bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Anatomical Education, Memory Consolidation and the Testing Effect
Authors: Easteal Ron Albert , Biddell Jason 
Published: November 2023

As educators, anatomists must attempt to instill relevant Anatomical structures to the long‐term memory (LTM) of medical and professional students. Cognitive research tells us retrieval practice (RP) is twice as effective in accumulating LTM when compared to studying alone. RP is the recall of previously tested material by self or group testing. The increase in LTM is called the ‘testing effect’ (TE). RP is most effective when practiced a day or two after initial presentation, and repeated after intervals of a week or so.While cognitive science examines the efficacy of RP, it fails to explain a neurological rationale for those counter‐intuitive events. There is recent neuroanatomical evidence that correlates the time‐delay of acquisition with transfer of memory between the hippocampus (HPC) and the Neo‐Cortex (NC). Anatomical educators and their students will be more confident in using this powerful learning tool if they understand the correlation between RP and LTM.RP is sequenced through a series of retrieval practices following initial study/presentation (study‐RP‐RP‐RP etc.). The first interval may be a day or so, while the succeeding intervals may be evenly spaced or expanded throughout the course.Memory has 4 stages: 1. Sensory memory; 2; Working memory (WM) 3; Hippocampal consolidation (HC); and 4; LTM in the neocortex. Stages 1 and 2 last around 20 seconds. HPC consolidation and its transfer to the NC can take from 1 day to 1 month, showing that this is a direct link to RP expanding over time.HC consolidation incorporates both synaptic consolidation, and systems consolidation. Synaptic Consolidation is the strengthening and replication of synapses in the HPC and NC, making memory more robust. This process is called long‐term potentiation (LTP). Synaptic consolidation fades over time as system consolidation (SC) takes over. SC transfers representations from the HPC to the NC, thus strengthening inter‐cortical ‘crosstalk’ and stabilizing LTM.One major contributor to SC is adult neurogenesis in the dentate gyrus of the HPC. Development and maturation of these new cells take place during 4 weeks, providing LTM connections to the neocortex. Another major potentiator of LTM is sleep following subject presentation. Thus, LTM facilitation is potentiated from day 2 to 1 month after presentation.R.P (as opposed to studying), acts by reactivating the cortex and bringing the representations back to the WM. The WM reactivates consolidation, ultimately reinforcing memory in the neo‐cortex.Support or Funding InformationN/A
Evaluation of Power Point Presentation Reflection Among Students of Applied Medical Sciences College, Najran University
Authors: MOKHTAR AHMED ELSIR , ELMUSTAFA SHAMAIL DAFALLA ABUIDREIS 
Published: November 2023

IntroductionPower Point and Slideshow lectures and presentations are a popular teaching method in undergraduate medical and paramedical teaching and education. PowerPoint software offers a tremendous number of options for personalizing slides to provide an opportunity to enhance a presentation. The rise of the slide has generated considerable debate, with some people concerned that PowerPoint diminishes the potential of critical thinking by the audience, and others encouraging innovative graphic design as assisting the transmission of information.ObjectivesTo assess the student's satisfaction regarding slideshow and power point based lectures and their perspective on teaching methods and evaluate preference and effectiveness in learning.MethodsThis is a descriptive cross‐sectional study was carried out among the undergraduate applied medical sciences (Physiotherapy and Radiology) students of Najran University participated voluntarily, during the period from Nov.2014 to Oct.2015; collected data analyzed by using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS Program).ResultsShowed that 52.63% of students believe that the most distracted factor in power point presentation is the large number of presenting slides 42.11% of the students considered that more than one topic that's presented in the presented slides, and slides color and themes comes in the lowest distracting factors considered 5.26% of the students show that. Regarding the suitable numbers of the slides in 50 mints, 47.37% said 10–20 slides, 36.84% said 30–40 slides and 15.79% said 20–30 slides. About most boring and dull factors 63.16% of students in this study show response to the large number of presented slides, 26.32% large number of bullets and 10.53% of them show that fast presentation. Also 52.63% suggested six bullets are quite enough, three bullets were suggested by 21.05%, nine bullets by15.79% and at last just 10.53% of students mentioned twelve bullets.ConclusionMost of the students believed that Power Point presentations have a lot of disadvantage which can make it deadly dull. At last the integrated (PowerPoint and chalkboard) based method of teaching was found more suitable tool of teaching and learning than PowerPoint or chalkboard alone.
Instructor Presence and the Value of Instructor‐Student Interface in the Gross Anatomy Laboratory
Authors: Contreras Nicolas , Harper Caitlin J , Lachman Nirusha , Hafferty Frederic W. , Pawlina Wojciech 
Published: November 2023

