Associations between spatial skills and physics knowledge in primary school: Spatial skills are more important for conceptual scientific knowledge than for factual scientific knowledge.

Previous research demonstrates an association between spatial ability and science achievement in primary-school-aged children. However, little is known about the mechanisms driving this relationship. We investigated the associations between children's spatial skills and components of physics learning (factual knowledge vs.

Twenty-four-month effortful control predicts emerging autism characteristics.

Longitudinal research can assess how diverging development of multiple cognitive skills during infancy, as well as familial background, are related to the emergence of neurodevelopmental conditions. Sensorimotor and effortful control difficulties are seen in infants later diagnosed with autism; this study explored the relationships between these skills and autism characteristics in 340 infants (240 with elevated familial autism likelihood) assessed at 4-7, 8-10, 12-15, 24, and 36 months. We tested: (1) the relationship between parent-reported effortful control (Rothbart's temperament questionnaires) and sensorimotor skills (Mullen Scales of Early Learning), using random intercept cross-lagged panel modelling; (2) whether household income and maternal education predicted stable individual differences in cognition; (3) sensorimotor and effortful control skills as individual and interactive predictors of parent-reported autism characteristics (Social Responsiveness Scale) at 3 years, using multiple regression; and (4) moderation of interactions by familial likelihood.

Associations between Gross and Fine Motor Skills, Physical Activity, Executive Function, and Academic Achievement: Longitudinal Findings from the UK Millennium Cohort Study.

Accumulating evidence from behavioral studies and neuroscience suggests that motor and cognitive development are intrinsically intertwined. To explore the underlying mechanisms of this motor-cognition link, our study examined the longitudinal relationship of early motor skills and physical activity with later cognitive skills. The sample was 3188 children from the United Kingdom Millennium Cohort Study, followed at 9 months and 5, 7, and 11 years.

Recombinant expression and subcellular targeting of the particulate methane monooxygenase (pMMO) protein components in plants.

Methane is a potent greenhouse gas, which has contributed to approximately a fifth of global warming since pre-industrial times. The agricultural sector produces significant methane emissions, especially from livestock, waste management and rice cultivation. Rice fields alone generate around 9% of total anthropogenic emissions.

Complex cognition and individual variability: a mixed methods study of the relationship between creativity and executive control.

One of the methodological challenges of educational neuroscience is understanding real world cognition in the multifaceted environment of the classroom. Complex cognition does not simplify to (which might be satisfactorily measured in the lab) but to sets of activities, likely to vary between individuals, which involve the iterative use of multiple processes, as well as the environment, over an extended period of time. As such, studying complex cognition requires methodological flexibility; any single method is unlikely to provide complete answers.

A systematic review of cognitive interventions for adult patients with brain tumours.

Background: Neurocognitive impairments are common in patients with current or previously treated brain tumours, and such impairments can negatively affect patient outcomes including quality of life and survival. This systematic review aimed to identify and describe interventions used to ameliorate (improve) or prevent cognitive impairments in adults with brain tumours.

Methods: We performed a literature search of the Ovid MEDLINE, PsychINFO and PsycTESTS databases from commencement until September 2021.

The Relationship between Working Memory and Arithmetic in Primary School Children: A Meta-Analysis.

Working memory (WM) plays a crucial role in the development of arithmetic ability. However, research findings related to which factors influence the relationship between WM and arithmetic skills are inconsistent. The present meta-analysis aimed to examine the links between WM and arithmetic in primary school children and investigate whether this is dependent on WM domains (i.

Influences on cognitive outcomes in adult patients with gliomas: A systematic review.

Unlabelled: People with brain tumors, including those previously treated, are commonly affected by a range of neurocognitive impairments involving executive function, memory, attention, and social/emotional functioning. Several factors are postulated to underlie this relationship, but evidence relating to many of these factors is conflicting and does not fully explain the variation in cognitive outcomes seen in the literature and in clinical practice. To address this, we performed a systematic literature review to identify and describe the range of factors that can influence cognitive outcomes in adult patients with gliomas.

