Julio Ramirez discusses how mentoring undergraduate students gives you the opportunity to inspire your students at important times in their lives. But there are also unique challenges during this formative time. These videos outline what you need to consider as a mentor, and how to get started.

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Spike-and-wave discharges (SWDs) and sleep spindles are characteristic electroencephalographic (EEG) hallmarks of absence seizures and non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep, respectively. They are commonly generated by the cortico-thalamo-cortical (CTC) network including the thalamic reticular nucleus (TRN). It has been reported that SWD development is accompanied by a decrease in sleep spindle density in absence seizure patients and animal models. However, whether the decrease in sleep spindle density precedes, coincides with, or follows, the SWD development remains unknown. To clarify this, we exploited Pvalb -tetracycline transactivator (tTA)::tetO-ArchT (PV-ArchT) double-transgenic mouse, which can induce an absence seizure phenotype in a time-controllable manner by expressing ArchT in PV neurons of the TRN. In these mice, EEG recordings demonstrated that a decrease in sleep spindle density occurred 1 week before the onset of typical SWDs, with the expression of ArchT. To confirm such temporal relationsh...

Some visual neurons in the dragonfly ( Hemicordulia tau ) optic lobe respond to small, moving targets, likely underlying their fast pursuit of prey and conspecifics. In response to repetitive targets presented at short intervals, the spiking activity of these ‘small target motion detector’ (STMD) neurons diminishes over time. Previous experiments limited this adaptation by including inter-trial rest periods of varying durations. However, the characteristics of this effect have never been quantified. Here, using extracellular recording techniques lasting for several hours, we quantified both the spatial and temporal properties of STMD adaptation. We found that the time course of adaptation was variable across STMD units. In any one STMD, a repeated series led to more rapid adaptation, a minor accumulative effect more akin to habituation. Following an adapting stimulus, responses recovered quickly, though the rate of recovery decreased nonlinearly over time. We found that the region of adaptation is highly ...

A goal of connectomics is to reveal the links between neural circuits and behavior. Larvae of the primitive chordate Ciona are well-suited to make contributions in this area. In addition to having a described connectome, Ciona larvae have a range of readily-quantified behaviors. Moreover, the small number of neurons in the larval CNS (∼180) holds the promise of a comprehensive characterization of individual neurons. We present single-neuron predictions for glutamate receptor (GlutR) expression based on in situ hybridization. Included are both ionotropic receptors (AMPA, NMDA, and Kainate), and metabotropic receptors. The predicted glutamate receptor expression dataset is discussed in the context of known circuits driving behaviors such as phototaxis, mechanosensation, and looming shadow response. The predicted expression of AMPA and NMDA receptors may help to resolve issues regarding the co-production of GABA and glutamate by a subset of photoreceptors. The targets of these photoreceptors in the midbrain a...

Learn how rewarding teaching in secondary education can be. Paul Cammer discusses his decision to move into high school teaching from research, and how much others in the field can get out of making a similar move.