questions asked in the beginning of the paper about how far we have yet to go in our understanding of infants' learning and about what may be the observational blind spots for our generation of infancy investigators. First, we have not discussed what drives learning--why infants seek actively to acquire information and seem motivated to retain that information for later use? Lipsitt points out that much of early infant behavior is based on positive and negative responses to diverse stimuli of varying degrees of attractiveness, and that the "hedonic overtones," or the amount of pleasure, involved in a stimulus situation, certainly contribute to the infant's response. Until recently, studies of social and affective development have been essentially separate from studies of cognition. Currently, the field of "social cognition" symbolizes the link between studies of basic cognitive processes and social development.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)

Animals↗
PubMed1996

Taste aversion learning in fyn mutant mice.

Conditioned taste aversion (CTA) learning is a robust form of classical conditioning in which animals rapidly associate a flavor with aversive internal symptoms. The present study assessed CTA learning in transgenic mice deficient in a specific nonreceptor tyrosine kinase (the fyn mutant). Fyn mutants show impaired long-term potentiation and marked deficits in acquisition of spatial learning tasks. To assess whether they are also impaired in CTA learning, fyn mutant and wild-type mice received 2 conditioning trials consisting of access to a flavored solution followed by administration of LiCl. Fyn mutant mice acquired significant CTAs following a single conditioning trial and these aversions were comparable to those seen in wild-type mice. These results indicate that the fyn mutation does not interfere with the acquisition of CTAs and hence that this mutation is not associated with a global learning deficit.

Animals↗
PubMed1997

Offspring-induced nurturance: animal-human parallels.

Offspring provide mothers with stimuli that impel their own nurturance. In rats, distal sensory stimuli from pups--sight, sound, odor--contribute to contact-seeking, whereas tactile stimuli from pups to dam's snout and ventrum elicit essential maternal behavioral reflexes involved in retrieval, licking, and the quiescent, upright nursing posture (kyphosis). Brain sites involved with maternal behavior--assessed by lesions, immunocytochemical visualization of gene activity, and neurophysiological mapping--include the midbrain central gray, medial preoptic nucleus, limbic system, and somatosensory cortex; these may change with experience. Human mothers inadvertently learn to identify their own baby rapidly after birth and can do so via a single sensory modality. Subsequently maternal responsiveness and gratification are impaired by inappropriate, insufficient, or nonreciprocal interactions such as occurs when the baby cries excessively, is blind, deaf, or autistic. Thus, maternal behavior characterized by elicited responses and emotional reactions to stimuli from offspring may be evolutionarily conserved.

Adult↗
PubMed2006

Delivery of chemotherapy and antibodies across the blood-brain barrier and the role of chemoprotection, in primary and metastatic brain tumors: report of the Eleventh Annual Blood-Brain Barrier Consortium meeting.

Although knowledge of molecular biology and cellular physiology has advanced at a rapid pace, much remains to be learned about delivering chemotherapy and antibodies across the blood-brain barrier (BBB) for the diagnosis and treatment of central nervous system (CNS) disease. A meeting, partially funded by an NIH R13 grant, was convened to discuss the state of the science, current knowledge gaps, and future directions in the delivery of drugs and proteins to the CNS, for the treatment of primary and metastatic brain tumors. Meeting topics included CNS metastases and the BBB, and chemoprotection and chemoenhancement in CNS disorders. The discussions regarding CNS metastases generated possibilities of chemoprotection as a means not only to decrease treatment-related toxicity but also to increase chemotherapy dose intensity. The increasing incidence of sanctuary brain metastasis from breast cancer, in part due to the difficulty of monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) such as herceptin to cross the BBB, was one of the most salient "take home" messages of the meeting.

Animals↗
PubMed1986

Methods for measuring the strength of discriminable drug effects.

Drug discriminations can be used to investigate a variety of preclinical psychopharmacological issues. These discriminations are based on the so-called "discriminable" or "discriminative stimulus" effects of drugs. In order to conduct some types of drug discrimination studies, it is helpful or necessary to know the amount or degree of discriminability of the various drugs employed. This paper describes several methods for determining the degree of discriminability of drugs, and evaluates these methods primarily using data obtained by training rats to discriminate drug vs. no drug in a shock-escape T-maze task. The results suggest that useful indices of degree of discriminability can be computed from the rapidity with which drug discriminations are learned. Indices based on average accuracy during acquisition were found to be somewhat superior to indices based on sessions to criterion.

Animals↗
PubMed1996

Sleep states, memory processes and synaptic plasticity.

There is now a substantial body of data to suggest a relationship between sleep states, particularly paradoxical sleep (PS) or rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, and learning. In animal studies, PS increases have been observed following acquisition in formal tasks and following exposure to enriched environments (EE). Further, PS deprivation at certain post-training times is known to impair memory for recently acquired tasks. PS deprivation following EE exposure has been reported to impair the neural changes normally observed. It is argued that the prolonged PS increases observed following either formal training or EE exposure reflect the same kinds of neural change. It is proposed that accelerated neural plasticity takes place during elevated post-training PS and is especially vulnerable to disruption at specific post-training time periods called PS windows. Further, it is proposed that similar processes take place in the post-training sleep of humans.

Animals↗
PubMed1993

The focused use of posters for graduate education in the complex technological nursing environment.

Posters are increasingly recognised as both a method of professional communication and a strategy for learning and assessment in nurse education. Rapid technological developments in health care and the nursing practice environment are generating specific educational needs in relation to the use of technology. There is a move to incorporate within the traditional rational technical focus a broader, more comprehensive understanding of technology, technological equipment and procedures. Technological innovations are an ideal subject matter for poster presentations at the graduate level particularly as broader dimensions such as the impetus for introduction, the research base, the evaluation strategy and the cost can be incorporated. Each poster can become a teaching focus for a student presentation to classmates or other professional forums in order to catalyse discussions of these wider dimensions. A description of the use of posters for these purposes with examples and comments by participants is included.

