Monday, December 11, 2023

Anglia Ruskin named University of the Year 2023

ARU wins top prize at Times Higher Awards, the ‘Oscars of the university sector’

ANGLIA RUSKIN UNIVERSITY

Times Higher Education University of the Year - ARU staff with Sandi Toksvig, who presented the awards — IMAGE:
TIMES HIGHER EDUCATION UNIVERSITY OF THE YEAR 2023 - ANGLIA RUSKIN UNIVERSITY STAFF WITH SANDI TOKSVIG, WHO PRESENTED THE AWARD.
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CREDIT: TIMES HIGHER EDUCATION

Anglia Ruskin University (ARU) has been named the Times Higher Education University of the Year 2023, the biggest prize in UK Higher Education.

The Times Higher Education Awards are known as the Oscars of the UK university sector, and ARU received the prestigious award during a ceremony in Liverpool. Other universities shortlisted for the main prize included the University of Exeter, Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, and the University of York.

Last night’s success is the latest high-profile award for ARU, after being named University of the Year at the UK Social Mobility Awards in October and receiving a Gold award – the highest possible rating – for the quality of its education in the national Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF) announced in September.

Praising the successful launch of ARU Peterborough and ARU’s leadership on public service education, amongst other achievements, Times Higher Education said: “The impact of the best universities on cities and regions is transformational. A university can be a focal point for community, a hub for innovation, and turn aspiration into reality.

“Anglia Ruskin University does all this, not just in one city but across multiple centres spanning the east of England – with the institution extending its reach and impact significantly in 2021-22.”

The judges of the award added: “Its achievements paint a picture of a university that knows what and who it is for, and one that is delivering – including taking calculated risks to support its region to the full.”

Commenting on ARU’s success, Vice Chancellor Professor Roderick Watkins said: “Our mission is to transform lives through innovative, inclusive and entrepreneurial education and research. Receiving the Times Higher University of the Year award is tremendous recognition from within the Higher Education sector that our work is making a real difference and stands out at a national level.

“My colleagues work tirelessly to deliver first-class education, undertake impactful research, and introduce new initiatives for the benefit of our students and the communities we serve. I’m immensely proud of the difference they’re making to our students’ lives.

“Coming so soon after being named the UK Social Mobility Awards’ University of the Year and receiving a Gold award for the quality of our education in the Teaching Excellence Framework, this Times Higher award completes the perfect hat-trick, and our staff deserve enormous credit for this success.”

The Times Higher Education University of the Year 2023 award honours “exceptional performance during the 2021-22 academic year”, and ARU’s success in delivering a wide range of high-impact initiatives, across each of its campuses, was recognised by the Times Higher Education judges.

Amongst ARU’s significant achievements in 2021-22 was the launch of ARU Peterborough, delivered through a unique partnership between ARU, Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority and Peterborough City Council. ARU Peterborough is a new university designed from the ground up to meet the needs of local students, employers, and the regional economy.

Also during this period, the UK’s first Samaritans university hub opened on ARU’s Cambridge campus, where trained student and staff volunteers deliver important support to the public, while ARU’s Chelmsford campus hosted the most sustainable British Science Festival ever staged, attracting thousands of visitors.

A university education is an important investment and ARU works hard to help students achieve success in their future careers through tailored careers and employability support. This is reflected in ARU being ranked in the top 15% in the country for graduates in employment and/or further study 15 months after graduating, and third in the country for graduates who are employed as managers, directors or senior officials*.

The courses themselves are innovative and employer-led, teaching the skills and knowledge needed by businesses and organisations in the region. ARU is the largest provider of nursing, midwifery, health, and social care education in the East of England and, as part of its growing degree apprenticeship provision, the largest university provider of initial police education in the country.

In addition to winning the University of the Year 2023 award last night, ARU was also shortlisted in the categories of Outstanding Contribution to Equality, Diversity and Inclusion, for the Students at the Heart of Knowledge Exchange (SHoKE) scheme, and Outstanding Contribution to the Local Community, for ARU Peterborough.

