The claustrum has been the subject of intense research interest in recent years, driven in large part by its extensive connections with various regions of the cerebral cortex and by hypotheses surrounding its possible role in multimodal sensory and/or sensory-emotional integration. Here we employed neuroanatomical tracers to map projections from the claustrum-insular region to the medial prefrontal and anterior cingulate cortex of the common marmoset (Callithrx jacchus). These areas were selected based on their identification as "hub" areas of the default mode and cortical salience networks, respectively. Microinjections of fluorescent tracers, along with gold-nanoparticle-conjugated cholera toxin B-subunit and biotinylated dextran amine, were placed in subdivisions of the anterior cingulate area 24b/c and in medial prefrontal areas 32 and 32V. The resulting distribution of transported label showed rostral-caudal and dorsal-ventral topographic arrangement of claustrum connections and clear rostral-caudal topography of insular projections. Medial prefrontal connections were restricted mainly to a ventromedial strip located in the rostral half of the claustrum, with a second, smaller patch of cells in the caudal, ventrolateral portion. In contrast, injections into area 24 yielded dense, widespread connections from the dorsal claustrum, extending along its entire rostral-caudal length. Projections from the "classical" agranular, disgranular, and granular insular areas were sparse or nonexistent in areas 32 and 32V, with progressively increasing connections observed in more caudal tracer injections (i.e., in subdivisions of area 24). Transported label was observed in rostral peri-insular areas orbital periallocortex, orbital proisocortex, and insular proisocortex following all prefrontal injections. These data provide a structural connectivity foundation for interpretation of functional imaging studies, which often indicate activity in the "anterior insula" that may arise, in part, from claustrum and/or peri-insular projections to the anterior cingulate and medial prefrontal cortices. J. Comp. Neurol. 525:1421-1441, 2017. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Summary Sensory adaptation is a phenomenon in which neurons are affected not only by their immediate input, but also by the sequence of preceding inputs. In visual cortex, for example, neurons shift their preferred orientation after exposure to an oriented stimulus. This adaptation is traditionally attributed to plasticity. We show that a recurrent network generates tuning curve shifts observed in cat and macaque visual cortex, even when all synaptic weights and intrinsic properties in the model are fixed. This demonstrates that, in a recurrent network, adaptation on time-scales of hundreds of milliseconds does not require plasticity. Given the ubiquity of recurrent connections, this phenomenon likely contributes to responses observed across cortex and shows that plasticity cannot be inferred solely from changes in tuning on these time scales. More broadly, our findings show that recurrent connections can endow a network with a powerful mechanism to store and integrate recent contextual information.

SuperMIX is Australia's largest and only active longitudinal cohort of PWID.• The cohort aims to describe the natural history and longitudinal trajectories of injecting drug use, including risk and protective factors of adverse health outcomes, cessation of and relapse into injecting drug use, and the impacts of health service access.• Data collection involves baseline and annual follow-up interviews and venous blood samples with linked health service data. During interviews a questionnaire that records demographics, drug purchase and use, health service utilisation, criminal behaviour and criminal justice system interactions is administered.

Physiology is commonly taught through direct experience and observation of scientific phenomena in “hands-on” practical laboratory classes. The value of such classes is limited by students’ lack of understanding of the underlying theoretical concepts and their lack of confidence with the experimental techniques. In our experience, students follow experimental steps as if following a recipe, without giving thought to the underlying theory and the relationship between the experimental procedure and the research hypotheses. To address this issue, and to enhance student learning, we developed an online virtual experiment for students to complete before an inquiry-based practical. The virtual experiment and “live” practical laboratory were an investigation of how autonomic nerves control contractions in the isolated rabbit ileum. We hypothesized that the virtual experiment would support students’ understanding of the physiological concepts, as well as the experimental design associated with the practical. Anonymous survey data and usage analytics showed that most students engaged with the virtual experiment. Students thought that it helped them to understand the practical physiological concepts and experimental design, with self-reported time spent on the virtual experiment (and not on lectures or practical class notes) a significant predictor of their understanding. This novel finding provides evidence that virtual experiments can contribute to students’ research skills development. Our results indicate that self-paced online virtual experiments are an effective way to enhance student understanding of physiological concepts and experimental processes, allowing for a more realistic experience of the scientific method and a more effective use of time in practical classes.