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Specializations of the granular prefrontal cortex of primatesImplications for cognitive processing.код для вставкиСкачать
THE ANATOMICAL RECORD PART A 288A:26 –35 (2006) Specializations of the Granular Prefrontal Cortex of Primates: Implications for Cognitive Processing GUY N. ELSTON,1,2* RUTH BENAVIDES-PICCIONE,3 ALEJANDRA ELSTON,1 BENDAN ZIETSCH,1 JAVIER DEFELIPE,3 PAUL MANGER,2 VIVIEN CASAGRANDE,4 AND JON H. KAAS5 1 Vision, Touch and Hearing Research Centre, School of Biomedical Sciences and Queensland Brain Institute, University of Queensland, Queensland, Australia 2 School of Anatomical Sciences, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa 3 Instituto Cajal (CSIC), Madrid, Spain 4 Department of Cell and Developmental Biology, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee 5 Department of Psychology, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee ABSTRACT The biological underpinnings of human intelligence remain enigmatic. There remains the greatest confusion and controversy regarding mechanisms that enable humans to conceptualize, plan, and prioritize, and why they are set apart from other animals in their cognitive abilities. Here we demonstrate that the basic neuronal building block of the cerebral cortex, the pyramidal cell, is characterized by marked differences in structure among primate species. Moreover, comparison of the complexity of neuron structure with the size of the cortical area/region in which the cells are located revealed that trends in the granular prefrontal cortex (gPFC) were dramatically different to those in visual cortex. More speciﬁcally, pyramidal cells in the gPFC of humans had a disproportionately high number of spines. As neuron structure determines both its biophysical properties and connectivity, differences in the complexity in dendritic structure observed here endow neurons with different computational abilities. Furthermore, cortical circuits composed of neurons with distinguishable morphologies will likely be characterized by different functional capabilities. We propose that 1. circuitry in V1, V2, and gPFC within any given species differs in its functional capabilities and 2. there are dramatic differences in the functional capabilities of gPFC circuitry in different species, which are central to the different cognitive styles of primates. In particular, the highly branched, spinous neurons in the human gPFC may be a key component of human intelligence. © 2005 Wiley-Liss, Inc. Key words: extrastriate; cortex; pyramidal cell; human; macaque; marmoset; aotus; galago; guenon; baboon; cortical surface area Microanatomical studies have shown that the structure of the most ubiquitous neuron in cortex, the pyramidal cell, varies markedly between different cortical areas (Fig. 1). Up to a 30-fold difference has been reported in the number of dendritic spines (the major postsynaptic sites of excitatory inputs) on neocortical pyramidal cells in the primate cerebral cortex (Elston et al., 2001, 2005h). Because pyramidal cells comprise over 70% of all neurons in cortex (DeFelipe and Fariñas, 1992), these dramatic differences in their structure are likely to inﬂuence not only cellular function, but the computational ability of the circuits they form (for reviews, see Shepherd and Greer, 1988; Churchland and Sejnowski, 1992; Koch, 1999; Mel, © 2005 WILEY-LISS, INC. 1999; Segev et al., 2001; Elston, 2003a, 2006; Chklovskii et al., 2004; London and Häusser, 2005). However, the *Correspondence to: Guy N. Elston, Vision, Touch and Hearing Research Center, School of Biomedical Sciences, University of Queensland, St. Lucia, Queensland, 4072, Australia. Fax: 61-733654522. E-mail: [email protected] Received 9 August 2005; Accepted 9 August 2005 DOI 10.1002/ar.a.20278 Published online 8 December 2005 in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). GRANULAR PREFRONTAL CORTEX OF PRIMATES Fig. 1. Plots of spine densities along the basal dendrites of pyramidal cells in (top) the primary visual area (V1), (middle) the second visual area (V2), and (bottom) granular prefrontal cortex (gPFC) in the human, baboon, macaque monkey, vervet monkey (guenon), marmoset monkey, owl monkey (Aotus), and the galago. Note the differences in the proﬁles in the different cortical regions. In V1, the plots of spine density are remarkably tightly grouped in all primate species; in V2, there is some degree of separation, but relatively little compared with that seen in gPFC. Pyramidal cells in gPFC, particularly those in larger brained primates, are characterized by notably higher spine density along their 27 basal dendrites than those in V1 and V2. As each spine in cortex receives at least one asymmetric synapse (putative excitatory input), differences in spine density likely reﬂect variation in the number of excitatory inputs to these neurons. Data for human, macaque, marmoset, owl monkey, and galago modiﬁed from previous studies (Elston et al., 2001; Elston, 2003c; Elston et al., 2005b, 2005e, 2005h, 2005i). Data along the x-axis have been displaced to avoid cluttering of the trend lines for all species (all data were sampled at 0, 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, . . ., m from the cell body). 28 ELSTON ET AL. Fig. 2. Graphs illustrating the ratio of cortical surface area of granular prefrontal cortex/cortical surface area of the frontal lobe (expressed as percentage) vs. total cortical surface area (in mm2) for the human, chimpanzee, gibbon, mandrill, baboon, macaque monkey, long-tailed monkey, capuchin monkey, marmoset monkey, black lemur, and dwarf lemur. Linear regression analysis revealed a positive slope (y ⫽ 0.0003x ⫹ 42.547; r2 ⫽ 0.879), suggesting that prefrontal cortex has expanded disproportionately during the evolution of these species. If gPFC had not expanded, the ratio of gPFC/frontal lobe would result in a regression with slope ⫽ 0. Prefrontal cortex is deﬁned as granular cortex anterior to the central sulcus, as observed in Nissl preparations (Brodmann, 1913). data reported in these studies were not related back to the size of the cortical area or brain, making it difﬁcult to determine whether variation in their structure parallels cortical expansion. Interspecies differences in pyramidal cell structure may parallel the relative degree of expansion of particular cortical areas, lobes, the cortical mantle, or the entire brain. Alternatively, variation in pyramidal cell structure may reﬂect species-speciﬁc specializations that occur irrespective of size. Establishing which of these two possibilities has occurred is essential if we are to better understand the evolution of cortical circuitry and thus specialized cortical function in different species (Kaas, 2000, 2005; Kaas and Preuss, 2003). This is particularly pertinent to the study of granular prefrontal cortex (gPFC), which has expanded considerably in humans (Fig. 2) and is thought to be important for executive cortical functions such as comprehension, planning, and perception (Goldman-Rakic, 1996; Fuster, 1997; Barbas, 2000; Rolls, 2000; Miller and Cohen, 2001). All animals were perfused by the same investigator (G.N.E.) using the same protocol. Macaque (Macaca fasicularis) gPFC was taken from a 10-year-old male and occipital cortex was taken from 4.5-year-old males (Elston, 2000; Elston et al., 2005a). Marmoset (Callithrix jacchus) gPFC was taken from an 18-month-old male and occipital cortex was taken from 24- to 27-month-old males (Elston et al., 1999a, 2001). Tissue from the baboon (Papio ursinus) and vervet monkey (Cercopithecus pygerythrus) was obtained from wild-caught adult males of unknown age (Elston et al., 2005b, 2005c, 2005d, 2005e, 2005f, 2005g). That from the owl monkey (Aotus trivirgatus) was obtained from a 21-year-old animal (Elston, 2003c) and that taken from galago (Otolemur garnetti) was sampled from a 4-year-old animal (Elston et al., 2005h). All cases were sexually mature. When possible (human, baboon, vervet monkey, owl monkey, and galago), all tissue was sampled from a single (left) hemisphere to avoid potential hemispheric and interindividual differences in cell morphology. All experiments were performed in accordance with the relevant guidelines for the care and use of animals in each country in which the experiments were performed (United States, Australia, Spain, Japan, and South Africa). Blocks of tissue were taken from occipital and frontal pole, including the primary (V1) and second (V2) visual areas and dorsolateral gPFC, postﬁxed overnight as tangential preparations, and sections (250 m thick) cut with the aid of a Vibratome. The sections were then prelabeled with 4,6-diamidino-2-phenylindole (Sigma D9542, St. Louis, MO) to allow visually guided injection with Lucifer Yellow (8% in 0.1 M Tris buffer, pH 7.4) by continuous negative current under ﬂuorescence illumination. Sec- MATERIALS AND METHODS Human tissue (Homo sapiens) was obtained within 2 hr of death from a 48-year-old male who was killed instantaneously as a result of a car accident. The tissue was obtained in accordance with the guidelines for the use of human tissue of the Spanish Institutional Bioethical Committee (Spanish Council for Scientiﬁc Research). Once excised, the tissue was immersed in 4% paraformaldehyde for 24 hr (Elston et al., 2001). The other species were overdosed by lethal injection of sodium pentobarbitone and perfused intracardially with 4% paraformaldehyde. 29 GRANULAR PREFRONTAL CORTEX OF PRIMATES TABLE 1 Cortical surface area (CSA), basal dendritic ﬁeld area (BDFA) and total number of spines (TNS) for pyramidal cells in the primary (V1) and second (V2) visual areas and granular prefrontal cortex (gPFC) Species Cortex Variable Otolemur Callithrix Aotus Cercopithecus Macaca Papio Homo V1 CSA BDFA TNS CSA BDFA TNS CSA BDFA TNS 343a 48362k 556k 65a 64741k 1216k — 118002u 3579u 341b 30600l 699l 98r 51700l,t 1240l,t 148d 105022t 3983t 400c 34400m 773m 95c 50400m 1459m — 104000v — 2156d 44301n 795n — 82506n 1776n 1625d 130986w 5152w 1866e-i 43570o,p 735o,p 1203e,s 43900t 1139t 1733d 133000t 8766t 2559d 65019q 1077q — 101210q 1962q 2111d 143672w 5009w 2826j — — 1454j 86000t 2417t 39287d 135000t 15138t V2 gPFC a Rosa et al. (1997a). Fritsches and Rosa (1996). c Tootell et al. (1985). d Brodmann (1913). e Felleman and Van Essen (1991). f Florence and Kaas (1992). g Horton and Hocking (1996). h LeVay et al. (1985). i Van Essen et al. (1984). j DeYoe et al. (1996). k Elston et al. (2005i). l Elston et al. (1999a). m Elston (2003b). n Elston et al. (2005e). o Elston and Rosa (1997). p Elston and Rosa (1998). q Elston et al. (2005b). r Rosa et al. (1997b). s Distler et al. (1993). t Elston et al. (2001). u Elston et al. (2005h). v Elston (2003c). w Present results. b tions were then processed with an antibody to Lucifer Yellow [1:400,000 in stock solution, consisting of 2% bovine serum albumin (Sigma A3425), 1% Triton X-100 (BDH 30632, Poole, U.K.), 5% sucrose in 0.1 mol/l phosphate buffer], followed by a biotinylated species-speciﬁc secondary antibody (Amersham RPN 1004, Arlington Heights, IL; 1:200 in stock solution). The secondary antibodies were tagged with a streptavidin biotin-horseradish peroxidase complex (Amersham RPN1051; 1:200 in phosphate buffer) and DAB (3,3⬘-diaminobenzidine; Sigma D 8001) was used as the chromogen (Elston and Rosa, 1997). All cell injections were performed by two of the investigators (G.N.E. and R.B.-P.) and were standardized in all studies. Cells were drawn in two dimensions with the aid of a camera lucida coupled with a Zeiss Axioplan microscope. Dendritic tree size was determined using NIH Image (Bethesda, MD) by drawing a convex hull joining the outermost distal tips of dendrites of each cell. Twenty horizontally projecting basal dendrites of different cells in each cortical area/species were drawn at high power (100⫻ oil immersion) to quantify spine densities. Spine density was determined per 10 m segment of dendrite as a function of distance from the cell body to the distal tips of the dendrites. All the above analysis was performed according to blind procedures. The total number of spines in the dendritic trees was calculated as the sum of the product of average number of dendritic intersections per annul derived from Sholl analysis and the average spine density for the corresponding region of dendrites (Elston, 2001). Moderated multiple regression (Aiken and West, 1991) was used to determine signiﬁcant differences between the slopes of linear regression lines. All statistical analyses were performed using SPSS software (SPSS, Chicago, IL). RESULTS Here we performed a systematic quantitative study of pyramidal cell structure in V1, V2, and the gPFC of human, baboon, macaque monkey, vervet monkey, owl monkey, marmoset monkey, and the galago. Speciﬁcally, we studied the size, branching structure, and total number of spines in the basal dendritic trees of cortical pyramidal cells at the base of layer III in gPFC (n ⫽ 220) and compared these data with those sampled from layer III pyramidal cells in V1 and V2 (n ⫽ 232 and 282, respectively). These morphological parameters differed appreciably between cortical areas/regions and species (Table 1). For example, in the macaque monkey, cells in the gPFC were ⬎ 11 times more spinous than those in visual cortex. Similar comparisons in the vervet monkey revealed a sixfold difference, greater than that observed in New World marmoset monkey. Moreover, cells in the gPFC of humans were 70% more spinous than those in the next closest species (macaque monkey), three times more spinous than 30 ELSTON ET AL. those in the baboon and vervet monkey, and more than four times more spinous than those in the galago. As each of these cortical areas/regions occupies a different absolute size in the cerebrum of the various species, it was natural to ask whether there may be some underlying trends in the regional and species differences in pyramidal cell structure related to neocortical expansion. According to the data published by Brodmann (1913), there is a 265-fold difference in the absolute size of in the gPFC of the species included in the present investigation, with the smallest observed in the marmoset (148 mm2) and the largest in the human (3,928 mm2). A 22-fold difference was observed in V2 and an 8-fold difference in V1 (Table 1). Comparison of the structure of pyramidal cells with the absolute size of the cortical area/region in which they are located revealed some interesting trends. Comparison of the size of the basal