This article focuses on the relationships between social justice, environmental justice, and sustainability from the local to global levels. We envision social and environmental justice as involving not only human beings, but also the rights of all species to life and respect. We advocate an ecological justice approach based on the equality and…

Several forms of long-term depression (LTD) of glutamatergic synaptic transmission have been identified in the dorsal striatum and in the nucleus accumbens (NAc). Such experience-dependent synaptic plasticity might play important roles in reward-related learning. The GABA[subscript A] receptor agonist muscimol was recently found to trigger a…

This article examines kindergarten children's (5-6 years old) engagement in scientific practices, with a focus on generating and using evidence to support claims, during a 5-month project about snails. The research questions are as follows: (1) what meanings do kindergarteners construct for what constitutes evidence? How are those meanings…

Calpain-1 (CANP1) has been shown to play a critical role in synaptic plasticity and learning and memory, as its deletion in mice results in impairment in theta-burst stimulation (TBS)-induced LTP and various forms of learning and memory. Likewise, PHLPP1 (aka SCOP) has also been found to participate in learning and memory, as PHLPP1 overexpression…

Humans and many other species selectively attend to stimuli or stimulus dimensions--but why should an animal constrain information input in this way? To investigate the adaptive functions of attention, we used a genetic algorithm to evolve simple connectionist networks that had to make categorization decisions in a variety of environmental…

In Ethiopia, there has been increasing recognition of the differing educational needs and experiences of pastoralists as compared to 'settled' agricultural communities. Although the starting point has usually been how to integrate such marginalised groups into mainstream schooling, research has revealed important insights into learning outside…

Long-term fear memory formation in the hippocampus and neocortex depends upon brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) signaling after acquisition. Incremental, appetitive odor discrimination learning is thought to depend substantially on the differentiation of adult-born neurons within the olfactory bulb (OB)--a process that is closely associated…

The aim of the article is to investigate, in the light of the emphasis laid on scaling by UNESCO (UNESCO, 2014a), how subjectification of those involved in educational innovations both enables and constricts scaling understood as a learning process. This is carried out through a case study of the Alforja Educativa, an educational project in…

Educational agents (including animal companions) are a kind of interface agent, which is a significant component in educational systems, and has great impacts on student learning. However, with the development of emerging technologies (e.g., tangible technology), few studies have yet investigated how tangible technology can be used to combine with…

Synapsin is an evolutionarily conserved presynaptic phosphoprotein. It is encoded by only one gene in the "Drosophila" genome and is expressed throughout the nervous system. It regulates the balance between reserve and releasable vesicles, is required to maintain transmission upon heavy demand, and is essential for proper memory function…

The basolateral amygdala (BLA), medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) circuit, plays a crucial role in acquisition and extinction of fear memory. Extinction of aversive memories is mediated, at least in part, by the phosphoinositide-3 kinase (P[subscript 3]K)/Akt pathway in adult rats. There is recent interest in the neural mechanisms that mediate fear…

Drugs of abuse cause changes in the prefrontal cortex (PFC) and associated regions that impair inhibitory control over drug-seeking. Breaking the contingencies between drug-associated cues and the delivery of the reward during extinction learning reduces rates of relapse. Here we used vagus nerve stimulation (VNS) to induce targeted synaptic…

Eyeblink conditioning given in the explicit presence of hippocampal ? results in accelerated learning and enhanced multiple-unit responses, with slower learning and suppression of unit activity under non-? conditions. Recordings from putative pyramidal cells during ?-contingent training show that pretrial ?-state is linked to the probability of…

Emerging research has demonstrated that the sex hormone estradiol regulates fear extinction in female rodents and women. Estradiol may also regulate fear extinction in males, given its role in synaptic plasticity in both sexes. Here we report that inhibition of estradiol synthesis during extinction training, via the aromatase inhibitor fadrozole,…

Habituation is a highly conserved phenomenon that remains poorly understood at the molecular level. Invertebrate model systems, like "Caenorhabditis elegans," can be a powerful tool for investigating this fundamental process. Here we established a high-throughput learning assay that used real-time computer vision software for behavioral…