Genetic variation at the locus encoding the brain derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) has been implicated in some neuropsychiatric disorders such as Alzheimer's disease (AD), affective disorders (AFDs), schizophrenia, and substance dependence. We therefore performed a mutation scan of the BDNF gene to identify novel gene variants and examined the association between BDNF variants and several neuropsychiatric phenotypes in European-American subjects and controls. Using dHPLC, we identified a novel variant (G-712A) in the putative promoter region. This variant and two previously reported BDNF SNPs (C270T and Val66Met) were genotyped in 295 patients with AD, 108 with AFDs, 96 with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), 84 with schizophrenia, 327 with alcohol and/or drug dependence, and 250 normal control subjects. No association was found between these three BDNF gene variants and AD, AFDs, PTSD, or schizophrenia. However, there was a nominally higher frequency of the G-712A G-allele and the G/G genotype in subjects with substance dependence than in controls (Allele: χ 2 = 4.080, df = 1, P = 0.043; Genotype: χ 2 = 7.225, df = 2, P = 0.027). Although after correction for multiple testing, the findings are not considered significant (threshold P-value was set at 0.020 by the program SNPSpD), logistic regression analyses confirmed the modest association between SNP G-712A and substance dependence, when the sex and age of subjects were taken into consideration. The negative results for AFDs, PTSD and schizophrenia could be due to the low statistical power. Further study with larger samples is warranted.

This article describes an undergraduate, German‐language course that aimed to improve students' language skills, critical thinking, and declarative knowledge of German history and culture by studying multiple manifestations of the legend of Siegfried the Dragonslayer. The course used web‐based e‐learning tools to address two major learning challenges. Because learning to think and work with chronological data was required, a web‐based timeline building tool, Google Docs Simile, was used to put students in charge of navigating the enormous historical range of the material. The second, related challenge emerged from the geographic, linguistic, and evidentiary diversity of the surviving material, which challenged students to acquire a degree of cultural literacy for an entire region and to apply appropriate interpretive tools to different kinds of evidence. To support this learning outcome, students used blog tool to write a final, collaborative project, in which they designed a simulated alumni tour. The course enhanced students' language skills and built critical historical knowledge essential for understanding German‐speaking lands.

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