dendritic trees of pyramidal cells with the cortical surface area in V1, V2, and gPFC revealed an increase in the two variables in all cortical regions (Fig. 3A). Moreover, the slopes returned by regression analysis were remarkably similar for all three cortical regions, suggesting a common trend in primates for increasingly larger cells in increasingly larger cortical areas/regions. However, comparison of our estimates of the total number of spines in the basal dendritic tree of the “average” neuron in each cortical area revealed different trends in gPFC, V1, and V2 (Fig. 3B). Speciﬁcally, the slope of the linear regression for the gPFC data was considerably steeper than that for either V1 or V2, suggesting that the increase in the number of spines found in the dendritic trees of pyramidal cells in gPFC during cortical expansion far exceeds that in visual cortex. To test whether this effect could be attributed to the increasing size of the dendritic trees of the neurons, we plotted the total number of spines in the dendritic tree vs. tree size in all three cortical regions (Fig. 3C). These plots revealed two important observations: there is a progressive increase in the linear regression slopes from V1 to V2 and gPFC, and there is an extraordinary amount of variance in the gPFC data not present in either V1 or V2. These data suggest that in the gPFC the number of spines in the dendritic trees of pyramidal cells more closely reﬂects the absolute size of this region, rather than the size of their dendritic trees. To test whether or not these differences were signiﬁcant, we performed a moderated multiple-regression analysis. By testing the relationship of any two predictors (e.g., V1/V2/gPFC and cortical surface area) on the criterion (e.g., number of spines), and by testing the product of both predictors (interaction term), we revealed signiﬁcant differences in pairwise comparisons between cortical areas. A signiﬁcant increase in prediction at the second test revealed a statistical difference (P ⬍ 0.05) between the slopes of regression lines of gPFC and V2 for comparisons between the total number of spines in the dendritic trees of pyramidal cells and the cortical surface area (Fig. 3B; r2change ⫽ 0.112). Signiﬁcance was approached (P ⫽ 0.057) for the comparison between the total number of spines in the dendritic trees of pyramidal cells and the cortical surface area for gPFC and V1 (Fig. 3B; r2change ⫽ 0.065). Thus, human gPFC not only is considerably larger than that in other primate species (in absolute and relative terms), it is composed of pyramidal cells with highly complex dendritic trees studded with a disproportionately high number of spines (putative excitatory inputs). DISCUSSION In the present study, we conﬁrm and extend previous reports of regional and species specialization in the neocortical pyramidal cell phenotype (for reviews, see Elston, 2002, 2006; Jacobs and Scheibel, 2002). We found, in many instances, dramatic differences in pyramidal cell structure among V1, V2, and the gPFC in each of the seven different primate species examined. Moreover, we found remarkable phenotypic variation in pyramidal cell structure among the different species in V1, V2, and gPFC. Comparison of the size of the pyramidal cells in V1, V2, or gPFC revealed trends for progressively larger neurons in species in which each of these cortical areas/region occupied a larger absolute cortical surface area. Furthermore, the rates of increase in cell size and the surface area of the cortical area/region were similar in V1, V2, and gPFC. Interestingly, however, we found different trends in the number of dendritic spines (putative excitatory inputs) in the dendritic trees of pyramidal cells in V1, V2, and gPFC of the different species. More speciﬁcally, pyramidal cells in species with a relatively large gPFC were disproportionately more spinous than those in species with a relatively small gPFC (cells in human gPFC were 70% more spinous than the next closest species, the macaque monkey, and three times more spinous than those in the baboon and vervet monkey). Moreover, the data reveal surprising variation in the pyramidal cell phenotype in the gPFC in primates not present in the occipital lobe. Thus, it appears as though the recent and dramatic expansion of the gPFC in primates has occurred not just by the addition of more neurons, but by the addition of more complex neurons. The evolutionary and developmental mechanisms that inﬂuence the complexity of the pyramidal cell phenotype remain to be determined, as do their genetic and epigenetic regulation (for reviews, see Nieuwenhuys, 1994; Marin-Padilla, 2001; Preuss et al., 2004; Elston, 2006). Structure/Function Relationship The present data reveal that the extent to which different aspects of pyramidal cell structure (size and number of spines) vary in different species depends on the cortical region studied. Of particular interest here is that the trend observed for the plots of the total number of spines in the dendritic trees vs. either cortical surface area or size of the basal dendritic trees in gPFC differs from that in V1 and V2 (Fig. 3B and C). How then might differences in the size or spine density of pyramidal cells inﬂuence their functional capabilities? While it is well known that neuron structure determines its biophysical properties (Koch, 1999), it is less well known how neuron structure may inﬂuence the functional properties of the circuits they compose. It is our contention that cortical circuits composed of pyramidal cells of different structure will be characterized by different functional capabilities, much in the same way that artiﬁcial systems composed of highly interconnected and powerful processors differ in their functional abilities to those composed of less powerful processors with fewer connections (for review, see Elston, 2003a). Several direct examples of the structure-function relationship have been demonstrated between pyramidal cell structure and cortical function. For example, differences in the size of the dendritic trees of pyramidal cells potentially inﬂuence topographic sampling strategies and mixing of inputs (Jacobs and Scheibel, 2002; Elston, 2003a). Differences in the branching complexity in the GRANULAR PREFRONTAL CORTEX OF PRIMATES Fig. 3. Plots of the (A) size of the basal dendritic trees of pyramidal cells in the granular prefrontal cortex (gPFC), primary visual area (V1), and second visual area (V2) vs. the total cortical surface area, (B) the number of spines in the basal dendritic trees of pyramidal cells in V1, V2, and PFC vs. the total cortical surface area, and (C) the number of spines 31 in the basal dendritic trees of pyramidal cells in V1, V2, and gPFC vs. the size of the dendritic trees in human, baboon, macaque monkey, vervet monkey (guenon), marmoset monkey, owl monkey (Aotus), and the galago. Results of statistical comparisons are illustrated directly on the plots. Asterisk, P ⬍ 0.05; number sign, P ⬍ 0.1. 32 ELSTON ET AL. dendritic trees of pyramidal cells allow different degrees of compartmentalization of processing of inputs (Poirazi and Mel, 2001). Differences in the number of spines, each of which receives at least one asymmetrical synapse, in the dendritic trees of pyramidal cells reﬂect different numbers of excitatory inputs sampled by individual cells (Harris and Karter, 1994; Elston and DeFelipe, 2002). Thus, highly branched and spinous pyramidal cells such as those observed in human gPFC (Fig. 3B; see also Elston and Zietsch, 2006) receive more putative excitatory inputs and compartmentalize the processing of these inputs within their dendritic trees to a great extent than smaller, less spinous cells such as those in V1 and V2. These differences in neuronal structure inﬂuence their potential for plastic change (Stepanyants et al., 2002) and memory capacity (Chklovskii et al., 2004), both thought to be important for higher cortical functions. Does this necessarily mean that more spinous cells such as those in the gPFC of humans receive inputs from a more diverse source of inputs than less spinous cells such as those in the gPFC of galagos? Reciprocity dictates that highly spinous neurons will receive more inputs than less spinous neurons, providing a basis for increased recurrent excitation (Wang, 2001; Jacobs and Scheibel, 2002; Elston, 2003a). However, very little is known of the diversity of these inputs. While studies of connectivity in the cerebral cortex are becoming increasingly more detailed (Hilgetag et al., 1996; Melchitzky et al., 2001; Collins et al., 2005; Germuska et al., 2005; Tanigawa et al., 2005), there exist relatively few standardized comparative data. To the best of our knowledge, only two such studies in gPFC have been published (Bugbee and Goldman-Rakic, 1983; Preuss and Goldman-Rakic, 1991). These authors studied patterns of connectivity in the gPFC of the New World squirrel monkey and the prosimian galago and compared them with those in the gPFC of the macaque monkey. Notable differences were detailed in the patterns of connectivity in the gPFC of the macaque and both other species. However, these studies need to be extended to include a greater diversity of species, and the patterns of connectivity quantiﬁed. A systematic comparative study of patterns of connections to the gPFC of different primate species will no doubt reveal new insights fundamental to a better understanding of cognition in primates. There are, however, extensive data on patterns of connectivity in different regions of the cerebral cortex of the macaque monkey, which reveal regional differences in the diversity of inputs (for reviews, see Felleman and Van Essen, 1991; Young, 1993). Comparison of these data with those on regional differences in pyramidal cell structure (Lund et al., 1993; Elston et al., 1999b, 2005a; Elston, 2000; Elston and Rockland, 2002) reveals some interesting functional parallels. For example, highly branched, spinous neurons in gPFC are characterized by their tonic activity, which is sustained despite intervention from distractors; less branched and less spinous neurons in sensory association cortex are characterized by tonic activity, which desists following presentation of distractors; and the least branched and least spinous cells in V1, for example, are characterized by phasic discharge properties (Fuster and Alexander, 1971; Ashford and Fuster, 1985; Koch and Fuster, 1989; Constantinidis and Steinmetz, 1996; Miller et al., 1996; Leung et al., 2002; Sakai et al., 2002). Accepting the parallel between neuron structure and function, the present results suggest that species dif- ferences in prefrontal functions such as conceptual thinking, prioritizing, and planning may be attributed in part at least to specializations in cortical microcircuitry. It should be relatively easy to test the predictions in vivo. For example, based on our data, we would expect that the gPFC of the galago, for example, would be less adept at sustaining tonic activity during presentation of distractors than that in the macaque monkey. Methodological Considerations Because of the difﬁculty in obtaining suitable material from diverse primate species for comparisons (Crick and Jones, 1993), selection of species included for study here has been somewhat fortuitous. In order to be suitable for the cell injection technique, tissue has to be obtained following surgical resection, perfusion, or postmortem. While tissue collected following surgical resection or perfusion may yield large numbers of cells (⬎ 1,000 cells per case), tissue obtained postmortem is particularly problematic. Moreover, sampling of diverse primate species is plagued with logistical challenges; species are located in different geographical locations providing additional bureaucratic and political challenges. These experiments from which the present data are drawn were performed over a period of 10 years in ﬁve countries across four continents. Cell injection laboratories were set up in each country, and the cell injection methodology was standardized in all studies. Species selection was guided principally by the species Brodmann (1913) studied, for which there exists a consistent set of quantiﬁed data (for a translation, see Elston and Garey, 2004; see also Garey, 1994). Unfortunately, there are some glaring omissions of species in the present study, including the gorilla, chimpanzee, and the orangutan, data from which would provide crucial insights into evolutionary trends in pyramidal cell structure. Given these limitations on the selection of cases included here for analyses, it is natural to ask whether the present results may be attributable to some form of sampling error such as interindividual variation or aging. While we cannot rule out the possibility that these sources of error may have inﬂuenced the results, it is unlikely that they could account fully for our observations. For example, in ﬁve of the seven species we injected cells in V1, V2, and gPFC in a single hemisphere, discounting the possibility of interindividual variation. Other experiments that show consistent differences in pyramidal cell structure in somatosensory, motor, and cingulate cortex in different cases make it increasingly less likely that the data presented here can be attributed to interindividual variation (Elston et al., 2005c, 2005d, 2005f, 2005g). Based on our previous cell injection studies in which we have sampled neurons from a given cortical area in up to ﬁve different individual age-matched animals, we would expect an interindividual variance in the total number of spines on pyramidal cells of no more than 30% (e.g., Elston et al., 2005a). To account for the differences reported here, interindividual variance in gPFC would have to be 22-fold greater than that in V1 and 9-fold greater than that in V2 (i.e., a variance of 521 spines in V1, 1,278 spines in V2, and 11,559 spines in gPFC). Recently, Jacobs and colleagues revealed systematic differences in the maturation rate of pyramidal cells in different cortical areas (Travis et al., 2005), conﬁrming and extending their initial observations in V2 and gPFC (Jacobs et al., 1997). Moreover, dendritic and spine loss is a GRANULAR PREFRONTAL CORTEX OF PRIMATES common occurrence in aging (Nakamura et al., 1985; Anderson and Rutledge, 1996; Duan et al., 2003). As the data presented here were sampled from animals of different age, it is logical to question whether the results can be attributed to age-related bias. While data have been published on the longevity of many