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When participants engage twice in the same creative problem-solving task with educational robots, they have the possibility to repeat the same solution, allowing them to complete the task faster, or to show a creative intention and behavior, engaging them in developing a new solution. In this study, we aim to analyze the creative process considering the creative intention and the persistence in the creative process. For this purpose, we engaged 115 adults to perform twice the same problem-solving task using modular robotic cubes without specific instruction concerning the way to solve the task the second time. Creative intention is observed when the participant tests a new solution in the beginning of the second realization of the task, creative persistence behavior is show when participant stay engaged in a new plan although it requires time and efforts. Results show that participants’ effective creative solution is related to their creative intention and the time engaged in the second occurrence of the educational robotic task (assessing the creative behavior persistence). These results suggest that the creative process leading to an effective creative solution in a repeated task requires an initial creative intention, but also a higher creative behavior persistence than engaging in a conservative behavior.

In addition to brain disorders, which constitute a devastating consequence of prenatal alcohol exposure (PAE), eye development is also significantly affected. Given that the retina is a readily accessible part of the central nervous system, a better understanding of the impact of ethanol on retinal development might provide ophthalmological landmarks helpful for early diagnosis of fetal alcohol syndrome. This study aimed to provide a fine morphometric and cellular characterization of the development of retinal microvasculature and neurovascular interactions in a mouse model of fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD). The data revealed that PAE impaired superficial vascular plexus development. In particular, progression of the vascular migration front was significantly decreased in PAE retinas, supporting a delay in plexus progression. Moreover, a significant decrease in the vessel density and number of perforating vessels was quantified in PAE mice, supporting less angiogenesis. The present study provides also the first evidence of a close interaction between migrating calretinin-positive interneurons and perforating microvessels in the inner nuclear layer of the developing retina. This neurovascular association was significantly impaired by PAE. Moreover, projections of amacrine cells were abnormally distributed and densified in stratum S1 and S2. In humans, comparison of a five-month-old control infant with a three-month-old alcohol-exposed case revealed a similar mispositioning of calretinin-positive interneurons. This opens new research avenues regarding a neurovascular contribution in the deleterious effects of alcohol in the developing retina and support that ophthalmological examination could become a promising approach for early detection of alcohol-exposed infants presenting with neurovascular brain defects.

International audience; Only 400 km off the coast of East Africa, the island of Madagascar is one of the last large land masses to have been colonized by humans. While many questions surround the human occupation of Madagascar, recent studies raise the question of human impact on endemic biodiversity and landscape transformation. Previous genetic and linguistic analyses have shown that the Malagasy population has emerged from an admixture that happened during the last millennium, between Bantu-speaking African populations and Austronesianspeaking Asian populations. By studying the sharing of chromosome segments between individuals (IBD determination), local ancestry information and simulated genetic data, we inferred that the Malagasy ancestral Asian population was isolated for more than 1000 years with an effective size of just a few hundred individuals. This isolation ended around 1000 years before present (BP) by admixture with a small African population. Around the admixture time, there was a rapid demographic expansion due to intrinsic population growth of the newly admixed population, which coincides with extensive changes in Madagascar’s landscape and the extinction of all endemic large-bodied vertebrates. Therefore, our approach can provide new insights into past human demography and associated impacts on ecosystems