In the past decade, we have seen an increased focus on measuring the impact of zoos, aquariums, and other free-choice learning environments on the conservation-related knowledge, attitudes and behavior of the visiting public. However, no such studies have been conducted on the impact of such environments on the staff working in these…

We examined 3- to 6-year-old children's attributions of pretence when their own or another's behaviours were characterized as similar (usually unintentionally) to that of a real or nonexistent animal. In some pretence tasks, we asked children if they were trying to look like or looked like the animal they were characterized as looking like; in…

Axonal degeneration contributes to the development of non-remitting neurological deficits and disability in multiple sclerosis, but the molecular mechanisms that underlie axonal loss in multiple sclerosis are not clearly understood. Studies of white matter axonal injury have demonstrated that voltage-gated sodium channels can provide a route for…

A simple problem relating to birds chasing each other gives rise to a homogeneous differential equation. The solution draws on student skills in differential equations and basic co-ordinate geometry.

In this article, the author reviews material that deals with the infection pathways taken by three different animal viruses. The comparative study would be useful for discussions involving intermediate and advanced undergraduates. Before discussing the videos, the author first describes the method he followed in selecting these research records.…

It has been found that disoriented children could use geometric information in combination with landmark information to reorient themselves in large but not in small experimental spaces. We tested domestic chicks in the same task and found that they were able to conjoin geometric and nongeometric (landmark) information to reorient themselves in…

We investigated the role of acetylcholine (ACh) during encoding and retrieval of tone/shock-induced fear conditioning with the aim of testing Hasselmo's cholinergic modulation model of encoding and retrieval using a task sensitive to hippocampal disruption. Lesions of the hippocampus impair acquisition and retention of contextual conditioning with…

Spontaneous recovery from extinction is one of the most basic phenomena of Pavlovian conditioning. Although it can be studied by using a variety of designs, some procedures are better than others for identifying the involvement of underlying learning processes. A wide range of different learning mechanisms has been suggested as being engaged by…

Episodic memory in humans is the conscious recollection of a past event. Animal models of episodic-like memory assess the memory for "what" happened, "where" it happened, and either "when" it happened, or in "which" context it happened, although recollection on such tasks is often difficult to measure. Here we present the first evidence of…

While studies of cerebellar involvement in learning and memory have described plasticity within the cerebellum, its role in acquisition of plasticity elsewhere in the CNS is largely unexplored. This study set out to determine whether the cerebellum is needed for acquisition of the spinal cord plasticity that underlies operantly conditioned…

The social transmission of food preference task (STFP) has been used to examine the involvement of the hippocampus in learning and memory for a natural odor-odor association. However, cortical involvement in STFP has not been extensively studied. The orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) is important in odor-guided learning, and cholinergic depletion of the…

Fos protein immunodetection was used to investigate the neuronal activation elicited in some olfactory-related areas after either learning of an olfactory discrimination task or its reactivation 10 d later. Trained rats (T) progressively acquired the association between one odor of a pair and water-reward in a four-arm maze. Two groups of…

Temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) is often accompanied by interictal behavioral abnormalities, such as fear and memory impairment. To identify possible underlying substrates, we analyzed long-term synaptic plasticity in two relevant brain regions, the lateral amygdala (LA) and the CA1 region of the hippocampus, in the kindling model of epilepsy. Wistar…

Benzodiazepines have been useful tools for investigating mechanisms underlying learning and memory. The present set of experiments investigates the role of hippocampal GABA[subscript A]/benzodiazepine receptors in memory consolidation using Pavlovian fear conditioning. Rats were prepared with cannulae aimed at the dorsal hippocampus and trained…

An important source of information about a new word's meaning (and its associated lexical class) is its range of reference: the number of objects to which it is extended. Ninety toddlers (mean age = 37 months) participated in a study to determine whether young children can use this information in word learning. When a novel word was presented with…