While small group learning and team‐based learning (TBL) have become widely accepted modalities in medical education, surprisingly little is known about how medical students interact between and within their learning teams and how dissection teams themselves interact with faculty or teaching assistants (TAs). This study sought to examine: (1) interactions between faculty/TAs and student teams; and (2) student table‐to‐table interactions taking place in the anatomy didactic block at Mayo Medical School. In addition, interactions between students in the same student team and overall team dynamics were examined by faculty. The purpose of this study is to understand dissection group dynamics and how these sets of interactions relate to student academic performance. The amount of time faculty/TAs spent with a group during each teaching session was recorded by students at the end of each session. The number of team‐to‐team interactions were also recorded. These values were then compared to student examination performance. Results from this study indicated that the individual time faculty/TAs spend with teams and the number of table‐to‐table interactions appeared to have no correlation with overall team academic performance. However, faculty assessment of interactions within student teams and overall team dynamics appears to be an accurate predictor of the team's overall academic performance, where groups with well‐defined leadership roles and strong cooperation between team members performed higher than those where this was not present.Support or Funding InformationMayo Clinic College of Medicine Department of Anatomy
Applied Anatomy Labs: Interactive Small Group Learning
Authors: Mork Amy Lovejoy , Klement Brenda , Paulsen Douglas F , Wineski Lawrence E 
Published: November 2023

Medical education has shown an increasing trend toward active, small group learning, and away from a primarily passive, lecture based instruction. To further reinforce the small group learning that has traditionally characterized the educational process in cadaver dissection labs, a series of interactive, applied anatomy labs was added to the first year integrated curriculum at Morehouse School of Medicine. Applied anatomy labs typically consist of four to five stations through which small groups of students rotate over the three hour lab period. An applied anatomy lab normally coincides with the completion of the dissection lab and lecture components of each anatomical region. The current curriculum includes applied anatomy lab sessions covering: Back and Upper Limb, Thorax and Abdominal Wall, Abdomen, Orthopedic Surgery/Lower Limb, Pelvis and Perineum, and Head and Neck. During these sessions, the students interact in functional and clinically relevant activities related to the region just completed (e.g., blood pressure measurements following upper limb, cardiac ultrasound during the thorax, pelvic exam simulations after pelvis and perineum). The applied anatomy labs provide an opportunity to utilize clinical faculty to demonstrate regionally relevant techniques for physical exam or treatment, hands on applications of diagnostic and surgical technology, or enhancement of the students’ understanding of both the normal anatomy and related pathologies in small group learning sessions. Applied anatomy labs account for 18 hours (12%) of the 148 total gross anatomy lab hours and enhance opportunities to promote interactive, small group learning within the integrated first year medical curriculum.Support or Funding InformationSponsored in part by NIH PO31B04017 and G12RR003034
To what extent are first‐year medical students willing to disclose errors: relating a reflective writing exercise in gross anatomy to medical error disclosure
Authors: Sun Philip Young‐woo , Wittich Christopher M , Lachman Nirusha , Pawlina Wojciech 
Published: November 2023

