Simulated response and effects to oil exposure in an estuarine fish species

EPA Science Inventory

Experimental toxicity data alone lack ecological relevance to assess more realistic situations, such as variable exposure to a contaminant and long-term impact. Evaluating the implications of sublethal effects or behavioral response to exposure requires long-term, population-leve...

Habituation/Fatigue behavior of a synapse memristor based on IGZO-HfO2 thin film.

PubMed

Jiang, Ran; Ma, Pengfei; Han, Zuyin; Du, Xianghao

2017-08-24

A synaptic memristor based on IGZO and oxygen-deficient HfO 2 films has been demonstrated. The memristor exhibits a fatigue response to a monotonic stimulus of voltage pulses, which is analogous to the habituation behavior of biological memory. The occurrence of habituation is nearly simultaneous with the transition from short-term memory to long-term memory. The movement and redistribution of oxygen species with the assistance of polarization in HfO 2 layer are responsible for the above results. The observation of habituation behavior proves the potential prospect of memristor on the mimic of biological neuron.

Long-term exposure to noise impairs cortical sound processing and attention control.

PubMed

Kujala, Teija; Shtyrov, Yury; Winkler, Istvan; Saher, Marieke; Tervaniemi, Mari; Sallinen, Mikael; Teder-Sälejärvi, Wolfgang; Alho, Kimmo; Reinikainen, Kalevi; Näätänen, Risto

2004-11-01

Long-term exposure to noise impairs human health, causing pathological changes in the inner ear as well as other anatomical and physiological deficits. Numerous individuals are daily exposed to excessive noise. However, there is a lack of systematic research on the effects of noise on cortical function. Here we report data showing that long-term exposure to noise has a persistent effect on central auditory processing and leads to concurrent behavioral deficits. We found that speech-sound discrimination was impaired in noise-exposed individuals, as indicated by behavioral responses and the mismatch negativity brain response. Furthermore, irrelevant sounds increased the distractibility of the noise-exposed subjects, which was shown by increased interference in task performance and aberrant brain responses. These results demonstrate that long-term exposure to noise has long-lasting detrimental effects on central auditory processing and attention control.

Short-term fluoxetine treatment induces neuroendocrine and behavioral anxiogenic-like responses in adolescent male rats.

PubMed

Gomez, Francisca; Venero, César; Viveros, María-Paz; García-García, Luis

2015-03-01

Fluoxetine (FLX) is prescribed to treat depression and anxiety in adolescent patients. However, FLX has anxiogenic effects during the acute phase of treatment, and caution has been raised due to increased suicidal thinking and behavior. Herein, we sought to study in adolescent (35-day-old) male rats, the effects of short-term FLX treatment (10 mg/kg/day, i.p. for 3-4 days) on hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis activity, serotonin (5-hidroxytriptamine, 5-HT) transporter (SERT) mRNA expression in the dorsal raphe nucleus (DRN), energy balance-related variables and behavioral profiles in the holeboard. Our results revealed that daily FLX administration increased plasma corticosterone (B) concentrations without affecting basal gene expression of corticotrophin releasing hormone in the hypothalamic paraventricular nucleus (PVN) nor of pro-opiomelanocortin in the anterior pituitary. However, FLX had significant effects increasing the mRNA expression of PVN arginine vasopressin (AVP) and reducing SERT mRNA levels in the dorsolateral subdivision of the DRN. In the holeboard, FLX-induced anxiety/emotionality-like behaviors. As expected, FLX treatment was endowed with anorectic effects and reduced body weight gain. Altogether, our study shows that short-term FLX treatment results in physiological, neuroendocrine and behavioral stress-like effects in adolescent male rats. More importantly, considering that the AVP- and 5-HTergic systems: (1) are intimately involved in regulation of the stress response; (2) are regulated by sex hormones and (3) are related to regulation of aggressive behaviors, our results highlight the potential significance of these systems mediating the anxiogenic/emotionality/stress-like responses of adolescent male rats to short-term FLX treatment.

Experimental Traumatic Brain Injury Results in Long-Term Recovery of Functional Responsiveness in Sensory Cortex but Persisting Structural Changes and Sensorimotor, Cognitive, and Emotional Deficits.

