Background Artificial intelligence (AI) is no longer a futuristic concept; it is increasingly being integrated into health care. As studies on attitudes toward AI have primarily focused on physicians, there is a need to assess the perspectives of students across health care disciplines to inform future curriculum development. Objective This study aims to explore and identify gaps in the knowledge that Canadian health care students have regarding AI, capture how health care students in different fields differ in their knowledge and perspectives on AI, and present student-identified ways that AI literacy may be incorporated into the health care curriculum. Methods The survey was developed from a narrative literature review of topics in attitudinal surveys on AI. The final survey comprised 15 items, including multiple-choice questions, pick-group-rank questions, 11-point Likert scale items, slider scale questions, and narrative questions. We used snowball and convenience sampling methods by distributing an email with a description and a link to the web-based survey to representatives from 18 Canadian schools. Results A total of 2167 students across 10 different health professions from 18 universities across Canada responded to the survey. Overall, 78.77% (1707/2167) predicted that AI technology would affect their careers within the coming decade and 74.5% (1595/2167) reported a positive outlook toward the emerging role of AI in their respective fields. Attitudes toward AI varied by discipline. Students, even those opposed to AI, identified the need to incorporate a basic understanding of AI into their curricula. Conclusions We performed a nationwide survey of health care students across 10 different health professions in Canada. The findings would inform student-identified topics within AI and their preferred delivery formats, which would advance education across different health care professions.

Tumour suppressor pathways may offer novel targets capable of altering the plasticity of post-mitotic adult neurons. Here we describe a role for retinoblastoma (Rb) protein, widely expressed in adult sensory neurons and their axons, during regeneration. In adult sensory neurons, Rb siRNA knockdown or Rb1 deletion in vitro enhances neurite outgrowth and branching. Plasticity is achieved in part through upregulation of neuronal PPARγ; its antagonism inhibits Rb siRNA plasticity whereas a PPARγ agonist increases growth. In an in vivo regenerative paradigm following complete peripheral nerve trunk transection, direct delivery of Rb siRNA prompts increased outgrowth of axons from proximal stumps and entrains Schwann cells to accompany them for greater distances. Similarly Rb siRNA delivery following a nerve crush improves behavioural indices of motor and sensory recovery in mice. The overall findings indicate that inhibition of tumour suppressor molecules has a role to play in promoting adult neuron regeneration.

AlphaB-crystallin (αBC) is a small heat shock protein that is constitutively expressed by peripheral nervous system (PNS) axons and Schwann cells. To determine what role this crystallin plays after peripheral nerve damage, we found that loss of αBC impaired remyelination, which correlated with a reduced presence of myelinating Schwann cells and increased numbers of nonmyelinating Schwann cells. The heat shock protein also seems to regulate the cross-talk between Schwann cells and axons, because expected changes in neuregulin levels and ErbB2 receptor expression after PNS injury were disrupted in the absence of αBC. Such dysregulations led to defects in conduction velocity and motor and sensory functions that could be rescued with therapeutic application of the heat shock protein in vivo. Altogether, these findings show that αBC plays an important role in regulating Wallerian degeneration and remyelination after PNS injury.T he robust regenerative capacity of the damaged peripheral nervous system (PNS) is partly determined by cellular and molecular events that occur in the nerve segment distal to the injury site (1). For instance, during Wallerian degeneration, influx of calcium into the damaged nerve within 12-24 h of PNS injury activates proteases (2) that result in cytoskeletal breakdown and subsequent disintegration of the axon membrane. This axon degeneration is then followed by breakdown of the myelin sheath within 2 d (3). Schwann cells, the glial cells that characterize the PNS, subsequently undergo a number of reactive physiological changes that benefit the damaged axon. Within 48 h of peripheral nerve damage, myelinating Schwann cells decrease their expression of myelin proteins, such as myelin basic protein (MBP), peripheral myelin protein 22, and protein 0 (P0) (4), and along with their nonmyelinating counterparts, revert to a nonmyelinating phenotype (4). At ∼3-4 d postinjury, the dedifferentiated Schwann cells proliferate (5-7) and align within the basal lamina to form bands of Büngner that provide a structural and trophic supportive substrate for regenerating axons. These Schwann cells secrete neurotrophic factors that provide trophic sustenance to damaged neurons until they reestablish contact with their targets (8) and produce extracellular matrix molecules that encourage and guide outgrowing axons (9), whereas secretion of chemokines is thought to mediate the infiltration of blood-derived macrophages, which along with Schwann cells, phagocytose myelin debris and its associated axon growth inhibitors (9). Finally, based on the level of neuregulin 1 Types I and III on Schwann cells and axons, respectively, and their binding to their cognate receptors ErbB2/ ErbB3 on Schwann cells, these glia will revert to a myelinating or ensheathing phenotype on contact with regrowing axons (10). Altogether, these morphological and physiological changes in Schwann cells create an environment that encourages longdistance axon growth.In humans, however, regrowth of damaged peripheral nerves is often incomplete, wh...

Limbic brain regions drive goal-directed behaviors. These behaviors often require dynamic motor responses, but the functional connectome of limbic structures in the diencephalon that control locomotion is not well known. The A11 region, within the posterior diencephalon has been postulated to contribute to motor function and control of pain. Here we show that the A11 region initiates movement. Photostimulation of channelrhodopsin 2 (ChR2) transfected neurons in A11 slice preparations showed that neurons could follow stimulation at frequencies of 20 Hz. Our data show that photostimulation of ChR2 transfected neurons in the A11 region enhances motor activity often leading to locomotion. Using vGluT2-reporter and vGAT-reporter mice we show that the A11 tyrosine hydroxylase positive (TH) dopaminergic neurons are vGluT2 and vGAT negative. We find that in addition to dopaminergic neurons within the A11 region, there is another neuronal subtype which expresses the monoenzymatic aromatic L-amino acid decarboxylase (AADC), but not TH, a key enzyme involved in the synthesis of catecholamines including dopamine. This monoaminergic-based motor circuit may be involved in the control of motor behavior as part of a broader diencephalic motor region.