PACS-1 variant protein is aberrantly localized in Caenorhabditis elegans model of PACS1/PACS2 syndromes.

PACS (phosphofurin acidic cluster sorting) proteins are known for their roles in sorting cargo proteins to organelles and can physically interact with WD40 repeat-containing protein WDR37. PACS1, PACS2, and WDR37 variants are associated with multisystemic syndromes and neurodevelopmental disorders characterized by intellectual disability, seizures, developmental delays, craniofacial abnormalities, and autism spectrum disorder. However, the functional effects of syndromic variants at the cellular level remain unknown.

PACS-1 variant protein is aberrantly localized in model of PACS1/PACS2 syndromes.

PACS (Phosphofurin Acidic Cluster Sorting Protein) proteins are known for their roles in sorting cargo proteins to organelles and can physically interact with WD40 repeat-containing protein WDR37. PACS1, PACS2, and WDR37 variants are associated with multisystemic syndromes and neurodevelopmental disorders characterized by intellectual disability, seizures, developmental delays, craniofacial abnormalities, and autism spectrum disorder. However, the effects of syndromic variants on function remains unknown.

Intragenic suppressors of ( ) identify potential roles of the conserved stalk region.

UNC-104 and its mammalian ortholog, KIF1A, are microtubule motor proteins required for moving synaptic vesicle precursors from neuronal cell bodies to presynaptic sites. These motor proteins consist of N-terminal motor domain, followed by a neck region, three coiled-coil domains and a FHA domain, and a C-terminal PH domain. Between the coiled-coil 3 and the PH domain is a large uncharacterized region called stalk.

Wired for insight-recent advances in Caenorhabditis elegans neural circuits.

The completion of Caenorhabditis elegans connectomics four decades ago has long guided mechanistic investigation of neuronal circuits. Recent technological advances in microscopy and computation programs have aided re-examination of this connectomics, expanding our knowledge by both uncovering previously unreported synaptic connections and also generating models for neural networks underlying behaviors. Combining molecular information from single cell transcriptomes with elegant tools for cell-specific manipulation has further enhanced the ability to precisely investigate individual neurons in behaving animals.

Investigating Instructor Talk in Novel Contexts: Widespread Use, Unexpected Categories, and an Emergent Sampling Strategy.

Instructor Talk-noncontent language used by instructors in classrooms-is a recently defined and promising variable for better understanding classroom dynamics. Having previously characterized the Instructor Talk framework within the context of a single course, we present here our results surrounding the applicability of the Instructor Talk framework to noncontent language used by instructors in novel course contexts. We analyzed Instructor Talk in eight additional biology courses in their entirety and in 61 biology courses using an emergent sampling strategy.

Collectively Improving Our Teaching: Attempting Biology Department-wide Professional Development in Scientific Teaching.

Many efforts to improve science teaching in higher education focus on a few faculty members at an institution at a time, with limited published evidence on attempts to engage faculty across entire departments. We created a long-term, department-wide collaborative professional development program, Biology Faculty Explorations in Scientific Teaching (Biology FEST). Across 3 years of Biology FEST, 89% of the department's faculty completed a weeklong scientific teaching institute, and 83% of eligible instructors participated in additional semester-long follow-up programs.

Classroom sound can be used to classify teaching practices in college science courses.

Active-learning pedagogies have been repeatedly demonstrated to produce superior learning gains with large effect sizes compared with lecture-based pedagogies. Shifting large numbers of college science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) faculty to include any active learning in their teaching may retain and more effectively educate far more students than having a few faculty completely transform their teaching, but the extent to which STEM faculty are changing their teaching methods is unclear. Here, we describe the development and application of the machine-learning-derived algorithm Decibel Analysis for Research in Teaching (DART), which can analyze thousands of hours of STEM course audio recordings quickly, with minimal costs, and without need for human observers.

A DTC niche plexus surrounds the germline stem cell pool in Caenorhabditis elegans.

The mesenchymal distal tip cell (DTC) provides the niche for Caenorhabditis elegans germline stem cells (GSCs). The DTC has a complex cellular architecture: its cell body caps the distal gonadal end and contacts germ cells extensively, but it also includes multiple cellular processes that extend along the germline tube and intercalate between germ cells. Here we use the lag-2 DTC promoter to drive expression of myristoylated GFP, which highlights DTC membranes and permits a more detailed view of DTC architecture.

Age differences in high frequency phasic heart rate variability and performance response to increased executive function load in three executive function tasks.

The current study examines similarity or disparity of a frontally mediated physiological response of mental effort among multiple executive functioning tasks between children and adults. Task performance and phasic heart rate variability (HRV) were recorded in children (6 to 10 years old) and adults in an examination of age differences in executive functioning skills during periods of increased demand. Executive load levels were varied by increasing the difficulty levels of three executive functioning tasks: inhibition (IN), working memory (WM), and planning/problem solving (PL).

Executive functioning in attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder: questioning the notion of planning deficits with heart rate reactivity.

This study employed a paired stimulus paradigm to compare phasic changes in heart rate among children (age categories 6-8, 9-10, and 11-12) and adults (age categories 18-19 and 20-22) with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and age-matched controls. A sample of 95 participants (19 ADHD-diagnosed children, 34 controls, 20 ADHD-diagnosed adults, and 22 controls) solved a planning task, the Tower of London, through 4 levels of difficulty. It was hypothesized that groups with ADHD would show greater heart rate acceleration and less final deceleration than would controls, and that these heart rate responses would change with age and difficulty level as well.

mig-38, a novel gene that regulates distal tip cell turning during gonadogenesis in C. elegans hermaphrodites.

