Collège de France

About: Collège de France is a education organization based out in Paris, France. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Receptor. The organization has 6541 authors who have published 11983 publications receiving 648742 citations. The organization is also known as: College de France.

The emergence of the visual word form: Longitudinal evolution of category-specific ventral visual areas during reading acquisition

Abstract: How does education affect cortical organization? All literate adults possess a region specialized for letter strings, the visual word form area (VWFA), within the mosaic of ventral regions involved in processing other visual categories such as objects, places, faces, or body parts. Therefore, the acquisition of literacy may induce a reorientation of cortical maps towards letters at the expense of other categories such as faces. To test this cortical recycling hypothesis, we studied how the visual cortex of individual children changes during the first months of reading acquisition. Ten 6-year-old children were scanned longitudinally 6 or 7 times with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) before and throughout the first year of school. Subjects were exposed to a variety of pictures (words, numbers, tools, houses, faces, and bodies) while performing an unrelated target-detection task. Behavioral assessment indicated a sharp rise in grapheme-phoneme knowledge and reading speed in the first trimester of school. Concurrently, voxels specific to written words and digits emerged at the VWFA location. The responses to other categories remained largely stable, although right-hemispheric face-related activity increased in proportion to reading scores. Retrospective examination of the VWFA voxels prior to reading acquisition showed that reading encroaches on voxels that are initially weakly specialized for tools and close to but distinct from those responsive to faces. Remarkably, those voxels appear to keep their initial category selectivity while acquiring an additional and stronger responsivity to words. We propose a revised model of the neuronal recycling process in which new visual categories invade weakly specified cortex while leaving previously stabilized cortical responses unchanged.

Tissue-specific expression of type 1 angiotensin II receptor subtypes. An in situ hybridization study.

Abstract: The angiotensin II type 1 (AT1) receptor in murine species exists as two isoforms (AT1A and AT1B) encoded by two different genes. Both subtypes have a 9/10 homology in the coding sequence of their mRNA. We examined organs of adult rats (liver, pituitary gland, adrenal gland, kidney, heart, and lung) to study the differential expression of these two genes in target tissues for angiotensin II. AT1A and AT1B mRNAs were detected by in situ hybridization using specific riboprobes for the 3' noncoding region of the mRNAs that have the lowest homology (approximately 6/10). Only AT1A was expressed in the liver, heart, and lung, and only AT1B was expressed in the anterior pituitary, where most cells were positive. In the adrenal gland, AT1A mRNA was detected in the zona glomerulosa and medulla and AT1B in the glomerulosa. In the kidney, AT1A mRNA was the predominant isoform (mesangial and juxtaglomerular cells, proximal tubules, vasa recta, and interstitial cells), but AT1B was also detected in mesangial and juxtaglomerular cells and in the renal pelvis. The results of this in situ detection suggest a tissue-selective regulation of AT1A and AT1B mRNAs. This tissue specificity may constitute a prerequisite condition if the two angiotensin II receptor subtypes, which are pharmacologically similar, are to selectively modulate the various effects of angiotensin II in the different target tissues.