primate species (Nowak, 1999), less is known of their relative developmental ages. Here we restricted our analyses to mature animals, as judged by their ages (when known), and the presence of mature secondary sexual characteristics. As the gPFC matures considerably later than visual cortex, any such error would most likely result in underestimates in the extent of differences reported between these two regions. While estimates of the cortical surface area have been calculated for individual cortical areas V1 and V2, the estimates of the size of the gPFC include many cortical areas (Brodmann, 1909). The relative size and number of cortical areas within the gPFC may vary between species (Brodmann, 1909). While quantitative comparative data exist for the gPFC of humans and the macaque monkey (Petrides and Pandya, 2001), little or nothing has been published on the other species included here. Thus, it is possible that some of the variance in the gPFC data may be attributed to species differences in the size of the cortical areas in the gPFC. A more accurate depiction of the trends illustrated in the gPFC of different primate species is contingent on these data becoming available. Because of the size of the dendritic trees of some pyramidal cells (up to 1 mm in diameter), it is difﬁcult to inject large numbers of cells in transverse cortical slices and visualize their entire dendritic trees. To do so would require that cells be injected in cortical slices ⬎ 1 mm thick. Normal biological variability in the trajection of the apical dendrite, and asymmetries in the dendritic tree, would require that sections ⬎ 1.5 mm thick be used, and cell bodies located at a depth of 0.6 – 0.8 mm be injected, to maximize the possibility of reconstructing the entire dendritic tree. However, it is not possible to visualize cell bodies at such a depth sufﬁciently well to allow injection under visual guidance, making it impossible to sample sufﬁcient numbers of cells in each case to allow meaningful statistical comparisons. Thus, we have focused our study on the basal dendrites of pyramidal cells, as seen in tangential sections. Moreover, we have restricted the present analyses to layer III pyramidal cells. However, our observations of the basal dendrites of infragranular pyramidal cells suggest that they too differ markedly between cortical areas, and the nature of these differences reﬂects those observed in supragranular pyramidal cells (Elston and Rosa, 2000). Moreover, our observations of the apical dendrites of pyramidal cells, although somewhat limited, suggest that they too differ in their tangential extent, branching complexity, and spine density in much the same way as reported for the basal dendritic trees (data not shown). However, further systematic comparative studies are required to provide more detail and a better understanding of regional and species specializations in cortical circuitry. Two other possible sources of error pertain to the determination of the cortical layer in which neurons were injected and the sampling strategy adopted for intracellular injection. In the ﬁrst instance, all cortical areas included in the present study have a granular layer (layer IV). We use the nomenclature of Hassler (1966) in preference to that used by Brodmann (1909) for reasons outlined in 33 Casagrande and Kaas (1994) and Elston and Rosa (1997). In V1, we sampled cells immediately above the granular layer, corresponding to layer IIIC of Hassler and layer IVC␣ of Brodmann. In V2 and gPFC, cells were sampled at the base of layer III according to the nomenclature of both Hassler and Brodmann. The granular layer is easily distinguished in DAPI-labeled sections by virtue of the high cell density and small cell body size (see Fig. 2 of Elston and Rosa, 1997). Thus, despite differences in the overall thickness of cortex among cortical areas and species, we were able to identify the section that contained the granular layer and select the adjacent section for intracellular injection (that section closer to the cortical surface, which contained layer III). In the second instance, DAPI-labeled cells were injected pseudorandomly. Cells are injected in a grid-like pattern allowing even sampling across cortex. Thus, pyramidal cells that project within the cortical area, to other cortical areas (ipsi- and contralateral), and to subcortical targets were all likely to have been included for analyses. Because the structure of these cell types differs even within a cortical area, some of the trends presented here may reﬂect variation in the proportion of these cell types among cortical areas and species. This possibility does not detract from our main ﬁndings, that is, there exist regional and species differences in pyramidal cell structure, which are likely to inﬂuence patterns of connectivity and function. Interestingly, however, while the structure of these projection-identiﬁed pyramidal cells may be distinguishable within a cortical area, the structure of each type differs markedly between cortical areas (e.g., callosally projecting or corticocortically projecting cells), leading to the conclusion that evolutionary and developmental mechanisms that determine patterns of arealization and lamination in cortex provide a stronger inﬂuence over pyramidal cell structure than the targets to which they project (Vercelli and Innocenti, 1993). SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS The granular prefrontal cortex has undergone dramatic expansion in primates. This expansion has not occurred simply by the addition of more neurons, but by the addition of more complex neurons. Speciﬁcally, there is a dramatic increase in the branching complexity and number of spines in the dendritic trees of pyramidal cells in the human gPFC. The disproportionately high number of spines in the dendritic trees of pyramidal cells in the human gPFC suggests they receive more excitatory inputs than their counterparts in other primate species. The increase in neuron number, coupled with the increasing potential to sample progressively more inputs, makes it likely that the human gPFC is characterized by more complex connectivity than that in other species. Species differences in the gPFC pyramidal cell phenotype, and the circuits they compose, are likely to inﬂuence functions associated with this region such as comprehension, planning, and perception. In particular, species differences in the gPFC pyramidal cell phenotype are likely to inﬂuence their cognitive styles. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The authors thank Jack Pettigrew for his comments on a previous version of this manuscript. Supported by grants from the J.S. McDonnell Foundation and the Na- 34 ELSTON ET AL. tional Health and Medical Research Council of Australia (to G.N.E.), the Ministry of Education and Science of Spain (to J.d.F.), the Comunidad Autónoma de Madrid (to R.B.-P.), and the South African National Research Foundation (to P.M.). LITERATURE CITED Aiken LS, West SG. 1991. Multiple regression: testing and interpreting interactions. Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications. Anderson B, Rutledge V. 1996. Age and hemisphere effects on dendrite structure. Brain 119:1983–1990. Ashford JW, Fuster JM. 1985. Occipital and inferotemporal responses to visual signals in the monkey. Exp Neurol 90:444 – 446. Barbas H. 2000. Connections underlying the synthesis of cognition, memory, and emotion in primate prefrontal cortices. Brain Res Bull 52:319 –330. Brodmann K. 1909. Vergleichende Lokalisationslehre der Großhirnrinde. Leipzig: Johann Ambrosius Barth. Brodmann K. 1913. 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Cereb Cortex 15:64 –73. Elston GN, Benavides-Piccione R, Elston A, DeFelipe J, Manger P. 2005b. Pyramidal cell specialization in the occipitotemporal cortex of the Chacma baboon (Papio ursinus). Exp Brain Res (in press). Elston GN, Benavides-Piccione R, Elston A, DeFelipe J, Manger P. 2005c. Specialization in pyramidal cell structure in the cingulate cortex of the Chacma baboon (Papio ursinus): an intracellular injection study of the posterior and anterior cingulate gyrus. Neurosci Lett 387:130 –135. Elston GN, Benavides-Piccione R, Elston A, DeFelipe J, Manger P. 2005d. Specialization in pyramidal cell structure in the sensorymotor cortex of the vervet monkey (Cercopithecus pygerythrus). Neuroscience 134:1057–1068. Elston GN, Benavides-Piccione R, Elston A, Manger P, DeFelipe J. 2005e. Pyramidal cell specialization in the occipitotemporal cortex of the vervet monkey (Cercopithecus pygerythrus). Neuroreport 16: 967–970. Elston GN, Benavides-Piccione R, Elston A, Manger P, DeFelipe J. 2005f. Regional specialization in pyramidal cell structure in the limbic cortex of the vervet monkey (Cercopithecus pygerythrus): an intracellular injection study of the anterior and posterior cingulate gyrus. Exp Brain Res 167:315–323. Elston GN, Benavides-Piccione R, Elston A, Manger P, DeFelipe J. 2005g. Specialization in pyramidal cell structure in the sensorymotor cortex of the Chacma baboon (Papio ursinus) with comparative notes on the macaque monkey. Anat Rec 286A:854 – 865. Elston GN, Elston A, Casagrande VA, Kaas J. 2005h. Pyramidal neurons of granular prefrontal cortex the galago: complexity in the evolution of the psychic cell in primates. Anat Rec 285A:610 – 618. Elston GN, Elston A, Kaas J, Casagrande VA. 2005i. Regional specialization in pyramidal cell structure in the visual cortex of the galago: an intracellular injection study with comparative notes on New World and Old World monkeys. Brain Behav Evol 66:10 –21. Elston GN. 2006. Specializations in pyramidal cell structure during primate evolution. In: Kaas JH, Preuss TM, editors. Evolution of nervous systems, vol. 5. Oxford: Elsevier (in press). Elston GN, Zietsch B. 2006. Fractal analysis as a tool for studying specialization in neuronal structure: the study of the evolution of GRANULAR PREFRONTAL CORTEX OF PRIMATES the primate cerebral cortex and human intellect. Adv Comp Syst (in press). Felleman DJ, Van Essen DC. 1991. Distributed hierarchical processing in primate cerebral cortex. Cereb Cortex 1:1– 47. Florence SL, Kaas JH. 1992. Ocular dominance columns in area 17 of Old World macaque and talapoin monkeys: complete reconstructions and quantitative analyses. Vis Neurosci 8:449 – 462. Fritsches KA, Rosa MGP. 1996. Visuotopic organisation of striate cortex in the marmoset monkey (Callithrix jacchus). J Comp Neurol 372:264 –282. Fuster JM, Alexander GE. 1971. Neuron activity related to short-term memory. Science 173:652– 654. Fuster JM. 1997. The prefrontal cortex: anatomy, physiology, and neuropsychology of the frontal lobe. Philadelphia: LippincottRaven. Garey LJ. 1994. Brodmann’s localisation in the cerebral cortex. London: Smith-Gordon. Germuska M, Saha S, Fiala J, Barbas H. 2005. Synaptic distinction of laminar-speciﬁc prefrontal-temporal pathways in primates. Cereb Cortex (in press). Goldman-Rakic PS. 1996. The prefrontal landscape: implications of functional architecture for understanding human mentation and the central executive. Phil Trans Royal Soc Lond B 351:1445–1453. Harris KM, Karter SB. 1994. Dendritic spines: cellular specializations imparting both stability and ﬂexibility to synaptic function. Ann Rev Neurosci 17:341–371. Hassler R. 1966. Comparative anatomy of the central visual system in day- and night-active primates. In: Hassler R, Stephen H, editors. Evolution of the forebrain. Stuttgart: Thieme. p 419 – 434. Hilgetag C-C, O’Neill MA, Young MP. 1996. Indeterminate organization of the visual system. Nature 271:776 –777. Horton JC, Hocking DR. 1996. Intrinsic variability of ocular dominance column periodicity in norman macaque monkeys. J Neurosci 16:7228 –7339. Jacobs B, Larsen-Driscoll L, Schall M. 1997. Lifespan dendritic and spine changes in areas 10 and 18 of human cortex: a quantitative Golgi study. J Comp Neurol 386:661– 680. Jacobs B, Scheibel AB. 2002. Regional dendritic variation in primate cortical pyramidal cells. In: Schüz A, Miller R, editors. Cortical areas: unity and diversity. London: Taylor and Francis. p 111–131. Kaas J. 2000. Why is brain size so important: design problems and solutions as neocortex gets bigger or smaller. Brain Mind 1:7–23. Kaas JH, Preuss TM. 2003. Human brain evolution. In: Squire LR, Bloom FE, McConnell SK, Roberts JL, Spitzer NC, Zigmond MJ, editors. Fundamental neuroscience. San Diego: Academic. p 1147– 1166. Kaas J. 2005. From mice to men: the evolution of the large, complex human brain. J Biosci 30:155–165. Koch KW, Fuster JM. 1989. Unit activity in monkey parietal cortex related to haptic perception and temporary memory. Exp Brain Res 76:292–306. Koch C. 1999. Biophysics of computation: information processing in single neurons. New York: Oxford University Press. Leung H-C, Gore JC, Goldman-Rakic PS. 2002. Sustained mnemonic response in the human middle frontal gyrus during on-line storage of spatial memoranda. J Cogn Neurosci 14:659 – 671. LeVay S, Connoly M, Houde J, Van Essen DC. 1985. The complete pattern of ocular dominance stripes in the striate cortex and visual ﬁeld of the macaque monkey. J Neurosci 5:486 –501. London M, Häusser M. 2005. Dendritic computation. Ann Rev Neurosci 28:503–532. Lund JS, Yoshioka T, Levitt JB. 1993. Comparison of intrinsic connectivity in different areas of macaque monkey cerebral cortex. Cereb Cortex 3:148 –162. Marin-Padilla M. 2001. The evolution of the structure of the neocortex in mammals: a new theory of cytoarchitecture. Rev Neurol 33:843– 853. Mel B. 1999. Why have dendrites? a computational perspective. In: Stuart G, Spruston N, Häusser M, editors. Dendrites. New York: Oxford University Press. p 271–289. Melchitzky DS, González-Burgos G, Barrionuevo G, Lewis DA. 2001. Synaptic targets of the intrinsic axon collaterals of supragranular 35 pyramidal neurons in monkey prefrontal cortex. J Comp Neurol 430:209 –221. Miller EK, Erickson CA, Desimone R. 1996. Neural mechanisms of visual working memory in prefrontal cortex of the macaque. J Neurosci 16:5154 –5167. Miller EK, Cohen JD. 2001. An integrative theory of prefrontal cortex. Ann Rev Neurosci 24:167–202. Nakamura S, Akiguchi I, Kameyama M, Mizuno N. 1985. Age-related changes of pyramidal cell basal dendrites in layers III and V of human motor cortex: a quantitative Golgi study. Acta Neuropathol 65:281–284. Nieuwenhuys R. 1994. The neocortex: an overview of its evolutionary development, structural organization and synaptology. 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domain: biology


