Establishment of taxonomic status of Macrobrachium indicum Jayachandran amp; Joseph (Decapoda : Palaemonidae) through molecular characterization with a note on related species.

Macrobrachium indicum, a south Indian freshwater prawn described from Vellayani lake, Kerala is closely related to Koua river prawn, M. australe which in turn resembles M. ustulatum. Morphologically the three species pose difficulties in identification. A comparison of morphological characters of M. indicum, M. australe and M. ustulatum has been made in the paper. The COI sequence data for the species has been generated and made comparison with the existing COI barcode sequences for M. australe and showed clear difference between the species, thereby established the taxonomic validity of the species. Alignment of the present study sequences with reported sequences of M. australe revealed homologous region of 434 bp. Out of 434 nucleotides, the number of conserved and variable nucleotides were 313 and 121, respectively. Based on the P value (0.002) of Mann-Whitney U test, it was observed that the GC content at codon third base position between M. indicum and M. australe is significantly different. Because of the complexity of the species group a type material is highly necessary for confirmation in future studies and since holotype is irrecoverably lost, a neotype has been selected from the present collection and deposited in the CMFRI Museum at Kochi, Kerala with accession number: ED.2.2.1.8.

Rehabilitation of damage to the visual brain.

Homonymous visual field loss is a common consequence of stroke and traumatic brain injury. It is associated with an adverse functional prognosis and has implications on day-to-day activities such as driving, reading, and safe navigation. Early recovery is expected in around half of cases, and may be associated with a return in V1 activity. In stable disease, recovery is unlikely beyond 3 and certainly 6 months. Rehabilitative approaches generally target three main areas, encompassing a range of techniques with variable success: visual aids aim to expand or relocate the affected visual field; eye movement training builds upon compensatory strategies to improve explorative saccades; visual field restitution aims to improve visual processing within the damaged field itself. All these approaches seem to offer modest improvements with repeated practice, with none clearly superior to the rest. However, a number of areas are demonstrating particular promise currently, including simple web-based training initiatives, and work on neuroimaging and learning. The research interest in this area is encouraging, and it is to be hoped that future trials can better untangle and control for the number of complicated confounds, so that we will be in a much better position to evaluate and select the most appropriate therapy for patients.