Autistic people are better at perceiving details. Major theories explain this in terms of bottom-up sensory mechanisms or in terms of top-down cognitive biases. Recently, it has become possible to link these theories within a common framework. This framework assumes that perception is implicit neural inference, combining sensory evidence with…

Practice is a major element in cultivating musical skill. Some psychologists have proposed that deliberate practice, a specific framework for structuring practice activities, creates the kind of practice necessary to increase skill and develop expertise. While psychologists have been observing behavior, neurologists have studied how the brain…

Recent brain imaging investigations of developmental stuttering show considerable disagreement regarding which regions are related to stuttering. These divergent findings have been mainly derived from group studies. To investigate functional neurophysiology with improved precision, an individual-participant approach (N = 4) using event-related…

The neurocognitive development of moral and conventional judgments was examined. Event-related potentials were recorded while 24 adolescents (13 years) and 30 young adults (20 years) read scenarios with 1 of 3 endings: moral violations, conventional violations, or neutral acts. Participants judged whether the act was acceptable or unacceptable…

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), with its excellent spatial resolution and ability to visualize networks of neuroanatomical structures involved in complex information processing, has become the dominant technique for the study of brain function and its development. The accessibility of in-vivo pediatric brain-imaging techniques…

"From Neurons to Neighborhoods: An Update: Workshop Summary" is based on the original study "From Neurons to Neighborhoods: Early Childhood Development," which was released in October of 2000. From the time of the original publication's release, much has occurred to cause a fundamental reexamination of the nation's…

Though generally accepted as the most playfully entertaining form of popular media or art, animation as play has received little scholarly analysis. The author examines the nature of playfulness in animation and describes play as a critical tool in animation studies. Examining studio character animation from such perspectives as creative…

Increased AMPA signaling is proposed to mediate long-term memory. Rat neonates acquire odor preferences in a single olfactory bulb if one nostril is occluded at training. Memory testing here confirmed that only trained bulbs support increased odor preference at 24 h. Olfactory nerve field potentials were tested at 24 h in slices from trained and…

The dopaminergic modulation of long-term potentiation (LTP) has been studied well, but the mechanism by which dopamine induces LTP (DA-LTP) in CA1 pyramidal neurons is unknown. Here, we report that DA-LTP in basal dendrites is dependent while in apical dendrites it is independent of activation of L-type voltage-gated calcium channels (VDCC).…

Intracranial surgery means any surgery performed inside the skull to treat problems in the brain and surrounding structures. Aim: Evaluate the impact of nursing educational program on reducing or preventing postoperative complications for patients after intracranial surgery. Subjects and methods: Sixty adult patients had intracranial surgery (burr…

For the better part of the past century, the field of education has witnessed repeated calls and initiatives for change, reform and improvement of our schools. Yet today, the problems of improving academic achievement and social adjustment among youth continue unabated. An explanation for this "change without change" phenomenon is…

The Center for Disease Control estimates that 1 in 88 children have been identified with autism (CDC, 2012). Autism is often associated with other psychiatric, developmental, neurological, and genetic diagnoses. However, the majority (62%) of children identified on the autism spectrum do not have intellectual disability. Instead, they are hurting.…

This article describes the use of a Neuro Linguistic Program (NLP) in an antismoking campaign and studies how successful this campaign was according to secondary school students. This campaign was carried out in a small town in northern Finland as an intensive three-day-long campaign. The data consisted of the essays and interviews of those…

Recent research on fractions has broadened and deepened theories of numerical development. Learning about fractions requires children to recognize that many properties of whole numbers are not true of numbers in general and also to recognize that the one property that unites all real numbers is that they possess magnitudes that can be ordered on…

The two members of the Staufen family of RNA-binding proteins, Stau1 and Stau2, are present in distinct ribonucleoprotein complexes and associate with different mRNAs. Stau1 is required for protein synthesis-dependent long-term potentiation (L-LTP) in hippocampal pyramidal cells. However, the role of Stau2 in synaptic plasticity remains…