More information about ARU’s University of the Year 2023 success is available here https://www.aru.ac.uk/study/explore-aru/awards-and-recognition/university-of-the-year

* Source: Graduate Outcomes Survey. Country refers to mainstream Higher Education Institutions in England, excluding specialist institutions and those with fewer than 500 students. Contains HESA Data © HESA 2023 (www.hesa.ac.uk).

New HS curriculum teaches color chemistry and AI simultaneously

Peer-Reviewed Publication

NORTH CAROLINA STATE UNIVERSITY

North Carolina State University researchers have developed a weeklong high school curriculum that helps students quickly grasp concepts in both color chemistry and artificial intelligence – while sparking their curiosity about science and the world around them.

To test whether a short high school science module could effectively teach students something about both chemistry – a notoriously thorny subject – and artificial intelligence (AI), the researchers designed a relatively simple experiment involving pH levels, which reflect the acidity or alkalinity of a liquid solution.

When testing pH levels on a test strip, color conversion charts provide a handy reference: more acidic solutions turn test strips red when a lot of acidity is present and turn test strips yellow and green as acid levels weaken. Test strips turn deep purple when liquids are highly alkaline and turn blue and dark green as alkaline levels decline. Numerical ranges of pH span from 0 to 14, with 7 being neutral – about the level of the tap water in your home – and the lower amounts reflecting greater acidity with higher numbers reflecting greater alkalinity.

“We wanted to answer the question: ‘Can we use machine learning to more accurately read pH strips than visually?’” said Yang Zhang, assistant professor of textile engineering, chemistry and science and a co-corresponding author of a paper describing the work. “It turns out that the student-trained AI predictive model was about 5.5 times more precise than visual interpretations.”

The students used their cellphone cameras to take pictures of pH test strips after wetting them in a variety of everyday liquids – beverages, pond or lake water, cosmetics and the like – and predicted their pH values visually. They also received test strips from the instructors with known pH levels taken with sophisticated instrumentation and predicted those visually.

“We wanted students to think about the real-world implications of this type of testing, for example in underdeveloped places where drinking water might be an issue,” Zhang said. “You might not have a sophisticated instrument, but you really want to know if the pH level is less than 5 versus a 7.”

Students entered data into free machine learning software called Orange, which has no lines of code, making it easy for novices to work with. They worked to convert test strip images and pH values into predictions, with machine learning improving accuracy as it learned to delineate the more subtle changes in test-strip color with the corresponding pH values. Students then compared their machine learning pH level predictions with their visual predictions and found that the AI predictions, though not perfect, were much closer to the true pH value than their visual predictions.

The researchers also surveyed the students before and after the weeklong curriculum and found that they reported being more motivated to learn and more knowledgeable about both chemistry and AI.

“Students could see the relevance of cutting-edge technology when applied to real-world problems and scientific advancements,” said Shiyan Jiang, assistant professor of learning design and technology at NC State and co-corresponding author of the paper. “This practical application not only enhances their understanding of complex science concepts but also inspires them to explore innovative solutions, fostering a deeper appreciation for the intersection of cutting-edge technology and science, in particular chemistry.”

“On the chemistry side, there are a lot of similar color chemistry concepts we can teach this way,” Zhang said. “We can also scale this curriculum up to include more students.”

NC State graduate students Jeanne McClure, Jiahui Chen and Yunshu Liu co-authored the paper. The work was supported by the National Science Foundation (grants CHE-2246548, DRL-1949110 and DRL-2025090) and the National Institutes of Health (grants R21GM141675 and R01GM143397).

-kulikowski-

Note to editors: The paper abstract follows.

