An Effective Barrier to Prevent Crop Contamination by Slug Vectors of Angiostrongylus cantonensis.

The accidental ingestion of slugs, intermediate hosts to the Angiostrongylus cantonensis parasite, is the most common cause of rat lungworm disease (RLWD) found in humans in Hawaii. This disease has high morbidity and can be complicated to diagnose and treat. With these considerations, efforts in prevention of the initial infection are of high priority.

The homemade alternative: teaching human neurophysiology with instrumentation made (almost) from scratch.

Recording human neurophysiological data in the teaching laboratory generally requires expensive instrumentation. From our experience in developing inexpensive equipment used in teaching neurophysiology laboratory exercises, we offer a strategy for the development of affordable and safe recording of human neurophysiological parameters. There are many resources available to guide the design and construction of electronic equipment that will record human biopotentials.

Teaching laboratory neuroscience at bowdoin: the laboratory instructor perspective.

Bowdoin College is a small liberal arts college that offers a comprehensive Neuroscience major. The laboratory experience is an integral part of the major, and many students progress through three stages. A core course offers a survey of concepts and techniques.

Construction of a simple suction electrode for extracellular recording and stimulation.

Principles of signal transmission in nervous systems are commonly demonstrated in the undergraduate neuroscience laboratory through extracellular recording of nerve and muscle action potentials. Here we describe the construction of a simple suction electrode that we use routinely in our laboratory classes for nerve recording and stimulation. The electrode parts are relatively inexpensive, easily available from established scientific and electronic distributors and local hardware stores, and the electrode is resilient to student handling.

Characterization of dermatoglyphics in PHOX2B-confirmed congenital central hypoventilation syndrome.

Objective: Individuals with congenital central hypoventilation syndrome have characteristic variants in the PHOX2B gene (primarily polyalanine expansion mutations). The PHOX2B gene acts as a transcriptional activator in the promotion of pan-neuronal differentiation in the autonomic nervous system during early embryologic development, with a primary role in the sympathetic noradrenergic phenotype in vertebrates. Because sympathetic innervation has been hypothesized to affect the development of dermatoglyphic pattern types, we hypothesized that individuals with PHOX2B-confirmed congenital central hypoventilation syndrome would have characteristic dermatoglyphic patterning and that the dermatoglyphic phenotype would be related to the disease-defining PHOX2B genotype.