Lesion-induced sprouting promotes neurophysiological integration of septal and entorhinal inputs to granule cells in the dentate gyrus of rats.

Axonal sprouting of dentate gyrus (DG) afferents after entorhinal cortex (EC) lesion is a model preparation to assess lesion-induced functional reorganization in a denervated target structure. Following a unilateral EC lesion, the surviving contralateral entorhinal projection, termed the crossed temporodentate pathway (CTD), and the heterotypic septal input to the DG, the septodentate pathway (SD), undergo extensive axonal sprouting. We explored whether EC lesion alters the capacity of the SD pathway to influence CTD-evoked granule cell excitability in the DG.

Reissue: A Decade of FUN: The First Ten Years of the Faculty for Undergraduate Neuroscience.

The year 2021 marks the 30 Anniversary of the founding of the Faculty for Undergraduate Neuroscience (FUN). Within the first ten years of FUN's existence, the organization grew from a group of 67 individuals committed to undergraduate education in the neurosciences to over 300 members. FUN established productive partnerships with the Society for Neuroscience and the Association of Neuroscience Departments and Programs.

Undergraduate neuroscience education: Meeting the challenges of the 21st century.

The dedication of undergraduate neuroscience faculty to their students could not have been more evident than what these educators demonstrated when the COVID-19 pandemic impacted colleges and universities across the United States. These faculty faced the crisis head-on to provide their students with exceptional instruction in virtual formats that many faculty had never used for instruction before the pandemic. This same tenacious attitude has been reflected in pedagogical efforts that undergraduate neuroscience faculty have undertaken since the mid-1990s.

The New Blueprints: Undergraduate Neuroscience Education in the Twenty-First Century.

The Faculty for Undergraduate Neuroscience (FUN) has mounted many summer workshops since its first in 1995 held at Davidson College. An important outcome of the 1995 workshop was the development of four "blueprints" to help guide institutions in developing and maintaining undergraduate programs in neuroscience. Since then, at approximately ten-year intervals, participants at the FUN workshops have revisited and amended the Blueprints to better reflect best practices in undergraduate neuroscience education, including adding a fifth blueprint in 2005.

25 Years of FUN!

Dr. Julio J. Ramirez, the founding president of the Faculty for Undergraduate Neuroscience (FUN), shared the comments below on November 13, 2016 at the 25 Anniversary of FUN's founding, when Drs.

Career Advice: Finding a Job at a Predominantly Undergraduate Institution.

Seeking a teaching job at a predominantly undergraduate college or university can be a daunting proposition. Although reports from the Bureau of Labor Statistics suggest that the job market for teaching positions at postsecondary institutions will be healthy over the coming decade, competition for these positions will likely be intense. This essay explores the profiles of predominantly undergraduate institutions (PUIs), the nature of faculty positions at PUIs, the elements that make for a competitive job applicant, and strategies to consider during negotiations.

Immunohistochemical characterization of axonal sprouting in mice.

Purpose: Transgenic manipulation of mouse physiology facilitates the preclinical study of genetic risk factors, neural plasticity, and reactive processes accompanying Alzheimer's disease. Alternatively, entorhinal cortex lesions (ECLs) model pathophysiological denervation and axonal sprouting in rat. Given reports of anatomical differences between the mouse and rat hippocampus, application of the ECL paradigm to transgenic mice first requires comprehensive characterization of axonal sprouting in the wild-type.

The intentional mentor: effective mentorship of undergraduate science students.

Promoting quality mentorship of undergraduate science students has recently emerged as an important strategy for successfully recruiting and retaining students in the sciences. Although numerous faculty members are naturally gifted mentors, most faculty are inserted into a mentorship role with little, if any, training. Successfully mentoring undergraduate science students requires a myriad of skills that can be honed with forethought and practice.

Adult-onset focal expression of mutated human tau in the hippocampus impairs spatial working memory of rats.

Tauopathy in the hippocampus is one of the earliest cardinal features of Alzheimer's disease (AD), a condition characterized by progressive memory impairments. In fact, density of tau neurofibrillary tangles (NFTs) in the hippocampus strongly correlates with severity of cognitive impairments in AD. In the present study, we employed a somatic cell gene transfer technique to create a rodent model of tauopathy by injecting a recombinant adeno-associated viral vector with a mutated human tau gene (P301L) into the hippocampus of adult rats.

