神仙形象的“人性化”与道教的“世俗化”

这篇论文在回顾通俗文学中道教神仙形象基础上,阐释了不同时期神仙形象的变化和基本特征,并对形成这些不同的神仙形象的社会及宗教背景进行了分析,指出道教的世俗化是造成通俗文学中神仙形象宗教色彩逐渐减弱,人性特征逐渐加强的根源.     

陕甘宁边区劳模运动的政治分析

抗日战争时期,陕甘宁边区为了解决严重的经济困难,采取了很多方法,诸种方法中影响较大且别具特色的是劳模运动.劳模运动的基本目的是为边区政权的存续提供经济支持,其得以开展的必要条件是政治推动.劳模运动还寄托了远大的政治期待,其发展方向是组织起来,其政治追求是平等和合法性.陕甘宁边区开展劳模运动的做法是建国后通过政治典型进行政治动员的肇端.总结这场运动的经验教训至今仍有较强的现实意义.     

哪种基督教?哪类基督徒?——试析现代基督教内部的阵营分组与分野

基督教内部的阵营分组,以往主要是以传统宗派来作为自我身份界定与归属的界限,在20世纪则转换为主要以神学立场为依据的跨宗派性的阵营分组模式,并进而演化成自由派与保守派这两大阵营。也就是说当今的基督教世界并非是铁板一块的现实,而是分化成许多新的团体、运动和趋势,它们又进一步分组和集结成两大相互对峙和对立的阵营。本文对基督教内部阵营分化与分组的起因、派系、脉络、分野与冲突做出了梳理、剖析和评判。     

Octopaminergic neurons have multiple targets in Drosophila larval mushroom body calyx and can modulate behavioral odor discrimination

Discrimination of sensory signals is essential for an organism to form and retrieve memories of relevance in a given behavioral context. Sensory representations are modified dynamically by changes in behavioral state, facilitating context-dependent selection of behavior, through signals carried by noradrenergic input in mammals, or octopamine (OA) in insects. To understand the circuit mechanisms of this signaling, we characterized the function of two OA neurons, sVUM1 neurons, that originate in the subesophageal zone (SEZ) and target the input region of the memory center, the mushroom body (MB) calyx, in larval Drosophila. We found that sVUM1 neurons target multiple neurons, including olfactory projection neurons (PNs), the inhibitory neuron APL, and a pair of extrinsic output neurons, but relatively few mushroom body intrinsic neurons, Kenyon cells. PN terminals carried the OA receptor Oamb, a Drosophila α1-adrenergic receptor ortholog. Using an odor discrimination learning paradigm, we showed that optogenetic activation of OA neurons compromised discrimination of similar odors but not learning ability. Our results suggest that sVUM1 neurons modify odor representations via multiple extrinsic inputs at the sensory input area to the MB olfactory learning circuit.