Neural and Cognitive Underpinnings of Counterintuitive Science and Math Reasoning in Adolescence.

Reasoning about counterintuitive concepts in science and math is thought to require suppressing naive theories, prior knowledge, or misleading perceptual cues through inhibitory control. Neuroimaging research has shown recruitment of pFC regions during counterintuitive reasoning, which has been interpreted as evidence of inhibitory control processes. However, the results are inconsistent across studies and have not been directly compared with behavior or brain activity during inhibitory control tasks.

The Home Learning Environment of Primary School Children with Down Syndrome and those with Williams Syndrome.

Background And Aims: Research on typically developing (TD) populations has shown that the home learning environment plays a significant role in cognitive development and learning, but very little is known about the home learning environment of children with Down syndrome (DS) or children with Williams syndrome (WS). The present study examined and compared, for the first time, the home learning environment of children diagnosed with DS and children diagnosed with WS to investigate whether different cognitive profiles were reflected in their home literacy and number experiences.

Methods And Procedures: Quantitative and qualitative data were collected through a web-based survey from 58 parents and one foster parent of primary school children with DS (n = 35) and WS (n = 24) mostly based in the UK.

The developmental trajectories of spatial skills in middle childhood.

The multidimensional structure of spatial ability remains a debated issue. However, the developmental trajectories of spatial skills have yet to be investigated as a source of evidence within this debate. We tested the intrinsic versus extrinsic and static versus dynamic dimensions of the Uttal et al.

The Development of Spatial-Temporal, Probability, and Covariation Information to Infer Continuous Causal Processes.

This paper considers how 5- to 11-year-olds' verbal reasoning about the causality underlying extended, dynamic natural processes links to various facets of their statistical thinking. Such continuous processes typically do not provide perceptually distinct causes and effect, and previous work suggests that spatial-temporal analysis, the ability to analyze spatial configurations that change over time, is a crucial predictor of reasoning about causal mechanism in such situations. Work in the Humean tradition to causality has long emphasized on the importance of statistical thinking for inferring causal links between distinct cause and effect events, but here we assess whether this is also viable for causal thinking about continuous processes.

Prevalence of Cigarette Smoking Among Adult Emergency Department Patients in Canada.

Introduction: Tobacco smoking is a priority public health concern, and a leading cause of death and disability globally. While the daily smoking prevalence in Canada is approximately 9.7%, the proportion of smokers among emergency department (ED) patients has been found to be significantly higher.

Domain-Specific Inhibitory Control Training to Improve Children's Learning of Counterintuitive Concepts in Mathematics and Science.

Evidence from cognitive neuroscience suggests that learning counterintuitive concepts in mathematics and science requires inhibitory control (IC). This prevents interference from misleading perceptual cues and naïve theories children have built from their experiences of the world. Here, we (1) investigate associations between IC, counterintuitive reasoning, and academic achievement and (2) evaluate a classroom-based computerised intervention, called Stop & Think, designed to embed IC training within the learning domain (i.

Perceptual subitizing and conceptual subitizing in Williams syndrome and Down syndrome: Insights from eye movements.

Background And Aims: Mathematical difficulties in individuals with Williams Syndrome (WS) and in individuals with Down Syndrome (DS) are well-established. Perceptual subitizing and conceptual subitizing are domain-specific precursors of mathematical achievement in typically developing (TD) population. This study employed, for the first time, eye-tracking methodology to investigate subitizing abilities in WS and DS.

The role of spatial and spatial-temporal analysis in children's causal cognition of continuous processes.

Past research has largely ignored children's ability to conjointly manipulate spatial and temporal information, but there are indications that the capacity to do so may provide important support for reasoning about causal processes. We hypothesised that spatial-temporal thinking is central to children's ability to identify the invisible mechanisms that tie cause and effect together in continuous casual processes, which are focal in primary school science and crucial to understanding of the natural world. We investigated this in two studies (N = 107, N = 124), employing two methodologies, one shorter, the other more in depth.

