Psychosocial competences in the continuing training of French National Education professionals in 2024: A major issue in promoting health in school environment.

OBJECTIVE: Promoting health, and in particular developing psychosocial competences, at school encourages the emancipation of pupils and creates a favourable school environment. Furthermore, by helping to improve academic success, they improve pupils' overall health. However, school professionals need to be trained to develop students' psychosocial competences. The aim of this study was to describe the perceptions of French National Education professionals who have attended in-service training in psychosocial competences. METHOD: This research adopts a mixed methodology. An online questionnaire was administered to 304 professionals in order to measure their levels of satisfaction and professional development following the training. Then, 14 professionals took part in individual semi-structured interviews to discuss their needs and the obstacles and levers they encountered in reinvesting what they had learned into their professional practice. RESULTS: The quantitative data showed that the professionals have an average satisfaction rating ranging from 6.96 to 8.22 out of 10 depending on the variable measured, but that they need to discover more tools and practices to develop psychosocial competences (79.28%). The qualitative data reveal that continuing training enables National Education professionals to exchange ideas with their peers and to review their posture (78.57%). They were able to experiment with psychosocial competences according to their needs and modified their practices as a result of the training (57.14%). CONCLUSION: This study suggests that continuing training in psychosocial competences leads to changes in the attitudes and practices of National Education professionals, despite significant heterogeneity in terms of the length of training. Future research could focus on the actual practices of professionals trained in the development of psychosocial competences in order to assess the difficulties they encounter.

Mental health in the United States during the COVID-19 pandemic: A longitudinal examination of the ameliorating effect of meaning salience.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, various restrictions forced people around the world to socially isolate. People were asked to stay at home and were largely unable to do many of the activities that they derived meaning from. Since meaning is often related to mental health, these restrictions were likely to decrease mental health. The current study aimed to examine these effects and additionally benefit individuals' mental health by making their meaning salient. Specifically, the goal of the research was to design an intervention that could counter the potential negative effects of social distancing. We recruited a total of 96 U.S.A. residents (M age = 34.45, 92.7% Female) and assigned them to either the control group or to a meaning salience intervention. That is, participants either focused on the meaning of their daily activities (n = 45) or did not participate in any study-related activities during the week (n = 51). They completed various measures of mental health before and after this experimental period. Results suggested that the control group reported significantly greater anxiety, depression, and stress at the end of the week. In contrast, the experimental group reported less anxiety and trended toward less depression and stress at the end of that same week. In all, results suggest that simply focusing on one's daily activities and the meaning found in them protected people from the otherwise detrimental effects of the restrictions. This provides a promising and simple intervention that may assist both individuals and practitioners aiming to improve mental health, especially in challenging times.

The Importance of Awareness, Acceptance, and Alignment With the Self: A Framework for Understanding Self-Connection.

We provide a theoretical framework for what it means to be self-connected and propose that self-connection is an important potential contributor to a person's well-being. We define self-connection as consisting of three components: 1) an awareness of oneself, 2) an acceptance of oneself based on this awareness, and 3) an alignment of one's behavior with this awareness. First, we position the concept within the broader self literature and provide the empirical context for our proposed definition of self-connection. We next compare and contrast self-connection to related constructs, including mindfulness and authenticity. Following, we discuss some of the potential relationships between self-connection and various aspects of mental health and well-being. Finally, we provide initial recommendations for future research, including potential ways to promote self-connection. In all, we present this theory to provide researchers with a framework for understanding self-connection so that they can utilize this concept to better support the efforts of researchers and practitioners alike to increase individuals' well-being in various contexts.

Meaning gained versus meaning lost: The effects of meaning salience on anxiety and depression during the coronavirus pandemic.

People who have meaningful lives generally experience less anxiety and depression. Meaning salience, or the awareness of the meaning in one's life, is believed to partially explain this relationship. However, in times of isolation, what might be most salient to people are the meaningful aspects of their lives that have disappeared. This study seeks to understand how making gained versus lost meaning salient affects anxiety and depression. Participants either wrote for 5 minutes about how their life gained meaning (n = 29) or lost meaning (n = 30) due to the coronavirus restrictions, or about music (i.e., the control condition; n = 32). Those who wrote about gained meaning experienced less momentary anxiety than those who wrote about lost meaning. In addition, meaning salience moderated the relationship between meaning and both anxiety and depression. Those who wrote about gained meaning appeared to exhibit a positive relationship between meaning in life (MIL) and both anxiety and depression, while those who wrote about lost meaning exhibited negative relationships. In all, this suggests that meaning salience is not always positive and that researchers and practitioners should consider how making positive meaning salient may be more beneficial than a general focus on MIL.

