Albertans for Health Research Network: Form, Fit, and Function.

The patient engagement (PE) platform staff of Alberta Strategy for Patient Oriented Research Support for People and Patient Oriented Research Trials Unit developed a patient-powered PE network called Albertans for Health Research Network (AB4HR); an enhanced tool to better connect patient partners and researchers online. AB4HR was developed in response to an identified need-a user-friendly online forum for both patient partners and researchers to access, so that they can better work together, as partners, in health research. We codesigned AB4HR and identified ways to improve the form, fit, and function of an existing registry through discussion groups with patient partners and researchers.

Variation of CS salience reveals group II mGluR-dependent and -independent forms of conditioning in the rat.

There is good evidence that metabotropic glutamate receptors (mGluRs) are involved in some types of learning, and we have previously suggested that this involvement may reflect the modulation by mGluRs of the signal-to-noise ratio in neural networks. This hypothesis supposes that unspecific activation of mGluRs increases background noise level, so reducing the effectiveness of behaviourally relevant stimuli as signals in the network. We report here that intraperitoneal (i.

Impairment of contextual fear conditioning in rats by Group I mGluRs: reversal by the nootropic nefiracetam.

The blockade of Group I metabotropic glutamate receptors (mGluRs) may be a potential strategy for prevention therapy of neurotoxicity. We here confirm previous reports that systemic application of the Group I antagonist, 1-aminoindan-1,5-dicarboxylic acid (AIDA), causes amnesia in a contextual fear conditioning paradigm in rats. This deficit was fully reversed by long-term pretreatment with the nootropic nefiracetam, which in fact obtained supranormal performance.

A critique of the neuroecology of learning and memory.

Recent years have seen the emergence of neuroecology, the study of the neural mechanisms of behaviour guided by functional and evolutionary principles. This research has been of enormous value for our understanding of the evolution of brain- and species-specific behaviour. However, we question the validity of the neuroecological approach when applied to the analysis of learning and memory, given its arbitrary assumption that different 'problems' engage different memory mechanisms.