“Integrating Machine Learning and Color Chemistry: Developing a High-School Curriculum Towards Real-World Problem-Solving”

Authors: Shiyan Jiang, Jeanne McClure, Jiahui Chen, Yunshu Liu and Yang Zhang, NC State University

Published: Dec. 7, 2023 in Journal of Chemical Education

DOI: 10.1021/acs.jchemed.3c00589

Abstract: Artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly transforming our world, making it imperative to educate the next generation about both the potential benefits and challenges associated with AI. This study presents a cross-disciplinary curriculum that connects AI and chemistry disciplines in the high school classroom. Particularly, we leverage machine learning (ML), an important and simple application of AI to instruct students to build an ML-based virtual pH meter for high-precision pH read-outs. We used a “codeless” and free ML neural network building software – Orange, along with a simple chemical topic of pH to show the connection between AI and chemistry for high-schoolers who might have rudimentary backgrounds in both disciplines. The goal of this curriculum is to promote student interest and drive in the analytical chemistry domain and offer insights into how the interconnection between chemistry and ML can benefit high-school students in science learning. The activity involves students using pH strips to measure the pH of various solutions with local relevancy and then building an ML neural network model to predict the pH value based on color changes of pH strips. The integrated curriculum increased student interest in chemistry and ML and demonstrated the relevance of science to their daily lives and global issues. This approach is transformative in developing a broad spectrum of integration topics between chemistry and ML and understanding their global impacts.

JOURNAL

Journal of Chemical Education

DOI

10.1021/acs.jchemed.3c00589

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Experimental study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Integrating Machine Learning and Color Chemistry: Developing a High-School Curriculum Towards Real-World Problem-Solving

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

7-Dec-2023

Mindfulness could help women with opioid use disorder better control drug urges

A Rutgers pilot study sheds light on how mindfulness could prevent relapse in opioid-dependent women

Peer-Reviewed Publication

RUTGERS UNIVERSITY

Mindfulness-Oriented Recovery Enhancement (MORE) — a behavioral intervention that integrates training in mindfulness, emotion regulation strategies and savoring of natural rewards — could hold the key to mitigating relapse in women undergoing medically assisted opioid use disorder treatment, a Rutgers study found.

The pilot study published in the journal Explore, is the first to evaluate the potential neural changes that underlie women’s emotion regulation and craving after an eight-week MORE intervention.

Previous studies have shown that women report higher opioid craving and show a greater inability to control their drug urges than men. Although medications, like buprenorphine, can be effective in mitigating urges in the short-term by limiting biological changes associated with acute withdrawal, it is less effective at long-term adherence in avoiding relapse with other illicit drugs.

“While these medications help with withdrawal, they do not fully engage the core regulatory and affective processing circuits that give people control over negative emotion and do not help to address opioid craving in a sustainable way,” said the lead author Suchismita Ray, an associate professor at Rutgers School of Health Professions. “This is where complementary therapies, such as MORE, could play a key role.”

MORE, which was developed by Eric L. Garland at The University of Utah, is centered on three key therapeutic processes:

Mindfulness, which trains a person to become aware of when their attention has become fixated on addictive cues, stressors or pain, then to shift from affective to sensory processing of craving, stress or pain sensations and re-orient their attention through mindful breathing.
Reappraisal of thoughts to disengage from negative emotions and addictive behaviors and turn toward positive thoughts that promote resilience, meaning and active coping behaviors.
Savoring naturally rewarding experiences (nature, time with a loved one) in a mindful way and recognize the positive emotional responses to the experience.

Researchers studied nine women in residential treatment who were on medications for opioid use disorder and completed an eight-week MORE intervention once a week for two hours. Both before and after the eight-week period, researchers gave participants an emotion regulation questionnaire and then scanned their brains in a magnetic resonance imaging machine while they listening to a 10-minute guided MORE meditation and viewed a picture of an outdoor garden to measure the brain’s communication during the meditation.

“Prior studies have shown that the inability to handle negative emotion and drug craving are major determinants of drug relapse. We examined the immediate effects of the 10-minute guided MORE meditation on mood and craving, then looked at the effects of the eight-week MORE intervention on brain communication and how well the women regulated their emotions,” Ray said. “The results show that a single 10-minute guided MORE meditation without any prior meditation experience immediately improved participants’ mood. The eight-week MORE intervention boosted their emotional awareness and strengthened their impulse control — factors that are important in preventing relapse.”