Fostering Stress Resilience Among Business Students: The Role of Stress Mindset and Self-Connection.

Educators are becoming increasingly concerned about the high rates of burnout among their students. Although the solution may appear to be reducing the stress their students experience, simply reducing stress is a temporary solution and does not help students when they enter the workforce and encounter increased stressors. A better option may be to consider the ways in which students can increase stress resilience in ways that will help them long after they leave the classroom. With this idea in mind, we tested for relationships between two individual difference variables, stress mindset and self-connection, and burnout and life satisfaction among business students. The results showed there was a positive relationship between viewing stress as debilitating and prevalence of both personal and school-related burnout. Additionally, self-connection was negatively related to personal burnout and greater life satisfaction. Stress mindset and self-connection also interacted to predict both personal and school burnout. The results suggest that promoting adaptive views of stress and becoming more self-connected may lead to a better student experience.

Interpersonal problems in social anxiety disorder across different relational contexts.

People with social anxiety disorder (SAD) frequently report interpersonal problems across various domains; however, it is unclear whether these problems are observable by others or represent negatively biased self-report. We assessed the interpersonal problems of people with and without SAD using self-report, friend, and romantic partner report. We hypothesized that SAD diagnosis would predict self-reported problems across multiple interpersonal domains, but restricted domains of informant report. Additionally, we hypothesized that diagnosis would predict discrepancy between self and informant report either in the form of a bias toward reporting more problems or in the form of lack of concordance between self and informant reporters. Using structural equation and multilevel models, we found evidence for differences between people with and without SAD in terms of domains of impairment observed by self and informants as well as differences in correspondence across relationship types. Results highlight the utility of multi-informant assessment of SAD.

The Role of Self-Connection in the Relationship between Mindfulness and Meaning: A Longitudinal Examination.

BACKGROUND: Researchers have rarely examined mindfulness and meaning in a way that informs the causality and directionality of this relationship. The current research examines this relationship across time, further validates the Self-Connection Scale (SCS), and examines the role of self-connection in both moderating and mediating this relationship. This allows for researchers and practitioners alike to utilise self-connection to help increase their own and others' well-being. METHODS: One hundred and fifty-four participants completed measures of mindfulness, self-connection, and meaning over 4 weeks. We also included various measures related to well-being to further examine the nomological network of the SCS. RESULTS: Multi-level models examined a total of 432 observations across 108 participants. Mindfulness predicted an increase in the presence of but not search for meaning. Self-connection partially mediated the effect on the presence of meaning and moderated the effect on the search for meaning. Furthermore, the SCS demonstrated good validity and reliability across time. CONCLUSIONS: Self-connection, as measured by the SCS, has an important role in positive psychology, and those with a deficit are likely to benefit the most from increased mindfulness. Together, this provides several implications for using mindfulness and self-connection research in personal and professional practice.

Gender and Child Behavior Problems in Rural Nepal: Differential Expectations and Responses.

Whereas epidemiologic studies consistently identify different rates and types of problematic behavior in boys and girls, there has been little research examining the ecocultural context in which these gender differences in child behavior problems develop, especially in non-Western settings. This qualitative study in rural Nepal explored how behavioral expectations differed based on gender role, gender discrimination, inequity, and treatment of children based on their gender identity. We conducted semi-structured interviews with a total of 14 parents, school workers, and community leaders from a village in rural Nepal. Interview transcripts were coded by two authors using predetermined and emergent codes to identify expectations, behavior problems, and responses to behavior problems, stratified by gender. Authors then arranged codes into categories based on emergent themes. Four major themes in the interviews were identified: (1) self-reported gender non-bias; (2) differentiated role expectations; (3) gender, "goodness", and differential thresholds for problem behaviors; and (4) boys and girls require different responses for misbehavior. Results from our study in Nepal reflect nearly universal models of gender differences in behavior. Of particular importance in South Asia, patrilocal marital practices were used to frame gender differences in expectations. To protect girls' future potential to marry, local cultural practices provide girls with lesser opportunities and less cultural space to conduct themselves in a disruptive manner than boys. Greater understanding of differential expectations and responses to disruptive behaviors by gender will be important for culturally-appropriate equitable programming in child development.