Medical error is an important cause of patient morbidity/mortality. Disclosing medical errors to patients is an important component of safe practice. There is a growing need to assess the inherent nature of how physicians in training approach such unanticipated outcomes. With limited exposure for medical students to the idea of medical error disclosure, which is an important area of professionalism in medicine, we believe that a reflective writing exercise can be an efficient tool to objectively assess how students acknowledge and address medical errors early in their medical career. Every year, students in the 1st year gross anatomy course are asked to respond to a scenario in which a medical student's cellular phone conversation with a friend in a public area (i.e. post office) was overheard by a family member of a cadaver donor to Mayo Medical School. Students were asked to write an apology email to the offended party (Mrs. X) as though they were the student who made the mistake. Students were given 48 hours to complete and submit the assignment. We retrospectively reviewed the medical error disclosure assignment of medical students in the first‐year gross anatomy course at Mayo Medical School between 2005 and 2015. An instrument for assessing medical error disclosure, consisting of fifteen items evaluated on Likert scale (1–5, 1 is the lowest and 5 is the highest), was developed. Using this evaluation tool, we assessed the basic elements of medical error disclosure – acknowledgement of error/system failure, expression of regret, awareness of its impact, description of future behavior, and proper tone as an apology letter. Preliminary data from years 2005, 2008, 2011, and 2014 indicated the mean error disclosure scores of 3.49 ± 0.83, 3.32 ± 0.81, 3.29 ± 0.84, and 3.25 ± 0.75, respectively. The word count in those four class years were 246.9 ± 84.0, 236.3 ± 86.4, 211.2 ± 92.3, and 242.3 ± 79.1 words, respectively. The proportion of students who claimed to have spoken with his/her mother was 2 out of 42 (4.7%), 4 out of 49 (8.2%), 0 out of 48 (0%), and 20 out of 51 (39%) students, respectively. Across the four class years, there was a non‐significant but uniform trend of reduced mean error disclosure score over time, while the mean word count did not show a certain pattern. One notable trend over the class years was an increasing attribution to their mother as the person they spoke with, possibly a way to help alleviate Mrs. X's frustration by eliciting empathy. Overall, this efficient, integrated writing exercise serves as a sensitive tool to objectively gauge skills in the basic areas of medical error disclosure in a preclinical anatomy course.Support or Funding InformationMy sponsor is Dr. Wojciech Pawlina, the senior author of the abstract. Funding will be considered by the Department of Anatomy, Mayo Clinic College of Medicine, Rochester, MN.
Gross Anatomy for Teacher Education (GATE): Equipping the Anatomy Educator
Authors: Brooks William , Doss Austin 
Published: November 2023

Qualified anatomy educators are currently in short‐supply across U.S. colleges and universities. As a means of contributing to the education and training of current and future anatomists, the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) has designed an anatomy mini‐course known as Gross Anatomy for Teacher Education (GATE). The goals of this three‐day mini‐course are to enhance the educational effectiveness of current anatomy instructors and to contribute to the training of a new generation of anatomist‐educator. GATE cycles through the four major anatomical regions in a four‐year rotation: trunk, back/upper limb, lower limb, and head/neck. The course includes didactic instruction and full cadaveric dissection. Attendees of the first two years of the course have included anatomy educators from high schools, community colleges, and four‐year colleges and universities as well as graduate students and postdoctoral trainees in the biomedical sciences. Attendees have represented five states thus far. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of GATE through a pre‐test/post‐test model and by responses to course evaluations. Attendees were administered a 10 question, multiple choice quiz at the beginning and end of each course. In both years, a statistically significant increase in short‐term knowledge outcomes was observed (P<0.001). When asked to evaluate the level of improvement in anatomical knowledge, most attendees answered ‘greatly improved’. When asked to evaluate the level of interest in anatomy education, faculty overwhelmingly answered ‘greatly improved’. We also asked attendees to describe how attending the GATE mini‐course had impacted their instruction. The most common response was that GATE had provided many clinical correlates that attendees had utilized to improve student engagement with the content. The GATE mini‐course demonstrates one way in which major universities can contribute to the instruction and professional development of anatomy educators in high schools and small colleges across the country.Support or Funding InformationThe 2015 GATE mini‐course was funded in part by an Educational Outreach Grant from the American Association of Anatomists.
Regulation of the Kinetoplast maxicircle DNA replication by RNase HIIC in Trypanosoma brucei
Authors: Misra Smita , Mittal Mukul K , Singha Ujjal K , Chaudhuri Minu , Chaudhuri Gautam 
Published: November 2023