In addition, researchers found that the eight-week MORE intervention resulted in significantly increased communication between the areas of the brain that may help women with opioid use disorder to better control their negative emotion and drug craving.

“What this could mean is if an opioid user experiences stress or a craving for an opioid, she can immediately practice a 10-minute MORE meditation, which will improve her mood in the moment and potentially prevent her from taking the drug,” Ray said. “If that person also takes part in the eight-week MORE intervention, she could reap additional long-term benefits to control negative emotion and opioid craving and better maintain sobriety.”

Other Rutgers authors include Jamil Bhanji and Mauricio Delgado (Rutgers–Newark) and Patricia Dooley Budsock and Nina A. Cooperman (Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School). Eric L. Garland from The University of Utah is also an author on this pilot study.

The authors would like to acknowledge The Rutgers University Brain Imaging Center in Newark where the subject scanning took place for this pilot study.

JOURNAL

EXPLORE

DOI

10.1016/j.explore.2023.11.001

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Imaging analysis

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Mindfulness-oriented recovery enhancement in opioid use disorder: Extended emotional regulation and neural effects and immediate effects of guided meditation in a pilot sample

Racial and ethnic differences in hospice use among Medicaid-only and dual-eligible decedents

JAMA Health Forum

Peer-Reviewed Publication

JAMA NETWORK

About The Study: In this study, in both Medicaid only and dual-eligible populations, Hispanic and non-Hispanic Black individuals had the lowest odds of receiving hospice, and Hispanic individuals had the highest odds of a short hospice stay. Knowledge about, access to, and acceptance of hospice may be lacking for these low-income individuals. Further research is needed to understand barriers to and facilitators of hospice use for people with nursing facility stays.

Authors: Julie Robison, Ph.D., of UConn Health, Center on Aging in Farmington, Connecticut, is the corresponding author.

To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/

(doi:10.1001/jamahealthforum.2023.4240)

Editor’s Note: Please see the article for additional information, including other authors, author contributions and affiliations, conflict of interest and financial disclosures, and funding and support.

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About JAMA Health Forum: JAMA Health Forum is an international, peer-reviewed, online, open access journal that addresses health policy and strategies affecting medicine, health and health care. The journal publishes original research, evidence-based reports and opinion about national and global health policy; innovative approaches to health care delivery; and health care economics, access, quality, safety, equity and reform. Its distribution will be solely digital and all content will be freely available for anyone to read.

JOURNAL

JAMA Health Forum

County–level variation in preterm birth rates

JAMA Network Open

Peer-Reviewed Publication

JAMA NETWORK

About The Study: In this analysis of U.S. county-level preterm and early preterm birth rates, substantial geographic disparities were observed, which were associated with place-based social disadvantage. Stability in aggregated rates of preterm birth at the national level masked increases in nearly 1 in 6 counties between 2007 and 2019.

Authors: Sadiya S. Khan, M.D.,M.S., of the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago, is the corresponding author.

To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/

(doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2023.46864)

# # #

Embed this link to provide your readers free access to the full-text article

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About JAMA Network Open: JAMA Network Open is an online-only open access general medical journal from the JAMA Network. On weekdays, the journal publishes peer-reviewed clinical research and commentary in more than 40 medical and health subject areas. Every article is free online from the day of publication.

JOURNAL

JAMA Network Open

Kariyat: global study on plant-herbivore interactions ‘opens window of possibilities’

Global data set provides more insight into plant-insect herbivore feeding habits

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS SYSTEM DIVISION OF AGRICULTURE

Rupesh Kariyat - Insect Herbivory Variability: Petri dishes — IMAGE:
INSECT LAB — RUPESH KARIYAT INSPECTS PETRI DISHES WITH RICE LEAVES AND FALL ARMYWORMS AT HIS LAB ON THE UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS, FAYETTEVILLE CAMPUS.
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CREDIT: UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS SYSTEM DIVISION OF AGRICULTURE PHOTO BY PADEN JOHNSON

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — Plant life is a hard life when it comes to fending off insects, and the further one gets from the equator the more difficult it can be, according to a study on plant-insect interactions published last month in the journal Science.

