A Mismatch-Based Model for Memory Reconsolidation and Extinction in Attractor Networks

OSAN, R. , TORT, A. B. L. , AMARAL, O. B. . A mismatch-based model for memory reconsolidation and extinction in attractor networks. Plos One, v. 6, p. e23113, 2011.

Naps in school can enhance the duration of declarative memories learned by adolescents

Sleep helps the consolidation of declarative memories in the laboratory, but the pro-mnemonic effect of daytime naps in schools is yet to be fully characterized. While a few studies indicate that sleep can indeed benefit school learning, it remains unclear how best to use it. Here we set out to evaluate the influence of daytime naps on the duration of declarative memories learned in school by students of 10–15 years old. A total of 584 students from 6th grade were investigated. Students within a regular classroom were exposed to a 15-min lecture on new declarative contents, absent from the standard curriculum for this age group. The students were then randomly sorted into nap and non-nap groups. Students in the nap group were conducted to a quiet room with mats, received sleep masks and were invited to sleep. At the same time, students in the non-nap group attended regular school classes given by their usual teacher (Experiment I), or English classes given by another experimenter (Experiment II). These 2 versions of the study differed in a number of ways. In Experiment I (n = 371), students were pre-tested on lecture-related contents before the lecture, were invited to nap for up to 2 h, and after 1, 2, or 5 days received surprise tests with similar content but different wording and question order. In Experiment II (n = 213), students were invited to nap for up to 50 min (duration of a regular class); surprise tests were applied immediately after the lecture, and repeated after 5, 30, or 110 days. Experiment I showed a significant ∼10% gain in test scores for both nap and non-nap groups 1 day after learning, in comparison with pre-test scores. This gain was sustained in the nap group after 2 and 5 days, but in the non-nap group it decayed completely after 5 days. In Experiment II, the nap group showed significantly higher scores than the non-nap group at all times tested, thus precluding specific conclusions. The results suggest that sleep can be used to enhance the duration of memory contents learned in school.

Visões da cidade : da cidade histórica aos bairros da Cidade Alta e Ribeira em Natal-RN

The present work is an initiative of undertaking a perspective that values the aspects of the city in its diversity. The one that t intends is to discuss the urbanity starting from the aspect of the image, of the history, and about main point, to value the point of the individual's view that lives the urban space in its more several configurations: the house, the street, the neighborhood, and the city in wider scale. The described historical research defines the city as space of the human accomplishments. When analyzing the moments of the most recent history of the urban life the modernity/post-modernity notions they are explored in the sense of illuminating the wealth, continuity and it breaks of patterns of behavior, and on the other hand, to describe a I overfly in the several times of the city. The prominences of aspects of the archaeology and of the descriptive resource they are related, for its time, the most punctual perspective of the practical research, the instance of the neighborhood, specifically High City and Riverside, configuring an immersion in the daily more punctual of the city, valuing forms of being, aiming the perspective of the personal computer as point-of-view. The images of the city assume the paper of representing the documental about the current features of the urbanity. It is without a doubt that at the present time the photographic image already possesses a paper of prominence it is as research instrument, be as main source for a work on files of photos. The photographic images in the present work possess a prominence place, focusing specific places of the city in the time. Finally, the individual's voice valued under the perspective on as the person's knowledge that inhabits and live the urbanity he/she understands the knowledge of the life in the city and, more than in any other place, a middle where the loss of action models is pointed very easily tends in view the dynamic movement of the practices and renewal of new indications; in the same space in that becomes urgent to build marks starting from which the individual can shimmer the future. And in that space the individual's voice is valued as rich source of information on living the scenery of conflicts of the present time

Auta de Souza, a poeta de pele clara, um moreno doce : memória e cultura da intelectualidade afrodescendente no Rio Grande do Norte

In the first half of the twentieth century different groups of intellectuals were engaged in the pursuit of an ideal of Brazility. Thereon, two currents are perceived. The first was marked by a nostalgic bias about the past, being formulated by intellectuals from the region that was turning as Northeast. This group of intellectuals emphasized values and traditions of the agrarian aristocracy of the region that was losing visibility in the political and economic Brazil scene. Already the other current has a more modern and industrial feature, was formed by intellectuals from the Southeast that in detriment of the first, was rising. This group, on the other hand, was intended to give a new face to Brazil and break with the "roots" of our delay that in their view were linked to our agrarian past. This resulted in different perceptions and interpretations of our historical past, and the construction of different profiles to the Brazilian. Accordingly, our work seeks to understand how was produced the writing that silenced the mixed ancestry of Auta de Souza (1876-1901) considering the position that she should occupy in the intellectuals projects who were in charge of forming a memory for our state. Auta as a relevant historical character in this project of potiguares intellectuals, she was raised to the condition of a model woman and elected in the pantheon of the most beloved poets of Rio Grande do Norte, however, to occupy such prestigious position she had her racial ancestry concealed in the writings that these same intellectuals had written about her, what is still spreaded in memory and rituals places of religious and civic features

A Mismatch-Based Model for Memory Reconsolidation and Extinction in Attractor Networks

OSAN, R. , TORT, A. B. L. , AMARAL, O. B. . A mismatch-based model for memory reconsolidation and extinction in attractor networks. Plos One, v. 6, p. e23113, 2011.

Naps in school can enhance the duration of declarative memories learned by adolescents

Sleep helps the consolidation of declarative memories in the laboratory, but the pro-mnemonic effect of daytime naps in schools is yet to be fully characterized. While a few studies indicate that sleep can indeed benefit school learning, it remains unclear how best to use it. Here we set out to evaluate the influence of daytime naps on the duration of declarative memories learned in school by students of 10–15 years old. A total of 584 students from 6th grade were investigated. Students within a regular classroom were exposed to a 15-min lecture on new declarative contents, absent from the standard curriculum for this age group. The students were then randomly sorted into nap and non-nap groups. Students in the nap group were conducted to a quiet room with mats, received sleep masks and were invited to sleep. At the same time, students in the non-nap group attended regular school classes given by their usual teacher (Experiment I), or English classes given by another experimenter (Experiment II). These 2 versions of the study differed in a number of ways. In Experiment I (n = 371), students were pre-tested on lecture-related contents before the lecture, were invited to nap for up to 2 h, and after 1, 2, or 5 days received surprise tests with similar content but different wording and question order. In Experiment II (n = 213), students were invited to nap for up to 50 min (duration of a regular class); surprise tests were applied immediately after the lecture, and repeated after 5, 30, or 110 days. Experiment I showed a significant ∼10% gain in test scores for both nap and non-nap groups 1 day after learning, in comparison with pre-test scores. This gain was sustained in the nap group after 2 and 5 days, but in the non-nap group it decayed completely after 5 days. In Experiment II, the nap group showed significantly higher scores than the non-nap group at all times tested, thus precluding specific conclusions. The results suggest that sleep can be used to enhance the duration of memory contents learned in school.