Cerebellar associative learning underlies skilled reach adaptation

Cerebellar output has been shown to enhance movement precision by scaling the decelerative phase of reaching movements in mice. We hypothesized that during reach, initial kinematics cue late-phase adjustments through cerebellar associative learning. We identify a population-level response in mouse PCs that scales inversely with reach velocity, suggesting a candidate mechanism for anticipatory control to target limb endpoint. We next interrogate how such a response is generated by combining high-density neural recordings with closed-loop optogenetic stimulation of cerebellar mossy fiber afferents originating in the pontine nuclei during reach, using perturbation schedules reminiscent of classic adaptation paradigms. We found that reach kinematics and PC electrophysiology adapt to position-locked mossy fiber perturbations and exhibit aftereffects when stimulation is removed. Surprisingly, we observed partial adaptation to position-randomized stimulation schedules but no opposing aftereffect. A model that recapitulated these findings provided novel insight into how the cerebellum deciphers cause-and-effect relationships to adapt.

Virus Host Jumping Can Be Boosted by Adaptation to a Bridge Plant Species

Understanding biological mechanisms that regulate emergence of viral diseases, in particular those events engaging cross-species pathogens spillover, is becoming increasingly important in virology. Species barrier jumping has been extensively studied in animal viruses, and the critical role of a suitable intermediate host in animal viruses-generated human pandemics is highly topical. However, studies on host jumping involving plant viruses have been focused on shifting intra-species, leaving aside the putative role of “bridge hosts” in facilitating interspecies crossing. Here, we take advantage of several VPg mutants, derived from a chimeric construct of the potyvirus Plum pox virus (PPV), analyzing its differential behaviour in three herbaceous species. Our results showed that two VPg mutations in a Nicotiana clevelandii-adapted virus, emerged during adaptation to the bridge-host Arabidopsis thaliana, drastically prompted partial adaptation to Chenopodium foetidum. Although both changes are expected to facilitate productive interactions with eIF(iso)4E, polymorphims detected in PPV VPg and the three eIF(iso)4E studied, extrapolated to a recent VPg:eIF4E structural model, suggested that two adaptation ways can be operating. Remarkably, we found that VPg mutations driving host-range expansion in two non-related species, not only are not associated with cost trade-off constraints in the original host, but also improve fitness on it.

Virus Host Jumping Can Be Boosted by Adaptation to a Bridge Plant Species

Understanding biological mechanisms that regulate emergence of viral diseases, in particular those events engaging cross-species pathogens spillover, are becoming increasingly important in Virology. Species barrier jumping has been extensively studied in animal viruses, and the critical role of a suitable intermediate host in animal viruses-generated human pandemics is highly topical. However, studies on host jumping involving plant viruses have been focused on shifting intra-species, leaving aside the putative role of “bridge hosts” in facilitating interspecies crossing. Here, we take advantage of several VPg mutants, derived from a chimeric construct of the potyvirus Plum pox virus (PPV), analysing its differential behaviour in three herbaceous species. Our results showed that two VPg mutations in a Nicotiana clevelandii-adapted virus, emerged during adaptation to the bridge-host Arabidopsis thaliana, drastically prompted partial adaptation to Chenopodium foetidum. Although, both changes are expected to facilitate productive interactions with eIF(iso)4E, polymorphims detected in PPV VPg and the three eIF(iso)4E studied, extrapolated to a recent VPg:eIF4E structural model, suggested that two adaptation ways can be operating. Remarkably, we found that VPg mutations driving host-range expansion in two non-related species, not only are not associated with cost trade-off constraints in the original host, but also improve fitness on it.

MORPHOLOGYCAL CHANGES IN THE TESTES OF EXPERIMENTAL ANIMALS IN CHRONIC ALCOHOL POISONING

The experiment with the chronic effects of alcohol on experimental animals reflects the picture of long-term use of alcoholic beverages by a person with alcoholism. It is impossible to fully study the ultrastructural changes in internal organs, including the reproductive system, in humans, both in acute and chronic alcohol consumption, but the results obtained in the experiment can be extrapolated to humans. The results obtained showed that changes in the parenchymal-stromal elements of the testicles during chronic alcoholization are reduced to dystrophic transformation of the spermatogenic epithelium. The testicular stroma is characterized by pronounced circulatory disorders with plethora and stasis in the postcapillaries and small veins, edema, phenomena of perivascular and interstitial sclerosis, with foci of pronounced hyalinosis, most expressed by 2-3 months of alcoholism. By 6 months of the model experiment, there was no dynamics of the growth of morphological changes, partial adaptation to constant intoxication with ethyl alcohol.

Vanda Station, Antarctica: a biography of the Anthropocene

This article uses the history of New Zealand�s Vanda Station in Antarctica as a case study of the inseparability of human history and environmental change in the age of the Anthropocene. Vanda Station was built in the late 1960s to promote New Zealand�s sovereignty claims to Antarctica and to promote scientific research in the predominantly ice-free McMurdo Dry Valleys region. Over the course of the 1970s and 1980s, the levels of the nearby Lake Vanda rose dramatically, and in the early 1990s the decision was taken to close the station. Rather than seeing the closure of Vanda simply as a consequence of the rising lake levels, this article suggests instead that it was the result of a number of interconnected social, political, scientific, and environmental factors. Although the concept of the Anthropocene is not unproblematic, a biographical approach to the history of Vanda Station can add depth and nuance to our understanding of the geological age of humans. In the McMurdo Dry Valleys, the �birth�, �life� and �death� of Vanda Station helps to demonstrate how the political status quo maintained itself through a partial adaptation to the new realities of the Anthropocene. This political adaptation, however, relies on maintaining human-nature dichotomies and resisting the full implications of viewing the region as an eco-social system.

PARTIAL FILM ADAPTATIONS OF ALFRED DÖBLIN’S NOVEL “BERLIN ALEXANDERPLATZ” IN RAINER WERNER FASSBINDER’S EARLY FILMS

The film “Berlin Alexanderplatz” by Rainer Werner Fassbinder is considered to be one of the most famous literary fi lm adaptations in the fi lm history. Extensive research literature has been devoted to its study. Much less researched is the infl uence of Döblin’s novel on other works of the fi lmmaker. Th e article deals with taking over the elements of the novel “Berlin Alexanderplatz” into Fassbinder’s early fi lms. Fassbinder has borrowed constellations, plots, topoi especially those dealing with gender issues from the novel by Döblin for his fi lms “Love Is Colder Th an Death” (1969), “Gods of the Plague” (1970) and “Rio das Mortes” (1971). In the aforementioned fi lms, as in Döblin’s novel, triangular relationships are represented, the women exchange is practiced, the misogynistic protagonists exert violence against the female characters, and the woman appears as a festive link, as a copula between the men. In these fi lms, ‘Mannerbund’ in the form of criminal organizations plays an important role. Quotations and borrowings from Döblin’s novel in Fassbinder’s fi lms create a special kind of intermediality relations that diff er from fi lm adaptation in the narrow sense of the word. Following Achim von Haag the term “partial adaptation” is used here as an intensive reception of narrative structures of the literary text on the one hand and their strong modifi cation on the other.