Please unmute your microphone: Comparing the effectiveness of remote versus in-person percussion training.

Although remote music training has its limitations, the use of technology can lower barriers to its accessibility. This exploratory study compared the effects of remote and in-person percussion training on motor performance, performance quality, and students' enjoyment. The training involved the motor aspects of playing legato on percussion instruments.

Reptilian cognition.

Tim Roth and Aaron Krochmal discuss reptile cognition in an integrative and comparative light.

Australian magpies.

Robin D. Johnsson and colleagues introduce Australian magpies, which are not actually magpies.

Learning and memory in hybrid migratory songbirds: cognition as a reproductive isolating barrier across seasons.

Hybrid zones can be used to identify traits that maintain reproductive isolation and contribute to speciation. Cognitive traits may serve as post-mating reproductive isolating barriers, reducing the fitness of hybrids if, for example, misexpression occurs in hybrids and disrupts important neurological mechanisms. We tested this hypothesis in a hybrid zone between two subspecies of Swainson's thrushes (Catharus ustulatus) using two cognitive tests-an associative learning spatial test and neophobia test.

Sleep loss impairs cognitive performance and alters song output in Australian magpies.

Sleep maintains optimal brain functioning to facilitate behavioural flexibility while awake. Owing to a historical bias towards research on mammals, we know comparatively little about the role of sleep in facilitating the cognitive abilities of birds. We investigated how sleep deprivation over the full-night (12 h) or half-night (6 h) affects cognitive performance in adult Australian magpies (Cracticus tibicen), relative to that after a night of undisturbed sleep.

Homeostatic regulation of NREM sleep, but not REM sleep, in Australian magpies.

Study Objectives: We explore non-rapid eye movement (NREM) and rapid eye movement (REM) sleep homeostasis in Australian magpies (Cracticus tibicen tyrannica). We predicted that magpies would recover lost sleep by spending more time in NREM and REM sleep, and by engaging in more intense NREM sleep as indicated by increased slow-wave activity (SWA).

Methods: Continuous 72-h recordings of EEG, EMG, and tri-axial accelerometry, along with EEG spectral analyses, were performed on wild-caught Australian magpies housed in indoor aviaries.

Reptilian Cognition: A More Complex Picture via Integration of Neurological Mechanisms, Behavioral Constraints, and Evolutionary Context.

Unlike birds and mammals, reptiles are commonly thought to possess only the most rudimentary means of interacting with their environments, reflexively responding to sensory information to the near exclusion of higher cognitive function. However, reptilian brains, though structurally somewhat different from those of mammals and birds, use many of the same cellular and molecular processes to support complex behaviors in homologous brain regions. Here, the neurological mechanisms supporting reptilian cognition are reviewed, focusing specifically on spatial cognition and the hippocampus.

Phage-Assisted Evolution of Bacillus methanolicus Methanol Dehydrogenase 2.

Synthetic methylotrophy, the modification of organisms such as E. coli to grow on methanol, is a longstanding goal of metabolic engineering and synthetic biology. The poor kinetic properties of NAD-dependent methanol dehydrogenase, the first enzyme in most methanol assimilation pathways, limit pathway flux and present a formidable challenge to synthetic methylotrophy.

Of molecules, memories and migration: M1 acetylcholine receptors facilitate spatial memory formation and recall during migratory navigation.

Many animals use complex cognitive processes, including the formation and recall of memories, for successful navigation. However, the developmental and neurological processes underlying these cognitive aspects of navigation are poorly understood. To address the importance of the formation and recollection of memories during navigation, we pharmacologically manipulated turtles () that navigate long distances using precise, complex paths learned during a juvenile critical period.

Hybrid chickadees are deficient in learning and memory.

Identifying the phenotypes underlying postzygotic reproductive isolation is crucial for fully understanding the evolution and maintenance of species. One potential postzygotic isolating barrier that has rarely been examined is learning and memory ability in hybrids. Learning and memory are important fitness-related traits, especially in scatter-hoarding species, where accurate retrieval of hoarded food is vital for winter survival.

Development of a formaldehyde biosensor with application to synthetic methylotrophy.

Formaldehyde is a prevalent environmental toxin and a key intermediate in single carbon metabolism. The ability to monitor formaldehyde concentration is, therefore, of interest for both environmental monitoring and for metabolic engineering of native and synthetic methylotrophs, but current methods suffer from low sensitivity, complex workflows, or require expensive analytical equipment. Here we develop a formaldehyde biosensor based on the FrmR repressor protein and cognate promoter of Escherichia coli.

Increased Testosterone Decreases Medial Cortical Volume and Neurogenesis in Territorial Side-Blotched Lizards ().

Variation in an animal's spatial environment can induce variation in the hippocampus, an area of the brain involved in spatial cognitive processing. Specifically, increased spatial area use is correlated with increased hippocampal attributes, such as volume and neurogenesis. In the side-blotched lizard (), males demonstrate alternative reproductive tactics and are either territorial-defending large, clearly defined spatial boundaries-or non-territorial-traversing home ranges that are smaller than the territorial males' territories.

