Impact of Pre-Advanced Pharmacy Practice Experience (APPE) Curriculum on Student Pharmacists\u27 Professional Identity Formation.

OBJECTIVE: To (1) evaluate changes in student pharmacists\u27 professional identity during a curriculum prior to advanced pharmacy practice experiences (APPEs) and (2) describe the components of a pre-APPE curriculum that positively and negatively influenced students\u27 professional identity formation (PIF). METHODS: The University of Washington School of Pharmacy launched a new curriculum in 2019 featuring components intentionally designed to support students\u27 PIF. The Macleod-Clark Professional Identity Scale (MCPIS) was administered to the class of 2023 before starting pharmacy school (pre) and upon completion of the pre-APPE curriculum (post). The postsurvey also contained 2 open-response questions asking students to identify the most positive and negative influences on their PIF. Mean pre- and post-responses were calculated for all MCPIS items and each MCPIS item and compared using paired t tests. Responses to the open-ended questions were sorted into categories using inductive thematic analysis and frequencies were calculated. RESULTS: A total of 99 students (96%) completed both surveys. Mean MCPIS pre-scores and post-scores were both 3.3, indicating no statistically significant change in professional identity. The most frequently reported positive influences on PIF were didactic coursework (40%), experiential learning (30%), and student organizations (27%). The most frequently reported negative influences were didactic coursework (27%), none (25%), and perceptions of the pharmacy profession (22%). CONCLUSION: Students\u27 overall professional identity, as measured by the MCPIS, did not change during the pre-APPE curriculum. Didactic coursework had the most common positive and negative influence on professional identity prior to APPEs

Flexible, scalable, high channel count stereo-electrode for recording in the human brain

Over the past decade, stereotactically placed electrodes have become the gold standard for deep brain recording and stimulation for a wide variety of neurological and psychiatric diseases. Current electrodes, however, are limited in their spatial resolution and ability to record from small populations of neurons, let alone individual neurons. Here, we report on an innovative, customizable, monolithically integrated human-grade flexible depth electrode capable of recording from up to 128 channels and able to record at a depth of 10 cm in brain tissue. This thin, stylet-guided depth electrode is capable of recording local field potentials and single unit neuronal activity (action potentials), validated across species. This device represents an advance in manufacturing and design approaches which extends the capabilities of a mainstay technology in clinical neurology

Microscale Physiological Events on the Human Cortical Surface

Despite ongoing advances in our understanding of local single-cellular and network-level activity of neuronal populations in the human brain, extraordinarily little is known about their "intermediate" microscale local circuit dynamics. Here, we utilized ultra-high-density microelectrode arrays and a rare opportunity to perform intracranial recordings across multiple cortical areas in human participants to discover three distinct classes of cortical activity that are not locked to ongoing natural brain rhythmic activity. The first included fast waveforms similar to extracellular single-unit activity. The other two types were discrete events with slower waveform dynamics and were found preferentially in upper cortical layers. These second and third types were also observed in rodents, nonhuman primates, and semi-chronic recordings from humans via laminar and Utah array microelectrodes. The rates of all three events were selectively modulated by auditory and electrical stimuli, pharmacological manipulation, and cold saline application and had small causal co-occurrences. These results suggest that the proper combination of high-resolution microelectrodes and analytic techniques can capture neuronal dynamics that lay between somatic action potentials and aggregate population activity. Understanding intermediate microscale dynamics in relation to single-cell and network dynamics may reveal important details about activity in the full cortical circuit