In Caenorhabditis elegans gonad morphogenesis, the final U-shapes of the two hermaphrodite gonad arms are determined by migration of the distal tip cells (DTCs). These somatic cells migrate in opposite directions on the ventral basement membrane until specific extracellular cues induce turning from ventral to dorsal and then centripetally toward the midbody region on the dorsal basement membrane. To dissect the mechanism of DTC turning, we examined the role of a novel gene, F40F11.

One-month-old human infants learn about the social world while they sleep.

Although infants display preferences for social stimuli early in their lives, we know relatively little about the mechanisms of infant learning about the social world. In the current set of studies, 1-month-old infants underwent an adapted eyeblink conditioning paradigm to examine learning to both 'social' and non-social cues. While infants were asleep, they were presented with either a 'social' stimulus (a female voice) or one of two non-social stimuli (tone or backward voice) followed by an airpuff presented to the eyelid.

Planning: fixed-foreperiod event-related potentials during the Tower of London task.

Slow wave ERPs were recorded from 28 young adults as they generated plans for various difficulty levels of a fixed-foreperiod version of the Tower of London task. The resulting waveform included three segments: (1) a left-lateralized negative early-interval wave, which was frontally maximal but not sensitive to difficulty, (2) a right-lateralized frontally maximal mid-interval wave, which was more positive for more difficult problems, and (3) a left lateralized centrally maximal negative-ramping contingent negative variation (CNV) late wave, which was more negative for more difficult problems. The current study adds to the current literature in that it finds that the frontal and central neural utilization with difficulty changes across plan generation.

Newborn infants learn during sleep.

Newborn infants must rapidly adjust their physiology and behavior to the specific demands of the novel postnatal environment. This adaptation depends, at least in part, on the infant's ability to learn from experiences. We report here that infants exhibit learning even while asleep.

Deconstructing the tower: parameters and predictors of problem difficulty on the Tower of London task.

The Tower of London (TOL) task has been widely used in both clinical and research realms. In the current study, 104 healthy participants attempted all possible moderate- to high-difficulty TOL problems in order to determine: (1) optimal measures of problem solving performance, (2) problem characteristics, other than the minimum moves necessary to solve the problem, that determine participants' difficulty in solving problems successfully, quickly, and efficiently, and (3) effects of increased task experience on which problem characteristics determine problem difficulty. A factor analysis of six performance measures found that, regardless of task experience, problem difficulty could be captured well either by a single factor corresponding to general quality of solution or possibly by three subordinate factors corresponding to solution efficiency, solution speed, and initial planning speed.

Scratching the niche that controls Caenorhabditis elegans germline stem cells.

The Caenorhabditis elegans gonad provides a well-defined model for a stem cell niche and its control of self-renewal and differentiation. The distal tip cell (DTC) forms a mesenchymal niche that controls germline stem cells (GSCs), both to generate the germline tissue during development and to maintain it during adulthood. The DTC uses GLP-1/Notch signaling to regulate GSCs; germ cells respond to Notch signaling with a network of RNA regulators to control the decision between self-renewal and entry into the meiotic cell cycle.

High-density electroencephalogram monitoring in the neonate.

Early diagnosis of neurologic conditions is crucial for successful early intervention; therefore, minimally invasive diagnostic procedures are invaluable during the neonatal period. The clinical usefulness of one such technique, the electroencephalogram (EEG), is well documented. However, the advent of high-density recording systems has extended its application.

Cellular analyses of the mitotic region in the Caenorhabditis elegans adult germ line.

The Caenorhabditis elegans germ line provides a model for understanding how signaling from a stem cell niche promotes continued mitotic divisions at the expense of differentiation. Here we report cellular analyses designed to identify germline stem cells within the germline mitotic region of adult hermaphrodites. Our results support several conclusions.

Special considerations for functional magnetic resonance imaging of pediatric populations.

Functional MRI (fMRI) provides a noninvasive means of studying both typical and atypical brain development in vivo. However, the developmental and clinical status of the populations of interest impact how neuroimaging data should be collected, analyzed, and interpreted. In the present work, we review methodological and theoretical issues relevant to developmental and clinical neuroimaging research and provide possible approaches for addressing each.

The Caenorhabditis elegans UNC-14 RUN domain protein binds to the kinesin-1 and UNC-16 complex and regulates synaptic vesicle localization.

Kinesin-1 is a heterotetramer composed of kinesin heavy chain (KHC) and kinesin light chain (KLC). The Caenorhabditis elegans genome has a single KHC, encoded by the unc-116 gene, and two KLCs, encoded by the klc-1 and klc-2 genes. We show here that UNC-116/KHC and KLC-2 form a complex orthologous to conventional kinesin-1.

Developmental differences in the preparatory heart rate response: childhood through adulthood.

The present article examines developmental differences across childhood, adolescence, and adulthood in the triphasic anticipatory heart rate response and the impact of age on the relationship between anticipatory deceleration (D2) and reaction time (RT). Heart rate and RT were recorded from participants ages 5-25 during a fixed, 6 s anticipatory paradigm. The triphasic anticipatory heart rate response was larger in children, with the children displaying a delayed acceleratory component.

The Tower of London spatial problem-solving task: enhancing clinical and research implementation.

Since its development in 1982, The Tower of London (TOL; Shallice, 1982) spatial problem-solving task has been increasingly employed in test batteries of executive functions. This task has served as a rich source of information on preparation, planning and processing, but a number of issues remain unaddressed in the literature: (1) the problem structure, or problem space of the task, (2) the impact of modifications from the original, Shallice TOL, and (3) the variety of performance measures that can be derived from the TOL. We present here an overview of these issues in the hope that it may lead to a more effective and reasoned use of the TOL task by clinical and nonclinical investigators, alike.