Behavioral choices depend on discrimination among “sensory objects,” which are neural representations of multiple coincident sensory inputs, across a range of sensory modalities. For example, “odor objects” (Gottfried 2009; Wilson and Sullivan 2011; Gire et al. 2013) are represented in sparse ensembles of neurons, that are coincidence detectors of multiple parallel inputs from odor quality channels. This principle is used widely in animals, including in mushroom bodies (MBs), the insect center for associative memory (Masuda-Nakagawa et al. 2005; Honegger et al. 2011), and in the piriform cortex (PCx) of mammals (Stettler and Axel 2009; Davison and Ehlers 2011).The selectivity of sensory representations can be modulated dynamically by changes in behavioral state, allowing an animal to learn and respond according to perceptual task. In mammals, the noradrenergic system originating in the locus coeruleus (LC) is implicated in signaling behavioral states such as attention, arousal and expectation (Aston-Jones and Cohen 2005; Sara and Bouret 2012).In insects, octopamine (OA), structurally and functionally similar to noradrenalin (NA) in mammals (Roeder 2005), can mediate changes in behavioral state that often promote activity; for example, sensitization of reflex actions in locusts (Sombati and Hoyle 1984), aggressive state in crickets (Stevenson et al. 2005), initiation and maintenance of flight state (Brembs et al. 2007; Suver et al. 2012), and enhanced excitability of Drosophila motion detection neurons during flight (Strother et al. 2018). Another role of OA is as a reward signal: A single OA neuron, VUMmx1, mediates the reinforcing function of unconditioned stimulus in the honeybee proboscis extension reflex (Hammer 1993; Hammer and Menzel 1998; Menzel 2012). In Drosophila, acquisition of appetitive memory is impaired in TβH mutants, unable to synthesize OA (Schwaerzel et al. 2003), and activation of OA neurons can substitute reinforcing stimulus in appetitive learning (Schroll et al. 2006). Moreover, OA receptors are necessary for reward learning in Drosophila (Burke et al. 2012) and crickets (Matsumoto et al. 2015).To understand the neural mechanisms of OA in higher order sensory discrimination, we used the simple sensory “cortex” of larval Drosophila, the calyx, which is the sensory input region of the mushroom bodies (MBs), the insect memory center. Here, each MB neuron (Kenyon cell [KC]) typically arborizes in several glomeruli, most of which are organized around the terminus of an olfactory projection neuron (PN); KCs thus combinatorially integrate multiple sensory input channels (Masuda-Nakagawa et al. 2005) and are coincidence detectors of multiple inputs. The APL provides inhibitory feedback (Lin et al. 2014; Masuda-Nakagawa et al. 2014) and helps to maintain KC sparse responses and odor selectivity (Honegger et al. 2011), analogous to inhibition in the mammalian PCx (Poo and Isaacson 2009; Stettler and Axel 2009; Gire et al. 2013). Thus, odors are represented as a sparse ensemble of KCs that are highly odor selective, a property beneficial for memory (Olshausen and Field 2004).In addition, the larval MB calyx is innervated by two OA neurons, sVUMmd1 and sVUMmx1, ventral unpaired medial neurons with dendritic fields originating in the mandibular and maxillary neuromeres, respectively, of the SEZ in the third instar larva (Selcho et al. 2014). sVUMmd1 and sVUMmx1 are named as OANa-1 and OANa-2, respectively, in the EM connectomic analysis of a 6-h first instar larva (Eichler et al. 2017; Supplemental Fig. 3 of Saumweber et al. 2018). These sVUM1 neurons also innervate the first olfactory neuropile of the antennal lobe (AL). This pattern of innervation is conserved in other insects, for example, the dorsal unpaired median (DUM) neurons in locusts (for review, see Bräunig and Pflüger 2001), the VUMmx1 neuron in honeybees (Hammer 1993; Schröter et al. 2007), and OA-VUMa2 neurons in adult Drosophila (Busch et al. 2009). In adult Drosophila, OA-VUMa2 neurons also show a dense innervation of the lateral horn, implicated in innate behaviors (Busch et al. 2009). The widespread innervation of the insect olfactory neuropiles also resembles the widespread NA innervation of mammalian olfactory processing areas, such as the olfactory bulb, and piriform cortex, by LC neurons originating in the brainstem.We characterized the innervation pattern and synaptic targets of sVUM1 neurons in the calyx, with MB intrinsic and also extrinsic neurons, the localization of the OA receptor Oamb in the calyx circuit, and the impact of sVUM1 neuron activation on behavioral odor discrimination. For this we used an appetitive conditioning paradigm, and tested the ability of larvae to discriminate between similar odors, as opposed to dissimilar odors. Since the larval connectome is based on a single brain, at first instar stage before octopaminergic connections have become as extensive as at third instar, and to obtain a comprehensive understanding of the synaptic targets of sVUM1s in the third-instar larval calyx, we extended our analysis to previously unanalyzed connectivity of VUM1s, to APL and PNs. Further, we combined light microscopy of third-instar larvae with the connectome described by Eichler et al. (2017).We find that sVUM1 neurons in third-instar larvae contact all the major classes of calyx neuron to some degree, consistent with EM synaptic analysis of the 6-h larva (Eichler et al. 2017). A GFP fusion of the OA receptor Oamb is localized in the terminals of PNs, and activating a subset of five SEZ neurons, including sVUM1 neurons, can affect discrimination of similar odors, without affecting underlying olfactory learning and memory ability. We suggest a broad modulatory effect of sVUM1 neurons in the calyx, including a potential role in modulating PN input at the second synapse in the olfactory pathway.     

明末传教士与西方演绎逻辑的传入

明末西方传教士出于抬高西方宗教、传播宗教福音的政治考量,翻译出版了大量的西方科学著作.西方演绎逻辑思想正是在这样的背景下,得以在明末被翻译介绍到国内.这其中,尤以利玛窦推动译介的<几何原本>及傅汎际推动译介的<名理探>最为知名.这其中,自然也毫无例外地带有浓厚的为宗教传道先行的色彩.但也在客观上帮助了中国人了解西方演绎逻辑的思想,带动了其后国内学界对挖掘本土以名辩学为基础的中国逻辑史研究的热潮.     

《道藏》四卷本《唐玄宗御制道德真经疏》辨误

本文指出,<道藏>四卷本<唐玄宗御制道德真经疏>以杜光庭<道德真经广圣义>文为主,杂采成玄英<道德经义疏>及唐玄宗<御疏>等,非唐玄宗所撰;认为是五代后蜀乔讽所编<道德经疏义节解>原书.