The Unique Contributions of Verbal Analogical Reasoning and Nonverbal Matrix Reasoning to Science and Maths Problem-Solving in Adolescence.

Relational reasoning, the ability to detect meaningful patterns, matures through adolescence. The unique contributions of verbal analogical and nonverbal matrix relational reasoning to science and maths are not well understood. Functional magnetic resonance imaging data were collected during science and maths problem-solving, and participants ( = 36, 11-15 years) also completed relational reasoning and executive function tasks.

Inhibition and cognitive load in fractions and decimals.

Background: Prior research with adults and children suggests that inhibitory control may have a role to play in learning counterintuitive fractions and decimals that are inconsistent with whole number knowledge. However, there is little research to date with primary school-aged children at the early stages of fraction and decimal instruction that addresses this relationship. Understanding this association has the potential to inform instructional practices concerning the learning of counterintuitive maths concepts.

MLKS2 is an ARM domain and F-actin-associated KASH protein that functions in stomatal complex development and meiotic chromosome segregation.

The linker of nucleoskeleton and cytoskeleton (LINC) complex is an essential multi-protein structure spanning the eukaryotic nuclear envelope. The LINC complex functions to maintain nuclear architecture, positioning, and mobility, along with specialized functions in meiotic prophase and chromosome segregation. Members of the LINC complex were recently identified in maize, an important scientific and agricultural grass species.

The cell wall regulates dynamics and size of plasma-membrane nanodomains in .

Plant plasma-membrane (PM) proteins are involved in several vital processes, such as detection of pathogens, solute transport, and cellular signaling. For these proteins to function effectively there needs to be structure within the PM allowing, for example, proteins in the same signaling cascade to be spatially organized. Here we demonstrate that several proteins with divergent functions are located in clusters of differing size in the membrane using subdiffraction-limited Airyscan confocal microscopy.

Children's reasoning about continuous causal processes: The role of verbal and non-verbal ability.

Background: Causes produce effects via underlying mechanisms that must be inferred from observable and unobservable structures. Preschoolers show sensitivity to mechanisms in machine-like systems with perceptually distinct causes and effects, but little is known about how children extend causal reasoning to the natural continuous processes studied in elementary school science, or how other abilities impact on this.

Aims: We investigated the development of children's ability to predict, observe, and explain three causal processes, relevant to physics, biology, and chemistry, taking into account their verbal and non-verbal ability.

Identification and characterization of genes encoding the nuclear envelope LINC complex in the monocot species .

The linker of nucleoskeleton to cytoskeleton (LINC) complex is an essential multi-protein structure spanning the nuclear envelope. It connects the cytoplasm to the nucleoplasm, functions to maintain nuclear shape and architecture and regulates chromosome dynamics during cell division. Knowledge of LINC complex composition and function in the plant kingdom is primarily limited to , but critically missing from the evolutionarily distant monocots, which include grasses, the most important agronomic crops worldwide.

Inhibitory control and counterintuitive science and maths reasoning in adolescence.

Existing concepts can be a major barrier to learning new counterintuitive concepts that contradict pre-existing experience-based beliefs or misleading perceptual cues. When reasoning about counterintuitive concepts, inhibitory control is thought to enable the suppression of incorrect concepts. This study investigated the association between inhibitory control and counterintuitive science and maths reasoning in adolescents (N = 90, 11-15 years).

Spatial cognition and science achievement: The contribution of intrinsic and extrinsic spatial skills from 7 to 11 years.

Background: Prior longitudinal and correlational research with adults and adolescents indicates that spatial ability is a predictor of science learning and achievement. However, there is little research to date with primary-school aged children that addresses this relationship. Understanding this association has the potential to inform curriculum design and support the development of early interventions.