Watch the above video of the "10 Cents a Meal" celebration at Traverse Heights on Oct. 13.
Michigan moved to the forefront as a national leader in farm to school programming with the launch of a new, $250,000 state-funded pilot project that invests in schools’ purchasing power to buy locally grown fruits and vegetables.
The new Michigan 10 Cents a Meal for School Kids and Farms incentive program—inspired by a program that originated in the Grand Traverse region in a project coordinated by the Groundwork Center—will provide schools in 16 northwest lower and west Michigan districts with up to 10 cents per meal in matching funds to purchase and serve locally grown fruits and vegetables.
Three other states—Oregon, New Mexico and New York—have launched similar programs that provide funding support or incentives for schools to purchase locally grown food, investing in both local economies and healthy food for children.
“With this bill, Michigan joins just a handful of states that have taken this great step forward, demonstrating its role as a national leader in this work,” said Helen Dombalis, interim policy director of the National Farm to School Network. “We hope the success we celebrate today catalyzes a growing trend in this type of policy.”
The Michigan program is expected to put healthy, Michigan produce on the plates of an estimated 43,000 students during breakfast, lunch, supper and snacks. The 16 districts, selected through a competitive grant, served 3.8 million meals last year, many of them in schools where 50% or more of students come from financially struggling families who rely on school meals for important daily nutrition for their kids.
The 16 school districts are: Boyne Falls Public, Frankfort-Elberta Area, Glen Lake Community, Leland Public, Manistee Area Public, Northport Public and Traverse City Area Public schools in northwest lower Michigan; and Coopersville Area Public, Forest Hills Public, Grand Haven Area Public, Montague Area Public, Muskegon Heights Public School Academy System, Muskegon Public, Oakridge Public, Ravenna Public and Whitehall District schools in west Michigan.
“We think it has the potential of doing so many good things for our kids and for our state,” said state Sen. Darwin Booher, who led the effort to pass the legislation. “The requirements schools have for serving more fruits and vegetables, and good, healthy meals is the key to this. Our farmers can grow it. They just have to have a market for it. I want to see it go statewide.”
State Rep. Larry Inman, R-Acme, became a champion of the measure in the House.
Groundwork Center launched farm to school programming in northwest Lower Michigan in 2004 with one elementary school in the Traverse City Area Public Schools. Students were told that the potatoes they could eat that day on the hot potato bar were grown by a farmer they could meet at recess in the school garden—and twice as many kids as usual chose the hot entrée over pizza that day. Leelanau County farmer Jim Bardenhagen astonished and charmed the kids by taking a bite of a potato—raw.
Since then, farm to school programming has grown throughout the region, as it has across the country. In 1998 there were only two known school districts purchasing locally grown food. Now, there are farm to school programs in every state in the country and the U.S. Department of Agriculture has a team of farm to school staff.
In northwest Michigan, Groundwork organized two regional farm to school conferences that sold out, first at the Hagerty Center at Northwestern Michigan College and then the larger Grand Traverse Resort & Spa. Groundwork also became one of the founding sites in the country for a program called FoodCorps, a part of AmeriCorps, that assists schools in farm to school programming to help kids eat healthier, from school gardens, cafeteria taste tests and farm field trips to classroom lessons like learning fractions by cutting—and tasting—apples.
Nonetheless, despite the enthusiasm of food service directors, teachers, parents and kids, tight school budgets kept food service directors from buying as much locally grown food as they wanted.
Michigan’s Good Food Charter, a set of 25 policy recommendations on how to build the state’s local food and farm economy, included the 10 cents a meal school reimbursement incentive idea.
Groundwork received funds for a regional pilot to test out the value of 10 cents a meal from the W.K. Kellogg, Oleson, Seabury and Utopia foundations, along with a major launch grant from the business Cherry Republic, fundraising dollars from the businesses Cherry Capital Foods, Fire Fly restaurant, Oryana Community Co-op and Perennial Harvest, and a grant from the Friendly Garden Club and individual donors. The regional, three- year pilot project started with three school districts and in the second year expanded to seven in three counties, ending last spring.
Food service directors and farmers alike said the extra funding made a world of difference, providing stable funding to grow purchasing efforts and try new things with kids.
“10 Cents a Meal has helped us expand our program, because anyone in school food knows that we make use of every dime we receive,” said Dave Ruszel, food service director for Leland Public Schools, and one of the seven districts that were a part of the original pilot, and also now the state pilot. “Ten cents per meal can be as much as 10% of our total food cost—our food cost being around $1 per plate.
“In Leland that 10 cents has allowed us to purchase a lot more local items,” he said. “And we have a lot of unusual items that you wouldn’t normally think that elementary students, especially first graders, would like – for instance squash soup, black bean and corn salsa and apple-kale salad.”
Farmer Jim Bardenhagen said the 10 cents funding has noticeably increased his business.
“I commend the legislature for passing legislation that makes state funding available to schools to help take the effort to a new level,” he said. “The 10 cents a meal program has caused my fresh produce business with area schools to grow greatly. And the students are getting healthy, tasty local fruits and vegetables, which school food service directors tell us the students like and eat. There are benefits for all involved. We hope the legislature will see the merits of the 10 cents a meal program and increase the funding level so even more can be achieved.”
The state pilot program is being administered by the Michigan Department of Education (MDE).
“The timing is right for this expanded pilot because USDA standards require more and greater varieties of fruits and vegetables,” State Superintendent Brian Whiston said in an MDE press release. “Additionally, surveys show that school food service directors want to purchase more local produce, and Michigan farmers are interested in providing to their local school districts.”
Colleen Matts, farm to institution specialist for the MSU Center for Regional Food Systems, which has conducted those surveys, agreed.
"A decade of farm to school outreach and research in Michigan has made clear that the tight school food budget poses a structural challenge for school food service directors to purchase and use more local foods,” she said. "10 Cents a Meal presents a unique opportunity to lessen that challenge and simultaneously invest in Michigan children and Michigan growers.”
Leaders in the state and northwest Michigan region celebrated the new state 10 Cents a Meal program on Oct. 13, Michigan Apple Crunch day, at Traverse Heights Elementary School in Traverse City.
Michigan Farm Bureau provided a quote to be shared at that event:
“Encouraging institutions to purchase more food from local sources is something that is extremely important, and undoubtedly has a positive impact on our farmer members producing food in regions all across Michigan," said Kevin Robson, horticulture specialist for Michigan Farm Bureau.