PubMed

Johnstone, Victoria P A; Wright, David K; Wong, Kendrew; O'Brien, Terence J; Rajan, Ramesh; Shultz, Sandy R

2015-09-01

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a leading cause of death worldwide. In recent studies, we have shown that experimental TBI caused an immediate (24-h post) suppression of neuronal processing, especially in supragranular cortical layers. We now examine the long-term effects of experimental TBI on the sensory cortex and how these changes may contribute to a range of TBI morbidities. Adult male Sprague-Dawley rats received either a moderate lateral fluid percussion injury (n=14) or a sham surgery (n=12) and 12 weeks of recovery before behavioral assessment, magnetic resonance imaging, and electrophysiological recordings from the barrel cortex. TBI rats demonstrated sensorimotor deficits, cognitive impairments, and anxiety-like behavior, and this was associated with significant atrophy of the barrel cortex and other brain structures. Extracellular recordings from ipsilateral barrel cortex revealed normal neuronal responsiveness and diffusion tensor MRI showed increased fractional anisotropy, axial diffusivity, and tract density within this region. These findings suggest that long-term recovery of neuronal responsiveness is owing to structural reorganization within this region. Therefore, it is likely that long-term structural and functional changes within sensory cortex post-TBI may allow for recovery of neuronal responsiveness, but that this recovery does not remediate all behavioral deficits.

Visual and Cardiac Responses to Animate and Inanimate Faces by Young Term and Preterm Infants.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Field, Tiffany Martini

1979-01-01

Infants' looking and looking-away behaviors, as well as cardiac responses to mothers' spontaneous and imitative faces and to dolls' animated and still faces, were recorded for 18 term and 19 preterm infants when they were three months old. (JMB)

On the role of “memory” in the analysis of behavior

PubMed Central

Branch, Marc N.

1977-01-01

Shimp's (1976) recent paper on memory and the structure of behavior is discussed, as is the concept of memory itself. Radical behaviorism is distinguished from associationism, and behavioral accounts of experiments on short-term and long-term memory are provided. Unobservable theoretical quantities, such as rate of response, are distinguished from theoretical constructs such as memory. The logical inconsistency involved in the use of short-term memory as a “theoretical primitive” in the definition of units of behavior is explicated, and an alternative strategy for identifying units of behavior is presented. It is argued that the experimental analysis of behavior has ignored processes usually considered as memorial because many of the phenomena are irreversible. Methods for the study of transitions in single subjects should be developed more fully. Possible pitfalls associated with subscription to the term memory are listed, and it is concluded that the concept is neither required nor helpful in the analysis of behavior. PMID:16812024

Marked dissociation between hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal activation and long-term behavioral effects in rats exposed to immobilization or cat odor.

PubMed

Muñoz-Abellán, C; Andero, R; Nadal, R; Armario, A

2008-09-01

Exposure of rodents to cats or certain cat odors results in long-term behavioral effects reminiscent of enhanced anxiety that have been considered to model post-traumatic stress disorder. However, other severe stressors such as tail-shock or immobilization in wooden boards (IMO) appear to induce shorter lasting changes in anxiety. In addition, there are controversial results regarding the effects of urine/feces odors. In the present work, we studied in two experiments the relationship between the degree of stress experienced by the animals during exposure to IMO, urine odors or fur odors (as assessed by hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal activation and plasma glucose) and the short- and long-term behavioral consequences. In the first experiment, rats were individually exposed for 15 min to a novel environment (white large cages) containing either clean cat litter (controls) or litter soiled by cats (urine odors). Half of the rats in each condition were left to freely explore the environment whereas the others were subjected to immobilization (IMO) within the cages. Although ACTH, corticosterone and glucose responses to IMO were much stronger than those to the white cages with clean litter or urine odors (which did not differ from each other), no effect of treatments on anxiety-like behavior in the elevated plus-maze (EPM) were found one week later. However, previous IMO exposure did cause sensitization of the ACTH response to the EPM. In the second experiment, the response to white large cages containing either no odor (controls), litter soiled by cats (urine odor) or a cloth impregnated with cat odor (fur odor) was compared. Urine and fur odors elicited similar ACTH and corticosterone responses that were higher than those of controls, but plasma glucose levels were slightly higher in rats exposed to fur odor. When compared to controls, activity was only diminished in the novel cages containing fur odor. Similarly, fur odor-exposed rats, but not those exposed to urine odor, showed signs of enhanced anxiety in the EPM seven days later, although the ACTH response to the EPM was similar in the three groups. The present data demonstrate: (a) a marked dissociation between the degree of ACTH, corticosterone and glucose responses to stressors and their long-term anxiety-like effects; (b) that the type of cat odor is critical in determining the short-term and long-term physiological and behavioral consequences of exposure; and (c) that plasma ACTH released during brief exposure to the EPM does not appear to reflect anxiety-like behavior.

