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Physiology instructors often are faced with the challenge of providing informative and educationally stimulating laboratories while trying to design them in such a way that encourages students to be actively involved in their own learning. With many laboratory experiments designed with simplicity and efficiency as the primary focus, it is sometimes difficult to design in-class experiments that are able to meet all of the above criteria. This article describes an approach being used at Michigan State University to help make the undergraduate laboratory exercise more "minds on," taking elements from each of the four instruction techniques for teaching physiology labs (expository, inquiry, discovery, and problem based.) In this new model, students use information provided to them in a prelaboratory lecture about the topic of study and then must formulate a hypothesis, answering guided prompts from the lecture to form a hypothesis about the outcome of the upcoming experiments and then turn in this hypothesis to the instructor as well as write it in their weekly homework. By turning in a copy of the hypothesis before they perform the experiment, this ensures that students do not alter their hypothesis after seeing the results of the pooled class data. Not being able to alter the hypothesis is a critical component to the success of this laboratory model. Not only does this prevent students from altering their hypothesis to match the "correct" or "expected" results, but it also reinforces the idea that wrong ideas and expectations are not "incorrect" but rather offer opportunities for better understanding. In semesters that did not use this method of turning in the hypothesis, problems arose with students often making incorrect predictions about the laboratory and feeling the need to change their hypothesis to match their observed results in their weekly homework after the experiment had been completed. Adding a hypothesis-generating exercise to each laboratory experiment is a mentally stimulating exercise that forces students to become involved in the laboratory they are performing. This participation forces engagement and critical thinking from the student and allows for immediate confirmation or rejection of their proposed hypothesis upon completion of the laboratory when the pooled class data is displayed. The addition of a hypothesis generation activity increases student investment in laboratory experiments and helped lead to a commitment to quality for in class data partly due to this prediction and immediate feedback. Through these elements and changes to the laboratory environment, curiosity and enthusiasm are fostered and a better learning environment and a more productive classroom are created.

Research presented concerns the classification of child psychopathological disorders, focusing on the validity questionnaires developed from the American Psychiatric Association's 'Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th ed.' Topics addressed include the differences between empirical and clinical taxonomies.

In the last several decades, there has been a shift in the mindset of research structure from classical "systems or integrative biology" to more molecular focused "-omics" study. A recent topic of debate in physiological societies has been whether or not the "-omic" revolution has delivered in its promises in both clinical medicine and advancing the field of physiology. More importantly, the question arises as to whether a return to "systems biology" and/or "integrative biology" is necessary to form translational connections between laboratories and clinics and be able to use the new information to directly impact healthcare. The purpose of the present study was to assess the perspectives on the discipline of physiology from undergraduate physiology majors by determining their preference for areas of study between "-omic"-type lessons and systems-based course work. Seventy-nine millennial undergraduate students (45 male students and 34 female students) were asked to provide a free response answer on where their interests specifically lie along the continuum of molecular to integrative. This set of students is representative of a varied curriculum taking classes that stress "-omic"-type education (cellular/molecular biology) as well as integrative systems biology. The class in which this survey was administered is titled "Capstone Laboratory in Physiology" and is a senior-level course often taken by students in their last semester of undergraduate studies. Approximately 80% of these students state a career plan in healthcare with the majority being premedicine. Student responses were initially broken down into the following three categories: preference for integrative or systems physiology, molecular or "-omics" physiology, or indifferent between the two/enjoy both equally.

Michigan State University's senior-level undergraduate physiology capstone laboratory uses a simple exercise termed "Physiology in the News," to help students explore the current research within the field of physiology while also learning to communicate science in lay terms. "Physiology in the News" is an activity that charges the students with finding, for themselves, press release information on where the field of physiology is today. This paper describes how this activity provides physiology students with several important skills required to be active and articulate physiologists, and encourages students to be well-informed scientific citizens and keep current on all areas of physiology.

The expansion ofDreissenaspp. mussels into the western United States has generated an increased need for reliable early detection methods, especially for larvae (veligers), which are a primary transport vector and an indicator of spawning adults. Cross-polarized light microscopy (CPLM) currently provides the most reliable means for detecting quagga and zebra mussel (Dreissenaspp.) larvae in plankton samples. In this study a double-blind experiment was undertaken to assess the current reliability of 3 different methods for detectingDreissenaspp. larvae in plankton samples. Methods included CPLM, imaging flow cytometry (IFC), and DNA-based polymerase chain reaction (PCR) assays. We distributed 216 reference samples consisting of concentrated plankton spiked with known numbers ofDreissenaspp. larvae to 19 laboratories for analysis. Results indicated that presence/absence detection CPLM was the most reliable (96.3% accuracy), IFC analysis was next most reliable (91.7% accuracy), and PCR was the least reliable (75.8% accuracy). The most prevalent type of error associated with all the methods was false negatives, suggesting that all methods are more likely to fail to detect the presence of larvae rather than to falsely indicate their presence. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

We examined the effects of a range of methylphenidate (MPH) doses on attention deficit disordered-hyperactive (ADDH) children's attention in school and on Continuous Performance Test (CPT) performance in a clinic setting. Forty-two ADDH 6- to 11-year-old children participated in a double-blind, placebo-controlled, crossover design in which each child received four doses of MPH and a placebo in a randomly assigned sequence. The group results showed significant medication effects on classroom percentage of on-task behavior, academic efficiency, teacher ratings of attention, and CPT omission errors. Only percentage of on-task behavior and academic efficiency showed significant (group) dosage differences. There was a linear ,relationship between increasing dose and these classroom measures. Dose-response plots were compared for a representative subset of individual children to illustrate the idiosyncnratic and task-specific behavior exhibited across doses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]