Structure-function relations in physiology education: Where’s the mechanism?

2017 ◽  
Vol 41 (2) ◽  
pp. 270-278 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew E. Lira ◽  
Stephanie M. Gardner
Keyword(s):  
Biological Sciences ◽  
Structure Function ◽  
Cognitive Processes ◽  
Biological Organization ◽  
Physiological Mechanisms ◽  
Levels Of Organization ◽  
Organ Systems ◽  
Narrow Definition ◽  
Multiple Levels ◽  
Shed Light

Physiology demands systems thinking: reasoning within and between levels of biological organization and across different organ systems. Many physiological mechanisms explain how structures and their properties interact at one level of organization to produce emergent functions at a higher level of organization. Current physiology principles, such as structure-function relations, selectively neglect mechanisms by not mentioning this term explicitly. We explored how students characterized mechanisms and functions to shed light on how students make sense of these terms. Students characterized mechanisms as 1) processes that occur at levels of organization lower than that of functions; and 2) as detailed events with many steps involved. We also found that students produced more variability in how they characterized functions compared with mechanisms: students characterized functions in relation to multiple levels of organization and multiple definitions. We interpret these results as evidence that students see mechanisms as holding a more narrow definition than used in the biological sciences, and that students struggle to coordinate and distinguish mechanisms from functions due to cognitive processes germane to learning in many domains. We offer the instructional suggestion that we scaffold student learning by affording students opportunities to relate and also distinguish between these terms so central to understanding physiology.

scholarly journals Climate change and freshwater ecosystems: impacts across multiple levels of organization

2010 ◽  
Vol 365 (1549) ◽  
pp. 2093-2106 ◽  
Author(s):  
Guy Woodward ◽  
Daniel M. Perkins ◽  
Lee E. Brown
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Food Web ◽  
Freshwater Ecosystems ◽  
Atmospheric Composition ◽  
Biological Organization ◽  
Food Web Structure ◽  
Metabolic Scaling ◽  
Fresh Waters ◽  
Levels Of Organization ◽  
Multiple Levels

Fresh waters are particularly vulnerable to climate change because (i) many species within these fragmented habitats have limited abilities to disperse as the environment changes; (ii) water temperature and availability are climate-dependent; and (iii) many systems are already exposed to numerous anthropogenic stressors. Most climate change studies to date have focused on individuals or species populations, rather than the higher levels of organization (i.e. communities, food webs, ecosystems). We propose that an understanding of the connections between these different levels, which are all ultimately based on individuals, can help to develop a more coherent theoretical framework based on metabolic scaling, foraging theory and ecological stoichiometry, to predict the ecological consequences of climate change. For instance, individual basal metabolic rate scales with body size (which also constrains food web structure and dynamics) and temperature (which determines many ecosystem processes and key aspects of foraging behaviour). In addition, increasing atmospheric CO 2 is predicted to alter molar CNP ratios of detrital inputs, which could lead to profound shifts in the stoichiometry of elemental fluxes between consumers and resources at the base of the food web. The different components of climate change (e.g. temperature, hydrology and atmospheric composition) not only affect multiple levels of biological organization, but they may also interact with the many other stressors to which fresh waters are exposed, and future research needs to address these potentially important synergies.

scholarly journals The Landscape of microRNAs in βCell: Between Phenotype Maintenance and Protection

2021 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 803
Author(s):  
Giuseppina Emanuela Grieco ◽  
Noemi Brusco ◽  
Giada Licata ◽  
Daniela Fignani ◽  
Caterina Formichi ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Diabetes Mellitus ◽  
Metabolic Disorders ◽  
Molecular Mechanisms ◽  
Β Cell ◽  
Physiological Mechanisms ◽  
Effective Strategies ◽  
Chronic Hyperglycaemia ◽  
Shed Light

Diabetes mellitus is a group of heterogeneous metabolic disorders characterized by chronic hyperglycaemia mainly due to pancreatic β cell death and/or dysfunction, caused by several types of stress such as glucotoxicity, lipotoxicity and inflammation. Different patho-physiological mechanisms driving β cell response to these stresses are tightly regulated by microRNAs (miRNAs), a class of negative regulators of gene expression, involved in pathogenic mechanisms occurring in diabetes and in its complications. In this review, we aim to shed light on the most important miRNAs regulating the maintenance and the robustness of β cell identity, as well as on those miRNAs involved in the pathogenesis of the two main forms of diabetes mellitus, i.e., type 1 and type 2 diabetes. Additionally, we acknowledge that the understanding of miRNAs-regulated molecular mechanisms is fundamental in order to develop specific and effective strategies based on miRNAs as therapeutic targets, employing innovative molecules.

