Neuroscience

Neuroscience Program || Bucknell University

The neuroscience major offers the degree of Bachelor of Science. Students are strongly encouraged to participate in research with faculty, volunteer in laboratories, or work through independent studies and honors theses.

Faculty research interests include perception, cognition, and psychopathology in humans, learning, and molecular, chemical, cellular, and genetic mechanisms of behavior.

Facilities include cell and molecular wet labs and EEG. Other human behavioral laboratories include those for studies in infant language acquisition, vision and memory. For animal research, Bucknell houses four species of primates, rats, and mice, as well as invertebrates such as fruit flies and honey bees, to study vision, music perception, hormones and behavior.

The BS major in neuroscience requires 12 basic and 5 advanced courses.

We offer numerous other facilities housed across the campus in psychology, biology, chemistry, and animal behavior. In addition to our outstanding on-campus facilities, some faculty research sites are located in interesting places around the globe, including Hawaii and Panama.

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Neuroscience Program || Bucknell University

Neuroscience

Neuroscience PhD Programs | Doctorate in Neuroscience

the rest of the body. Earning a doctorate in neuroscience degree might help students pursue a career in neuroscience and/or conduct advance research on the brain. Scholars who earn a PhD in neuroscience could choose to pursue a possible career in medical care, clinical research and other job posts where an advanced understanding of the human brain is necessary. If you want to delve into this field of study, consider neuroscience PhD programs either on campus or online.

Every profession and field of study is particularly suited for certain traits and natural abilities. The neuroscience field is no different. While some scholars enter the program with natural predispositions, graduates have the opportunity to develop a full gambit of useful skills as they complete their coursework. After graduation, many successful scholars possess the following predispositions or capabilities:

Your exact core courses and required classes may vary depending on your educational institution and concentrations. The exact number of hours or credits in each subject also varies between degree programs. Frequently, before choosing a program, the institution may allow for browsing of the course catalogue or provide an overview of the curriculum. Some common topics and subjects in a doctorate in neuroscience degree program are:

Additionally, many institutions include rotations as an element of their program. Essentially, rotations are similar to school-sponsored internships. Students go to a neuroscience-based firm or practice and gain on the job experience for course credit. In many cases, students could do several of these over the course of around a year.

As with many doctoral degree programs, neuroscience PhD programs frequently have specializations, and students could graduate with a wealth of relevant knowledge. Upon graduation, doctoral students frequently have a working knowledge of:

Using these areas of knowledge in combination, neuroscience student are able to perform well and have a better understanding regarding how different ailments affect the body holistically. Many of these subjects are taught as part of the degree program while other could be learned through hands-on experience.

With neuroscience doctorate degrees, graduates could pursue careers in a number of industries. The industries with the top pay include[i]:

Though the pay is great, the above industries dont have the highest concentration of neuroscience degree holders. That distinction belongs to the following[i]:

Additionally, the following sectors carry the highest levels of employment for neuroscience occupations[i]:

With a diverse job pool to choose from, graduates have a wealth of opportunities they could pursue after earning their doctorate.

As you choose your ideal Neuroscience PhDprogram and institution, browse through all relevant information regarding coursework and program length. Earning a PhD in this type of program allows you to pursue a career in the medical and research fields as well as a handful of others. Get prepared to pursue a great career in your desired field as you begin looking for a great program that fits your needs. Start your search for the perfect neuroscience PhD program on GradSchools.com!

Resources:[i] onetonline.org/link/details/29-1069.04

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Neuroscience PhD Programs | Doctorate in Neuroscience

Neuroscience

Paper with duplicated image sequentially builds on neuroscience work, authors argue – Retraction Watch (blog)

A neurochemistry journal has retracted a paper from a group in China over a duplicated image.

According to the notice, the authors used the same image in the two papers to represent different experimental conditions. The only distinguishing featurebetween the images:apparent brightness changes.

The authors defended their actions, explainingthat the research published in Journal of Neurochemistry sequentially builds on their previous study in Journal of Neuroinflammation, which they mention in the 2015 papers discussion. In the notice, theauthors were quoted saying:

at the beginning, we performed these experiments and wrote these two manuscripts together

In the 2015 paper, the authors do explain thatthe current study is an extension of previous work:

This work builds on our previous study, in which we hypothesized that CXCL12 and CXCR4 might be implicated in aberrant pain sensitization through directly mediating pronociceptive signaling pathways in spinal glial cells.