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Decriminalisation of offences under the GST law, setting up appellate tribunals and mechanism to curb tax evasion in pan masala and gutkha businesses are among the issues slated to be discussed in the GST Council meeting which began on Saturday morning.
Besides, GST on online gaming and casinos may come up for deliberations at the Council meeting. The Group of Ministers (GoM), chaired by Meghalaya Chief Minister Conrad Sangma, set up last year on the issue had submitted its report to Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Thursday.
The Council would also consider a report of tax officers and give clarity on the rate applicability in certain goods and services.
“Union Finance Minister Smt. @nsitharaman chairs the 48th meeting of the GST Council via virtual mode, in New Delhi, today,” the finance ministry tweeted.
With regard to decriminalisation of offences, the law committee of the GST Council, comprising tax officers from the Centre and states, has suggested to the Council to increase the monetary threshold for launching prosecution for GST offences.
The law committee has also suggested that the fee payable by taxpayer for compounding of GST offences be lowered to 25 per cent of the tax amount, from up to 150 per cent currently, with a view to improving ease of doing business.
It has suggested raising the threshold of launching prosecution to Rs 20 crore, from Rs 5 crore at present. Launching of prosecution by taxmen means commencement of legal proceedings against the offender.
The report of the GoM on tax evasion by pan masala and gutkha companies is likely to be taken up for discussion in the Council, sources said.
With regard to setting up of Goods and Services Tax Appellate Tribunals (GSTATs), the GoM has suggested that the tribunals should consist of two judicial members, and one technical member each from the Centre and states, besides a retired Supreme Court judge as President, sources said.
The GoM on GSTATs was set up in July under the chairmanship of Haryana Deputy Chief Minister Dushyant Chautala.
With regard to taxation of online gaming, casinos and horse racing, the GoM, in its last meeting in November, had agreed on a 28 per cent GST on these segments.
However, in absence of consensus on whether the tax should be levied on only the fees charged by the portal or the entire consideration, including the bet amount, received from participants, the GoM had decided to refer all suggestions to the GST Council for a final decision.
(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

