The role of socioeconomic factors and third-party support in language development for children with cochlear implants.

It has been reported that the higher the parents' education level and income, the better language performance after cochlear implant (CI). We investigate whether socioeconomic factors (household income, parental education level, type of family, and location of residence) affect the language performance after CI even when all financial support for examination, hospitalization, surgery, and language rehabilitation program after CI was provided by a third-party. Of the 892 pediatric patients who underwent CI between 2007 and 2020 at our institution, data from 109 patients who received full financial support were analyzed retrospectively.

Selective regulation of corticostriatal synapses by astrocytic phagocytosis.

In the adult brain, neural circuit homeostasis depends on the constant turnover of synapses via astrocytic phagocytosis mechanisms. However, it remains unclear whether this process occurs in a circuit-specific manner. Here, we reveal that astrocytes target and eliminate specific type of excitatory synapses in the striatum.

GATA6 regulates WNT and BMP programs to pattern precardiac mesoderm during the earliest stages of human cardiogenesis.

Haploinsufficiency for is associated with congenital heart disease (CHD) with variable comorbidity of pancreatic or diaphragm defects, although the etiology of disease is not well understood. Here, we used cardiac directed differentiation from human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) as a platform to study GATA6 function during early cardiogenesis. GATA6 loss-of-function hESCs had a profound impairment in cardiac progenitor cell (CPC) specification and cardiomyocyte (CM) generation due to early defects during the mesendoderm and lateral mesoderm patterning stages.

Blue-lined octopus Hapalochlaena fasciata males envenomate females to facilitate copulation.

A variety of phylogenetically distant taxa, including flatworms, mollusks, amphibians, and fishes, use the deadly neurotoxin tetrodotoxin (TTX) for predation and defense. A well-known example is the blue-lined octopus, Hapalochlaena fasciata (Hoyle, 1886), which uses symbiotic bacteria to sequester TTX in its posterior salivary glands (PSG). When it bites, the TTX-laden saliva immobilizes large prey and has caused lethal envenomation in a few incidents involving humans.