scholarly journals Scarcity of scale-free topology is universal across biochemical networks

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Harrison B. Smith ◽  
Hyunju Kim ◽  
Sara I. Walker
Keyword(s):  
Large Body ◽  
Biochemical Networks ◽  
Biological Organization ◽  
Scale Free ◽  
Levels Of Organization ◽  
Common Structure ◽  
Domains Of Life ◽  
Ecosystem Level ◽  
Different Levels ◽  
Organizing Principles

AbstractBiochemical reactions underlie the functioning of all life. Like many examples of biology or technology, the complex set of interactions among molecules within cells and ecosystems poses a challenge for quantification within simple mathematical objects. A large body of research has indicated many real-world biological and technological systems, including biochemistry, can be described by power-law relationships between the numbers of nodes and edges, often described as “scale-free”. Recently, new statistical analyses have revealed true scale-free networks are rare. We provide a first application of these methods to data sampled from across two distinct levels of biological organization: individuals and ecosystems. We analyze a large ensemble of biochemical networks including networks generated from data of 785 metagenomes and 1082 genomes (sampled from the three domains of life). The results confirm no more than a few biochemical networks are any more than super-weakly scale-free. Additionally, we test the distinguishability of individual and ecosystem-level biochemical networks and show there is no sharp transition in the structure of biochemical networks across these levels of organization moving from individuals to ecosystems. This result holds across different network projections. Our results indicate that while biochemical networks are not scale-free, they nonetheless exhibit common structure across different levels of organization, independent of the projection chosen, suggestive of shared organizing principles across all biochemical networks.

scholarly journals BECLIN1: Protein Structure, Function and Regulation

Cells ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (6) ◽  
pp. 1522
Author(s):  
Sharon Tran ◽  
W. Douglas Fairlie ◽  
Erinna F. Lee
Keyword(s):  
Protein Structure ◽  
Structure Function ◽  
Membrane Trafficking ◽  
Biochemical Properties ◽  
Class Iii ◽  
Form Class ◽  
Protein Interactome ◽  
Protein Functions ◽  
Phosphoinositide 3 Kinase ◽  
Shed Light

BECLIN1 is a well-established regulator of autophagy, a process essential for mammalian survival. It functions in conjunction with other proteins to form Class III Phosphoinositide 3-Kinase (PI3K) complexes to generate phosphorylated phosphatidylinositol (PtdIns), lipids essential for not only autophagy but other membrane trafficking processes. Over the years, studies have elucidated the structural, biophysical, and biochemical properties of BECLIN1, which have shed light on how this protein functions to allosterically regulate these critical processes of autophagy and membrane trafficking. Here, we review these findings and how BECLIN1’s diverse protein interactome regulates it, as well as its impact on organismal physiology.

Ambiguous terminology in animal personality research: a self-report questionnaire and a systematic review

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alfredo Sánchez-Tójar ◽  
Maria Moiron ◽  
Petri Toivo Niemelä
Keyword(s):  
Literature Review ◽  
Animal Personality ◽  
Self Report ◽  
Behavioural Ecology ◽  
Biological Organization ◽  
Personality Research ◽  
Conceptual Definition ◽  
Multiple Levels ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Key Questions

Whether animal personality studies provide insights of broader evolutionary and ecological relevance to behavioural ecology is frequently questioned. One source of controversy is the vast, but often vague conceptual terminology used. From a statistical perspective, animal personality is defined as repeatable among-individual variance in behaviour; however, numerous conceptual definitions of animal personality exist. Here, we performed a 1) self-report questionnaire and 2) systematic literature review to quantify how researchers interpret conceptual and statistical definitions commonly used in animal personality research. We also investigated whether results from the questionnaire agree with those of the literature review. Among the 430 self-reported researchers that participated in our questionnaire, we observed discrepancies in key questions such as the conceptual definition of animal personality or the interpretation of repeatability. Our literature review generally confirmed the global patterns revealed by the questionnaire. Overall, we identified common disagreements in animal personality research and discussed potential solutions. We advocate for the usage of statistically-oriented terminology because conceptual definitions can seemingly be interpreted at multiple levels of biological organization. We expect that adopting such statistically-oriented terminology will, at least partly, avoid the confusion generated by the label “animal personality”, and ultimately help to clarify and move the field forward.

