Inception of memories that guide vocal learning in the songbird.

Animals learn many complex behaviors by emulating the behavior of more experienced individuals. This essential, yet still poorly understood, form of learning relies on the ability to encode lasting memories of observed behaviors. We identified a vocal-motor pathway in the zebra finch where memories that guide learning of song-element durations can be implanted. Activation of synapses in this pathway seeds memories that guide learning of song-element duration and can override learning from social interactions with other individuals. Genetic lesions of this circuit after memory formation, however, do not disrupt subsequent song imitation, which suggests that these memories are stored at downstream synapses. Thus, activity at these sensorimotor synapses can bypass learning from auditory and social experience and embed memories that guide learning of song timing.

Dividing lines at the word boundary position helps reading in Chinese.

Unlike in English, the Chinese printing and writing systems usually do not respect a word boundary when they split lines; thus, characters belonging to a word can be on two different lines. In this study, we examined whether dividing a word across two lines interferes with Chinese reading and found that reading times were shorter when characters belonging to a word were on a single line rather than on adjacent lines. Eye movement data indicated that gaze durations in a region around the word boundary were longer and fixations were closer to the beginnings and ends of the lines when words were split across lines. These results suggest that words are processed as a whole in Chinese reading, so that word boundaries should be respected when deciding how to split lines in the Chinese writing system. They also suggest that the length of return sweeps in reading can be cognitively guided.

Echinoderms have bilateral tendencies.

Echinoderms take many forms of symmetry. Pentameral symmetry is the major form and the other forms are derived from it. However, the ancestors of echinoderms, which originated from Cambrian period, were believed to be bilaterians. Echinoderm larvae are bilateral during their early development. During embryonic development of starfish and sea urchins, the position and the developmental sequence of each arm are fixed, implying an auxological anterior/posterior axis. Starfish also possess the Hox gene cluster, which controls symmetrical development. Overall, echinoderms are thought to have a bilateral developmental mechanism and process. In this article, we focused on adult starfish behaviors to corroborate its bilateral tendency. We weighed their central disk and each arm to measure the position of the center of gravity. We then studied their turning-over behavior, crawling behavior and fleeing behavior statistically to obtain the center of frequency of each behavior. By joining the center of gravity and each center of frequency, we obtained three behavioral symmetric planes. These behavioral bilateral tendencies might be related to the A/P axis during the embryonic development of the starfish. It is very likely that the adult starfish is, to some extent, bilaterian because it displays some bilateral propensity and has a definite behavioral symmetric plane. The remainder of bilateral symmetry may have benefited echinoderms during their evolution from the Cambrian period to the present.

Total alkaloids of Sophora alopecuroides increases the expression of CD4+ CD25+ Tregs and IL-10 in rats with experimental colitis.

Previous studies have demonstrated that the total alkaloids of Sophora alopecuroides (TASA), which contains many different ingredients like sophocarpine, matrine, oxymatrine, sophoridine, sophoramine, aloperine and cytosine, were able to protect colon against ulcers caused by 2,4,6-trinitrobenze sulphonic acid (TNBS)/ethanol treated models. In order to elucidate the mechanisms by which TASA exerts its effect of anti-inflammation and immunoregulation on rats with colitis, DAI (disease activity index) and histological grading of colitis were evaluated in the animal model. Moreover, the expression of CD4(+)CD25(+) regulatory T cells (Tregs) and IL-10 in rats with experimental colitis were observed by FCM, ELISA and RT-PCR in this study. Results showed that TASA (15, 30 or 60 mg/kg/day) significantly up-regulated CD4(+)CD25(+)Tregs (P = 0.02, P = 0.02, P = 0.03) and IL-10 levels (ELISA: P = 0.03, P = 0.02, P = 0.00; RT-PCR: P = 0.04, P = 0.02, P = 0.01) respectively and decreased the DAI and histological grading of colitis in the peripheral blood (PB) and colon of rat colitis models (3.44 +/- 1.53, 4.25 +/- 1.27, 4.42 +/- 1.24 and 3.50 +/- 1.42, 4.05 +/- 1.32, 4.51 +/- 1.55 vs. 7.18 +/- 1.32 and 7.38 +/- 1.52, P < 0.05, P < 0.01, respectively). Most interestingly, a negative correlation was demonstrated between the expression of CD4(+)CD25(+) Tregs and DAI (Pearson r(PB) = -0.677, P < 0.01; Pearson r(COLON) = -0.663, P < 0.01, n = 60), or histological grading of colitis (Pearson r(PB) = -0.725, P < 0.01; Pearson r(COLON) = -0.623, P < 0.01, n = 60). Simultaneously, a positive correlation existed between CD4(+)CD25(+) Tregs and IL-10 cytokine (IL-10 mRNA) in the colon and PB of rats (Pearson r(PB) = 0.789, P < 0.01, n = 60; Pearson r(COLON) = 0.678, P < 0.01, n = 60). These results may explain to some extent the mechanisms of TASA on treating rats with experimental colitis.