The Level of 7- and 8-Years Old Children Understanding of the Place Value Concept

Place value concept that learns especially in primary school ages is also the basis of many issues students will encounter throughout their learning lives. This research aims to developmentally determine understanding of the place value concept in early childhood. The model of research is a case study from qualitative research methods. The study group consists of 171 children (84 at the age of 7 and 87 at the age of 8) who study in three different public schools in January, in the 2020-2021 academic year in Ankara, Turkey, selected by criteria sampling from purposeful sampling methods. As a data collection tool, “place value worksheets” consisting of 25 questions developed by researchers were used. Data was collected online by classroom teachers through “EBA”. The content analysis method was used in the analysis of the data. Looking at the research results, it was observed that children gave meaning to the place value concept in seven categories. It was seen that seven years olds reached the lowest correct answer rate in the code "the ability to express the number whose resolution is given in terms of ones" in the category of "the ability to resolve". It was concluded that "the ability to write numbers between two numbers" code in "the ability to compare" category has the lowest correct response rate for eight years old children. Lower levels of seven years old student's understanding of the place value concept suggest that students' readiness levels are not sufficient at this age.

Control of parallel hippocampal output pathways by amygdalar long-range inhibition

Projections from the basal amygdala (BA) to the ventral hippocampus (vH) are proposed to provide information about the rewarding or threatening nature of learned associations to support appropriate goal-directed and anxiety-like behaviour. Such behaviour occurs via the differential activity of multiple, parallel populations of pyramidal neurons in vH that project to distinct downstream targets, but the nature of BA input and how it connects with these populations is unclear. Using channelrhodopsin-2-assisted circuit mapping in mice, we show that BA input to vH consists of both excitatory and inhibitory projections. Excitatory input specifically targets BA- and nucleus accumbens-projecting vH neurons, and avoids prefrontal cortex-projecting vH neurons; while inhibitory input preferentially targets BA-projecting neurons. Through this specific connectivity, BA inhibitory projections gate place-value associations by controlling the activity of nucleus accumbens-projecting vH neurons. Our results define a parallel excitatory and inhibitory projection from BA to vH that can support goal-directed behaviour.