Identifying Risk Factors For Reading Failure As An Aid To Prediction And Prevention Of Retention In The Second Grade

In order to identify students at risk of failure in reading, a list was compiled in the school of factors held in common by students who had previously been retained in second grade. Cumulative folders were examined in order to gather the necessary data. At least 80 percent of the students in this part of the study were male, did not live with both parents, had failed the reading comprehension section of a local first grade minimum level skills test, and had visual sequential memory deficits. Other contributing factors were also identified. Using these factors, the records of 60 students who were in second grade and were in below-grade level or low-average reading groups were examined. On the basis of the presence of several predictive factors, students were labeled at-risk of failure in reading for the purposes of the project. When reading grades at the end of the second nine weeks were compared with the prediction, most of those whose grades were unsatisfactory had been correctly labeled at-risk.” However, a higher than desired rate of false prediction of failure did occur. It appeared that, for a number of students, success depended upon the absence of an auditory or visual sequential memory deficit. The appendix includes student data gathered in this study

Nanomedicine and graphene-based materials: advanced technologies for potential treatments of diseases in the developing nervous system

Abstract: The interest in graphene-based nanomaterials (GBNs) application in nanomedicine, in particular in neurology, steadily increased in the last decades. GBNs peculiar physical–chemical properties allow the design of innovative therapeutic tools able to manipulate biological structures with subcellular resolution. In this review, we report GBNs applications to the central nervous system (CNS) when these nanomaterials are engineered as potential therapeutics to treat brain pathologies, with a focus on those of the pediatric age. We revise the state-of-the art studies addressing the impact of GBNs in the CNS, showing that the design of GBNs with different dimensions and chemical compositions or the use of specific administration routes and doses can limit unwanted side effects, exploiting GBNs efficacy in therapeutic approaches. These features favor the development of GBNs-based multifunctional devices that may find applications in the field of precision medicine for the treatment of disorders in the developing CNS. In this framework, we address the suitability of GBNs to become successful therapeutic tools, such as drug nano-delivery vectors when being chemically decorated with pharmaceutical agents and/or other molecules to obtain a high specific targeting of the diseased area and to achieve a controlled release of active molecules. Impact: The translational potential of graphene-based nanomaterials (GBNs) can be used for the design of novel therapeutic approaches to treat pathologies affecting the brain with a focus on the pediatric age.GBNs can be chemically decorated with pharmaceutical agents and molecules to obtain a highly specific targeting of the diseased site and a controlled drug release.The type of GBNs, the selected functionalization, the dose, and the way of administration are factors that should be considered to potentiate the therapeutic efficacy of GBNs, limiting possible side effects.GBNs-based multifunctional devices might find applications in the precision medicine and theranostics fields

Bridging pro-inflammatory signals, synaptic transmission and protection in spinal explants in vitro

Multiple sclerosis is characterized by tissue atrophy involving the brain and the spinal cord, where reactive inflammation contributes to the neurodegenerative processes. Recently, the presence of synapse alterations induced by the inflammatory responses was suggested by experimental and clinical observations, in experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis mouse model and in patients, respectively. Further knowledge on the interplay between pro-inflammatory agents, neuroglia and synaptic dysfunction is crucial to the design of unconventional protective molecules. Here we report the effects, on spinal cord circuits, of a cytokine cocktail that partly mimics the signature of T lymphocytes sub population Th1. In embryonic mouse spinal organ-cultures, containing neuronal cells and neuroglia, cytokines induced inflammatory responses accompanied by a significant increase in spontaneous synaptic activity. We suggest that cytokines specifically altered signal integration in spinal networks by speeding the decay of GABAA responses. This hypothesis is supported by the finding that synapse protection by a non-peptidic NGF mimetic molecule prevented both the changes in the time course of GABA events and in network activity that were left unchanged by the cytokine production from astrocytes and microglia present in the cultured tissue. In conclusion, we developed an important tool for the study of synaptic alterations induced by inflammation, that takes into account the role of neuronal and not neuronal resident cells

Tuning the reduction of graphene oxide nanoflakes differently affects neuronal networks in the zebrafish

