Building Community and Developing Professionally through FUN Final Friday Sessions.

FUN Final Fridays (FFFs) are a professional development effort resulting from a pandemic-inspired virtual pedagogical meeting. Over the past three academic years, Faculty for Undergraduate Neuroscience (FUN) has hosted FFFs as monthly professional development sessions. These sessions offer a mechanism to address current issues in higher education with emphasis on topics relevant to neuroscience educators.

retinal ganglion cell axon extension is unaffected by 5-HT receptor activation during visual system development.

Activating 5-HT receptors with the agonist Zolmitriptan was previously shown to facilitate retinal ganglion cell (RGC) axon extension from ectopic eye primordia transplanted to the ventral fin. To determine if 5-HT receptor activation influenced entopic RGC axonal outgrowth toward the optic tectum during typical visual system development, we reared embryos in 50 μΜ Zolmitriptan then visualized optic tracts with anterograde HRP labeling. Zolmitriptan did not significantly alter entopic RGC extension in the contralateral brain.

Developmental exposure to the pesticide malathion enhances expression of Prdm12, a regulator of nociceptor development, in .

The transcription factor Prdm12 exerts important influences on the development of nociceptors, peripheral touch and pain-sensing neurons, and has been implicated in human pain sensation disorders. We examined the consequences of exposing developing embryos to the commonly used pesticide malathion on Prdm12 expression. Using qPCR and western blot analysis we observed that malathion treatment for the first six days of tadpole development significantly increased both mRNA levels and Prdm12 protein levels compared to controls.

Integrating Research into the Undergraduate Curriculum: 3. Research Training in the Upper-level Neuroscience Curriculum.

The benefits of undergraduate training in research are significant. Integration of such training into the undergraduate experience, however, can be challenging at institutions without extensive research programs, and may inadvertently exclude some populations of students. Therefore, inclusion of research into the academic curriculum ensures all students can access this important training.

Integrating Research into the Undergraduate Curriculum: 2. Scaffolding Research Skills and Transitioning toward Independent Research.

Undergraduate research experiences are widely regarded as high-impact practices that foster meaningful mentoring relationships, enhance retention and graduation, and stimulate postbaccalaureate enrollment in STEM graduate and professional programs. Through immersion in a mentored original research project, student develop and apply their skills in critical thinking, problem solving, intellectual independence, communication, collaboration, project ownership, innovation, and leadership. These skills are readily transferable to a wide array of future careers in and beyond STEM that are well-served by evidence-based approaches.

Integrating Research into the Undergraduate Curriculum: 1. Early Research Experiences and Training.

Undergraduate research experiences have emerged as some of the most beneficial high-impact practices in education, providing clear benefits to students that include improved critical thinking and scientific reasoning, increased academic performance, and enhanced retention both within STEM majors and in college overall. These benefits extend to faculty members as well. Several disciplines, including neuroscience, have implemented research as part of their curriculum, yet many research opportunities target late stage undergraduates, despite evidence that early engagement can maximize the beneficial nature of such work.

Student-led Recaps and Retrieval Practice: A Simple Classroom Activity Emphasizing Effective Learning Strategies.

It is imperative that college and university faculty members continue to collaborate to develop and assess innovative teaching methods that effectively encourage learning for all undergraduates, particularly in STEM. Here we describe a simple student-led classroom technique, recap and retrieval practice (R&RP), that we, as two instructors at different institutions, collaboratively implemented in three upper-level STEM courses. R&RP sessions are short, student-led reviews of previous course material that feature student voices prominently at the start of every class period.

The effects of chronic and acute physical activity on working memory performance in healthy participants: a systematic review with meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials.

Background: Understanding how physical activity (PA) influences cognitive function in populations with cognitive impairments, such as dementia, is an increasingly studied topic yielding numerous published systematic reviews. In contrast, however, there appears to be less interest in examining associations between PA and cognition in cognitively healthy individuals. Therefore, the objective of this review was to evaluate and synthesize randomized controlled trial (RCT) studies that investigated the effects of both chronic and acute PA on working memory performance (WMP) in physically and cognitively healthy individuals.

Proposed Training to Meet Challenges of Large-Scale Data in Neuroscience.

The scale of data being produced in neuroscience at present and in the future creates new and unheralded challenges, outstripping conventional ways of handling, considering, and analyzing data. As neuroinformatics enters into this big data era, a need for a highly trained and perhaps unique workforce is emerging. To determine the staffing needs created by the impending era of big data, a workshop (iNeuro Project) was convened November 13-14, 2014.

An Instructor's Guide to (Some of) the Most Amazing Papers in Neuroscience.

Although textbooks are still assigned in many undergraduate science courses, it is now not uncommon, even in some of the earliest courses in the curriculum, to supplement texts with primary source readings from the scientific literature. Not only does reading these articles help students develop an understanding of specific course content, it also helps foster an ability to engage with the discipline the way its practitioners do. One challenge with this approach, however, is that it can be difficult for instructors to select appropriate readings on topics outside of their areas of expertise as would be required in a survey course, for example.

In Situ Teaching: Fusing Labs & Lectures in Undergraduate Science Courses to Enhance Immersion in Scientific Research.