For years to come, generations of entomologists and plant pathologists will look to the study’s global data set that confirms long-held assumptions and “opens a window of possibilities,” says Rupesh Kariyat, associate professor of crop entomology with the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station.

Kariyat, who participated in the study with nearly 200 other scientists at 790 sites worldwide, said the data gathered on 503 plant species in 135 families will spawn many new studies on plant-herbivore interactions.

The study, “Plant size, latitude, and phylogeny explain within-population variability in herbivory,” was published last month in Science, the American Association for the Advancement of Science journal. Phylogeny is the study of how related groups of organisms evolve over time, and herbivory is the act of feeding on plants.

Kariyat said the study’s focus was to develop a more complete understanding of insect herbivory, which could eventually lead to integrated pest management recommendations and assist entomologists and plant pathologists studying the impacts of climate change on plant-insect-pathogen interactions.

“The study looks at how insects feed on plants at a global scale,” Kariyat said, describing how researchers studied the variability of feeding rates based on plant type, latitude and insect species. “A long-lasting assumption has been that plant-insect interactions — not pollinators, but insects that feed on plants — are highly variable, and you cannot fit it into one specific box.”

Kariyat said the study confirmed what he calls “a cornerstone in ecology.” Variability in insect eating habits, the study shows, is substantial across different members of the same species of plants. Now, they also have a ton of comparative data to go along with it.

Latitude, which measures the distance from the Earth’s equator, was found to be a significant factor affecting herbivory variability. Farther away from the equator, the growing season is shorter, which results in reduced time for herbivore foraging. So, more kinds of insects feed on the same plant species and its relatives than would be seen closer to the equator, Kariyat explained.

With the volume of data collected during this study, the authors hypothesize that herbivory may maintain plant diversity at latitudes closer to the equator because it is a “more consistent force within plant populations.” In other words, there is less competition for food sources nearer the equator for insect herbivores because of the increased diversity in plant life. This results in less variability of insect feeding on plant populations.

An additional hypothesis is that herbivory is more variable among small plants than large plants, which could explain why trees, for example, invest more of their biomass in defense, the authors noted. Kariyat said some tree defenses from insect herbivores include toxic secondary metabolites such as tannins and tree sap.

Keeping it together

While scientists have looked at various populations of plants on different latitudes for decades to understand how plants create defenses against insect feeding and the variability of herbivory at different latitudes, Kariyat said the studies had yet to be done with the same protocol. That changed when scientists formed the Herbivory Variability Network about four years ago.

The network is led by Will Wetzel with Montana State University’s department of land resources and environmental sciences, Moria Robinson of Michigan State University’s department of entomology, Phil Hahn with the University of Florida’s department of entomology and nematology, Nora Underwood and Brian Inouye with Florida State University’s department of biological science and Susan Whitehead with Virginia Tech’s department of biological sciences.

“They had this beautiful idea of ‘Why don’t we ask people who work in herbivory, across the globe if they can go out and collect data on their plants with a protocol that we set, so that all the data, whether you collected it from Bangladesh or the Democratic Republic of Congo, are exactly the same,” Kariyat said.

When Kariyat was a faculty member at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley several years ago, he became involved with the Herbivory Variability Network by chance.

It was a fortunate opportunity, Kariyat said, not just because the group was looking for data on plants native to south Texas.

For the study, Kariyat enlisted his graduate student, Mandeep Tayal, to assist in collecting and curating plant specimens when COVID-19 protocols limited access to the lab but not the field. Zoom meetings that became common during the pandemic also facilitated meetings with group members worldwide, Kariyat said.

Tayal, listed as a co-author of the study, is pursuing his entomology doctorate at Clemson University. Kariyat expects the study could open many opportunities for Tayal and provide reams of data for scientists now and in the future.

Prior to this study, Kariyat authored or co-authored 68 published research papers. Although he was a smaller piece of the puzzle on the study published in Science, Kariyat said this one has attracted the most attention from colleagues across the country.

