Practical guidelines to build Sense of Community in online medical education.

Objectives: Sense of Community (SoC) refers to the cognitive or emotional connections established between physically separated learners; it is essential for study success. The recent COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the need for practical guidelines to facilitate building a SoC in online medical preclerkship education in the Netherlands. Therefore, this qualitative study aims to (a) examine perceptions of SoC from both students' and teachers' perspectives in an online elective course during the COVID-19 pandemic in order to (b) provide a conceptual framework with practical guidelines to medical educators on how to build SoC in online education.

The membrane attack complex of the complement system is essential for rapid Wallerian degeneration.

The complement (C) system plays an important role in myelin breakdown during Wallerian degeneration (WD). The pathway and mechanism involved are, however, not clear. In a crush injury model of the sciatic nerve, we show that C6, necessary for the assembly of the membrane attack complex (MAC), is essential for rapid WD.

Expression of complement components in the peripheral nervous system.

We have generated a SAGE (serial analysis of gene expression) library of normal sciatic nerve and found tags encoding for mRNAs of the complement system highly represented. RNA (RT-PCR and northern blot hybridization) and protein (western blot analysis and immunohistochemistry) studies confirmed these findings. High expression of classical pathway components, alternative pathway components and inhibitory components was observed in specific regions of the sciatic nerve.

Transcriptional profile of the human peripheral nervous system by serial analysis of gene expression.

The peripheral nerve contains both nonmyelinating and myelinating Schwann cells. The interactions between axons, surrounding myelin, and Schwann cells are thought to be important for the correct functioning of the nervous system. To get insight into the genes involved in human myelination and maintenance of the myelin sheath and nerve, we performed a serial analysis of gene expression of human sciatic nerve and cultured Schwann cells.

Autoimmunoreactivity to Schwann cells in patients with inflammatory neuropathies.

Inflammatory demyelinating neuropathies are characterized by a loss of peripheral nerve myelin. Myelin breakdown is thought to result from an autoimmune reaction towards nerve components. Schwann cells play a crucial role in the synthesis and maintenance of peripheral nerve myelin.