Peer tutoring of computer programming increases exploratory behavior in children.

There is growing interest in teaching computer science and programming skills in schools. Here we investigated the efficacy of peer tutoring, which is known to be a useful educational resource in other domains but never before has been examined in such a core aspect of applied logical thinking in children. We compared (a) how children (N = 42, age range = 7 years 1 month to 8 years 4 months) learn computer programming from an adult versus learning from a peer and (b) the effect of teaching a peer versus simply revising what has been learned.

Learning-by-Teaching Approach Improves Dengue Knowledge in Children and Parents.

There is narrow evidence on which strategies are most effective for disseminating information on dengue prevention. This is particularly relevant because social habits have a great prevention capacity for dengue. We investigated how effective are children as health educators, and how much they learn as they teach.

Social interaction and conceptual change pave the way away from children's misconceptions about the Earth.

Throughout development, children undergo moments of abrupt conceptual transitions, often replacing intuitive knowledge with grounded scientific theories. This typically also creates a situation of social conflict, as different children may hold at the same time substantially different theories and explanations about the same phenomenon. The main objective of this work is to understand whether social interaction and exchange of arguments and reasoning may be a catalyzer for conceptual development.

Language, gesture, and judgment: Children's paths to abstract geometry.

As infants, children are sensitive to geometry when recognizing objects or navigating through rooms; however, explicit knowledge of geometry develops slowly and may be unstable even in adults. How can geometric concepts be both so accessible and so elusive? To examine how implicit and explicit geometric concepts develop, the current study assessed, in 132 children (3-8 years old) while they played a simple geometric judgment task, three distinctive channels: children's choices during the game as well as the language and gestures they used to justify and accompany their choices. Results showed that, for certain geometric properties, children chose the correct card even if they could not express with words (or gestures) why they had made this choice.

Neglect in human communication: quantifying the cost of cell-phone interruptions in face to face dialogs.

There is a prevailing belief that interruptions using cellular phones during face to face interactions may affect severely how people relate and perceive each other. We set out to determine this cost quantitatively through an experiment performed in dyads, in a large audience in a TEDx event. One of the two participants (the speaker) narrates a story vividly.

Quercetin antagonism of GABAAρ₁ receptors is prevented by ascorbic acid through a redox-independent mechanism.

Quercetin is a natural flavonoid widely distributed in plants that acts as a neuroprotective agent and modulates the activity of different synaptic receptors and ion channels, including the ionotropic GABA receptors. GABA(Aρ₁) receptors were shown to be antagonized by quercetin, but the mechanisms underlying these antagonistic actions are still unknown. We have analyzed here if the antagonistic action produced by quercetin on GABA(Aρ₁) receptors was related to its redox activity or due to alternative mechanism/s.

Age and gender dependent development of Theory of Mind in 6- to 8-years old children.

The ability to attribute different mental states to distinct individuals, or Theory of Mind (ToM), is widely believed to be developed mostly during preschool years. How different factors such as gender, number of siblings, or coarse personality traits affect this development is not entirely agreed upon. Here, we introduce a computerized version of the scaled ToM suite of tasks introduced by Wellman and Liu (2004), which allows us to meaningfully test ToM development on children 6 to 8-years old.

Allosteric modulation of retinal GABA receptors by ascorbic acid.

Ionotropic GABA receptors (GABA(A) and GABA(C)) belong to the Cys-loop receptor family of ligand-gated ion channels. GABA(C) receptors are highly expressed in the retina, mainly localized at the axon terminals of bipolar cells. Ascorbic acid, an endogenous redox agent, modulates the function of diverse proteins, and basal levels of ascorbic acid in the retina are very high.

Redox modulation of homomeric rho1 GABA receptors.

The activity of many receptors and ion channels in the nervous system can be regulated by redox-dependent mechanisms. Native and recombinant GABA(A) receptors are modulated by endogenous and pharmacological redox agents. However, the sensitivity of GABA(C) receptors to redox modulation has not been demonstrated.

A new strategy for neurochemical photodelivery: metal-ligand heterolytic cleavage.

A new strategy to build caged-compounds is presented. The approach is based on heterolytic photocleavage of a metal-ligand bond in a coordination compound. A ruthenium polypyridine complex, containing the neurocompound 4-amino pyridine (4AP) is used as the core of the phototrigger.