domain: news


text:
PinUpCats Sphynx is a CFA/TICA registered cattery located near the Outer Banks of North Carolina, USA
I have been active within the Sphynx breed and community since 2004. I breed for quality, not quantity, and only have a few litters each year. All my cats are scanned for HCM. Having a history with the breed allows me good knowledge of my pedigrees and linage of my cats. I continue to keep in touch with many of the wonderful families that have adopted my Sphynx over the years.
I am currently the Sphynx Breed Council Secretary for The Cat Fancier’s Association www.cfa.org
Each season, a number of my cats and/or their offspring are actively shown in CFA, TICA & Fife. Many have earned National, Regional and Breed awards. One of y highlights is from the 2015-2016 show season. My kitten, GC NW BW PinUpCats Supa Dupa Fly of Kuorii DM was KOTY “Kitten of the Year” in CFA’s Regions 1-9 and “Best Kitten” in CFA’s Southern Region. This is among all breeds of cats that she competed with that season.
Happy, Healthy Bloodlines
Pedigreed cats should always come with registration papers from a major cat association and breeders should be willing to talk to you about the lines behind their cats.
Please note that currently I am ONLY working with the Sphynx breed and those allowable outcrosses as defined by CFA. My cats do not participate in other breed programs that are not listed as allowable outcrosses in CFA.
PinUpCats, has always aimed for health, type and temperament first and foremost . I continue to keep in touch with many of the wonderful families that have adopted my Sphynx over the years.
You can inquire about available kittens and upcoming litters by visiting my cattery on Facebook and sending me a message https://www.facebook.com/cyndeehillsphynx/

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ATI GSG 522 22LR 16 LTWT TRI RAIL [ATI GSG 522 22LR ]
by Glen K
Date Added: Monday 24 December, 2012
This is one wicked badass gun! I was issued an MP5 when I was on my department's SWAT team. Yes; full auto was cool, but it was a waste of ammo and even on semi-auto you'd chew through a box of 9mm in a matter of seconds. I gave the MP5 up after 10 years on the SWAT team, but missed the fun with my issued...
So when I heard about the ATI, I was a tad skeptical. Reviews on other web-sites gave it better performance than the Ruger 10/22 or Mossberg 702. And the price at Bud's Gun Shop? Amazingly inexpensive compared to other web-sites.
So my model has the heavy fake suppressor, collapsible stock and tri-rail hand guard. After looking (even on ATI's web-site) I didn't find a configuration like this anywhere! It's was ideal for my "tacti-cool" plan for the gun. I ordered a flashlight, front hand guard grip and laser (and along with an order of rubber picatinny rail caps) got my whole package put together today. It was my Christmas present from my family... I'll add that this is an awesome configuration and it's something I hope was not a limited run, as I've yet to see any elsewhere.
First, the gun felt as good as the real H&K MP5. Comfortable, but with the added bonus that the retractable stock can be closed at different positions; where my MP5 was either open or closed. This is a major plus, since I bought the retractable stock so my four year old could shoot (dad helps) and shoulder it as well.
The gun fired about 150 rounds without flaw, shooting the Winchester 36 grain hollow point (from a big 555 box). I only had two (2) jams and it was when I realized that the rubber rail cap was extended about an inch beyond the picatinny rail near the ejection port. Basically the rounds were ejecting out and flying back into the bolt as it was closing. Once I removed the rubber rail cap this problem was solved. Another bonus was the bolt stays open on the last round. Something my real MP5 didn't do. The only thing I didn't care for and will take getting used to is that the charging bolt can be forward and still has to come on a complete cycle if the weapon is locked open.
The sights will take a bit getting used to as they're more of the horse shoe style than H&K's rings. Not a major issue.
I haven't taken mine apart yet, but it doesn't seem that difficult. I will say that it's built SOLID. I heard some negative reviews on the top picatinny rail, but mine seems real tight and I have no hesitation on adding a red/green dot scope later and have any concerns about keeping it zeroed in. The pistol grip is comfortable, the trigger pull is light and crisp. The retractable stock does have a slight "shake" to it, but so did my real MP5. The receiver is built solid as well. The only thing I had a cosmetic issue with was the thin barrel, but it's easily hidden with the fake suppressor.
I hope guns like this don't fall under any type ban. I'm loving mine and the price is excellent. To add all the gear to a Ruger; by adding a ProMag stock, would have run me a $110 more than what I put into the ATI. I'm very impressed.


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Here we go with another Halloween-esque post with this classic Power Records release of The Curse of the Werewolf! This was one of those comic book/45 rpm record combos were you read along and give your imagination a break while they supply the voices and sound effects. Sadly, I found this copy without its record, but that doesn't take away from it's vintage awesomeness and timeless creepiness.
Sorry about some of the pages having that weird, gray blurry spot. This copy is a bit old and warped and didn't lay completely flat in the scanner, but I'm too lazy to go back and re-scan it. Also, what's up with that odd, brownish-red stain on the lower corners of the last few pages? Is that... BLOOD?!

domain: artistic


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June 25, 2014 at 7:48 AM
SCOTCH PLAINS, NJ -- In keeping with this year’s summer reading theme, Scotch Plains Public Library will proudly present Art in Science, on loan from Monmouth University from June 30th until August 25th.
The exhibit highlights the beauty of science through images, drawings, and photos of natural forms and visualization of scientific, mathematic, and engineering processes. It is based on the research and coursework of Monmouth University faculty, alumni, and students. These images reveal the elegance of science art in scientific results, observations, and in failures.
The Scotch Plains Library is located at 1927 Bartle Avenue, one block from Park Ave. in the center of town. For more information visit http://www.scotlib.org, email firstname.lastname@example.org, or call 908-322-5007 x 204

domain: library


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Explore The Best Electric Guns Atlanta
If you are an airsoft gamer, you will never have enough for your collection. The options are endless and everything is worth owning. At SS Airsoft, we have the best Electric Guns Atlanta on offer for clients who want the latest for their collection. Electric guns are tailored for delivering the best experiences in the arena, and nothing matches their speed, accuracy, and performance. But everything boils down to finding a quality gun with the right specifications. We have better than the best on display at our store and on our website. You can check your options both ways, and order the ones you want to own. We are even committed to getting you the ones that aren’t in our catalog. You only have to let us know what you want, and we will have it for you right here.
Buy Or Browse The Way You Want
When it comes to airsoft gear shopping, everyone has their preferences. You may want to drop in at the store and check the guns and gear physically before buying them. Alternatively, you may wish to do it the easy way by browsing online and ordering in a few clicks. We help you do it either way, whether you want to buy or browse. When you visit our store, you can even hire an electric gun you like and try it in the arena before going ahead with the purchase. We have a huge airsoft arena where you can rent time and have a good time trying the products you want to buy. There are amazing benefits for online buyers too, as the orders reach you within three business days. The great thing is that you don’t have to pay for delivery as we do it for free.
Shopping Experience That Goes Beyond The Ordinary
Buying Electric Guns Atlanta from SS Airsoft is a promise of a shopping experience that goes beyond the ordinary. You get access to the top leading brands in electric guns in our store and website. Don’t be surprised because it is only a start. You can also explore the broadest range of gear from scopes and optics to batteries, flashlights, lasers, chargers, tactical gear and more. The good thing is that our experts can even guide you about the best fits and educate you on picking things that match your expectations. You can even seek inputs on repair and upgrade. Our website has plenty of information if you want to shop online. Whichever way you choose to shop, you can buy the best gear at the best prices. The better part is that you will love every moment when you are here, whether at our store or website.

domain: hobby


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TROUP, Texas — Homeschooling numbers are increasing again as East Texas closes in on the new school year.
Home school coalitions are breaking records for the number of students they’re enrolling with renewed concern about COVID-19.
Brooke Ranshaw’s home has doubled as a school for four years. There are pros and cons to the process but keeping her family safe as a pandemic rages through the country has been especially rewarding.
"My kids didn't have to worry about wearing a mask in the classroom or anything like that. We're at home," she said.
According to the Texas Home School Coalition (THSC), their call and email volume doubled in the last full week of July, rising from 536 the week before to 1,016 as families clamored to prepare for school. The following week, the call and email volume rose again to 1,232.
“In 2020 we saw the largest surge in homeschooling in history," Tim Lambert, President of THSC, said. "It appears that renewed concern about COVID-19 may be about to replicate a similar trend for 2021. We are also seeing thousands of families decide to continue homeschooling because of how well it has worked for their family. Our team is here to welcome these new families into homeschooling and help them with everything they need to be successful."
Last school year, families started fleeing to home learning. This year, more than 70% of them have decided to stay the course.
"I'm not surprised at all," Ranshaw said. "I think parents, once they get in the routine of homeschooling and seeing all the advantages over what comes across, maybe at first as a disadvantage, then they love it."
Gabe Adams will be heading into his junior year at Troup High School. He says COVID has changed the way he goes to school, but not enough for him to want to take it home.
"It’s a bit different. The masks are still a thing but only whenever there’s a big flare-up so that won’t be too bad," he said.
Adams will be starting school next week but as a homeschool teacher, Ranshaw can start whenever she wants.