Ribonuclease H (RNase H, EC # 3.1.26.4) catalyzes the hydrolysis of RNA from a DNA/RNA hybrid. This ubiquitous enzyme interacts with several different DNA‐modifying enzymes in the cell and participates in the replication, recombination and repair of nuclear and mitochondrial DNA molecules. We report here that the type 2 RNase H of the parasitic protozoan Trypanosoma brucei is a predominantly mitochondrial enzyme and is essential for the survival of both the procyclic and the blood stream forms. Yeast 2‐hybrid and co‐IP analyses for the mitochondrial DNA replication‐associated proteins interacting directly with RNase HIIC revealed binding of RNase HIIC with the mitochondrial DNA ligase Kα which is involved in kinetoplast DNA replication. Interestingly, we found that RNase HIIC also binds with the DNA recombinase DMC1 which is also located in the mitochondrion of the parasite. Chromatin immunoprecipitation data indicated binding of both RNase HIIC and DMC1 to the maxicircle DNA. We found that the maxicircle DNA and transcripts derived from it are decreased significantly in the cells with decreased levels of RNase HIIC. This enzyme is required for the recovery from DNA damage caused by caffeine, hydroxyurea and methylmethane sulfonate, as the RNase HIIC knocked down cells are more sensitive to the lethality of these DNA damaging agents. We conclude that RNase HIIC collaborates with DNA ligase Kα and DMC1 to participate in the replication and repair of mitochondrial maxicircle DNA in these parasite cells.Support or Funding InformationThis research is supported in part by DOD‐CDMRP IDEA Expansion Grant# BC103645 and NIH/NCI grant 1R21CA181920‐01 to GC.
Acetylation of DNA Polymerase Beta Regulates the Choice of the Base Excision Repair Pathway
Authors: Howald Olivia Kay , Balakrishnan Lata 
Published: November 2023

Base excision repair (BER) is the main pathway through which base damages are repaired in the cell. Single nucleotide damage can be corrected either through short patch BER (SP‐BER), in which the single damaged base is replaced, or long patch BER (LP‐BER), in which two or more nucleotides can be replaced. Several proteins are involved in the process including DNA polymerase beta (pol β) and FEN1, both of which are the focus for this study. DNA pol β is a multifunctional protein which contains both polymerase and lyase properties. In LP‐BER, pol β displaces the uncleaved 5′dRP moiety into a flap structure which is recognized and cleaved by FEN1 and subsequently ligated by DNA ligase 1. Previous in vitro studies show that pol β acetylation reduces lyase activity, requiring repair to proceed via LP‐BER. In this study, we determined the effect of in vitro acetylation on the enzymatic activities of DNA pol β and FEN1. Both unmodified and acetylated forms of pol β were tested for their synthesis and strand displacement activities. Interestingly, acetylated forms of pol β showed much greater activity at all concentrations versus unmodified forms. Interestingly we also found that FEN1 cleavage activity was increased in reactions containing acetylated pol β compared to the unmodified form due to the increased strand displacement activity of the polymerase. Our results suggest that the acetylated form of DNA pol β more actively participates in LP‐BER, creating longer strands of corrected, higher fidelity nucleotides.Support or Funding InformationThis work was supported by a grant from the National Institutes of Health GM098328 (to LB)
Instability within the coding sequence of the repetitive RNA polymerase II C‐terminal domain
Authors: Exner Alexandra E , Fuchs Stephen M 
Published: November 2023

