Marcel Ruiz-Mejias

El contexto actual de pandemia por el SARS-CoV-2 y el confinamiento de la sociedad deja la educación de nuestro país en una situación compleja y sugerente. Múltiples reflexiones han tenido lugar durante los últimos dos meses acerca de este tema, de las cuales se ha tratado de analizar en qué lugar queda el sistema educativo en la situación post-pandemia, y qué marcos teóricos pueden ser de utilidad para afrontar su inevitable transformación para la llamada 'nueva normalidad'. Tras este análisis, se indican cinco reflexiones a partir de unos textos que se adjuntan sobre qué temas se han considerado claves para acompañar esta transformación. Finalmente, se pone en relevancia el posible nuevo papel de las escuelas como centros sociales acompañados de un mayor peso del proceso educativo en espacios digitales, poniendo en el centro de la ecuación el trabajo de los y las docentes como motor de este cambio, y acompañado por una transformación social transversal para hacer posible un sistema educativo equitativo y de calidad. Referencia recomendada Ruiz-Mejías, M. (2020). ¿Hay 'brotes verdes' en la situación de la educación en el contexto post-pandemia? REIRE Revista d'Innovació i Recerca en Educació, 13(2), 1-9. http://revistes.ub.edu/index.php/REIRE/article/view/31547 © 2020 Marcel Ruiz-Mejías. Este artículo es de acceso abierto sujeto a la licencia Reconocimiento 4.0 Internacional de Creative Commons, la cual permite utilizar, distribuir y reproducir por cualquier medio sin restricciones siempre que se cite adecuadamente la obra original. Para ver una copia de esta licencia, visite http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Intrinsic brain activity is characterized by the presence of highly structured networks of correlated fluctuations between different regions of the brain. Such networks encompass different functions, whose properties are known to be modulated by the ongoing global brain state and are altered in several neurobiological disorders. In the present study, we induced a deep state of anesthesia in rats by means of a ketamine/medetomidine peri-toneal injection, and analyzed the time course of the correlation between the brain activity in different areas while anesthesia spontaneously decreased over time. We compared results separately obtained from fMRI and local field potentials (LFPs) under the same anesthesia protocol, finding that while most profound phases of anesthesia can be described by overall sparse connectivity, stereotypical activity and poor functional integration, during lighter states different frequency-specific functional networks emerge, endowing the gradual restoration of structured large-scale activity seen during rest. Noteworthy, our in vivo results show that those areas belonging to the same functional network (the default-mode) exhibited sustained correlated oscillations around 10 Hz throughout the protocol, suggesting the presence of a specific functional backbone that is preserved even during deeper phases of anesthesia. Finally, the overall pattern of results obtained from both imaging and in vivo-recordings suggests that the progressive emergence from deep anesthesia is reflected by a corresponding gradual increase of organized correlated oscillations across the cortex.

It was our objective to test the hypothesis that areas belonging to the same functional network show a pattern of activity significantly different from areas belonging to different networks. Furthermore, that this difference would be larger for different brain states, for example at different levels of aneesthesia (deep versus light). With this purpose we measured the activity of the rat brain at different temporal and spatial scales under different levels of anesthesia. Recordings started 30 minutes after the first injection of anesthetics, and continued for the next 3 hours, the anesthesia being progressively lighter. A second injection of anesthetic was given after 3 hours from the first one in order to re­induce deep anesthesia and be able to carry out a second comparison. This experimental protocol allowed us to analyse the gradual effects on brain oscillations and the emerging spatio­temporal patterns while evolving from deep to light sedation. Functional­MRI (fMRI) was obtained from 4 rats. BOLD signal was extracted for 14 areas in each hemisphere. At macroscopic scale it was possible to differentiate between deep and light sedation by means of the BOLD signal change over time, as well as by evaluating the changing pattern of functional connectivity (FC) between different pair of nodes. FC showed that anesthesia tends to induce a reversible reduction of the overall synchronization between areas which is subsequently restored towards the awake state, leading to the gradual emergence of spontaneous functional networks. We could also differentiate between pair of areas belonging to the same functional network and pair of areas belonging to different functional networks by means of the different FC time course over all fMRI recordings. The choice of the areas to be recorded with local field potential (LFP, n = 2 rats) was made on the basis that a growing number of studies demonstrate that the intrinsic activity of the brain is far from being random or uniform on all areas, but rather highly organized, not only in humans but also in other mammals. We focused on two areas which have been reported to belong to the Default Mode Network (DMN) of rat (i.e. cingulate and medial prefrontal cortices), and two which do not belong to the same network (i.e. primary auditory and secondary somatosensory cortices), in agreement with our previous fMRI findings. At the mesoscale, the Time­Frequency Analysis (TFA) enabled us to differentiate between deep and light anesthesia, suggesting that decrease in anesthetic is followed by a gradual increase in power and a shift from <1 Hz to 1.5 Hz. Although it was not possible to discriminate between areas belonging to different functional networks by means of TFA, a finer analysis of the mean temporal correlation of the Hilbert envelopes of different frequency bands computed between pairs of areas (also referred to as Carrier Frequency of the FC) showed that the mean temporal correlation between DMN areas was consistently higher in all analysed frequencies (especially around 10 Hz) than that between the second pair of areas during the entire recording. These results confirm our hypothesis that the coupling between areas belonging to the same network is higher than that of functionally segregated areas, and that this difference tends to increase in the transition from deep anesthesia to the awake state.