Audiovisual Aids↗
PubMed2006

Comparison of laparoscopic and open partial nephrectomy for duplication anomalies in children.

PURPOSE: We compared the outcome of laparoscopic vs open PN for duplication anomalies at our institution. MATERIALS AND METHODS: We retrospectively reviewed the records of all patients undergoing PN within the last 4 years. RESULTS: A total of 34 patients (16 females) were divided into 2 groups. Group 1 consisted of 20 patients undergoing open PN between 2000 and 2003, and group 2 consisted of 14 patients undergoing laparoscopic PN between 2003 and 2004. Mean patient age was 21 months in group 1 and 18 months in group 2. Diagnosis was ectopic ureter in 18 patients, ureterocele in 11, VUR in 4 and ureteropelvic junction obstruction in 1. Cystoscopy was performed as part of the procedure in 30% of the patients in group 1 and 100% of those in group 2. Simultaneous lower tract procedures were performed in 3 patients in group 1 and 2 patients in group 2. Mean duration of PN was 115 minutes for group 1 and 180 minutes for group 2. There was no significant bleeding or need for transfusion except in 1 patient in the open group. Median hospitalization was 3 days for group 1 and 2 days for group 2. Mean analgesic requirement was 2.3 doses of opioids and 2 doses of ketorolac for group 1, and 3.2 doses of opioids for group 2. Acetaminophen only was used in 3 of 20 patients in group 1 and 5 of 14 in group 2. There were 2 complications in each group, namely 1 case of ureteral bleeding and 1 lower pole ureteral injury in group 1, and 1 omental hernia and 1 urinoma in group 2. CONCLUSIONS: Laparoscopic PN is feasible even in small infants, and the results are comparable to the open procedure. Length of hospitalization was shorter in the laparoscopic group. In our series the learning curve for this technique was rapid, and after a few cases the procedure could be done in the same time as open surgery, with the advantages offered by laparoscopy.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2005

Preventing chronic diseases in China.

Chronic diseases now account for an estimated 80% of deaths and 70% of disability-adjusted life-years lost in China. Cardiovascular diseases and cancer are the leading causes of both death and the burden of disease, and exposure to risk factors is high: more than 300 million men smoke cigarettes and 160 million adults are hypertensive, most of whom are not being treated. An obesity epidemic is imminent, with more than 20% of children aged 7-17 years in big cities now overweight or obese. The government of the People's Republic of China must confront these major challenges. The national cancer prevention and control plan (2004-10) is being implemented, and a national chronic disease prevention and control plan is due to be completed this year. Encouraging progress has been made in some areas, with current smoking prevalence in men declining at about 1% per year for a decade, and even better results in large demonstration programmes. Much remains to be done, and resources and sustainability are major issues. However, the surveillance and intervention mechanisms needed to ameliorate the increasing burden of chronic diseases are developing rapidly, taking account of the lessons learned over the past two decades.

Adolescent↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Extending microswitch-based programs for people with multiple disabilities: use of words and choice opportunities.

This study assessed a microswitch-based program in which three request and one choice microswitches were used for two participants with multiple disabilities. The program was then transferred into the participants' daily contexts. Each request microswitch was linked to different stimulation opportunities. Every activation of the microswitch triggered the verbal announcement of one such opportunity that the participant could choose or bypass. The request microswitches were introduced individually and then combined. During the last part of the intervention and the post-intervention checks, all three request microswitches plus the choice microswitch were simultaneously available. Both participants learned to use the microswitches very rapidly. Responding levels were high during intervention and the post-intervention checks carried out in the participants' daily contexts. Implications of the findings for advanced microswitch-based programs and vocal recognition technology are discussed.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1995

Cytoplasmic mRNA-protein interactions in eukaryotic gene expression.

Post-transcriptional mechanisms contribute in many important ways to the overall control and regulation of gene expression, and in doing so employ a veritable army of proteins that bind a wide range of targets in messenger RNA (mRNA). The full range of these RNA-protein interactions is only just beginning to emerge, and much remains to be learned about the mechanisms underlying the rapidly increasing number of regulatory systems now being described.

Animals↗
PubMed2006

Using a virtual breakthrough series collaborative to improve access in primary care.

BACKGROUND: The Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) pioneered the Breakthrough Series (BTS), a short-term improvement project that convenes, in three face-to-face meetings, hospital or clinic teams to make rapid, significant improvement. A distance-learning (virtual) version of the BTS-a VBTS-was conducted. METHODS: A model VBTS was tested with 20 organizations, using a well-established topic: improving access and efficiency in primary care. This VBTS took place by Internet and telephone, using Web-based collaboration software and audioconferencing. RESULTS: For the 17 organizations completing the VBTS, the average number of days to third-next-available appointment fell from 23 to 10 days (July 2004-June 2005). The Improvement Assessment Scale showed 59% of teams at level 4 or above ("significant" improvement, with most changes implemented, and evidence of sustained improvement in outcomes and plans for spread). Potential direct cost savings were about $12,000 as compared with a traditional collaborative. Six months after the VBTS's conclusion, 70% of the teams that achieved significant improvement either maintained gains or improved their results. DISCUSSION: Outcomes in a VBTS are potentially comparable to those in a traditional collaborative, at substantially lower cost. Prerequisites for success include senior leadership's involvement, team members' ability to participate, and information technology support.

Appointments and Schedules↗