“We think this is going to make a splash in the field and will be cited a lot when they work on this,” Kariyat said of the study. “It opens a window of possibilities for anyone, anywhere, to look at the data and start their own questions and answers. All of the raw data can be requested through the Herbivory Variability Network.”

Kariyat has already begun a spin-off study with Alejandro Vasquez Marcano, a crop entomology Ph.D. student with the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station, which is the research arm of the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture. This new research evaluates insect herbivory damage to plants, including flowers, fruits, and seeds, during the reproductive stage.

How to use it

With the information gathered from the study, Kariyat said researchers can build collaborations and perform comparison studies on a wide range of plant species and their relatives to understand better how much variation in herbivory there is on those species.

For example, he said, with the information gathered they can see how much variation on herbivory there is on many plants in question and get in touch with people who worked on similar studies. Some examples of questions crop entomologists would ask include: “How much do insects feed on a particular plant? And is there more feeding in the early or late season? Then, Kariyat said, they can question if the behavior is associated with global warming, climate change, or invasive species.

Kariyat mentioned the spotted lanternfly as an invasive species that has established itself in the Northeast United States and is one of growing interest to entomologists because they feed on a wide range of fruit, ornamental and woody trees.

“One thing we really want to do is be proactive,” Kariyat said of invasive species. “Once an insect population is established, then there is no eradication. It is just management. But if we know it will come here, we can devise methods to restrict movement and reduce impact or incidence.”

Kariyat also works with the Cooperative Extension Service, the outreach arm of the Division of Agriculture, and teaches courses through the Dale Bumpers College of Agricultural, Food and Life Sciences.

To learn more about Division of Agriculture research, visit the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station website: https://aaes.uada.edu. Follow us on 𝕏 at @ArkAgResearch and Instagram at @ArkAgResearch. To learn about Extension Programs in Arkansas, contact your local Cooperative Extension Service agent or visit https://uaex.uada.edu/. Follow us on 𝕏 at @AR_Extension. To learn more about the Division of Agriculture, visit https://uada.edu/. Follow us on 𝕏 at @AgInArk.

About the Division of Agriculture

The University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture’s mission is to strengthen agriculture, communities, and families by connecting trusted research to the adoption of best practices. Through the Agricultural Experiment Station and the Cooperative Extension Service, the Division of Agriculture conducts research and extension work within the nation’s historic land grant education system.

The Division of Agriculture is one of 20 entities within the University of Arkansas System. It has offices in all 75 counties in Arkansas and faculty on five system campuses.

The University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture offers all its Extension and Research programs and services without regard to race, color, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, national origin, religion, age, disability, marital or veteran status, genetic information, or any other legally protected status, and is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employer.

JOURNAL

Science

DOI

10.1126/science.adh8830

ARTICLE TITLE

Plant size, latitude, and phylogeny explain within-population variability in herbivory

New insights into Zebra mussel attachment fibers offer potential solutions to combat invasive species, develop sustainable materials

Peer-Reviewed Publication

MCGILL UNIVERSITY

A recent study from researchers in Canada and Germany has revealed that an unlikely event, occurring over 12 million years ago played an important role in shaping one of Canada’s most damaging invasive species.

Zebra and quagga mussels, belonging to the Dreissenid family, are widespread freshwater invasive species throughout North America that present a significant danger to native ecosystems by competing for resources. Using a fibrous anchor called a byssus, Dreissenid mussels contribute to biofouling on surfaces and obstruct intake structures in power stations and water treatment plants.

“This new study, which looks into the way these mussels stick to surfaces, may help improve strategies against biofouling, a problem causing millions in damages in Canada alone” shares co-author and lead McGill Professor, Matthew Harrington.

Surprisingly, researchers discovered that a previously undocumented event contributed to Dreissenid mussel's resilience as a species. University of Göttingen Professor and co-author Daniel J. Jackson explains, "More than 12 million years ago, it is likely that a single bacterium transferred genetic material into a single mussel endowing its descendants with the ability to make these fibers. Given their crucial role in mussel attachment in freshwater habitats, this horizontal gene transfer event supported the harmful global expansion of these mussels.”

