Incorporating Scientific Publishing into an Undergraduate Neuroscience Course: A Case Study Using IMPULSE.

The journal IMPULSE offers undergraduates worldwide the opportunity to publish research and serve as peer reviewers for the submissions of others. Undergraduate faculty have recognized the journal's value in engaging students working in their labs in the publication process. However, integration of scientific publication into an undergraduate laboratory classroom setting has been lacking. We report here on a course at Ursinus College where 20 students taking Molecular Neurobiology were required to submit manuscripts to IMPULSE. The syllabus allowed for the laboratory research to coincide with the background research and writing of the manuscript. Students completed their projects on the impact of drugs on the Daphnia magna nervous system while producing manuscripts ready for submission by week 7 of the course. Findings from a survey completed by the students and perceptions of the faculty member teaching the course indicated that students spent much more time writing, were more focused on completing the assays, completed the assays with larger data sets, were more engaged in learning the scientific concepts and were more thorough with their revisions of the paper knowing that it might be published. Further, the professor found she was more thorough in critiquing students' papers knowing they would be externally reviewed. Incorporating journal submission into the course stimulated an in depth writing experience and allowed for a deeper exploration of the topic than students would have experienced otherwise. This case study provides evidence that IMPULSE can be successfully used as a means of incorporating scientific publication into an undergraduate laboratory science course. This approach to teaching undergraduate neuroscience allows for a larger number of students to have hands-on research and scientific publishing experience than would be possible with the current model of a few students in a faculty member's laboratory. This report illustrates that IMPULSE can be incorporated as an integral part of an academic curriculum with positive outcomes on student engagement and performance.

Sexually dimorphic effects of alcohol exposure during development on the processing of social cues.

AIMS: The study used an animal model of fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASD) to investigate the impact of alcohol exposure during a period equivalent to all three trimesters in humans on social recognition memory. It was hypothesized that the effects on specific aspects of social recognition memory would be sexually dimorphic. METHODS: This study exposed rats to ethanol during both the prenatal and early postnatal periods. Two control groups included a group exposed to the administration procedures but not ethanol and a non-treated group. At approximately 90 days, all rats were tested repeatedly in a test of social recognition memory with a juvenile animal of the same sex. Experimental rats of both sexes were allowed to investigate an unknown juvenile for either 2, 3 or 5 min and then, after a delay of 30, 60, 120 and 180 min, were allowed to investigate the same juvenile for 5 min. RESULTS: Male rats investigated the juvenile for much longer than female rats. Ethanol-exposed male rats showed a deficit in recognition memory that was evident with longer delays when the initial investigation time was either 2- or 3-min long. In contrast, ethanol-exposed female rats showed a deficit in recognition memory only when the initial investigation period was of 2 min. Measurement of oxytocin receptor binding in the amygdala region indicated that ethanol exposure lowered oxytocin receptor binding in females but not males. CONCLUSIONS: The results suggest that ethanol exposure during development caused a deficit in memory duration but not encoding in males and a deficit in encoding but not memory duration in females. The deficit in ethanol-exposed females may be related to changes in oxytocin receptors in the amygdala.

Home cage activity and ingestive behaviors in mice following chronic ethanol vapor inhalation.

Although drug withdrawal may induce an anxiety-like state, decreased locomotion in tests of anxiety-like behavior is an almost universal finding in rodent studies of ethanol withdrawal. Decreased locomotion in many behavioral apparatus, either as a result of a withdrawal-induced lethargy, malaise, or reduced motivation to explore confounds interpreting the effects of withdrawal as specifically increasing an anxiety-like state. To address this issue, we measured home cage activity levels as well as food and water intake for 3 days prior to and up to 5 days after chronic ethanol vapor exposure in genetically heterogeneous mice. In the first experiment, ethanol-withdrawing WSC-2 mice drank less water than controls, but did not differ from controls on any other behavioral measure during the withdrawal assessments. When the dose of ethanol was elevated in a subsequent experiment in WSC-2 mice, a similar temporary decrease in food and water intake, but not in locomotion, was observed during withdrawal. These results differed from those of mice placed into activity monitors during peak withdrawal, which exhibited profoundly reduced activity levels compared to controls. Finally, home cage activity levels during withdrawal were only transiently decreased in a mouse line that has been selectively bred to display high ethanol withdrawal handling-induced convulsion severity (WSP mice). The reduction in food and water consumption seen in most experiments suggests that withdrawal may induce a temporary malaise-like state, but this state is not reflected in altered home cage activity levels. Further, even in a relatively severe mouse model of alcohol withdrawal, any decreases in general home cage activity are short-lived.

A procedure to produce high alcohol intake in mice.

RATIONALE: While prolonged access to ethanol (EtOH), or deprivations, or their combination have occasionally been shown to yield high levels of voluntary self-administration, in almost all cases, rodents do not self-administer alcohol to the degree that they will develop substantial, intoxicating blood alcohol levels and then continue to self-administer at these levels. OBJECTIVES: The purpose of the present series of experiments was to modify a fluid restriction procedure to demonstrate consistent, high EtOH consumption. METHODS: Male and female mice from an alcohol preferring inbred strain (C57BL/6J; B6) as well as from a genetically heterogeneous strain (WSC) were given varying periods of access to fluid, ranging from 90 min to 10 h per day, for 12-21 days. Every 3rd or 4th day, separate groups of mice were offered a 5, 7 or 10% EtOH solution for either 10 min or 30 min, followed by water for the remainder of the time. RESULTS: In all studies, stable high EtOH doses were consumed by both B6 and WSC mice across the EtOH sessions, exceeding 2 g/kg in a 30-min session. Mean blood EtOH concentration exceeded 1 mg/ml (i.e. 100 mg%), with values in individual animals ranging from 0.6 mg/ml to 3.4 mg/ml. Notably, mice receiving 10 h of fluid/day continued to consume 2 g/kg doses of EtOH. While this procedure did not produce subsequent preference for EtOH in WSC mice, consumption remained high in some animals. CONCLUSIONS: These data indicate that scheduling fluid intake produces high, stable EtOH consumption and BEC in male and female B6 and WSC mice.

Ultrasonic vocalizations and maternal-infant interactions in a rat model of fetal alcohol syndrome.

When isolated from their dams and littermates, rat pups emit ultrasonic vocalizations to elicit attention and retrieval from their dams. This study examined the effects of perinatal alcohol exposure on ultrasonic vocalizations and maternal-infant interactions. Alcohol was administered throughout gestation to the dams and during the early postnatal period to the pups. Control groups consisted of a nontreated control and an intubated, pair-fed control. Ultrasonic vocalizations were measured on postnatal day (PD) 5 under varying conditions of isolation. Maternal behaviors were examined on PD2, 4, 6, 8, and 10. Maternal behaviors were not significantly affected by prior alcohol administration to either the dams or the pups. However, ethanol-exposed rat pups vocalized more on PD5 than controls regardless of condition. The heightened vocalization response of the ethanol-exposed pups might be an underlying factor in the persistent effects of perinatal ethanol exposure on social behavior.