Undergraduate courses in the life sciences at most colleges and universities are traditionally composed of two or three weekly sessions in a classroom supplemented with a weekly three-hour session in a laboratory. We have found that many undergraduates can have difficulty making connections and/or transferring knowledge between lab activities and lecture material. Consequently, we are actively developing ways to decrease the physical and intellectual divides between lecture and lab to help students make more direct links between what they learn in the classroom and what they learn in the lab.

Slitrk gene duplication and expression in the developing zebrafish nervous system.

Background: The Slitrk family of leucine-rich repeat (LRR) transmembrane proteins bears structural similarity to the Slits and the Trk receptor families, which exert well-established roles in directing nervous system development. Slitrks are less well understood, although they are highly expressed in the developing vertebrate nervous system. Moreover, slitrk variants are associated with several sensory and neuropsychiatric disorders, including myopia, deafness, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), schizophrenia, and Tourette syndrome.

Classroom Activities: Simple Strategies to Incorporate Student-Centered Activities within Undergraduate Science Lectures.

The traditional science lecture, where an instructor delivers a carefully crafted monolog to a large audience of students who passively receive the information, has been a popular mode of instruction for centuries. Recent evidence on the science of teaching and learning indicates that learner-centered, active teaching strategies can be more effective learning tools than traditional lectures. Yet most colleges and universities retain lectures as their central instructional method.

A mechanism for multidisciplinary dialogue: the memory & … series.

Neuroscientists have long explored the mechanisms of memory from molecular, physiological, cognitive, and social perspectives. Scholars from other disciplines such as history, sociology, literature, and cultural studies, that do not traditionally cross-pollinate ideas with neuroscientists, also study memory from a variety of angles. In this article, we describe the founding of a multidisciplinary discussion series in which faculty and staff from the arts, humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences come together to explain how memory is integral to their scholarship and teaching.

The Xenopus retinal ganglion cell as a model neuron to study the establishment of neuronal connectivity.

Neurons receive inputs through their multiple branched dendrites and pass this information on to the next neuron via long axons, which branch within the target. The shape the neuron acquires is thus the key to its proper functioning in the neural circuit in which it participates. Both axons and dendrites grow in a directed fashion to their target partner neurons by responding to a large number of molecular cues in the milieu through which they extend.

SYNAPSE, Symposium for Young Neuroscientists and Professors of the Southeast: A One-day, Regional Neuroscience Meeting Focusing on Undergraduate Research.

The Symposium for Young Neuroscientists and Professors of the Southeast (SYNAPSE; synapse.cofc.edu) was designed to encourage contacts among faculty and students interested in neuroscience.

The journal of undergraduate neuroscience education: history, challenges, and future developments.

The 'JUNE and You' sessions presented at the July 2008 Undergraduate Neuroscience Education workshop, sponsored jointly by Faculty for Undergraduate Neuroscience (FUN) and Project Kaleidoscope (PKAL), featured background information about the history and mission of the Journal of Undergraduate Neuroscience Education (JUNE), followed by an informative discussion about the challenges facing JUNE, including new ideas for future developments. This article will highlight some of the information and ideas generated and shared at this conference. Critical discussion points included the need to keep members of FUN actively engaged in submitting and reviewing articles for JUNE.

Online protocol annotation: a method to enhance undergraduate laboratory research skills.

A well-constructed, step-by-step protocol is a critical starting point for teaching undergraduates new techniques, an important record of a lab's standard procedures, and a useful mechanism for sharing techniques between labs. Many research labs use websites to archive and share their protocols for these purposes. Here we describe our experiences developing and using a protocol website for the additional purpose of enhancing undergraduate research training.

More than a picture: helping undergraduates learn to communicate through scientific images.

Images are powerful means of communicating scientific results; a strong image can underscore an experimental result more effectively than any words, whereas a poor image can readily undermine a result or conclusion. Developmental biologists rely extensively on images to compare normal versus abnormal development and communicate their results. Most undergraduate lab science courses do not actively teach students skills to communicate effectively through images.

A simple e-mail mechanism to enhance reflection, independence, and communication in young researchers.

Providing undergraduates with mentored research experiences is a critical component of contemporary undergraduate science education. Although the benefits of undergraduate research experiences are apparent, the methods for mentoring young scientists as they first begin navigating the research lab environment are reinvented in labs all over the world. Students come to research labs with varied skills, motivations, needs, and dispositions, placing each student and mentor in a unique relationship.

The pesticide malathion reduces survival and growth in developing zebrafish.

Malathion is an organophosphorous pesticide widely used to control mosquitoes in urban areas and pests, such as boll weevils, in agricultural areas. Zebrafish, Danio rerio, are model organisms for developmental toxicology research because they are readily available, produce large numbers of clear embryos, and are sensitive to environmental changes. The nonlethal effects of malathion on developing zebrafish embryos, however, previously have not been analyzed quantitatively.

Neurotrophic regulation of retinal ganglion cell synaptic connectivity: from axons and dendrites to synapses.

This review highlights important events during the morphological development of retinal ganglion cells (RGCs), focusing on mechanisms that control axon and dendritic arborization as a means to understand synaptic connectivity with special emphasis on the role of neurotrophins during structural and functional development of RGCs. Neurotrophins and their receptors participate in the development of visual connectivity at multiple levels. In the visual system, neurotrophins have been shown to exert various developmental influences, from guiding the morphological differentiation of neurons to controlling the functional plasticity of visual circuits.