But the editors quibbled with this explanation, noting that the wording in the 2015 paper implies that it:

was a follow-up based on a new original data set.

According to the notice, the authors provided the journal with additional information and data, but the editors were not convinced and ultimately could not confirm the data were reliable.

Heres the full retraction notice, which detailsthe disagreement between the authors and journal:

The retraction has been agreed as the same GFAP immunostaining image was used to represent different experimental conditions in two different publications (Shen et al. [2014] in the Journal of Neuroinflammation and Hu et al. [2015] in the Journal of Neurochemistry), with apparent brightness changes between the images. Shen et al. (2014) show in the outer right panel of Figure 4a, as well as in Fig. 8A for the GFAP/sham condition, a GFAP immunostaining after treatment with TCI + Fluorocitrate. The same image, at a lower intensity, is used in Hu et al. (2015) in the first panel of figure 5b as a sham control. The shape of the tissue margins of the spinal cord section as well as several landmark epitopes that point towards identical images are encircled: The authors confirmed that The research published in JNC sequentially builds on our previous study published in Journal of Neuroinflammation, as we have mentioned in the discussion. So, at the beginning, we performed these experiments and wrote these two manuscripts together, whereas the statements in the Hu et al. paper, The testing procedure was performed according to previously standardized protocols (Hargreaves et al. 1988) and our published report (Shen et al. 2014) confirmed our previous report (Shen et al. 2014) imply that the Hu et al. study was a follow-up based on a new original data set. The authors were given the opportunity to respond and to provide the original raw images. Several Sham group GFAP immunostainings were sent. However, the reliability of the data that was presented in the publication could not be confirmed and the paper is therefore being retracted. A corrigendum related to a different problem with data representation that was previously issued for this paper is also being retracted (Hu et al. 2015, Corrigendum).

CXCL12/CXCR4 chemokine signaling in spinal glia induces pain hypersensitivity through MAPKs-mediated neuroinflammation in bone cancer rats also received an erratum in 2015, which explains that the authors used the wrong control number for the rats in several figures. Heres the corrigendum notice, which includes corrected figures:

The following accepted article from the Journal of Neurochemistry entitled, CXCL12/CXCR4 chemokine signaling in spinal glia induces pain hypersensitivity through MAPKs-mediated neuroinflammation in bone cancer rats by Hu etal. (2015), erratically published an incorrect number of animals (n) used for the CXCL12 2g control group shown in Figures 1b and 1f. To clarify, six (n=6) instead of five animals were used. Figures 1a, 1e, 2b, 2c, 2d and 2e also used six animals (n=6) for the CXCL12 2g control group. The corresponding author confirms that the figure panels 1a/b, 1e/f, 2b/d and 2c/e, respectively, include the same cohort of control animals (see filled red circles representing the CXCL12 2g control group in the figures below).

The 2015 paper has been cited 19 times, according to Clarivate Analytics Web of Science, formerly part of Thomson Reuters.

We reached out to last and corresponding author Wen Shen as well as first author Xue-Ming Hu, both based at the The Affiliated Hospital of Xuzhou Medical College in China. We also contacted the journals chief and managing editors. We will update the post if we hear back.

Like Retraction Watch? Consider making atax-deductible contribution to support our growth. You can also follow uson Twitter, like uson Facebook, add us to yourRSS reader, sign up on ourhomepagefor an email every time theres a new post, or subscribe to ourdaily digest. Clickhere to review our Comments Policy. For a sneak peek at what were working on,click here.

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Paper with duplicated image sequentially builds on neuroscience work, authors argue - Retraction Watch (blog)

Neuroscience

New neuroscience research helps explain our growing attraction to spiritual retreats – The Durango Herald

As she walked along a New York City street on an October night seven years ago, Katie Kozlowski was so upset that her boyfriend had stood her up that she didnt even notice the taxicab before it hit her head-on and threw her across the road.