This research, marking important progress in the understanding of invasive mussels and their attachment mechanisms, could offer potential solutions to mitigate their environmental and economic impact in Canada.

The study also sheds light on how mussel fibres could inspire the development of sustainable materials.

Sustainable materials inspired by mussel biology

“This research not only advances our understanding of mussel evolution and biofouling, but also presents an exciting opportunity for the development of novel materials,” said Harrington who is also co-director of McGill Institute of Advanced Materials. "Dreissenid byssus fibers, which resemble spider silk structurally, could inspire future development of tough polymer fibers, contributing to more durable and sustainable materials typically used in textiles and technical plastics.”

“We found that the building blocks of the fibres are massive coiled-coil proteins, the largest ever found,” Harrington said. These proteins, structurally similar to those found in human hair, were found to transform into silk-like beta crystallites through simple application of stretching forces during formation. This method of fiber fabrication is much simpler than spider silk formation, potentially offering an easier route toward biotechnological manufacture of sustainable fibers – an industry currently dominated by artificial spider silks.

About this study

“Invasive mussels fashion silk-like byssus via mechanical processing of massive horizontally acquired coiled coils” by Matthew Harrington et al., was published in PNAS.
https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.2311901120

JOURNAL

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

DOI

10.1073/pnas.2311901120

ARTICLE TITLE

Invasive mussels fashion silk-like byssus via mechanical processing of massive horizontally acquired coiled coils

Immersive VR goggles for mice unlock new potential for brain science

Goggles enabled researchers to study responses to overhead threats for first time

Peer-Reviewed Publication

NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY

Northwestern University researchers have developed new virtual reality (VR) goggles for mice.

Besides just being cute, these miniature goggles provide more immersive experiences for mice living in laboratory settings. By more faithfully simulating natural environments, the researchers can more accurately and precisely study the neural circuitry that underlies behavior.

Compared to current state-of-the-art systems, which simply surround mice with computer or projection screens, the new goggles provide a leap in advancement. In current systems, mice can still see the lab environment peeking out from behind the screens, and the screens’ flat nature cannot convey three-dimensional (3D) depth. In another disadvantage, researchers have been unable to easily mount screens above mice’s heads to simulate overhead threats, such as looming birds of prey.

The new VR goggles bypass all those issues. And, as VR grows in popularity, the goggles also could help researchers glean new insights into how the human brain adapts and reacts to repeated VR exposure — an area that is currently little understood.

The research will be published on Friday (Dec. 8) in the journal Neuron. It marks the first time researchers have used a VR system to simulate an overhead threat.

“For the past 15 years, we have been using VR systems for mice,” said Northwestern’s Daniel Dombeck, the study’s senior author. “So far, labs have been using big computer or projection screens to surround an animal. For humans, this is like watching a TV in your living room. You still see your couch and your walls. There are cues around you, telling you that you aren’t inside the scene. Now think about putting on VR goggles, like Oculus Rift, that take up your full vision. You don’t see anything but the projected scene, and a different scene is projected into each eye to create depth information. That’s been missing for mice.”

Dombeck is a professor of neurobiology at Northwestern’s Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences. His laboratory is a leader in developing VR-based systems and high-resolution, laser-based imaging systems for animal research.

The value of VR

Although researchers can observe animals in nature, it is incredibly difficult to image patterns of real-time brain activity while animals engage with the real world. To overcome this challenge, researchers have integrated VR into laboratory settings. In these experimental setups, an animal uses a treadmill to navigate scenes, such as a virtual maze, projected onto surrounding screens.

By keeping the mouse in place on the treadmill — rather than allowing it to run through a natural environment or physical maze — neurobiologists can use tools to view and map the brain as the mouse traverses a virtual space. Ultimately, this helps researchers grasp general principles of how activated neural circuits encode information during various behaviors.

