Vision First? The Development of Primary Visual Cortical Networks Is More Rapid Than the Development of Primary Motor Networks in Humans

The development of cortical functions and the capacity of the mature brain to learn are largely determined by the establishment and maintenance of neocortical networks. Here we address the human development of long-range connectivity in primary visual and motor cortices, using well-established behavioral measures - a Contour Integration test and a Finger-tapping task - that have been shown to be related to these specific primary areas, and the long-range neural connectivity within those. Possible confounding factors, such as different task requirements (complexity, cognitive load) are eliminated by using these tasks in a learning paradigm. We find that there is a temporal lag between the developmental timing of primary sensory vs. motor areas with an advantage of visual development; we also confirm that human development is very slow in both cases, and that there is a retained capacity for practice induced plastic changes in adults. This pattern of results seems to point to human-specific development of the “canonical circuits” of primary sensory and motor cortices, probably reflecting the ecological requirements of human life

Selective resistance of bone marrow-derived hemopoietic progenitor cells to gliotoxin.

The fungal metabolite gliotoxin at low concentrations prevents mitogen stimulation of mature lymphocytes as a result of gliotoxin-induced genomic DNA degradation. Bone marrow, on the other hand, contains a subpopulation of cells resistant to gliotoxin at similar concentrations. This population includes the hemopoietic progenitor cells that grow in vitro in response to appropriate colony-stimulating factors and cells that form colonies in the spleens of lethally irradiated recipients. Gliotoxin treatment of lymph node cell-enriched bone marrow significantly delayed the onset of graft-versus-host disease in fully allogeneic bone marrow chimeras

The gamma-irradiated influenza vaccine and the prospect of producing safe vaccines in general

Mohammed Alsharifi and Arno Müllbache