The First 100 Days: Establishment and Effectiveness of Campus Protection Measures at a College during the COVID-19 Pandemic.

To prevent transmission of the coronavirus, we established the campus protection measures for coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) (CPMCV-19) and analyzed the effectiveness and cost in practice. This project was set in Taiwan. We organized an anti-epidemic task force team from multidisciplinary co-workers to establish the CPMCV-19. The essential components were as follows: no close contact communication, sterilization, temperature control, social distancing, activity restrictions, personal hygiene control, and situational awareness. During 100 days of operation, the mean time spent for frontal temperature measuring was 2.7 ± 0.3 s per person. The mean on-duty time for individual personnel to control the gate and measure temperature was 3.5 h per day. In total, 31 persons with loss of taste/smell or fever were detected on campus and sent to hospital for screening within 1 h. A total of 6 persons were instructed to observe self-health management due to possible contact or travel history, and none were diagnosed with COVID-19 infection. A total budget of USD 27,100 was used for CMPCV-19 in this period. The established campus protection measures for COVID-19 were practical and might be effective. They can be used as reference for schools in a pandemic, such as COVID-19.

Neuronal oscillations in Golgi cells and Purkinje cells are accompanied by decreases in Shannon information entropy.

Neuronal oscillations have been shown to contribute to the function of the cerebral cortex by coordinating the neuronal activities of distant cortical regions via a temporal synchronization of neuronal discharge patterns. This can occur regardless whether these regions are linked by cortico-cortical pathways or not. Less is known concerning the role of neuronal oscillations in the cerebellum. Golgi cells and Purkinje cells are both principal cell types in the cerebellum. Purkinje cells are the sole output cells of the cerebellar cortex while Golgi cells contribute to information processing at the input stage of the cerebellar cortex. Both cell types have large cell bodies, as well as dendritic structures, that can generate large currents. The discharge patterns of both these cell types also exhibit oscillations. In view of the massive afferent information conveyed by the mossy fiber-granule cell system to different and distant areas of the cerebellar cortex, it is relevant to inquire the role of cerebellar neuronal oscillations in information processing. In this study, we compared the discharge patterns of Golgi cells and Purkinje cells in conscious rats and in rats anesthetized with urethane. We assessed neuronal oscillations by analyzing the regularity in the timing of individual spikes within a spike train by using autocorrelograms and fast-Fourier transform. We measured the differences in neuronal oscillations and the amount of information content in a spike train (defined by Shannon entropy processed per unit time) in rats under anesthesia and in conscious, awake rats. Our findings indicated that anesthesia caused more prominent neuronal oscillations in both Golgi cells and Purkinje cells accompanied by decreases in Shannon information entropy in their spike trains.

A requirement of low-threshold calcium spike for induction of spike-timing-dependent plasticity at corticothalamic synapses on relay neurons in the ventrobasal nucleus of rat thalamus.

Relay neurons in sensory thalamus transmit somatosensory information to cerebral cortex and receive sensory and feedback corticothalamic (CT) synaptic inputs. Their duality of firing modes, in bursts and continuous, underlies state dependence of thalamic information transfer, but the impact of different firing patterns on synaptic plasticity was rarely explored. To address this issue, we made whole-cell recording from relay neurons in the ventrobasal nucleus (VBN) of rat thalamus and compared synaptic plasticity induced by pairing CT-EPSP with two different types of burst spiking: low-threshold spike (LTS)-burst spiking triggered at Vm~-70 mV, and high-frequency spiking induced at Vm~-55 mV. The latter mimics natural burst spiking of relay neurons without activation of LTS. We found that, while backpropagating APs alone were not sufficient, low-threshold calcium spike was required for the induction of spike-timing-dependent LTP at CT synapses. Our results reveal a novel role of the calcium spike plays in the induction of long-term plasticity of CT synapse. Considering the dendritic origin of LTS, this study also implies potential physiological regulations over synaptic plasticity in thalamus. We propose that this form of synaptic plasticity may be involved in the dynamic fine-tuning of thalamocortical information relay.

Comparison of synaptic transmission and plasticity between sensory and cortical synapses on relay neurons in the ventrobasal nucleus of the rat thalamus.

Relay neurons in the ventrobasal nucleus of the thalamus transmit somatosensory information to the cerebral cortex and receive sensory and cortical (feedback) synaptic inputs via, respectively, medial lemniscal (ML) and corticothalamic (CT) fibres. Here, we report that calcium-permeable AMPA receptors are expressed at CT synapses, but not ML synapses, and that the NMDA receptor (NMDAR)-mediated/non-NMDAR-mediated synaptic current ratio is significantly larger at CT synapses than at ML synapses. Moreover, NMDAR-dependent LTP and L-type voltage-gated calcium channel-dependent LTD are readily induced at CT synapses, but not ML synapses. In particular, LTD of CT synaptic transmission is induced by spiking of postsynaptic relay neurons in continuous mode, but not burst mode, in current-clamp recordings. These results show that the strength of the cortical input to thalamic relay neurons is selectively subjected to use-dependent modification, which could be a mechanism for regulation of thalamocortical-corticothalamic interactions and the underlying sensory processing.

The effectiveness of healthy physical fitness programs on people with intellectual disabilities living in a disability institution: six-month short-term effect.

Little information is available on the provision of physical fitness and intervention program among people with intellectual disabilities. The aim of this study is to provide information of examining the effectiveness of healthy physical fitness programs on people with intellectual disabilities living in a disability institution. There were 146 participants with intellectual disabilities (age 19-67 years) were recruited in the study. We collected information on disability condition (type and level), height, weight, BMI, and physical fitness status (includes V-shape sit and reach test, sit-up 30s, sit-up 60s, and shuttle run) at the beginning and 6 months later of the program intervention. The results show that there were statistical decreases in individual's weight, BMI score, BMI category, and positive improvement in V-shape sit and reach test, sit-up in 30s and 60s tests after 6-month interventions. However, the shuttle run test did not improve at the post-test among people with intellectual disabilities. The results also showed that the mild disability level group has the highest effectiveness on the healthy fitness program on decreasing body weight. Generally speaking, the preliminary study found the healthy exercise program has positive fitness effects on people with intellectual disabilities. To maximize the benefits of regular physical activity on people with ID, there is a need to evaluate the long-term effect of the intervention program and then to initiate the healthy exercise strategies in institution for this group of people.