The increasing engineering of biomedical devices and the design of drug-delivery platforms enriched by graphene-based components demand careful investigations of the impact of graphene-related materials (GRMs) on the nervous system. In addition, the enhanced diffusion of GRM-based products and technologies that might favor the dispersion in the environment of GRMs nanoparticles urgently requires the potential neurotoxicity of these compounds to be addressed. One of the challenges in providing definite evidence supporting the harmful or safe use of GRMs is addressing the variety of this family of materials, with GRMs differing for size and chemistry. Such a diversity impairs reaching a unique and predictive picture of the effects of GRMs on the nervous system. Here, by exploiting the thermal reduction of graphene oxide nanoflakes (GO) to generate materials with different oxygen/carbon ratios, we used a high-throughput analysis of early-stage zebrafish locomotor behavior to investigate if modifications of a specific GRM chemical property influenced how these nanomaterials affect vertebrate sensory-motor neurophysiology—exposing zebrafish to GO downregulated their swimming performance. Conversely, reduced GO (rGO) treatments boosted locomotor activity. We concluded that the tuning of single GRM chemical properties is sufficient to produce differential effects on nervous system physiology, likely interfering with different signaling pathways

Fosfolipasa D en soja. Comparación de la actividad determinada por dos métodos

Due to a discrepancy between previously published results, two methods to determine the soybean phospholipase D activity were evaluated. One method is based on the extraction of the enzyme from whole soybean flour, quantifying the enzyme activity on the extract. The other method quantifies the enzymatic activity on whole soybean flour without enzyme extraction. In the extraction-based-method, both the extraction time and the number of extractions were optimized. The highest phospholipase D activity values were obtained from the method without enzyme extraction. This method is less complex, requires less running-time and the conditions of the medium in which phospholipase D acts resemble the conditions found in the oil industrySe evaluaron dos métodos para determinar la actividad de la fosfolipasa D en soja debido a que existe discrepancia entre los resultados publicados. Un método se basa en la extracción de la enzima de la harina resultante de la molienda del grano de soja entero, cuantificando la actividad sobre el extracto. En el otro método, la cuantificación se realiza sobre la harina del grano entero molido, sin extraer la enzima. En el método de extracción se optimizaron tanto el tiempo como el número de extracciones. Los mayores valores de actividad de la fosfolipasa D se obtuvieron por el método sin extracción de la enzima. Este método es más simple, exige menos tiempo de ejecución y las condiciones del medio en que actúa la fosfolipasa D se asemejan a las condiciones encontradas en la industria aceitera

Super-hydrodynamic limit in interacting particle systems

This paper is a follow-up of the work initiated in [3], where it has been investigated the hydrodynamic limit of symmetric independent random walkers with birth at the origin and death at the rightmost occupied site. Here we obtain two further results: first we characterize the stationary states on the hydrodynamic time scale and show that they are given by a family of linear macroscopic profiles whose parameters are determined by the current reservoirs and the system mass. Then we prove the existence of a super-hyrdrodynamic time scale, beyond the hydrodynamic one. On this larger time scale the system mass fluctuates and correspondingly the macroscopic profile of the system randomly moves within the family of linear profiles, with the randomness of a Brownian motion.Comment: 22 page

Fas gene polymorphisms are not associated with systemic lupus erythematosus, multiple sclerosis and HIV infection

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Effects of anisotropic interactions on the structure of animal groups

This paper proposes an agent-based model which reproduces different structures of animal groups. The shape and structure of the group is the effect of simple interaction rules among individuals: each animal deploys itself depending on the position of a limited number of close group mates. The proposed model is shown to produce clustered formations, as well as lines and V-like formations. The key factors which trigger the onset of different patterns are argued to be the relative strength of attraction and repulsion forces and, most important, the anisotropy in their application.Comment: 22 pages, 9 figures. Submitted. v1-v4: revised presentation; extended simulations; included technical results. v5: added a few clarification

Graphene oxide prevents lateral amygdala dysfunctional synaptic plasticity and reverts long lasting anxiety behavior in rats

Engineered small graphene oxide (s-GO) sheets were previously shown to reversibly down-regulate glutamatergic synapses in the hippocampus of juvenile rats, disclosing an unexpected translational potential of these nanomaterials to target selective synapses in vivo. Synapses are anatomical specializations acting in the Central Nervous System (CNS) as functional interfaces among neurons. Dynamic changes in synaptic function, named synaptic plasticity, are crucial to learning and memory. More recently, pathological mechanisms involving dysfunctional synaptic plasticity were implicated in several brain diseases, from dementia to anxiety disorders. Hyper-excitability of glutamatergic neurons in the lateral nucleus of the amygdala complex (LA) is substantially involved in the storage of aversive memory induced by stressful events enabling post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Here we translated in PTSD animal model the ability of s-GO, when stereotaxically administered to hamper LA glutamatergic transmission and to prevent the behavioral response featured in long-term aversive memory. We propose that s-GO, by interference with glutamatergic plasticity, impair LA-dependent memory retrieval related to PTSD