Frontotemporal lobar degeneration-related proteins induce only subtle memory-related deficits when bilaterally overexpressed in the dorsal hippocampus.

Frontotemporal lobar degeneration (FTLD) is a neurodegenerative disease that involves cognitive decline and dementia. To model the hippocampal neurodegeneration and memory-related behavioral impairment that occurs in FTLD and other tau and TDP-43 proteinopathy diseases, we used an adeno-associated virus serotype 9 (AAV9) vector to induce bilateral expression of either microtubule-associated protein tau or transactive response DNA binding protein 43 kDa (TDP-43) in adult rat dorsal hippocampus. Human wild-type forms of tau or TDP-43 were expressed.

Focal expression of mutated tau in entorhinal cortex neurons of rats impairs spatial working memory.

Entorhinal cortex neuropathology begins very early in Alzheimer's disease (AD), a disorder characterized by severe memory disruption. Indeed, loss of entorhinal volume is predictive of AD and two of the hallmark neuroanatomical markers of AD, amyloid plaques and neurofibrillary tangles (NFTs), are particularly prevalent in the entorhinal area of AD-afflicted brains. Gene transfer techniques were used to create a model neurofibrillary tauopathy by injecting a recombinant adeno-associated viral vector with a mutated human tau gene (P301L) into the entorhinal cortex of adult rats.

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.

SOMAS-URM: The Evolution of a Mentoring and Summer Research Program.

The need to enhance recruitment and retention of students in the sciences to strengthen the economic and scientific foundation of the United States was recently underscored by the National Science Board. The SOMAS Program (Support Of Mentors And their Students) addresses this need using a two-pronged strategy: 1) Junior faculty receive mentoring and instruction in launching research programs that engage student collaborators; and 2) College students are introduced to discovery in the neurosciences by conducting original research with their professors. Junior faculty from predominantly undergraduate institutions are invited to submit applications to obtain summer research support for undergraduate students who will spend 10 weeks collaborating with the faculty member on projects of common interest.

Undergraduate Neuroscience Education: Blueprints for the 21(st) Century.

Paralleling the explosive growth of neuroscientific knowledge over the last two decades, numerous institutions from liberal arts colleges to research universities have either implemented or begun exploring the possibility of implementing undergraduate programs in neuroscience. In 1995, Faculty for Undergraduate Neuroscience (FUN) partnered with Project Kaleidoscope (PKAL) to offer a workshop exploring how undergraduate neuroscience education should proceed. Four blueprints were created to provide direction to the burgeoning interest in developing programs in undergraduate neuroscience education: 1) Neuroscience nested in psychology; 2) Neuroscience nested in biology; 3) Neuroscience as a minor; and 4) Neuroscience as a major.

Bilateral entorhinal cortex lesions impair acquisition of delayed spatial alternation in rats.

Entorhinal cortex lesions induce significant reorganization of several homotypic and heterotypic inputs to the hippocampus. This investigation determined whether surviving heterotypic inputs after bilateral entorhinal lesions would support the acquisition of a learned alternation task. Rats with entorhinal lesions or sham operations were trained to acquire a spatial alternation task.

Improving the climate in research and scientific training environments for members of underrepresented minorities.

Despite significant efforts in recent years to increase diversity in science and academia, African Americans, Hispanics, and American Indian/Alaskan Natives remain severely underrepresented in these fields. To date, institutional social climate has received little attention as a target to improve the representation of these minority groups. In this article, we suggest that improvement in the social climate in both individual laboratories and larger institutions may lead to better recruitment and retention of minorities in science and academia.

Adeno-associated virus vector expressing nerve growth factor enhances cholinergic axonal sprouting after cortical injury in rats.

Nerve growth factor (NGF) is known to promote both the survival of cholinergic neurons after injury and the regeneration of damaged cholinergic axons. Recent evidence has implicated NGF in the regulation of cholinergic axonal sprouting by intact neurons projecting to the hippocampus of rats, sustaining a lesion of the entorhinal cortex. We explored the possibility that NGF may regulate this lesion-induced cholinergic sprouting by injecting recombinant adeno-associated virus (rAAV) vector expressing NGF and green fluorescent protein (GFP) into the dentate gyrus of rats that were subsequently given unilateral entorhinal lesions.