She was able, amazingly, to pick herself up from the gravel, deeply startled but completely unharmed. The accident prompted Kozlowski to reflect on her life. After suffering through a string of abusive relationships and bouts of heavy drinking and depression, she knew something had to change.

I wanted to go somewhere so I could figure out how to stop having all of these negative experiences, she said. Not long after, she packed her bags and boarded a plane to gather with more than 200 people on a weeklong spiritual retreat in the heart of Ireland.

While there, Kozlowski learned to meditate and listen to herself, experiencing moments of awe and transcendence. She loved the feeling of deep calm and inner peace the group meditations gave her.

It brings awareness to what goes on inside of your subconscious mind, she said. She has since attended the retreat three more times. Every single time that I would leave, I would have a better understanding and more acceptance of myself, she said.

As Americans report feeling more stressed and interest in mindfulness meditation, adult coloring and other calming techniques grows, more people are turning to spiritual retreats as a way to unplug and reset. In the last few years, revenue for wellness tourism, which includes meditation and other spiritual retreats, increased by 14 percent, from $494.1 billion in 2013 to $563.2 billion in 2015, a growth rate more than twice as fast as overall tourism expenditures, according to the Global Wellness Institute. Christian retreats are also reporting renewed interest.

In a recent study published in the journal Religion, Brain & Behavior, scientists from The Marcus Institute of Integrative Health at Thomas Jefferson University have discovered that there are actual changes that take place in the brains of retreat participants.

The findings, although preliminary, suggest that engaging in a spiritual retreat can have a short-term impact on the brains feel good dopamine and serotonin function two of the neurotransmitters associated with positive emotions. Researchers studied the effects of attending a weeklong retreat involving silent contemplation and prayer based on the Jesuit teachings of Saint Ignatius of Loyola. They scanned the brains of 14 Christians who participated in the study, ranging in ages from 24 to 76, before and after the retreat.

The study subjects showed marked improvements in their perceived physical health, tension and fatigue, as well as reporting feelings of self-transcendence. Though more research is needed, the co-authors highlighted the strong emotional responses that have long been associated with secular and religious retreats such as reduced stress, spiritual transformation experiences and the capacity to produce life-changing results.

Not everyone is able to access or afford to attend a spiritual retreat, but a growing body of research has found that a daily practice of mindfulness meditation at home can also help reduce anxiety and bolster good health.

Psychologist Anjhula Mya Singh Bais experienced the benefits of meditating during a 10-day Buddhist retreat last year. My body started regulating itself. ... I could feel the stress and cortisol melt away.

Before to her trip, Bais had been struggling with several personal relationships and was unsure of how to move forward. By the end, she said she felt more in control of her thoughts. After the retreat, one becomes simultaneously calm and exhilarated, she said. I was in a better position of not only enhancing my own life but (also) serving others.

Some people who attend retreats return hungry to share what theyve learned. Kozlowski is now a mindfulness teacher in Connecticut after her retreat experiences following the accident.

A lifelong nail biter who hid her habit by applying fake nails while secretly chewing her own, she knew something profound had taken place when, after her second time at the retreat, she realized she had stopped nail-biting. More importantly, she noticed that the fears and negative beliefs she had about herself began to dissolve. I used to be what people call very prickly, meaning I didnt take criticism very well.

Now, seven years after that fateful night with the taxi, Kozlowski said her life has been transformed. I no longer have relationships with men who are verbally abusive I dont go out drinking in bars until Im in a stupor, she said. All of those sort of behaviors, I would never do that now, because I actually like myself.

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New neuroscience research helps explain our growing attraction to spiritual retreats - The Durango Herald

Genetics

PLOS Genetics Research Prize 2017: The story behind last year’s winning research – PLoS Blogs (blog)

In 2016, the PLOS Genetics Research Prize was awarded to Naranjo, Smith et al., for their work on a complex trait adaptation. Hunter Fraser, the corresponding author of the winning article and Associate Professor at Stanford University, tells us about the challenges he faced bringing the research to fruition and what winning the prize meant to him.

I was thrilled beyond words to start my job as an Assistant Professor in 2009. The previous two years had been toughI had been fired from a postdoc position and then laid off from an industry job just 18 months laterso I was eager to turn things around. I was bursting with ideas for how to study the evolution of gene expression, but was missing just one ingredient: data.

