Biology is designed for multi-semester biology courses for science majors. It is grounded on an evolutionary basis and includes exciting features that highlight careers in the biological sciences and everyday applications of the concepts at hand. To meet the needs of today’s instructors and students, some content has been strategically condensed while maintaining the overall scope and coverage of traditional texts for this course. Instructors can customize the book, adapting it to the approach that works best in their classroom. Biology also includes an innovative art program that incorporates critical thinking and clicker questions to help students understand—and apply—key concepts.

By the end of this section, you will be able to:List and describe the functions of the structural components of a neuronList and describe the four main types of neuronsCompare the functions of different types of glial cells

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"An international team of researchers is looking at ways to prevent cognitive impairment following the use of general anesthetics. Their work could lead to better outcomes for the over 312 million surgical patients who undergo anesthesia each year. General anesthetics are associated with the occurrence of postoperative delirium. This complication – often marked by inattention, memory disturbances and confusion – makes it hard for surgical patients to resume daily living activities, and has even been linked to an increased risk of death. The drug dexmedetomidine helps prevent postoperative delirium, but the biological basis for this protection isn’t clear. The researchers previously reported that a single exposure to the common anesthetic etomidate can trigger long-lasting changes to an inhibitory receptor in the brains of mice. Specifically, etomidate increased the number of α5 GABAA receptors expressed on the surface of neurons..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a leading cause of fatality and disability worldwide. Despite immense clinical efforts, treatments for TBI remain limited, and better understanding is needed. While most treatments have targeted neuronal cells, another cell type may also have an important role in TBI. Astrocytes, a subtype of brain-resident glial cells, help to control blood flow and maintain homeostasis in the central nervous system. These important cells have dual roles after TBI which must be better understood to improve treatment. During TBI, mechanical damage to neurons and blood vessels occurs instantly. This is followed by pathological processes - neuroinflammation and cell stress - mediated by astrocytes, among others. The astrocyte response is initiated to protect the central nervous system and promote wound healing but may become maladaptive over time as astrocytes can play bidirectional roles in plasticity and reconstruction after TBI..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"A critical cellular process that occurs in the wake of a stroke in mice could hint at how to salvage otherwise compromised brain tissue. Strokes happen when the flow of blood to the brain is blocked, most often by a blood clot in a vessel. This creates two zones of injury: a central core and a radiating penumbra. Deprived of oxygen and glucose, brain cells in the core can die within minutes. Those in the penumbra are not as severely damaged. But if blood flow isn’t re-established within hours, those cells will succumb too. That’s why fast responses to strokes are so important—especially among the elderly, who are less resilient than younger sufferers of stroke. New research shows that that disparity between aged and young brains could be due to differences in calcium ion activity brought on by stroke. After inducing stroke in old and young mice, researchers found that spontaneous calcium activity was reduced in the brains of young mice, whereas it was increased in the brains of old mice..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"New research published in the journal Anesthesiology provides fresh insights into how volatile anesthetics affect the central nervous system. Although anesthesia has been practiced for nearly 75 years, the precise cellular mechanisms driving anesthetic responses have remained ambiguous. Recent reports suggest mitochondria have a key role in the process, but prior research has only studied this connection in neurons. Now, researchers argue that astrocytes are also important, particularly when it comes to emergence from anesthesia. To reach this conclusion, the team produced a novel knockout mouse lacking the mitochondrial complex I gene known as Ndufs4. In the model, gene knockout is induced only in astrocytes of adult animals – the other cell types comprising the central nervous system retain functional copes of the gene. The result is astrocyte-specific mitochondrial dysfunction..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"For nearly 25 years, scientists have known of the neuroprotective properties associated with the protein called prosaposin. But exactly how prosaposin exerts these effects has been a matter of debate. Initial research using a neuroactive fragment of the protein, called TX14(A), identified two closely related receptors thought to mediate the actions of prosaposin. But this work was later challenged. Now, an international team of scientists has reported strong evidence that prosaposin does activate these receptors, which may help pave the way for a new class of neuroprotective drugs. Uncertainty over the status of prosaposin as an endogenous ligand for GPR37L1 and GPR37 has stemmed from the use of widely varying experimental conditions. The main inconsistency with past work was the use of cell lines derived from ovary, kidney or yeast to study the receptors. But this creates a physiological mismatch, as the receptors are almost exclusively expressed in the brain..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.