Effects of Chronic Variable Stress Across Developmental Stages in Mice

Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is a response to trauma exposure that involves a number of symptoms that can be highly impairing to affected individuals. Only a subset of those exposed to traumatic events will develop the disorder, which is conceptualized as developing via conditional fear. Research into factors predisposing for PTSD is needed. Furthermore, little work has been done to investigate predisposing factors in children more specifically. This research tests the effects of stress exposure on subsequent fear learning, across developmental stages in mice, as a model for PTSD. Juvenile and adult male mice were exposed to chronic variable stress (CVS) for a period of 7d and their behavior was examined immediately thereafter. Both juvenile and adult mice exposed to CVS showed exaggerated anxiety behavior, as indicated by decreased exploratory behavior on the elevated plus-maze. While adult mice exposed to CVS displayed enhancements in long-term context fear learning, juvenile mice failed to display this pattern. Findings suggest differences in stress effects across developmental stages and provide further evidence supporting dissociation of the anxiety and fear pathways in the rodent brain. While PTSD does occur in childhood, onset is more common in adulthood, which may be reflective of differential developmental schedules in the fear and anxiety pathways

Teaching without trace: an aspiration for dance pedagogy?

This contribution to a special issue of Conversations Across the Field of Dance Studies on the Teacher's Imprint: Rethinking Dance Legacy highlights the complexity of interactions involved in teaching and learning dance especially in relation to dance technique. It challenges the primacy of the teacher-student relationship, often associated with the notion of transmission, to suggest that both teacher and students actively engage in interactive relationships not only with each other but also with with bodies of knowledge and practice. Each learner constructs his or her own dance practice through the processes involved

Neural Plasticity in Response to Intervention in Adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorders

Current theories of Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) suggest that they may develop from the transactional interaction between biological risk factors and environmental processes (Dawson et al., 2009). Due to the brain’s experience-expectant nature, one’s degree of social exposure may have a significant impact on their brain development and behavioral presentation. In addition to the primary critical neurodevelopmental period identified in early childhood, recent research has demonstrated a second period of substantial neurodevelopment during the adolescent period (Sisk & Foster, 2004). This study investigated the neural and behavioral impact of participation in an empirically validated behavioral intervention (The Program for the Education and Enrichment of Relational Skills; Laugeson & Frankel, 2010) during the adolescent years among individuals with ASD. Prior to intervention adolescents with ASD (n=21) differed from their neurotypical peers (n=24) with regard to amount of EEG spectral power across brain locations within the theta and beta frequency bands but not the delta, alpha or gamma frequency bands. Participation in the intervention resulted in increased EEG power in both frequency bands to a degree rendering adolescents with ASD statistically indiscernible from their typically developing peers. Waitlist control subjects (n=22) continued to differ statistically from their neurotypical peers at follow-up assessment. Behavioral change also was observed in response to the intervention, namely increased social exposure and social skills knowledge. No direct correlations could be drawn, however, between neural and behavioral outcomes, suggesting the presence of mediating factors not examined here. A secondary aim of the study was to examine new EEG methodology. Standard continuous EEG procedures complete data collection with subjects in a resting state with no stimuli present. A novel condition involving video and audio presentation of a neurotypical peer providing autobiographical information normally shared in social settings was examined here. No differences were noted between subjects with and without ASD during the novel condition that were not observed in the resting state condition. Taken together, results suggest continued use of standard EEG procedures in the assessment of neurodevelopment in ASD. They also point to adolescence as a crucial period of neural and behavioral development sensitive to behavioral intervention

The National Association of Dance and Mime Animateurs (1986-9): a community of practice

The Foundation for Community Dance is the national lead body for community dance in the UK. It has been at the forefront of the development of community dance in Britain continuously for over twenty five years. It began, in 1986, as the National Association of Dance and Mime Animateurs (NADMA). This professional association of dance practitioners (referred to at the time as animateurs) sought to raise awareness of a newly identified profession and provide a forum for the dissemination of the forms, working processes and techniques needed to work successfully in community settings. This paper seeks to instigate a critical assessment of NADMA’s work by considering it in relation to theoretical debates concerning cultural provision and pedagogic practice of the time and, subsequently, to the theory of communities of practice. The paper considers the cultural and educational policy contexts within which the dance animateurs, who formed and ran the association, worked. This helps explain the multiple demands and tensions, inherent in the cultural and pedagogic politics of the time, to which the profession was subject. The paper suggests that these were ultimately managed through the cooperative and collective working of NADMA members. In the five years following NADMA’s formation some key parameters for dance development in Britain were established. The paper suggests that NADMA made a significant contribution to such development by helping to create a more integrated, adaptable dance profession and an infrastructure for participatory dance that pre-figured the national dance agency network of the 1990s

