Promoting foot–leg movements in children with multiple disabilities through the use of support devices and technology for regulating contingent stimulation

The present study assessed the possibility of promoting pre-ambulatory foot–leg movements in children with multiple disabilities by motivating their action through contingent stimulation combined with a support device. Two children aged 10 and 8 years participated. Microswitch technology (i.e., pressure sensors under the shoes or optic sensors at the front–inner side of the shoes) served for detecting the foot–leg movements and providing contingent stimulation on their occurrence. Sensor activation produced 5 s of stimulation during intervention. Data showed that both children had significant increases in foot–leg movements during the intervention phases. Implications of the data in terms of skill acquisition and further intervention prospects are discussed.     

An experimental approach to detecting dementia in Down syndrome: a paradigm for Alzheimer's disease

Measures developed from animal models of aging may detect dementia of the Alzheimer's type in a population at-risk for Alzheimer's disease (AD). Although, by middle age, individuals with Down syndrome (DS) show an extraordinarily high prevalence of AD-type pathology, their severe idiopathic cognitive deficits tend to confound the clinical diagnosis of AD. The current study was designed to improve detection of AD in DS by using measures of learning and memory derived from animal models of aging. Adults with DS (N=34) were assessed and reassessed (n=19) approximately one year later using stimulus-response (S-R) test methods derived from experimental literature, as well as standardized informant-based tests. Results demonstrated high validity and reliability of select tests. The implication of early symptom detection in a population at-risk for AD-type dementia was discussed in terms of potential brain regions of interest.     

On the Conditions for Generative Collaboration: Learning Through Collaborative Research

Drawing on autobiographical recollections, I propose to see collaborative research as a learning experience. I assume a sociocultural psychological approach to the social understanding and interpretation of different scientific research practices. I examine the modalities of collaboration in my first experience of managing an important national research project on Italian families’ dinner table conversations, and in a larger collaborative research endeavor concerning the everyday life of middle-class Italian, Swedish and US families from a comparative view (the Sloan project). On the basis of these experiences, I highlight some of the difficulties met by two other projects presented in this special issue, the DUNES project (Tartas and Muller Mirza, this issue) and the Transition project (Markova and Plichtova, this issue). I conclude by suggesting a provisional criterion for generativity in collaborative research. I suggest that generativity occurs when the more expert and academically oldest ones become conscious that they are learning something new from the group and from some other, independently from age and experience.

Ontogenetic changes in the neural mechanisms of eyeblink conditioning

The rodent eyeblink conditioning paradigm is an ideal model system for examining the relationship between neural maturation and the ontogeny of associative learning. Elucidation of the neural mechanisms underlying the ontogeny of learning is tractable using eyeblink conditioning because the necessary neural circuitry (cerebellum and interconnected brainstem nuclei) underlying the acquisition and retention of the conditioned response (CR) has been identified in adult organisms. Moreover, the cerebellum exhibits substantial postnatal anatomical and physiological maturation in rats. The eyeblink CR emerges developmentally between postnatal day (PND) 17 and 24 in rats. A series of experiments found that the ontogenetic emergence of eyeblink conditioning is related to the development of associative learning and not related to changes in performance. More recent studies have examined the relationship between the development of eyeblink conditioning and the physiological maturation of the cerebellum, a brain structure that is necessary for eyeblink conditioning in adult organisms. Disrupting cerebellar development with lesions or antimitotic treatments impairs the ontogeny of eyeblink conditioning. Studies of the development of physiological processes within the cerebellum have revealed striking ontogenetic changes in stimulus-elicited and learning-related neuronal activity. Neurons in the interpositus nucleus and Purkinje cells in the cortex exhibit developmental increases in neuronal discharges following the unconditioned stimulus (US) and in neuronal discharges that model the amplitude and time-course of the eyeblink CR. The developmental changes in CR-related neuronal activity in the cerebellum suggest that the ontogeny of eyeblink conditioning depends on the development of mechanisms that estavlish cerebellar plasticity. Learning and the induction of neural plasticity depend on the magnitude of the US input to the cerebellum. The role of developmental changes in the efficacy of the US pathway has been investigated by monitoring neuronal activity in the inferior olive and with stimulation techniques. The results of these experiments indicate that the development of the conditioned eyeblink response may depend on dynamic interactions between multiple developmental processes within the eyeblink neural circuitry.