domain: sociology


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Today Abby and I decided we would do something nice for her daddy. Drew does most of the cooking, since I am not often physically up to it. I was actually excited, Abby and I planned to make scrambled eggs,orange juice and French toast. So we went to the grocery store last night and bought all the needed items. We had a coupon to get a French bread baguette for free!! Whoo hoo!! We were very blessed, in fact so blessed that we even found the only bag labeled french bread among several flavors.
This morning I started slicing the beautiful loaf of bread to make nice thick pieces of french toast with. While slicing, I noticed something in my bread!?! By sight it appeared to be an almond. HHMMM... I have never had french bread with nuts in it..... then I pulled it out.... HHMMMM almonds don't usually get soft and squishy with baking. Oh well, I just threw it out and continued slicing...... there was another, and another, finally brought it closer to my face for a better inspection. Sniff, Sniff, oh, oh...... these weren't almonds, they were cloves of GARLIC! The bakery put the wrong bread in my bag, what we got is what we tried to avoid, GARLIC BREAD.
Since I was so hungry and did not want to have to go back to the store, I just continued to make my french toast. I would wait and see if anyone would figure it out.
Well, not only did they not notice.... we have declared it the BEST FRENCH TOAST ever. It was really, really good. I have a secret recipe that is so sweet that syrup would be too much and ruin it. After we finished eating, I came clean to my husband. He got a kick out of it and we laughed about my Famous Garlic French Toast!
And no, I won't be sharing my secret ingredients that can make even garlic bread into the best darn french toast ever!!! :)
Ya know, this may be the other reason I do not cook often!!!!!???!!!

domain: food


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This map does not reflect a position by UNICEF on the legal status of any country or territory or the delimitation of any frontiers.
Eastern Chad has been overwhelmed by a massive influx of hundreds of thousands of refugees from Darfur ( about 60 per cent of whom are children). At least twelve refugee camps have been established for them.
In a separate crisis, thousands of refugees poured into southern Chad fleeing armed conflict in the Central African Republic.
Issues facing children in Chad
The arrival of so many refugees has significantly worsened the key statistical indicators for children in Chad. Rates of infant, under-five, and maternal mortality are extremely high. One in five children will die before reaching age five.
Only half of Chad’s children are fully immunized against the major vaccine-preventable diseases. Acute respiratory infections, malaria, and diarrhoeal diseases are the most common killers.
HIV/AIDS affects 18,000 children under age 14.
Just over a third of the population has access to clean drinking water. In eastern Chad, there is increased competition for water and sanitation resources. The scarcity of firewood has led to violent attacks against refugee women collecting wood.
The provision of aid to the refugee camps is subject to disruption, as a result of violence, periodic heavy rainfall and other factors.
Crowded conditions and poor nutrition in the camps have increased the risk of polio, measles, and malnutrition. Nationally, nearly 30 percent of children are stunted.
The primary school enrolment rate for girls (51 per cent) lags far behind that for boys (75 per cent).
Activities and results for children
In 2005, UNICEF opened three offices in eastern Chad to bring assistance closer to the refugee camps, which are scattered over a 500 km-long area.
After a reported polio case in eastern Chad, routine vaccination programmes were begun in the refugee camps to combat measles and polio. Coverage reached 94 per cent of children under one year old.
To prevent malaria, UNICEF and its partners distributed 45,000 insecticide-treated mosquito nets to children and pregnant women in the refugee camps.
Water chlorination supplies, family water kits, and soap were distributed to more than 100,000 refugees.
UNICEF and its partners provided therapeutic feeding for more than 9,500 malnourished children.
In addition to erecting 350 school tents, UNICEF and its partners have financed construction of 250 semi-permanent classrooms. Each classroom can handle 80 children and will withstand eastern Chad’s harsh climate.
More than 600 school-in-a-box kits allowed 45,000 Sudanese refugee children to attend school, some for the very first time.
Thirty child-friendly areas in the refugee camps have given 27,000 children an opportunity to play, learn, and recover from their physical and psychological scars.
To aid refugees in southern Chad, UNICEF donated thousands of high-energy biscuits, water kits, blankets, and bed nets; 10 school tents; vitamin A supplements; and 1,000 doses of measles vaccine.


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Two lawsuits have been filed against Alabama's new law making it a felony to provide gender-affirming care to minors.
The legislation, signed into law by Gov. Kay Ivey last week, threatens health care professionals with up to 10 years in prison for violation. It prohibits doctors from prescribing hormone treatment to trans youth and bans gender-affirming surgery on minors -- though such surgeries are mostly unheard of. The law also forces schools to tell a student's parents or guardians if a student's gender identity is different from that assigned at birth.
Two doctors and two families with transgender children filed suit Monday in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama. They are represented by the Southern Poverty Law Center, GLBTQ Legal Advocates and Defenders, the National Center for Lesbian Rights, and the Human Rights Campaign with King & Spalding LLP and Lightfoot, Franklin & White LLC.
The new law's "prohibitions on the provision of safe, effective, and medically necessary care for transgender minors lack a rational foundation and serve no legitimate purpose," their suit states. The law "violates Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act, as well as constitutional guarantees of equal protection and due process, impermissibly intruding into parents' fundamental right to obtain safe, effective, and medically necessary care for their children," it continues.
Two Alabama families with trans kids filed suit Tuesday in U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Alabama. They are represented by the American Civil Liberties Union and its Alabama affiliate, Lambda Legal, Transgender Law Center, and Cooley LLP. They likewise claim violation of the constitutional guarantee of equal protection of the laws.
"The medical care criminalized by Alabama has been recognized as safe and effective by the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Endocrine Society, the American Psychological Association, and every other leading relevant professional medical association," their suit says. "The law is so broad that doctors, nurses, parents, clergy members, teachers, guidance counselors, and perhaps even transgender youth themselves are subject to criminal penalty -- as is anyone else who could conceivably be said to 'cause' a transgender minor to receive medical care that affirms their gender identity."
The plaintiffs in the first suit are physicians Morissa Ladinsky and Hussein Abdul-Latif, and parents identified as Robert Roe, father of Mary Roe, and Jane Doe, mother of John Doe. It names as defendants Ivey, Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall, Shelby County District Attorney Jill H. Lee, and Jefferson County District Attorney Daniel Carr. The complaint, Ladinsky v. Ivey, is available here.
"By signing SB 184 Governor Ivey has told kind, loving, and loyal Alabama families that they cannot stay here without denying their children the basic medical care they need," Ladinsky said in a press release. "She has undermined the health and well-being of Alabama children and put doctors like me in the horrifying position of choosing between ignoring the medical needs of our patients or risking being sent to prison."
The plaintiffs in the second suit are the Walker and White families. It names Marshall as a defendant, along with Limestone County District Attorney Brian C.T. Jones and Lee County District Attorney Jessica Ventiere. The complaint, Walker v. Marshall, is available here.
"I know that I am a girl and I always have been," 15-year-old H.W., the daughter of Jeff and Lisa Walker, said in a press release. "Even before I learned the word 'transgender' or met other trans people, I knew myself. I did not choose to experience bullying and discrimination because I am transgender. I chose to be proud of who I am. The possibility of losing access to my medical care because of this law causes me deep anxiety. I would not feel like myself anymore if this lifesaving medication was criminalized."
An Arkansas law banning gender-affirming care for minors has been temporarily blocked by a judge while a lawsuit against it is heard. That law does not provide for criminal penalties for violation, instead calling for discipline by regulators. Alabama's is the first law to criminalize the provision of gender-affirming care. In Texas, the governor has directed the state's Department of Family and Protective Services to investigate parents who allow their children access to this care as potential child abusers. That order is also temporarily blocked by a court while a lawsuit proceeds.

domain: law


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會議號: 2514 824 3765
By taking advantage of the multiparametric multi-omic single cell analysis platforms, thorough characterization of complex cellular samples could be achieved. For example, within host-pathogen interactions, we demonstrated that natural killer cell subsets are correlated with the virus clearance of SARS-CoV-2 and the up-regulation of the inhibitory ligands to NK cells could be a mechanism of immune evasion utilized by SARS-CoV-2. In the COVID-related lung fibrosis, the interactions between fibroblasts and macrophages are critical for the disease progression. Similarly, within the tumor microenvironment, sustained antigen stimulations from the environment could drive the differentiations of immune cells. Together, our data demonstrated that by systematically profiling the cell-cell interactions within the microenvironment, new principles of immune regulations in response to cancers or invading pathogens could be revealed.
Dr. Chen completed his MD degree in National Taiwan University, and received PhD degree from University of California, Davis, USA. He then worked as a postdoctoral fellow and reseach scientist in Prof. Garry Nolan`s lab at Stanford University, where he focused on developing new single cell analysis technologies. Dr. Chen has successfully developed single-cell analysis assays to study proteins, RNAs, and genome accessibility in cells and tissue sections using mass cytometry and multiplexed imaging platform, which enables the integration of multi-omic information at the single cell level. He also developed a toolkit for super-resolution multi-plexed imaging to extend the proteomic profiling to the resolution of sub-cellular organization. After then, he was recruited to the institure of biomedical sciences, Academia Sinica as an Assistant Research Fellow in 2019.
His current research directions focus on applying multi-omic single cell analysis platforms to investigate how the immune system responds to sustained stimulations in the context of infections, cancers or degenerative diseases. He received several awards, including Career Development Award and 新聘學術研究獎 from academia sinica. He also serves as a guest editor and editorial reviewer of Frontiers in Immunology and reviewers of several journals, such as Scientific Reports, Brain Research, Neuro-Oncology…etc.