During my ill-fated postdoc, I had devised an approach to use allele-specific gene expression data to identify lineage-specific selection on gene expression (see our papers Introduction for details). I wanted to use high-throughput sequencing of cDNA from inter-species hybrids for this, since sequence reads overlapping with heterozygous genetic variants (of which there are many in hybrids) could be used to measure the mRNA level of each allele. However, my advisor did not believe this would work, as this was before any publications of high-throughput cDNA sequencing (now known as RNA-seq). Without his support, I was unable to collect the data I so desperately wanted, and moved on to an industry position soon after that.

Fast forward to 2009: After being laid off in a corporate restructuring, I was chomping at the bit to start my faculty position. Things went slowly at firstI was busy buying equipment, writing grants, meeting new colleagues, and searching for my first lab hire, so those allele-specific expression (ASE) data I needed were still just a tantalizing mirage. However, I was overjoyed when I came across a paper (Tirosh et al., Science 2009) that generated exactly the type of ASE data that I wanted, from a hybrid between two species of budding yeast.

I immediately downloaded the papers supplemental information, and in a moment rivaling any Christmas morning, I eagerly opened the file. There I found over 17,000 glorious data points: ASE ratios for 4400 genes in four conditions. I sorted the genes by their ratios and copied them into an online functional enrichment calculator, which returned just one enriched annotation: toxin response. Remarkably, these gene annotations were all derived from a single paper that measured the transcriptional response to citrinin, a naturally occurring toxin produced by several species of fungi. And the enrichment was incredibly strong: 40-fold greater than expected among the 1% of genes with the strongest ASE biased towards one of the parental species (Saccharomyces paradoxus). This was clear evidence that natural selection had been acting on the expression levels of these citrinin-responsive genesquite an exciting discovery, particularly since in 2009 polygenic gene expression adaptation was just a theoretical possibility, with no known empirical examples.

I had no idea that this discoverywhich took all of six minutes to makewould take us the next six years to characterize. It was an exceptional undergraduate, Santiago Naranjo, who spearheaded the project during his three years in the lab. Santiago made a number of key observations, including characterizing the fitness of different strains in the presence of citrinin and performing precise allelic replacements (with laborious pre-CRISPR technology) to test the effects of specific transcriptional regulatory regions on the expression of our top candidate genes. After Santiago graduated, the torch was passed to an inventive graduate student, Justin Smith, who performed critical experiments measuring the fitness effects of Santiagos promoter-swaps, as well as the effects of up-regulating our candidate genes. Along the way, several others made essential contributions as wella true team effort. Altogether, their work implicated three specific genes involved in this complex adaptation (including a gene we named CIS1, ostensibly standing for CItrinin Sensitive, but which in fact was just an excuse to name a gene after my favorite scientific word), while also demonstrating an approach for investigating polygenic gene expression evolution more generally.

We were incredibly honored to be awarded the PLOS Genetics Research Prize for this work. It was especially inspiring to receive the award for this project, since out of all the work to come from my lab, this one was perhaps our hardest-won victoryat several points along the way it was not even clear if we could get the project to a publishable conclusion. But now we are more excited than ever about applying this framework to other inter-species hybrids from across the tree of lifeincluding fruit flies, archaea, mice, cichlids, and zonkeys, my personal favorite model system to study the evolution of zebra stripes!

If there is a 2016 PLOS Genetics article that you think deserves this years Research Prize, please take a look at the Prize Page and see the Prize Rules for more information and nominate here.

Nominations close on Friday, June 16, 2017 at 11.59 PM Eastern Time.

Competing Interests statement: Hunter Fraser is the corresponding author of PLOS Genetics Research Prize 2016s winning article. The article is discussed in this blog.

Featured Image credit: May 2015 Issue Image. Post-transcriptional Regulation of Hair Cycling by miR-22. Image Credit:Yuan and colleagues

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PLOS Genetics Research Prize 2017: The story behind last year's winning research - PLoS Blogs (blog)

Genetics

Genetics Research Companies Enter JLABS – Investing News Network (press release) (registration) (blog)

The three genetic research companies joining JLABS include Ranomics and ZOETICS Pharmaceuticals.