Symptoms of social anxiety disorder and major depressive disorder: A network perspective.

BACKGROUND: We used network analyses to examine symptoms that may play a role in the co-occurrence of social anxiety disorder (SAD) and major depressive disorder (MDD). Whereas latent variable models examine relations among latent constructs, network analyses have the advantage of characterizing direct relations among the symptoms themselves. METHOD: We conducted network modeling on symptoms of social anxiety and depression in a clinical sample of 130 women who met criteria for SAD, MDD, both disorders, or had no lifetime history of mental illness. RESULTS: In the resulting network, the core symptoms of social fear and depressed mood appeared at opposite ends of the network and were weakly related; so-called "bridges" between these symptoms appeared to occur via intervening variables. In particular, the worthless variable appeared to play a central role in the network. LIMITATIONS: Because our data were cross-sectional, we are unable to draw conclusions about the direction of these effects or whether these variables are related to each other prospectively. CONCLUSIONS: Continued testing of these pathways using longitudinal data will help facilitate the development of more effective clinical interventions for these disorders.

Anisotropic Panglial Coupling Reflects Tonotopic Organization in the Inferior Colliculus.

Astrocytes and oligodendrocytes in different brain regions form panglial networks and the topography of such networks can correlate with neuronal topography and function. Astrocyte-oligodendrocyte networks in the lateral superior olive (LSO)-an auditory brainstem nucleus-were found to be anisotropic with a preferred orientation orthogonally to the tonotopic axis. We hypothesized that such a specialization might be present in other tonotopically organized brainstem nuclei, too. Thus, we analyzed gap junctional coupling in the center of the inferior colliculus (IC)-another nucleus of the auditory brainstem that exhibits tonotopic organization. In acute brainstem slices obtained from mice, IC networks were traced employing whole-cell patch-clamp recordings of single sulforhodamine (SR) 101-identified astrocytes and concomitant intracellular loading of the gap junction-permeable tracer neurobiotin. The majority of dye-coupled networks exhibited an oval topography, which was preferentially oriented orthogonal to the tonotopic axis. Astrocyte processes showed preferentially the same orientation indicating a correlation between astrocyte and network topography. In addition to SR101-positive astrocytes, IC networks contained oligodendrocytes. Using Na+ imaging, we analyzed the capability of IC networks to redistribute small ions. Na+ bi-directionally diffused between SR101-positive astrocytes and SR101-negative cells-presumably oligodendrocytes-showing the functionality of IC networks. Taken together, our results demonstrate that IC astrocytes and IC oligodendrocytes form functional anisotropic panglial networks that are preferentially oriented orthogonal to the tonotopic axis. Thus, our data indicate that the topographic specialization of glial networks seen in IC and LSO might be a general feature of tonotopically organized auditory brainstem nuclei.

Social anxiety and eating disorder comorbidity and underlying vulnerabilities: Using network analysis to conceptualize comorbidity.

OBJECTIVE: Eating disorders (EDs) and social anxiety disorder (SAD) are highly co-occurring. This comorbidity is extremely relevant, given that individuals with comorbid ED-SAD are less likely to seek and/or benefit from ED treatment. METHOD: We used network analysis to conceptualize ED-SAD comorbidity in a sample of 2,215 participants with a primary diagnosis of ED, SAD, or no known diagnosis. We used novel network analyses methods to select symptoms for our models, identify potential illness pathways (i.e., bridge symptoms) between disorders and underlying vulnerabilities (e.g., perfectionism, social appearance anxiety), and to compare across sample types (e.g., clinical vs. nonclinical). We also tested several novel network analyses methods aimed at the following methodological concerns: (a) topological concerns (i.e., which items should be included in NA models), (b) how to use empirical indices to quantify bridge symptoms and (c) what differences in networks across samples mean. RESULTS: We found that difficulty with drinking beverages and eating in public were bridge symptoms between ED and SAD. We also found that feeling nervous about one's appearance was a bridge symptom. CONCLUSIONS: We identified public eating and drinking as bridge symptoms between EDs and SAD. Future research is needed to test if interventions focused on public eating and drinking might decrease symptoms of both EDs and SAD. Researchers can use this study (code provided) as an exemplar for how to use network analysis, as well as to use network analysis to conceptualize ED comorbidity and compare network structure and density across samples.

Correction to: Metabolomic profiling identifies distinct phenotypes for ASS1 positive and negative GBM.

