The Zebrafish Information Network (ZFIN): a resource for genetic, genomic and developmental research

The Zebrafish Information Network, ZFIN, is a WWW community resource of zebrafish genetic, genomic and developmental research information (http://zfin.org). ZFIN provides an anatomical atlas and dictionary, developmental staging criteria, research methods, pathology information and a link to the ZFIN relational database (http://zfin.org/ZFIN/). The database, built on a relational, object-oriented model, provides integrated information about mutants, genes, genetic markers, mapping panels, publications and contact information for the zebrafish research community. The database is populated with curated published data, user submitted data and large dataset uploads. A broad range of data types including text, images, graphical representations and genetic maps supports the data. ZFIN incorporates links to other genomic resources that provide sequence and ortholog data. Zebrafish nomenclature guidelines and an automated registration mechanism for new names are provided. Extensive usability testing has resulted in an easy to learn and use forms interface with complex searching capabilities.

The role of left prefrontal cortex in language and memory

This article reviews attempts to characterize the mental operations mediated by left inferior prefrontal cortex, especially the anterior and inferior portion of the gyrus, with the functional neuroimaging techniques of positron emission tomography and functional magnetic resonance imaging. Activations in this region occur during semantic, relative to nonsemantic, tasks for the generation of words to semantic cues or the classification of words or pictures into semantic categories. This activation appears in the right prefrontal cortex of people known to be atypically right-hemisphere dominant for language. In this region, activations are associated with meaningful encoding that leads to superior explicit memory for stimuli and deactivations with implicit semantic memory (repetition priming) for words and pictures. New findings are reported showing that patients with global amnesia show deactivations in the same region associated with repetition priming, that activation in this region reflects selection of a response from among numerous relative to few alternatives, and that activations in a portion of this region are associated specifically with semantic relative to phonological processing. It is hypothesized that activations in left inferior prefrontal cortex reflect a domain-specific semantic working memory capacity that is invoked more for semantic than nonsemantic analyses regardless of stimulus modality, more for initial than for repeated semantic analysis of a word or picture, more when a response must be selected from among many than few legitimate alternatives, and that yields superior later explicit memory for experiences.