Cognitive Reflection Task and Stumpers

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wendy Ross ◽  
Frédéric Vallée-Tourangeau
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Processes ◽  
Mental Model ◽  
The Other ◽  
Cognitive Reflection ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
And Performance ◽  
Shed Light

There is a type of riddle that Bar-Hillel, Noah and Frederick (2018) call “stumpers”. A stumper is a riddle which is initially intractable because the mental model or representation of the situation described in the riddle does not contain the vital information which is required to solve it. The Cognitive Reflection Task (CRT; Frederick, 2005) on the other hand relies on seemingly completely different cognitive processes. However, exploratory work from Bar-Hillel et al. (2019) suggests that success on stumpers correlates with performance on the CRT. This finding may shed light on the cognitive processes underlying both the resolution of stumpers and the CRT. We replicated the work from Bar-Hillel et al. (2019) suggesting a relationship between performance on the CRT and performance on stumpers as well as extending this to show a relationship between performance on the CRT-v. This may point to the underexplored importance of suppression in solving stumpers and traditional riddles.

scholarly journals The chaperone effect in scientific publishing

2018 ◽  
Vol 115 (50) ◽  
pp. 12603-12607 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vedran Sekara ◽  
Pierre Deville ◽  
Sebastian E. Ahnert ◽  
Albert-László Barabási ◽  
Roberta Sinatra ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Biological Sciences ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
Scientific Work ◽  
Senior Author ◽  
High Impact ◽  
Principal Investigators ◽  
New Principal ◽  
Average Impact ◽  
Quantitative Understanding ◽  
Shed Light

Experience plays a critical role in crafting high-impact scientific work. This is particularly evident in top multidisciplinary journals, where a scientist is unlikely to appear as senior author if he or she has not previously published within the same journal. Here, we develop a quantitative understanding of author order by quantifying this “chaperone effect,” capturing how scientists transition into senior status within a particular publication venue. We illustrate that the chaperone effect has a different magnitude for journals in different branches of science, being more pronounced in medical and biological sciences and weaker in natural sciences. Finally, we show that in the case of high-impact venues, the chaperone effect has significant implications, specifically resulting in a higher average impact relative to papers authored by new principal investigators (PIs). Our findings shed light on the role played by experience in publishing within specific scientific journals, on the paths toward acquiring the necessary experience and expertise, and on the skills required to publish in prestigious venues.

Hormesis is central to toxicology, pharmacology and risk assessment

2010 ◽  
Vol 29 (4) ◽  
pp. 249-261 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edward J Calabrese
Keyword(s):  
Risk Assessment ◽  
Dose Response ◽  
Low Dose ◽  
Assessment Practices ◽  
Biological Organization ◽  
Setting Process ◽  
Toxicological Research ◽  
Multiple Levels ◽  
Dose Responses ◽  
Chemical Class

This paper summarizes numerous conceptual and experimental advances over the past two decades in the study of hormesis. Hormesis is now generally accepted as a real and reproducible biological phenomenon, being highly generalized and independent of biological model, endpoint measured and chemical class/physical stressor. The quantitative features of the hormetic dose response are generally highly consistent, regardless of the model and mechanism, and represent a quantitative index of biological plasticity at multiple levels of biological organization. The hormetic dose-response model has been demonstrated to make far more accurate predictions of responses in low dose zones than either the threshold or linear at low dose models. Numerous therapeutic agents widely used by humans are based on the hormetic dose response and its low dose stimulatory characteristics. It is expected that as low dose responses come to dominate toxicological research that risk assessment practices will incorporate hormetic concepts in the standard setting process.

scholarly journals Evaluating Earwitness Identification Procedures: The Effect of Pre-Parade Instructions

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Harriet M J Smith ◽  
JENS ROESER ◽  
Nikolas Pautz ◽  
Josh P Davis ◽  
Jeremy Robson ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Processes ◽  
False Alarms ◽  
Wrongful Conviction ◽  
Voice Identification ◽  
Sequential Procedures ◽  
Testing Performance ◽  
Low Performance ◽  
Shed Light ◽  
Present Standard ◽  
Identification Procedures

Voice identification parades can be unreliable, as earwitness responses are error-prone. Here we vary pre-parade instructions, testing performance across serial and sequential procedures to examine ways of reducing errors. The participants listened to a target voice and later attempted to identify it from a parade. They were either warned that the target may or may not be present (standard warning), or encouraged to consider responding ‘not present’ because of the associated risk of a wrongful conviction (strong warning). Overall accuracy was low. Performance varied according to instructions and procedure. False alarms were lower on target-absent serial parades following the strong compared to the standard warning. However, the strong warning was associated with higher false alarms on target-absent sequential parades. We discuss the cognitive processes that might drive this effect. Our novel analyses shed light on these results, highlighting the challenges of directly comparing procedures, and revealing position-related effects.

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