In the original publication of this article [1], published on 8 February 2018, it was noticed that the acknowledgement of the source of the drug ADI-PEG20 was missing.

Metabolomic profiling identifies distinct phenotypes for ASS1 positive and negative GBM.

BACKGROUND: Tumour cells have a high demand for arginine. However, a subset of glioblastomas has a defect in the arginine biosynthetic pathway due to epigenetic silencing of the rate limiting enzyme argininosuccinate synthetase (ASS1). These tumours are auxotrophic for arginine and susceptible to the arginine degrading enzyme, pegylated arginine deiminase (ADI-PEG20). Moreover, ASS1 deficient GBM have a worse prognosis compared to ASS1 positive tumours. Since altered tumour metabolism is one of the hallmarks of cancer we were interested to determine if these two subtypes exhibited different metabolic profiles that could allow for their non-invasive detection as well as unveil additional novel therapeutic opportunities. METHODS: We looked for basal metabolic differences using one and two-dimensional gas chromatography-time-of-flight mass spectrometry (1D/2D GC-TOFMS) followed by targeted analysis of 29 amino acids using liquid chromatography-time-of-flight mass spectrometry (LC-TOFMS). We also looked for differences upon arginine deprivation in a single ASS1 negative and positive cell line (SNB19 and U87 respectively). The acquired data was evaluated by chemometric based bioinformatic methods. RESULTS: Orthogonal partial least squares-discriminant analysis (OPLS-DA) of both the 1D and 2D GC-TOFMS data revealed significant systematic difference in metabolites between the two subgroups with ASS1 positive cells generally exhibiting an overall elevation of identified metabolites, including those involved in the arginine biosynthetic pathway. Pathway and network analysis of the metabolite profile show that ASS1 negative cells have altered arginine and citrulline metabolism as well as altered amino acid metabolism. As expected, we observed significant metabolite perturbations in ASS negative cells in response to ADI-PEG20 treatment. CONCLUSIONS: This study has highlighted significant differences in the metabolome of ASS1 negative and positive GBM which warrants further study to determine their diagnostic and therapeutic potential for the treatment of this devastating disease.

Community barcoding reveals little effect of ocean acidification on the composition of coastal plankton communities: Evidence from a long-term mesocosm study in the Gullmar Fjord, Skagerrak.

The acidification of the oceans could potentially alter marine plankton communities with consequences for ecosystem functioning. While several studies have investigated effects of ocean acidification on communities using traditional methods, few have used genetic analyses. Here, we use community barcoding to assess the impact of ocean acidification on the composition of a coastal plankton community in a large scale, in situ, long-term mesocosm experiment. High-throughput sequencing resulted in the identification of a wide range of planktonic taxa (Alveolata, Cryptophyta, Haptophyceae, Fungi, Metazoa, Hydrozoa, Rhizaria, Straminipila, Chlorophyta). Analyses based on predicted operational taxonomical units as well as taxonomical compositions revealed no differences between communities in high CO2 mesocosms (~ 760 µatm) and those exposed to present-day CO2 conditions. Observed shifts in the planktonic community composition were mainly related to seasonal changes in temperature and nutrients. Furthermore, based on our investigations, the elevated CO2 did not affect the intraspecific diversity of the most common mesozooplankter, the calanoid copepod Pseudocalanus acuspes. Nevertheless, accompanying studies found temporary effects attributed to a raise in CO2. Differences in taxa composition between the CO2 treatments could, however, only be observed in a specific period of the experiment. Based on our genetic investigations, no compositional long-term shifts of the plankton communities exposed to elevated CO2 conditions were observed. Thus, we conclude that the compositions of planktonic communities, especially those in coastal areas, remain rather unaffected by increased CO2.

Ocean acidification effects on mesozooplankton community development: Results from a long-term mesocosm experiment.