'What you cannot imagine': Spirituality in Akram Khan's Vertical Road

The file attached to this record is the authors final peer reviewed version. The final publishers's version can be found by following the DOI link.This article considers the interface between artistic and spiritual inquiry through an examination of Vertical Road (2010), an ensemble performance work by the British contemporary choreographer Akram Khan. Khan is well known for his cross-cultural explorations, critical appreciation of which has tended to focus on the hybrid nature of his movement vocabulary and aesthetic. This article considers the intercultural nature of his work in terms of the ideas, beliefs and values that it embodies. In particular it examines Vertical Road in relation to some key tenets of contemporary progressive spirituality. It suggests that Vertical Road provides a poetic and insightful reflection on our contemporary spiritual condition

Meridional heat transport across the Antarctic Circumpolar Current by the Antarctic Bottom Water overturning cell

The heat transported by the lower limb of the Southern Ocean meridional overturning circulation is commonly held to be negligible in comparison with that transported by eddies higher in the water column. We use output from one of the first global high resolution models to have a reasonably realistic export of Antarctic Bottom Water, the OCCAM one twelfth degree model. The heat fluxed southward by the deep overturning cell using the annual mean field for 1994 at 56S is 0.033 PW, but the 5-day mean fields give a larger heat flux (0.048 and 0.061 PW depending on calculation method). This is more than 30% of previous estimates of the total heat flux. Eddies and other transients add considerably to the heat flux. These results imply that this component of meridional heat flux may not be negligible as has been supposed

Parent and Family Outcomes of PEERS: A Social Skills Intervention for Adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorder

Raising a child with an Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is associated with increased family chaos and parent distress. Successful long-term treatment outcomes are dependent on healthy systemic functioning, but the family impact of treatment is rarely evaluated. The Program for the Education and Enrichment of Relational Skills (PEERS) is a social skills intervention designed for adolescents with high-functioning ASD. This study assessed the impact of PEERS on family chaos, parenting stress, and parenting self-efficacy via a randomized, controlled trial. Results suggested beneficial effects for the experimental group in the domain of family chaos compared to the waitlist control, while parents in the PEERS experimental group also demonstrated increased parenting self-efficacy. These findings highlight adjunctive family system benefits of PEERS intervention and suggest the need for overall better understanding of parent and family outcomes of ASD interventions

Seeing myself dance: video and reflective learning in dance technique

This paper will address the conference theme of parity/choice between practice and theory within a dance course. It deals specifically with an example from an undergraduate dance provision. The paper draws on ongoing action research undertaken as part of ReP: The Performance Reflective Practice Project. This two year project is supported by the Fund for the Development of Teaching and Learning and is based at De Montfort University. The project team, of which the authors are members, is examining the role of reflective practice in the teaching and learning of Dance, Theatre and Performance in higher education. In particular, the project seeks to investigate how students may be encouraged and enabled to develop critical approaches to their own studio practice by engaging with it in a reflective way. This paper will report how student analysis of video recording of practice was employed as part of a reflective learning strategy to enhance student learning in dance technique and performance

The role of Mce proteins in Mycobacterium avium paratuberculosis infection

Mycobacterium avium subspecies paratuberculosis (MAP) is the causative agent of Johne's Disease, a chronic granulomatous enteritis of ruminants. MAP establishes an infection in the host via the small intestine. This requires the bacterium to adhere to, and be internalised by, cells of the intestinal tract. The effector molecules expressed by MAP for this purpose remain to be fully identified and understood. Mammalian cell entry (mce) proteins have been shown to enable other Mycobacterial species to attach to and invade host epithelial cells. Here, we have expressed Mce1A, Mce1D, Mce3C and Mce4A proteins derived from MAP on the surface of a non-invasive Escherichia coli to characterise their role in the initial interaction between MAP and the host. To this end, expression of mce1A was found to significantly increase the ability of the E. coli to attach and survive intracellularly in human monocyte-like THP-1 cells, whereas expression of mce1D was found to significantly increase attachment and invasion of E. coli to bovine epithelial cell-like MDBK cells, implying cell-type specificity. Furthermore, expression of Mce1A and Mce1D on the surface of a previously non-invasive E. coli enhanced the ability of the bacterium to infect 3D bovine basal-out enteroids. Together, our data contributes to our understanding of the effector molecules utilised by MAP in the initial interaction with the host, and may provide potential targets for therapeutic intervention.</p

Brief Report: Visuo-spatial Guidance of Movement during Gesture Imitation and Mirror Drawing in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders

Thirteen autistic and 14 typically developing children (controls) imitated hand/arm gestures and performed mirror drawing; both tasks assessed ability to reorganize the relationship between spatial goals and the motor commands needed to acquire them. During imitation, children with autism were less accurate than controls in replicating hand shape, hand orientation, and number of constituent limb movements. During shape tracing, children with autism performed accurately with direct visual feedback, but when viewing their hand in a mirror, some children with autism generated fewer errors than controls whereas others performed much worse. Large mirror drawing errors correlated with hand orientation and hand shape errors in imitation, suggesting that visuospatial information processing deficits may contribute importantly to functional motor coordination deficits in autism