The carboxyl‐terminal domain (CTD) of RNA polymerase II is composed of a conserved tandemly repeating 7 amino acid sequence and plays an essential role in transcription. We and others have shown that number of CTD repeats differs between species (e.g. 26 in yeast, 52 in humans) but also, variability is seen amongst individuals within a single species. The DNA that encodes repetitive amino acid sequences is thought to be unstable and prone to both expansion and contraction of the DNA sequence, resulting in protein products of different length. Previous studies have shown mutations that confer a shorter CTD protein product impair growth and spontaneous suppressor mutations can arise in which the CTD coding region rearranges by either expansion or contraction to improve growth. Our goal was to study this plasticity of the CTD by measuring the rate at which the CTD contracted to repair a series of premature stop codons. Specifically, we inserted stop codons after repeats 8–11, which produced a shortened protein product and lead to decreased growth. The CTD was indeed able to contract and delete the stop codon‐containing repeats, and often delete extra repeats in the contraction process. To explore the mechanisms involved in these contraction events, we measured mutation frequency in yeast in which factors important for DNA repair had been deleted. Our results show that, unlike CTD expansion, which requires homologous recombination, contraction percentage was greatly increased in rad52Δ cells. We have used this data to build a CTD contraction model wherein we propose that the DNA encoding the repetitive CTD region is unstable, and nonessential repeats act as a template during DNA repair to confer plasticity. These findings will be helpful in explaining the variation in CTD repeat number amongst individuals within a species, as well as a useful general model for the instability in genomic regions encoding repetitive amino acid sequences.Support or Funding InformationStart up funding from Tufts University
Function of Cdc45 in DNA Replication and in Response to Genotoxic Stress
Authors: DeBrot Amanda , Lancaster Cynthia , Bjornsti Mary‐Ann 
Published: November 2023

DNA replication is a highly conserved and tightly regulated process, with a variety of factors acting to ensure faithful duplication and stability of chromosomal DNA. During replication, positive supercoils form ahead of the advancing replication fork. DNA topoisomerase 1 (Top1) acts to prevent DNA damage by relieving the torsional strain created by these supercoils. The camptothecin (CPT) class of chemotherapeutics target Top1, creating a long‐lived DNA‐Top1‐CPT covalent complex, which leads to S‐phase specific DNA lesions and cellular death.Our lab previously performed a genetic screen to isolate mutant proteins that enhanced cell sensitivity to Top1‐mediated DNA damage. One of the mutant proteins identified was Cdc45G510E, which contains a single amino substitution at residue G510. Cells expressing this protein were also hypersensitive to other forms of DNA damage and exhibited collapsed replication forks, suggesting a role for Cdc45 in protecting cells from genotoxic stress.Cdc45 is an essential protein found within the CMG (Cdc45‐MCM‐GINS) replicative helicase. Until recently, it was considered a scaffolding protein that had only been identified in eukaryotes. However, sequence alignments and structural studies suggest that Cdc45 may in fact be the eukaryotic ortholog of the archaeal RecJ protein. This is due, in large part, to the conservation of residues within DHH (Asp‐His‐His) motifs in the N‐terminus of Cdc45, which act to coordinate a metal ion and are essential for the nuclease activity of various RecJ proteins. The functional similarities between Cdc45 and RecJ identified thus far are the inclusion within the respective replicative helicases and the ability to bind ssDNA. RecJ has also been determined to aid in DNA damage repair, such as homologous recombination and rescue of stalled replication forks. In our mutational analyses of yeast CDC45, we demonstrated that the conserved DHH residues were also necessary for Cdc45 function in protecting cells from genotoxic stress. Moreover, several of these residues are also required to maintain cell viability in the absence of exogenous DNA damage.