Using Pharmacological Manipulation and High-precision Radio Telemetry to Study the Spatial Cognition in Free-ranging Animals.

An animal's ability to perceive and learn about its environment plays a key role in many behavioral processes, including navigation, migration, dispersal and foraging. However, the understanding of the role of cognition in the development of navigation strategies and the mechanisms underlying these strategies is limited by the methodological difficulties involved in monitoring, manipulating the cognition of, and tracking wild animals. This study describes a protocol for addressing the role of cognition in navigation that combines pharmacological manipulation of behavior with high-precision radio telemetry.

Morphological changes in hippocampal cytoarchitecture as a function of spatial treatment in birds.

Maintaining cognitive processes comes with neurological costs. Thus, enhanced cognition and its underlying neural mechanisms should change in response to environmental pressures. Indeed, recent evidence suggests that variation in spatially based cognitive abilities is reflected in the morphology of the hippocampus (Hp), the region of the brain involved in spatial memory.

Sleep Ecophysiology: Integrating Neuroscience and Ecology.

Here, we propose an original approach to explain one of the great unresolved questions in animal biology: what is the function of sleep? Existing ecological and neurological approaches to this question have become roadblocks to an answer. Ecologists typically treat sleep as a simple behavior, instead of a heterogeneous neurophysiological state, while neuroscientists generally fail to appreciate the critical insights offered by the consideration of ecology and evolutionary history. Redressing these shortfalls requires cross-disciplinary integration.

Turtles outsmart rapid environmental change: The role of cognition in navigation.

Animals inhabiting changing environments show high levels of cognitive plasticity. Cognition may be a means by which animals buffer the impact of environmental change. However, studies examining the evolution of cognition seldom compare populations where change is rapid and selection pressures are strong.

Pharmacological evidence is consistent with a prominent role of spatial memory in complex navigation.

The ability to learn about the spatial environment plays an important role in navigation, migration, dispersal, and foraging. However, our understanding of both the role of cognition in the development of navigation strategies and the mechanisms underlying these strategies is limited. We tested the hypothesis that complex navigation is facilitated by spatial memory in a population of Chrysemys picta that navigate with extreme precision (±3.

Thinking about Change: An Integrative Approach for Examining Cognition in a Changing World.

We are currently experiencing shifts in climate at rates not previously recorded. One important aspect of this change is a tendency toward extremes--extremes in temperature and moisture, both within and among years. Numerous studies focus on the physiological consequences of environmental change, especially in terms of ectothermic taxa's thermal regime and use of habitat.

The role of age-specific learning and experience for turtles navigating a changing landscape.

The severity of the environment often influences animal cognition [1-6], as does the rate of change within that environment [7-10]. Rapid alteration of habitat places limitations on basic resources such as energy, water, nesting sites, and refugia [8, 10]. How animals respond to these situations provides insight into the mechanisms of cognition and the role of behavior in adaptation [11-13].

Chickadees with bigger brains have smaller digestive tracts: a multipopulation comparison.

The factors leading to the evolution of large brain size remain controversial. Brains are metabolically expensive and larger brains demand higher maintenance costs. The expensive-tissue hypothesis suggests that when selection favors larger brains, evolutionary changes in brain size can occur without an overall increase in energetic costs when brain size represents a trade-off with the size of other expensive tissues, such as the digestive tract.

Interaction between territoriality, spatial environment, and hippocampal neurogenesis in male side-blotched lizards.

Differences in an animal's spatial environment can have dramatic effects on the hippocampus, an area of the brain involved with spatial processing. Animals in spatially impoverished environments have decreased hippocampal attributes. However, we do not know if differences in the spatial environment differentially interact with territorial status, which also covaries with hippocampal attributes.

Variation in hippocampal glial cell numbers in food-caching birds from different climates.

Enhancements to memory are associated with enhanced neural structures that support those capabilities. A great deal of work has examined this relationship in the context of natural variation in spatial memory capability and hippocampal (Hp) structure. Most studies have focused on volumetric and neuron measures, but have seldom examined the role of glial cells.

Variation in brain regions associated with fear and learning in contrasting climates.

In environments where resources are difficult to obtain and enhanced cognitive capabilities might be adaptive, brain structures associated with cognitive traits may also be enhanced. In our previous studies, we documented a clear and significant relationship among environmental conditions, memory and hippocampal structure using ten populations of black-capped chickadees (Poecile atricapillus) over a large geographic range. In addition, focusing on just the two populations from the geographical extremes of our large-scale comparison, Alaska and Kansas, we found enhanced problem-solving capabilities and reduced neophobia in a captive-raised population of black-capped chickadees originating from the energetically demanding environment (Alaska) relative to conspecifics from the milder environment (Kansas).

Evidence for long-term spatial memory in a parid.

Many animals use spatial memory. Although much work has examined the accuracy of spatial memory, few studies have explicitly focused on its longevity. The importance of long-term spatial memory for foraging has been demonstrated in several cases.