Effect of the use of a model with peer instruction for the teaching of membrane potential and action potential.

A group of teachers from Northeast Brazil developed a model of membrane potentials and action potential and tested the hypothesis that using the peer-instruction model would provide a better performance for students in reading traditional texts and lectures. The results were obtained from 357 students from 20 different courses in 9 different undergraduate programs. All students attended two 100-min theoretical lecture and, at the end of the second lecture, were asked to answer a multiple-choice question (a pretest). In the following lecture, students were divided into three groups: control, text, and model. At the end of the lecture, everyone responded to a posttest. Student performance in the pretest did not differ significantly between groups. In the comparison between the pretest and the posttest, students in the model and text groups significantly improved their performance, but there was no improvement in the control group. In the posttest, the model group presented a better performance than the control group. In the evaluation of the strategies used, 46% of the students indicated that the text would be very useful to remind them about the subject in the future, whereas 80% of those who used the model indicated that it would be very useful or extremely useful. useful. Although it was not possible to support the hypothesis conclusively, the performance model group, at least in part, was due to the use of active methodologies that constitute a differential in the teaching-learning process.

Load effect on what-where-when memory in younger and older adults.

Episodic memory (EM) is a subsystem responsible for storing and evoking information about the "What", "Where" and "When" elements of an event in an integrated way. This capacity depends of structures with hippocampus and prefrontal cortex. The effect of aging on some capacities mediated by these areas, such as the influence of the number of objects on the coding of EM, remains unexplored. The present study examined the memory recall capacity of young and older adults in an EM task which used the number of 2, 4 and 6 items associated with specific space-temporal contexts. The young adults showed better performance coefficients than the older adults in all tasks, regardless of the load used, for all questions, except the "What" type. The group differences increase with load augmentation, stabilizing from the tasks with 4 items. In short, the EM efficiency, evaluated through What-Where-When Task, depends on the quantity information encoding.

Behavioral strategies and hormonal profiles of dominant and subordinate common marmoset (Callithrix jacchus) females in wild monogamous groups.

New insights into the mating systems of common marmosets suggest that they are mainly monogamous, although polygyny and polyandry occasionally occur. Long-term monitoring of wild common marmosets has shown that some reports of polygynous groups (i.e., groups that contain more than one reproducing female) in fact indicate an unbalanced reproductive output associated with extragroup copulation. In this study we describe the behavioral and hormonal profiles of common marmoset (Callithrix jacchus) females living in three wild monogamous groups (Q, PBf, and T), varying from five to 11 individuals, at Nísia Floresta field station, RN, Brazil. The mating system of the groups was previously characterized in terms of affiliative, sexual, and mate-guarding behaviors. Behavioral data were collected once a week, and fecal samples were collected at least twice a week for 10-16 months, depending on the group. A preferential allogrooming relationship was recorded between dominant males and females. Under field conditions the reproductive inhibition of subordinate females appears to be more behavioral than hormonal, since subordinate females of the three groups ovulated and two conceived during the study. In these cases, the subordinate and dominant females reproduced 1 month apart, and infanticide (one case confirmed and one suspected) appeared to be part of the reproductive strategy of dominant females. Following the infanticide, ovarian inhibition (group T) or emigration and return to the natal group (group PBf) were observed. In the third group (Q) the subordinate female showed hormonal profiles compatible with pregnancy, but no infants were seen. These findings reflect the different alternatives that wild subordinate common marmoset females use to reproduce.

A amígdala e a tênue fronteira entre memória e emoção: [revisão] / Amygdala and the slight boundary between memory and emotion: [review]

Embora os mecanismos neurobiológicos envolvidos na memória para situações aversivas não estejam completamente esclarecidos, o complexo basolateral da amígdala parece exercer um papel fundamental nesse tipo de memória. O presente trabalho tem como objetivo revisar os principais estudos acerca da participação da amígdala na memória e discutir os aspectos teóricos dos modelos utilizados. Foi realizada uma revisão dos estudos em humanos e em modelos animais que visam investigar e discutir a participação da amígdala na memória. Duas hipóteses norteiam as investigações aqui revisadas: 1) a amígdala seria o local dos processos plásticos envolvidos na aquisição e consolidação de informações de conteúdo aversivo e 2) essa estrutura modularia os processos de aquisição e consolidação que ocorreriam em outras estruturas. Os resultados que embasam a primeira hipótese foram obtidos em um modelo de resposta de medo condicionada em ratos, enquanto que a segunda hipótese provém de estudos que utilizam um modelo experimental que envolve aspectos mais declarativos da informação aversiva. Apesar de os trabalhos aqui revisados fornecerem fortes evidências de que a amígdala modula as estruturas relacionadas com a consolidação da memória, novos estudos poderão esclarecer melhor essa relação, principalmente com novos paradigmas de investigação.

Although the neurobiological events involved with the memory of aversive events are not completely understood, the basolateral amygdala seems to play an important role in this process. The objectives of the present study were to review the main human and animal studies on the role played by the amygdala in memory and to discuss the theoretical aspects of the models used. We reviewed the available studies using human and animal models that investigated and discussed the involvement of amygdala with memory. Current investigation on this issue is mainly based on two hypotheses: 1) the amygdala would be the site of the cellular events that lead to acquisition and consolidation of aversive information and 2) the amygdala would modulate acquisition and consolidation held in other sites within the brain. The first hypothesis is supported by studies conducted in a fear Pavlovian conditioning paradigm, while the second hypothesis is based on studies that use declarative memory procedures. Although the studies we reviewed provide strong evidence that the amygdala modulates brain regions related to memory consolidation, further studies, with new experimental paradigms, could better clarify this relationship.