In the life science field, often large companies with substantial capital and a recognizable name brandmaintaining a line of productswill host smaller startups in order to seek innovation from fresh new voices.

Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ), through their Inspiration Labs, announced their location in Toronto will now host over 40 new companies. Among those, there are two that are working on some form of genetic research development.

The no-strings attached model has been very important to our success in attracting so many quality companies, as it allows entrepreneurs the freedom to operate and do what is best for their company, Melinda Richter, head of the JLABS, said in the statement. We are hopeful that providing JLABS to the life sciences ecosystem in Toronto will support continued economic growth and development in the region.

In a space where these companies may not have the opportunity to fully investigate their genetic research from other investors or on their own, entering the JLABS opens the doors for quality space to continue their work.

As previously detailed to Investing News Network by Meghan Alonso, CEO of Imua Services and expert on start up medical device companies, siad this type of initiation is very common for titans of the industry.

What [Johnson & Johnson have] done to feed this system of innovation and make it easy at to grab anything that they want to theyve built infrastructure [in several cities in the US] where they have an incubator, and they have space available for these small start-up companies to have their office, and they share lab space, she said, referring to the process start ups may go through in general.

With that in mind, heres a look at those genetic research companies.

This company is working on creating, testing and accessing genetic changes as quickly and cost-effectively as possible.

Their work at JLABS will include creating a database of genetic variants as a way to help clinicians better diagnose hereditary cancers related to specific genes. One of the most intriguing aspects of current gene therapy research is the possibility of modifying cancerous cells in the body to kill the cancer itself.

Ranomics is able to provide substantial evidence on the variations of the genes they get to test and can provide information on ones that havent been researched or used in a clinical setting.

Last year the company raised 1.6 million from an undisclosed investor for their platform.

As reported by BetaKit, the founder of Ranomics Cathy Tie said the biggest problem facing the testing process of hereditary diseases is the inconclusiveness in it, over 60 percent of them dont have a real resolution.

This is due to newly identified genetic variants in the patient that have no clinical or medical precedence, leading to mis-or-non-diagnosis and compromising patient care, Tie told the online publication.

According to JLABS, ZOETIC is developing an antigen-specific immune tolerance induction technology, which will target unwanted immune responses that come from therapeutic biologics, autoimmune diseases and AAV mediated gene therapy. Thanks to their tech, the company may be able to improve the success rate of gene therapy.

ZOETICS gene therapy division is trying to expand the current limitations of gene therapy. The companyclaims patients present an immune response to the vector transporting the gene therapy itself, which prevents the delivery of the normal genes to the cell.

In 2016, the company announced it holds the exclusive rights to the proprietary phospholipid nanoparticles from Dr. Sathy Balu-Iyer, professor of pharmaceuticals sciences for theUniversity at Buffalo.

This discovery was tested in a 2015 study and showed promising results according to ZOETIC, which will seek to commercialize the product with biopharmaceutical companies currently marketing products in the hemophilia community.

This announcement and the possibility of a breakthrough development in the genetic research area from one of these companies shows the commitment to this type of research, despite the hype period for this work having shown low returns.

Dont forget to follow us @INN_LifeScience for real-time news updates.

Securities Disclosure: I, Bryan Mc Govern, hold no direct investment interest in any company mentioned in this article.

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Genetics Research Companies Enter JLABS - Investing News Network (press release) (registration) (blog)

Biochemistry

Biochemistry Doctoral Student Receives PEO Scholarship for Women – UKNow (press release)

UK is the UniversityforKentucky. At UK, we are educating more students, treating more patients with complex illnesses and conducting more research and service than at any time in our 150-year history. To read more about the UK story and how you can support continued investment in your university and the Commonwealth, go to:uky.edu/uk4ky. #uk4ky #seeblue

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Biochemistry Doctoral Student Receives PEO Scholarship for Women - UKNow (press release)

Biochemistry

Fat Metabolism in Live Fish: Real-Time Lipid Biochemistry Observed – Technology Networks

This is a live image of the liver of a translucent, larval zebrafish. It was taken using confocal microscopy, which allows for clear images of the internal organs of a whole live animal. Quinlivan fed a fluorescently tagged fatty acid to a larval zebrafish and then photographed its liver at 400x magnification. The round dots of varying sizes are lipid droplets, which contain a kind of fat called triglyceride. These triglycerides were constructed using the fluorescent fat consumed by the larval zebrafish. Fluorescence also shows up in the gallbladder (GB) and developing kidney (K). Credit: Vanessa Quinlivan

Studying how our bodies metabolize lipids such as fatty acids, triglycerides, and cholesterol can teach us about cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and other health problems, as well as reveal basic cellular functions. But the process of studying what happens to lipids after being consumed has been both technologically difficult and expensive to accomplish until now.