domain: medical


The Democratic Party has been dramatically changed in a very short period, mostly thanks to the rising popularity of the far-left, socialist “Squad” of Congresswomen who have waged, and apparently won, a war against the centrist members of their caucus.
This has never been more abundantly clear than during this week’s Democratic National Convention, as the party’s presidential nominee, former President Joe Biden, and his running mate, Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA), form the most progressive major presidential ticket in our nation’s history while we’re told they’re “moderate.”
This “Squad,” which has managed to push its party so far to the left they think they can convince voters that Biden and Harris are actually centrist, consists of Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Ilhan Omar (D-MN), Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), and Ayanna Pressley (D-MA). These women are young, social media savvy, women of color who are all geared up to return to the House in January.
But will they find a new rival “Squad” when they get there?
The House GOP may be poised to create its own version of the notorious “Squad,” made up also of young, diverse women who, rather than their socialist counterparts, will defend our country, our laws, and our values.
But they’re sure to challenge a GOP establishment that has not always been in full support of the President. Their primary wins have not gone unnoticed and has earned them the support of President Donald Trump.
Just the News reports:
Republican Kimberly Klacik, an African-American young woman running for the U.S. House, created a viral video challenging Democratic governance in Baltimore, claiming more than five decades of one-party rule had resulted in a decimated black community.
Klacik’s dramatic video of her walking through the boarded-up streets of Baltimore caught the attention of President Trump.
“Kimberly will work with the Trump Administration and we will bring Baltimore back, and fast,” Trump tweeted on Tuesday. “Don’t blow it Baltimore, the Democrats have destroyed your city!”
Trump also extended his congratulations to Air Force veteran and social media icon, Anna Paulina Luna, who won her GOP primary race in Florida’s 13th district.
“Great WIN Anna! Watched your race from beginning, very impressed,” Trump tweeted on Tuesday. “Your next opponent, Charlie Crist, is a Pelosi puppet who is bad on Crime, our Military, Vets, & 2nd Amendment. You have my Complete & Total Endorsement!”
Laura Loomer, a firebrand conservative (and sometimes controversial) activist who has been dubbed “the Republican AOC,” may also be on her way to the House, having secured the GOP House nomination in her Flordia district, which includes Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort.
“Great going Laura,” Trump tweeted. “You have a great chance against a Pelosi puppet!”
He’s also congratulated Marjorie Taylor Greene, a construction executive who won her primary in Georgia’s heavily-Republican 14th Congressional District.
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Scytec Consulting, Inc.
About Scytec Consulting, Inc.
Scytec provides a quality manufacturing data collection and process control system that is simple, powerful, affordable and scalable. DataXchange is a Cloud and On-Premise OEE and analytic manufacturing machine monitoring system. DataXchange increases overall equipment effectiveness, utilization and shop floor productivity through the use of innovative IIoT technology.


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Candy Klein Coloring Pages, 2020-06-04 07:10:38. Designers who aren’t scared to experiment and are searching for new tips for their projects usually achieve their goal and develop exceptional masterpieces. Above picture is far too dark, but in the event the scale is a small bit moved over, the picture starts to look far better! There’s an array of interesting tools, and the best method to discover what they are able to do is to just try them. Simply speaking, any area you would like to color is likely to have a different color flat.
Ivie Mercer Drawing Pages, 2020-05-28 08:16:00. The tone is extremely encouraging and the instructions are almost always very clear. Tasks with predictable outcome, including coloring or knitting, can oftentimes be calming. On the downside, it’s tough to drop color in more compact gaps. In general, Zen Coloring Book for Adults might be a little too tedious for kids, but it is a terrific alternative for adults who looking to relax during a tiny downtime. That’s so far as the pens go! It’s as easy as putting pen or pencil to paper and randomly sketching whatever springs to mind.
Aprille Potter Drawing Pages, 2020-05-28 08:16:00. When you donate, there’s the possibility to sign up for future updates. There are many career choices for students to pursue in these programs, based on the school. Here we’ll take a look at some of the other alternatives you might wish to consider, especially if searching for something more entry-level, or simply competent when it has to do with art and design.
Alejandra Gallegos Drawing Pages, 2020-05-28 08:16:00. The right drawing order can change when the point of view is changed or every time a geometric transformation is put on, meaning the suitable drawing order must be recomputed every time that happens. Again, you would like to eliminate the demand for virtually any guesswork from the reader. Both make usage of technical drawing! Another illustration is anatomy. My examples will occur after the C syntax, with a couple of notes about how things can differ in different languages. You find a good example of both in the next figure.
Alejandra Gallegos Coloring Pages, 2020-05-28 08:16:00. Each photo is going to have a unique optimal levels. After doing this, the images can be manipulated in a number of means. The last cocktail image is finished. Naturally, it is going to differ from picture to picture. Each picture is going to have a unique optimal position for those arrows. Now you have the image you need to color, we can get to the fantastic stuff. If you wish to just practice, you may use a Creative Commons image you find online.
Dee Barber Drawing Pages, 2020-05-28 08:16:01. Finger painting is a superb class for children and it’s the perfect excuse to earn a mess or receive their hands messy for children. 1 cool thing about art is that there isn’t any absolute answer. It isn’t an exact science. It is the genuine creation of a significant artist in the past for museums. It is difficult to define although it is such a simple term. It is a way of expressing themselves for various artists. For instance, an artist begins to do a portrait when taking a look at a live model.
Mary Mcmahon Drawing Pages, 2020-05-28 08:16:00. The list of appropriate species can be seen on the left. Now that you’ve selected the right page you’re going to want to find all the posts from that page. It’s possible to visit their unique sites to learn more about the contests. You should definitely incorporate a tracking link in the post to make certain you gauge the effect on your bottom line. Then all you’ve got to do is click on Pick’’ next to the post associated with the contest when you would like to select a winner. 1 topic is totally free, the youngster can select any theme of their pick. The other topic is provided by the website.
Alejandra Gallegos Drawing Pages, 2020-05-28 08:16:00. Entries must fit the proper scale. You only really have to check valid entries whenever you’re picking a Winner. Entries ought to be uploaded to YPPedia in line with the instructions below. Entries over 1,000 words won’t be considered.
Any content, trademark/s, or other material that might be found on this site that is not this site property remains the copyright of its respective owner/s. In no way does LocalHost claim ownership or responsibility for such items and you should seek legal consent for any use of such materials from its owner.


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Photos by Ivar Hagstrom
These are all the photos uploaded by photographer Ivar Hagstrom. Use the available filters to narrow down the results.
Viking Star a beauty in beautiful Bergen Norway
Norwegian Star leaving Bergen bound for the Norwegian fjords.
Fjord Cat leaving Hirtshals bound for Kristiansand
Isafold. HG 333 Port of Hirtshals Denmark
Where will she go after May 29?
Car ferry, between Haljem - Sandvikvåg,Hordaland, Norway
Stord. Car ferry on the Bjørnefjord, Norway.
Ex name Sunnhordland. Car ferry on the Bjørnefjord ,Norway
In position ready to unload 23 bridge sections made in China.

domain: geography


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It's after a failure to comply with food safety laws.
A Westmeath business has been forced to partly close after failing to comply with food safety laws.
The Food Safety Authority has issued a total of six enforcement orders to businesses that failed to comply last month.
Management at Eurospar on Main Street, Kinnegad has been instructed to close its rear bakery preparation kitchen, bakery storage area and adjoining lobby.
The other premises include restaurants, takeaways and retailers in Dublin, Sligo and Louth.


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Published on Mar 11, 2011
Time-lapse of Coos Bay, Oregon on March 11, 2011 showing the Japanese tsunami waves as they reach the southern Oregon coast. This time-lapse was recorded in 800 x448 resolution at 30fps and can be seen in full resolution using Windows Media Player at www.CoosBayWebCam.com. The islands you see in the bay usually get covered up twice a day with the high and low tide cycles. The tsunami surges shown here cover up and reveal the islands about 15 times. How many times can you count?


text: Social isolation and quarantine have been implemented globally during outbreaks of a highly transmissible microbe. For instance, they were employed during the plague outbreak in 1894 and the COVID-19 pandemic in 2019. While these methods have proven effective against highly transmissible infections, they have also had significant negative consequences. In specific regions like Anbar, Diyala, Salahaddin, and Kirkuk, social isolation occurred during the period of ISIS occupation. After their liberation, these regions experienced a COVID-19 outbreak, and quarantine measures were put in place. This study aimed to investigate the effect of social isolation and quarantine on tuberculosis. Patients from Anbar, Diyala, Salahaddin, and Kirkuk districts were diagnosed with pulmonary or extrapulmonary tuberculosis according to the World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines, using methods like chest X-rays, acid-fast positive sputum slide method, culture, and Mycobacterium tuberculosis gene pert testing. All cases were documented at the Iraqi Ministry of Health. All four districts had the same population, socioeconomic status, and medical guidelines. Anbar showed a significant difference compared to the other districts, while the remaining three districts had no significant differences among themselves. The percentage of extrapulmonary tuberculosis was higher than the global average, indicating misdiagnosis. The age group of less than four years old had the lowest percentage of cases compared to other age groups, indicating the effective management of the BCG program. It can be concluded that social isolation and quarantine implemented during the COVID-19 pandemic might have led to an increase in cases of extrapulmonary tuberculosis in the studied regions.