Down syndrome (DS), trisomy of human chromosome 21, is the most common genetic cause of intellectual disability. Children diagnosed with DS show important delays in the thalamocortical-dependent sensorial processing and 19% of them present autistic traits [1]. However, the underlying neuronal disturbances are still missing. DYRK1A (Dual specificity tyrosine-phosphorylation-regulated kinase 1A) is one of the triplicated gene in DS and considered a major candi- date gene since its involvement in neurodevelopment, cell differentiation and neural plasticity. In fact, its overexpression is sufficient to recapitulate the neuronal and cognitive impairments. Interestingly, mutations in DYRK1A have been identified as responsible for monogenic form of autism [2]. Moreover, autistic patients show aberrant (mostly reduced) thalamocortical connectivity [3]. Here, we investigated using a mouse model the involvement of Dyrk1A overexpression in the connectivity between the thalamus and sensoriomotor cortices. We have used adult overexpressing Dyrk1A mice (TgDyrk1A) to assess the functionality of the thalamocortical pathway. Ventro posterior medial (VPM) thalamic nucleus of anesthetized mice was stimulated using increasing electrical intensities and fPSPs were registered at layer IV of sensoriomotor cortex 1. Signal decomposition revealed an increased inhibition at cortical level in TgDyrk1A mice. To explore the mechanistic underpinnings of these electrophysiological alterations, we characterized immunohistochemically the inhibitory neuronal population in layer IV using staining against parvalbumin, calretenin and somatostatin markers. Opposite as expected, we observed a significant reduced number of parvalbumin–positive neurons (p < 0.05, Student t-test), the fast-spiking interneurons responsible of oscillatory synchronization, accompanied with a reduced proportion of inhibitory postsynaptic sites stained with anti-gephyrin antibody (p = 0.09, Student t-test). However, we did not found differences in the exci- tation/inhibition ratio measured by the proportion of exci- tatory and inhibitory presynaptic markers, suggesting that the balance was not altered. Moreover, no changes in regulatory input was detected over the interneurons when perisomatic colocalization with excitatory or inhibitory presynaptic markers was studied. One of the possibilities for an increased physiological inhibition arises from a higher inhibitory control at the thalamus by the reticular nucleus. However, no differences in the densitity of parvalbumin positive neurons appeared in the reticular nucleus. Finally, we characterized the excitatory thalamo-cortical projections by stereotaxic injection in layer IV of the somatosensory cortex of the retrograde dye fluorogold and counted stained somas in VPM. Surprisingly, we observed an increased num- ber of stained neurons in TgDyrk1A mice (p <0.05, Student-t test), suggesting a possible structural overexcitation in the target area although without functional relevance. Although our results seems contradictories and further characterization is required to explain the electrophysiological outcomes, they revealed that Dyrk1A could be a key candidate gene for the correct formation and functioning of thalamocortical connectivity. Alterations in its expression could lead to the altered sensoriomotor processing observed in DS people and autistic patients. References [1] DiGuiseppi, C., Hepburn, S., Davis, J.M., Fidler, D.J., Hart- way, S., Lee, N.R., Miller, L., Ruttenber, M., Robinson, C., 2010. Screening for autism spectrum disorders in children with Down syndrome: population prevalence and screening test character- istics. J Dev Behav Pediatr 31 (3), 181–191. [2] van Bon, B.W., Coe, B.P., Bernier, R., Green, C., Gerdts, J., Witherspoon, K., Kleefstra, T., Willemsen, M.H., Kumar, R., Bosco, P., Fichera, M., Li, D., Amaral, D., Cristofoli, F., Peeters, H., Haan, E., Romano, C., Mefford, H.C., Scheffer, I., Gecz, J., de Vries, B.B., Eichler, E.E., 2016. Disruptive de novo mutations of DYRK1A lead to a syndromic form of autism and ID. Mol Psychiatry 21 (1), 126–132. [3] Nair, A., Carper, R.A., Abbott, A.E., Chen, C.P., Solders, S., Nakutin, S., Datko, M.C., Fishman, I., Müller, R.A., 2015. Re- gional specificity of aberrant thalamocortical connectivity in autism. Hum Brain Map 36 (11), 4497–4511.

MedigenePress S.L www.revistageneticamedica.com • Viroterapia oncolítica, inmunoterapia y Celyvir en niños con cáncer • Oscilaciones alteradas de la corteza prefrontal en un modelo de síndrome de Down: el rol del gen DYRK1A • Nueva función para gen CACNA1C, asociado a enfermedades neuropsiquiátricas • Las proteínas unidas al ADN afectan la eficiencia de la reparación de lesiones mutagénicas • Recomendaciones para la integración de la Genómica en la práctica clínica • ¿Se puede sintetizar un genoma humano completo? Una reunión a puerta cerrada explora la posibilidad En este número de Genética Médica News : Y mucho más...

A booklet prepared for teachers that introduces key concepts from the Science of Learning (i.e. cognitive neuroscience). The digital booklet is the result of an Erasmus+ project. Its content have been compiled from continuing professional development workshops for teachers and features evidence-based teaching practices that align with our knowledge of the Science of Learning.

An open trilingulal free online journal to disseminate research, experiences and perspectives in neuroscience and education from the Chair of Neuroeducation UB -EDU1ST.

Includes a section for a younger audience -Neuromads-, where authors will publish articles accompanying each submission in a close and attractive language, that will be peer-reviewed by teenagers.