New work from Carnegies Steven Farber and his graduate student Vanessa Quinlivan debuts a method using fluorescent tagging to visualize and help measure lipids in real time as they are metabolized by living fish. Their work is published by the Journal of Lipid Research.

Lipids play a vital role in cellular function, because they form the membranes that surround each cell and many of the structures inside of it, Quinlivan said. They are also part of the crucial makeup of hormones such as estrogen and testosterone, which transmit messages between cells.

Unlike proteins, the recipes for different lipid-containing molecules are not precisely encoded by DNA sequences. A cell may receive a genetic signal to build a lipid for a certain cellular purpose, but the exact type may not be indicated with a high degree of specificity.

Instead, lipid molecules are built from an array of building blocks whose combinations can change depending on the type of food we eat. However, lipid compositions vary between cells and cellular structures within the same organism, so diet isnt the only factor determining which lipids are manufactured.

Understanding the balancing act in what makes up our bodies lipidsbetween availability based on what were eating and genetic guidanceis very important to cell biologists, Farber explained. There is growing evidence that these differences can affect wide arrays of cellular processes.

For example, omega-3 fatty acids, which are lipid building blocks found in foods like salmon and walnuts, are known to be especially good for heart and liver health. There is evidence that when people eat omega-3 fatty acids, the cellular membranes into which they are incorporated are less likely to overreact to signals from the immune system than membranes comprised of other kinds of lipids. This has an anti-inflammatory effect that could prevent heart or liver disease.

Farber and Quinlivans method allowed them to delve into these kinds of connections. They were able to tag different kinds of lipids, feed them to live zebrafish, and then watch what the fish did with them.

If we fed the fish a specific type of fat, our technique allowed us to determine into what molecules these lipids were reassembled after they were broken down in the small intestine and in which organs and cells these molecules ended up, Farber explained.

The tags they used were fluorescent. So Farber and Quinlivan and their team were actually able to see the fats that they fed their zebrafish glowing under the microscope as they were broken down and reassembled into new molecules in different organs. Further experiments allowed them to learn into what types of molecules the broken down fat components were incorporated.

Being able to do microscopy and biochemistry in the same experiment made it easier to understand the biological meaning of our results, Quinlivan said. We hope our method will allow us to make further breakthroughs in lipid biochemistry going forward.

The other members of the team were Carnegies Meredith Wilson, and Josef Ruzicka of Thermo Fisher Scientific.

This article has been republished frommaterialsprovided by Carnegie Institution for Science. Note: material may have been edited for length and content. For further information, please contact the cited source.

Reference Farber, et al An HPLC-CAD/fluorescence lipidomics platform using fluorescent fatty acids as metabolic tracers, Journal of Lipid Research (2017), DOI: 10.1194/jlr.D072918

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Fat Metabolism in Live Fish: Real-Time Lipid Biochemistry Observed - Technology Networks

Anatomy

Anatomy of an American shove: Breaking down the moment Trump pushed past Montenegro’s leader – National Post

Was it a shove? Or more of a brush or jostle. Or perhaps just a friendly slap on the arm, a casual guy-greeting.

In fact, shove was probably the most common word used to describe the fleeting, at best awkward interaction between Trump, the leader of the most powerful nation on Earth, and Dusko Markovic, the leader of Montenegro, a small Balkan nation of 600,000 attending its first summit as a NATO member after a nine-year accession process.

It occurred as NATO leaders strolled toward a group photo in Brussels.

According to the Merriam-Webster definition, shove is on target: to push along or to push or put in a rough, careless, or hasty manner.

Lets break it down.

