10 research outputs found
Popoia te reo kia penapena: Nurture the language
Research to develop a MÄori language screening tool (Specialist Education Services, 2001), identified that students entering MÄori Medium at five, could be classified into one of four MÄori language competency, groups. Concurrently, teachers raised their need to identify the MÄori language proficiency of five year olds entering MÄori Medium so that more appropriate teaching strategies could be incorporated in preparation for literacy.
Accordingly, three MÄori oral-language assessment tools, to help identify the MÄori language competency of students entering MÄori Medium settings at five years of age and provide formative information, were developed in response to this need. This paper details the development and trial of these tools
Brain micro-inflammation at specific vessels dysregulates organ-homeostasis via the activation of a new neural circuit
Impact of stress on diseases including gastrointestinal failure is well-known, but molecular mechanism is not understood. Here we show underlying molecular mechanism using EAE mice. Under stress conditions, EAE caused severe gastrointestinal failure with high-mortality. Mechanistically, autoreactive-pathogenic CD4+ T cells accumulated at specific vessels of boundary area of third-ventricle, thalamus, and dentate-gyrus to establish brain micro-inflammation via stress-gateway reflex. Importantly, induction of brain micro-inflammation at specific vessels by cytokine injection was sufficient to establish fatal gastrointestinal failure. Resulting micro-inflammation activated new neural pathway including neurons in paraventricular-nucleus, dorsomedial-nucleus-of-hypothalamus, and also vagal neurons to cause fatal gastrointestinal failure. Suppression of the brain micro-inflammation or blockage of these neural pathways inhibited the gastrointestinal failure. These results demonstrate direct link between brain micro-inflammation and fatal gastrointestinal disease via establishment of a new neural pathway under stress. They further suggest that brain micro-inflammation around specific vessels could be switch to activate new neural pathway(s) to regulate organ homeostasis