What I learned in Puerto Rico

- A Nautilus has 90 tentacles. (Jennifer Basil and R. Crook)
- The vertical lobe system of cephalopod brain resembles mammalian cortex. The axons of median superior frontal lobe neurons project to the small amacrine interneurons en passant. (Binyamin Hochner et al.)
- Oral veil has peripheral ganglia. They are bilaterally independent. Small 5-HT cells near MCC project there. (Rhanor Gillette)
- cAMP produces persistant Na current that plays a role in long-term memory in Lymnea. (George Kemenes)
- Ca-activated PKC activates AC in B51 in operant conditioning. (Jack Byrne)
- Intermediate-term potentiation involves postsynaptic Ca signal. (David Glanzman)
- Homosynaptic depression of Aplysia sensory-motor synapse is caused by decrease in the number of release sites and the reduction of release per varicosity. (Guy Malkinson and Micha Spira)
- Spontaneous transmitter release from the presynaptic neuron is both necessary and sufficient to recruit postsynaptic mechanisms of intermediate- and long-term synaptic plasticity in Aplysia. (Robert Hawkins)
- Injured axon produce afterdischarge in response to a train of stimuli. Some primitive plasticity signals in addition to Ca²⁺. (Edgar Walters)
- Bitter solution works very well for land slug learning. (Ryota Matsuo)
- Reversal of synapse from inhibitory to excitatory after formation of soma-to-soma synapse of Lymnaea neurons by appearance of nAChR. RTK inhibitor, Lavendustin A. (Fenglian Xu)
- Reversal of microtubules occurs when axon is transected. Awesome movies of microtubule formation and axonal transport. (Micha Spira)
- PKC-19-31 blocks homosynaptic depression. Burst-dependent protection of depression... Is this really preventing the depression or simply causing an overriding facilitation? (Tom Abrams)
- Translocation of PKC can be visualized. PKA downregulates PKC in Aplysia sensory neurons. (Wayne Sossin)
- Single action potential can terminate PTP. (Naweed Syed)
- In octopus, each sucker has its own ganglion. A sucker can pinch a string. Nice arm-sucker co-ordination. (Frank Grasso)
- Something mediates semi-sinchronous activity of left and right B67. (Mark Miller)
- The amplitude of EPSP evoked by B21 is determined not only by the degree of AP propagation, but also some nifedipine-sensitive Ca influx. (Betsy Cropper)
- There are five 5-HT cells in early laval state of molluscs. (Roger Croll)
- There is cut-end accumulation of FMRF-amide. (Ferdinand Vilim)
- Delayed rectifier type K channels form clusters near soma. PKC activation recruites Ca channels to the membrane at the terminals. (Leonard Kaczmarek)
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Molluscan neuroscience meeting

I am attending the molluscan neuroscience meeting in Old San Juan, Puerto Rico.

This meeting can be one of the best meetings I ever attended.
So many good talks. Many big-name people. Beautiful data and movies by highly advanced techniques.
It is great to meet some of my SfN friends again. Especially on a dispatched island in Caribbean ocean.
This whole meeting is like a field trip.

The open discussion made by Drs. Hawkins, Glanzman, Abrams and Byrne and others was terrific. I had never seen anything like that, although the topic they were discussing over and over did not sound that much important to me.

Having a field trip to the beach was also good. Seeing those smart people wearing WalMart-like bathing suits is kinda rare experience.

Only thing I regret to death was that I forgot to credit Drs. Russell Wyeth and Owen Woodward for their beautiful Tritonia swimming movie I used in my talk. Russel has many good Tritonia movies.

http://people.stfx.ca/rwyeth/vidsimages.html

Giving a talk

I gave a talk yesterday. I think it went very well. Paul seemed happy with it. I received many good comments.

I am usually not good at giving a speech. I often get choked even when I present my data in our weekly lab meeting. This is not because of English. I am not good at giving a speech even in Japanese.

However, sometimes I feel very comfortable standing on a big stage. This happened yesterday. I didn't want to finish my talk. I felt like to talk about my stuff forever. I don't know why. I even remember that a mosquito was flying in front of the screen. I kinda enjoyed watching it while talking about heterosynaptic plasticity. I wish this happens every time I give a talk.