Ocean acidification may affect zooplankton directly by decreasing in pH, as well as indirectly via trophic pathways, where changes in carbon availability or pH effects on primary producers may cascade up the food web thereby altering ecosystem functioning and community composition. Here, we present results from a mesocosm experiment carried out during 113 days in the Gullmar Fjord, Skagerrak coast of Sweden, studying plankton responses to predicted end-of-century pCO2 levels. We did not observe any pCO2 effect on the diversity of the mesozooplankton community, but a positive pCO2 effect on the total mesozooplankton abundance. Furthermore, we observed species-specific sensitivities to pCO2 in the two major groups in this experiment, copepods and hydromedusae. Also stage-specific pCO2 sensitivities were detected in copepods, with copepodites being the most responsive stage. Focusing on the most abundant species, Pseudocalanus acuspes, we observed that copepodites were significantly more abundant in the high-pCO2 treatment during most of the experiment, probably fuelled by phytoplankton community responses to high-pCO2 conditions. Physiological and reproductive output was analysed on P. acuspes females through two additional laboratory experiments, showing no pCO2 effect on females' condition nor on egg hatching. Overall, our results suggest that the Gullmar Fjord mesozooplankton community structure is not expected to change much under realistic end-of-century OA scenarios as used here. However, the positive pCO2 effect detected on mesozooplankton abundance could potentially affect biomass transfer to higher trophic levels in the future.

The structure of vulnerabilities for social anxiety disorder.

Social anxiety disorder symptoms are generally proposed to be related to broad temperamental vulnerabilities (e.g., a low level of approach and high level of avoidance temperament), specific psychological vulnerabilities (e.g., fears of negative and positive evaluation), and additional disorders (e.g., major depressive disorder). However, existing tests of such a model have either not considered depressive symptoms or relied on samples of undergraduates. We examined these and related questions via a latent variable model in a large dataset (N=2253) that combined participants across a variety of studies. The model had adequate fit in the whole sample, and good fit in a subsample in which more participants completed the depression measure. The model indicated that low level of approach and high level of avoidance temperament contributed to fears of evaluation and social anxiety symptoms, and that fears of evaluation additionally contributed independently to social anxiety symptoms. The relationship between social anxiety and depressive symptoms was entirely accounted for by these vulnerabilities: Depressive symptoms were only predicted by avoidance temperament.

Rapid sodium signaling couples glutamate uptake to breakdown of ATP in perivascular astrocyte endfeet.

Perivascular endfeet of astrocytes are highly polarized compartments that ensheath blood vessels and contribute to the blood-brain barrier. They experience calcium transients with neuronal activity, a phenomenon involved in neurovascular coupling. Endfeet also mediate the uptake of glucose from the blood, a process stimulated in active brain regions. Here, we demonstrate in mouse hippocampal tissue slices that endfeet undergo sodium signaling upon stimulation of glutamatergic synaptic activity. Glutamate-induced endfeet sodium transients were diminished by TFB-TBOA, suggesting that they were generated by sodium-dependent glutamate uptake. With local agonist application, they could be restricted to endfeet and immunohistochemical analysis revealed prominent expression of glutamate transporters GLAST and GLT-1 localized towards the neuropil vs. the vascular side of endfeet. Endfeet sodium signals spread at an apparent maximum velocity of ∼120 µm/s and directly propagated from stimulated into neighboring endfeet; this spread was omitted in Cx30/Cx43 double-deficient mice. Sodium transients resulted in elevation of intracellular magnesium, indicating a decrease in intracellular ATP. In summary, our results establish that excitatory synaptic activity and stimulation of glutamate uptake in astrocytes trigger transient sodium increases in perivascular endfeet which rapidly spread through gap junctions into neighboring endfeet and cause a reduction of intracellular ATP. The newly discovered endfeet sodium signaling thereby represents a fast, long-lived and inter-cellularly acting indicator of synaptic activity at the blood-brain barrier, which likely constitutes an important component of neuro-metabolic coupling in the brain. GLIA 2017;65:293-308.

Functional anisotropic panglial networks in the lateral superior olive.

Astrocytes form large gap junctional networks that contribute to ion and neurotransmitter homeostasis. Astrocytes concentrate in the lateral superior olive (LSO), a prominent auditory brainstem center. Compared to the LSO, astrocyte density is lower in the region dorsal to the LSO (dLSO) and in the internuclear space between the LSO, the superior paraolivary nucleus (SPN). We questioned whether astrocyte networks exhibit certain properties that reflect the precise neuronal arrangement. Employing whole-cell patch-clamp and concomitant injection of a gap junction-permeable tracer, we analyzed size and orientation of astrocyte networks in LSO, dLSO, and SPN-LSO in acute brainstem slices of mice at postnatal days 10-20. The majority of LSO networks exhibited an oval topography oriented orthogonally to the tonotopic axis, whereas dLSO networks showed no preferred orientation. This correlated with the overall astrocyte morphology in both regions, i.e. LSO astrocyte processes were oriented mainly orthogonally to the tonotopic axis. To assess the spread of small ions within LSO networks, we analyzed the diffusion of Na(+) signals between cells using Na(+) imaging. We found that Na(+) not only diffused between SR101(+) astrocytes, but also from astrocytes into SR101(-) cells. Using PLP-GFP mice for tracing, we could show that LSO networks contained astrocytes and oligodendrocytes. Together, our results demonstrate that LSO astrocytes and LSO oligodendrocytes form functional anisotropic panglial networks that are oriented predominantly orthogonally to the tonotopic axis. Thus, our results point toward an anisotropic ion and metabolite diffusion and a limited glial crosstalk between neighboring isofrequency bands in the LSO. GLIA 2016;64:1892-1911.

