CA3 NMDA Receptors are Required for the Rapid Formation of a Salient Contextual Representation

The acquisition of Pavlovian fear learning engages the hippocampus when the conditioned stimuli are multimodal or temporally isolated from the unconditioned stimuli. By subjecting CA3-NR1 KO mice to conditioning protocols that incorporate time-dependent components, we found that the loss of plasticity at recurrent CA3 synapses resulted in a deficits in contextual conditioning specifically when the exposure to the context was brief or when the unconditioned stimulus was signaled with a competing, predictive unimodal stimulus. Our results suggest CA3 contributes both speed and salience to contextual processing and support the theory of competition between multimodal and unimodal conditioned stimuli for associative learning

The Effects of Metaphor and Blending Theory-Centered Instruction on Secondary English Students' Ability to Analyze Shakespearean Sonnets

The purpose of this study is to examine the effects of metaphor and blending theory-centered instruction on Secondary English students' ability to comprehend and analyze Shakespearean sonnets. Students in three intact British Literature and Composition classes located in a high school in a suburban county received an Advanced Placement (AP) pretest poetry prompt. The treatment class received instruction in metaphor and blending theory applied to Shakespearean sonnets. The comparison groups received two variants of instruction in the language arts model, a standard and accepted curriculum focused on textual, thematic, and cultural contexts for the Shakespearean sonnets. After the three intact classes completed the instruction, students completed an AP poetry posttest. Results suggest that the inclusion of metaphor and theory-centered instruction may have positive effects on secondary students' abilities to understand complex figurative language, infer theme, and respond effectively to AP-style prompts. These results, however, will need to be validated by further research that allows for randomization and other sample treatments

Can lymphangiosarcoma be resurrected? A clinicopathological and immunohistochemical study of lymphatic differentiation in 49 angiosarcomas

Mankey C C, McHugh J B, Thomas D G & Lucas D R (2010) Histopathology 56 , 364–371 Can lymphangiosarcoma be resurrected? A clinicopathological and immunohistochemical study of lymphatic differentiation in 49 angiosarcomas The term lymphangiosarcoma has largely been abandoned in the current classification of endothelial neoplasms. Recently, a number of lymphatic-associated antibodies have been developed for immunohistochemistry, which frequently stain angiosarcomas, implying lymphatic or mixed lymphatic and blood vascular differentiation is common. The aim was to investigate further lymphatic antigen expression, and to explore the relation of immunohistochemistry to morphological and clinical findings.Forty-nine angiosarcomas in tissue microarrays were analysed with D2-40 and antibodies to Prox-1 and vascular endothelial growth factor receptor (VEGFR)-3. D2-40 was positive in 53%, Prox-1 in 76%, and VEGFR-3 in 57%. Tumours with features attributable to lymphatic differentiation such as hobnail and kaposiform morphologies were more often positive with these markers, including a statistical association between D2-40 and hobnailing. Ten tumours had features suggestive of lymphatic differentiation, namely well-differentiated histology, interanastomosing channels devoid of red cells, prominent hobnailing, lymphoid aggregates, and multi-antigen expression of D2-40 (100%), Prox-1 (100%) and VEGFR-3 (60%), which might be deserving of the appellation lymphangiosarcoma. Nine were cutaneous scalp/facial tumours in elderly patients and one arose within chronic lymphoedema.Lymphatic differentiation is common in angiosarcoma, certain subsets show greater lymphatic differentiation than others, and lymphangiosarcoma may be defined pathologically, rather than clinically.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/78689/1/j.1365-2559.2010.03484.x.pd