A slow-motion viewing of the video indicates no words spoken by Trump as he approaches the group from behind. No Excuse me or Pardon me.

Trump reaches out his right arm, grabs Markovics right shoulder and pushes him aside. Markovic looks surprised. Trump doesnt acknowledge his existence as he moves past him. Its as if Markovic isnt there.

Markovic abruptly looks back at Trump but gets no eye contact from Trump in return.

Then he pats Trump on the back, or perhaps the arm, displaying a slight grin as Trump, at the front of the group, stands tall and adjusts his suit coat. Trump begins conversing with Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite as Markovic looks on from behind.

White House spokesman Sean Spicer later told reporters that spots for the family photo for which the leaders were preparing were predetermined, as is usually the case implying that Trump was not trying to get a better position, The Washington Post reported, but rather that he was heading for the position reserved for him.

But of course, where Trump was headed was not the issue. It was the way he got there.

Markovic, afterward, responded to questions by shrugging it off.

This was an inoffensive situation, Markovic said. I do not see it in any other way.

He said he had the opportunity Thursday to thank Trump personally for his support of Montenegros entry into NATO and of course the further development of our bilateral relations.

But, when journalists are differently commenting this scene, the prime minister said. I want to tell you that it is natural for the president of the United States to be in the first row.

Montenegrin news websites were brimming with articles describing how this minor exchange captured the attention of many major U.S. and European news outlets.

Some Montenegrin news outlets included headlines quoting author J.K. Rowling, who tweeted the video, saying You tiny, tiny, tiny little man along with a retweeted video depicting Trump as a small man.

Montenegrin radio station Antena M included a photo of Trump above the story with the words Days without being a national embarrassment: 0. (Thats the numeral zero.)

It seems Donald Trump did not want anyone overshadowing his presence at the summit, said the Montenegro newspaper Vijesti

Other Balkan websites ran headlines such as America First and Where do you think you are going?

As expected, the Trump shove captured the late-night shows.

The President Show on Comedy Central depicted an exaggerated scene, replacing the Montenegro prime minister with the secretary general of NATO, Jens Stoltenberg.

Excuse me, excuse me, get out of my way, the shows Trump says to the secretary general, pushing him aside as they walk into a press briefing. America first. America first.

Seth Meyers, host of Late Night With Seth Meyers, also riffed on the exchange, saying Look at this guy. Wow.

Youre a world leader at a meeting of dignitaries and you act like they just called your number at KFC, Meyers said.

Me, thats mine, the 12 piece, Meyers said, mimicking someone pushing and shoving others out of the way.

I want to tell you that it is natural for the president of the United States to be in the first row

Others on social media also viewed the shove as an attempt by Trump to revel in the spotlight and assert his America first mentality.

It did not go unmentioned that Trump brushed aside the leader of a country that last month defied Russia and pro-Russian opposition by ratifying its membership in NATO a historic turn toward the West.

The Balkan country is joining the alliance as its 29th member; Thursday was its first summit. Only 18 years ago, NATO aircraft were bombing targets in Montenegro then part of Serbia in a campaign that forced troops out of Kosovo, as the Guardians Alec Luhn reported. The bombing remains a painful memory for many Montenegrins, and polls have shown the population evenly divided on NATO membership.

Many hope NATO membership will end the tumultuous east-west struggle in Montenegrin politics, Luhn wrote.

With that tense history in mind, some on social media did not take Trumps gesture as the kindest welcome to the alliances new member.

Trump shoved Prime Minister of Montenegro at NATO meeting to please Putin, once again, said one Twitter user.

Others presumed Trump was simply moving to his assigned spot, and that the uproar over the shove or push was just another media dig at Trump.

As Dan Calabrese wrote in the Canada Free Press: Look, I understand theres a frenzy out there now to alert on anything and everything Trump does and to characterize it as insane, out-of-control, evil and whatever else. But if you see this and think you see a shove, I dont know what to tell you.

On the other hand, whatever it was, President Trumps treatment of Montenegros prime minister was a sharp contrast to say, the little curtsy he performed for King Salman bin Abdul Aziz of Saudi Arabia.

With files from Travis Andrews

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Anatomy of an American shove: Breaking down the moment Trump pushed past Montenegro's leader - National Post