“VR basically reproduces real environments,” Dombeck said. “We’ve had a lot of success with this VR system, but it’s possible the animals aren’t as immersed as they would be in a real environment. It takes a lot of training just to get the mice to pay attention to the screens and ignore the lab around them.”

Introducing iMRSIV

With recent advances in hardware miniaturization, Dombeck and his team wondered if they could develop VR goggles to more faithfully replicate a real environment. Using custom-designed lenses and miniature organic light-emitting diode (OLED) displays, they created compact goggles.

Called Miniature Rodent Stereo Illumination VR (iMRSIV), the system comprises two lenses and two screens — one for each side of the head to separately illuminate each eye for 3D vision. This provides each eye with a 180-degree field-of-view that fully immerses the mouse and excludes the surrounding environment.

Unlike VR goggles for a human, the iMRSIV (pronounced “immersive”) system does not wrap around the mouse’s head. Instead, the goggles are attached to the experimental setup and closely perch directly in front of the mouse’s face. Because the mouse runs in place on a treadmill, the goggles still cover the mouse’s field of view.

“We designed and built a custom holder for the goggles,” said John Issa, a postdoctoral fellow in Dombeck’s laboratory and study co-first author. “The whole optical display — the screens and the lenses — go all the way around the mouse.”

Reduced training times

By mapping the mice’s brains, Dombeck and his team found that the brains of goggle-wearing mice were activated in very similar ways as in freely moving animals. And, in side-by-side comparisons, the researchers noticed that goggle-wearing mice engaged with the scene much more quickly than mice with traditional VR systems.

“We went through the same kind of training paradigms that we have done in the past, but mice with the goggles learned more quickly,” Dombeck said. “After the first session, they could already complete the task. They knew where to run and looked to the right places for rewards. We think they actually might not need as much training because they can engage with the environment in a more natural way.”

Simulating overhead threats for the first time

Next, the researchers used the goggles to simulate an overhead threat — something that had been previously impossible with current systems. Because hardware for imaging technology already sits above the mouse, there is nowhere to mount a computer screen. The sky above a mouse, however, is an area where animals often look for vital — sometimes life-or-death — information.

“The top of a mouse’s field of view is very sensitive to detect predators from above, like a bird,” said co-first author Dom Pinke, a research specialist in Dombeck’s lab. “It’s not a learned behavior; it’s an imprinted behavior. It’s wired inside the mouse’s brain.”

To create a looming threat, the researchers projected a dark, expanding disk into the top of the goggles — and the top of the mice’s fields of view. In experiments, mice — upon noticing the disk — either ran faster or froze. Both behaviors are common responses to overhead threats. Researchers were able to record neural activity to study these reactions in detail.

“In the future, we’d like to look at situations where the mouse isn’t prey but is the predator,” Issa said. “We could watch brain activity while it chases a fly, for example. That activity involves a lot of depth perception and estimating distances. Those are things that we can start to capture.”

Making neurobiology accessible

In addition to opening the door for more research, Dombeck hopes the goggles open the door to new researchers. Because the goggles are relatively inexpensive and require less intensive laboratory setups, he thinks they could make neurobiology research more accessible.

“Traditional VR systems are pretty complicated,” Dombeck said. “They’re expensive, and they’re big. They require a big lab with a lot of space. And, on top of that, if it takes a long time to train a mouse to do a task, that limits how many experiments you can do. We’re still working on improvements, but our goggles are small, relatively cheap and pretty user friendly as well. This could make VR technology more available to other labs.”

The study, “Full field-of-view virtual reality goggles for mice,” was supported by the National Institutes of Health (award number R01-MH101297), the National Science Foundation (award number ECCS-1835389), the Hartwell Foundation and the Brain and Behavior Research Foundation.

VR goggles (IMAGE)

NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY

An artist's interpretation of a cartoon mouse wearing VR goggles.

CREDIT

@rita

JOURNAL

Neuron

DOI

10.1016/j.neuron.2023.11.019

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Experimental study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Animals

ARTICLE TITLE

Full field-of-view virtual reality goggles for mice

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

8-Dec-2023