Unreliability as a threat to understanding psychopathology: The cautionary tale of attentional bias.

The use of unreliable measures constitutes a threat to our understanding of psychopathology, because advancement of science using both behavioral and biologically oriented measures can only be certain if such measurements are reliable. Two pillars of the National Institute of Mental Health's portfolio-the Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) initiative for psychopathology and the target engagement initiative in clinical trials-cannot succeed without measures that possess the high reliability necessary for tests involving mediation and selection based on individual differences. We focus on the historical lack of reliability of attentional bias measures as an illustration of how reliability can pose a threat to our understanding. Our own data replicate previous findings of poor reliability for traditionally used scores, which suggests a serious problem with the ability to test theories regarding attentional bias. This lack of reliability may also suggest problems with the assumption (in both theory and the formula for the scores) that attentional bias is consistent and stable across time. In contrast, measures accounting for attention as a dynamic process in time show good reliability in our data. The field is sorely in need of research reporting findings and reliability for attentional bias scores using multiple methods, including those focusing on dynamic processes over time. We urge researchers to test and report reliability of all measures, considering findings of low reliability not just as a nuisance but as an opportunity to modify and improve upon the underlying theory. Full assessment of reliability of measures will maximize the possibility that RDoC (and psychological science more generally) will succeed. (PsycINFO Database Record

Extrusion versus diffusion: mechanisms for recovery from sodium loads in mouse CA1 pyramidal neurons.

KEY POINTS: Neuronal activity causes local or global sodium signalling in neurons, depending on the pattern of synaptic activity. Recovery from global sodium loads critically relies on Na(+) /K(+) -ATPase and an intact energy metabolism in both somata and dendrites. For recovery from local sodium loads in dendrites, Na(+) /K(+) -ATPase activity is not required per se. Instead, recovery is predominately mediated by lateral diffusion, exhibiting rates that are 10-fold higher than for global sodium signals. Recovery from local dendritic sodium increases is still efficient during short periods of energy deprivation, indicating that fast diffusion of sodium to non-stimulated regions strongly reduces local energy requirements. ABSTRACT: Excitatory activity is accompanied by sodium influx into neurones as a result of the opening of voltage- and ligand-activated channels. Recovery from resulting sodium transients has mainly been attributed to Na(+) /K(+) -ATPase (NKA). Because sodium ions are highly mobile, diffusion could provide an additional pathway. We tested this in hippocampal neurones using whole-cell patch-clamp recordings and sodium imaging. Somatic sodium transients induced by local glutamate application recovered at a maximum rate of 8 mm min(-1) (∼0.03 mm min(-1 ) µm(-2) ). Somatic sodium extrusion was accelerated at higher temperature and blocked by ouabain, emphasizing its dependence on NKA. Moreover, it was slowed down during inhibition of glycolysis by sodium fluoride (NaF). Local glutamate application to dendrites revealed a 10-fold higher apparent dendritic sodium extrusion rate compared to somata. Recovery was almost unaltered by increased temperature, ouabain or NaF. We found that sodium diffused along primary dendrites with a diffusion coefficient of ∼330 µm²/s. During global glutamate application, impeding substantial net diffusion, apparent dendritic extrusion rates were reduced to somatic rates and also affected by NaF. Numerical simulations confirmed the essential role of NKA for the recovery of somatic, but not dendritic sodium loads. Our data show that sodium export upon global sodium increases is largely mediated by NKA and depends on an intact energy metabolism. For recovery from local dendritic sodium increases, diffusion dominates over extrusion, operating efficiently even during short periods of energy deprivation. Although sodium will eventually be extruded by the NKA, its diffusion-based fast dissemination to non-stimulated regions might reduce local energy requirements.