Amphetamine Challenge: A Marker of Brain Function That Mediates Risk for Drug and Alcohol Abuse

DTIC Science & Technology

2011-08-05

sexual behavior, even if the long-term consequences of those behaviors are harmful. In this study the relationship between the response to a stimulant... sexual behavior, even if the long-term consequences may be harmful. When these tendencies occur together, individuals are more likely to try...this characteristic is sometimes associated with poor control. One possibility is that the same neural system—namely, the mesolimbic dopamine system

Does Environmental Enrichment Reduce Stress? An Integrated Measure of Corticosterone from Feathers Provides a Novel Perspective

PubMed Central

Fairhurst, Graham D.; Frey, Matthew D.; Reichert, James F.; Szelest, Izabela; Kelly, Debbie M.; Bortolotti, Gary R.

2011-01-01

Enrichment is widely used as tool for managing fearfulness, undesirable behaviors, and stress in captive animals, and for studying exploration and personality. Inconsistencies in previous studies of physiological and behavioral responses to enrichment led us to hypothesize that enrichment and its removal are stressful environmental changes to which the hormone corticosterone and fearfulness, activity, and exploration behaviors ought to be sensitive. We conducted two experiments with a captive population of wild-caught Clark's nutcrackers (Nucifraga columbiana) to assess responses to short- (10-d) and long-term (3-mo) enrichment, their removal, and the influence of novelty, within the same animal. Variation in an integrated measure of corticosterone from feathers, combined with video recordings of behaviors, suggests that how individuals perceive enrichment and its removal depends on the duration of exposure. Short- and long-term enrichment elicited different physiological responses, with the former acting as a stressor and birds exhibiting acclimation to the latter. Non-novel enrichment evoked the strongest corticosterone responses of all the treatments, suggesting that the second exposure to the same objects acted as a physiological cue, and that acclimation was overridden by negative past experience. Birds showed weak behavioral responses that were not related to corticosterone. By demonstrating that an integrated measure of glucocorticoid physiology varies significantly with changes to enrichment in the absence of agonistic interactions, our study sheds light on potential mechanisms driving physiological and behavioral responses to environmental change. PMID:21412426

Behavior responses of Drunella coloradensis (Ephemeroptera) nymphs to short-term pH reductions

Treesearch

Christopher M. Pennuto; Frank deNoyelles

1993-01-01

Behavioral responses of Drunella coloradensis nymphs were examined in outdoor experimental stream channels after pH reductions of 7 and 2 pH units below ambient. The severity of pH decline below the ambient of 7.8 influenced the behavior patterns displayed by nymphs. At pH 7.01 (an intermediate pH decline) nymphs sat less frequently and burrowed more than controls....

Arousal regulation and affective adaptation to human responsiveness by a robot that explores and learns a novel environment.

PubMed

Hiolle, Antoine; Lewis, Matthew; Cañamero, Lola

2014-01-01

In the context of our work in developmental robotics regarding robot-human caregiver interactions, in this paper we investigate how a "baby" robot that explores and learns novel environments can adapt its affective regulatory behavior of soliciting help from a "caregiver" to the preferences shown by the caregiver in terms of varying responsiveness. We build on two strands of previous work that assessed independently (a) the differences between two "idealized" robot profiles-a "needy" and an "independent" robot-in terms of their use of a caregiver as a means to regulate the "stress" (arousal) produced by the exploration and learning of a novel environment, and (b) the effects on the robot behaviors of two caregiving profiles varying in their responsiveness-"responsive" and "non-responsive"-to the regulatory requests of the robot. Going beyond previous work, in this paper we (a) assess the effects that the varying regulatory behavior of the two robot profiles has on the exploratory and learning patterns of the robots; (b) bring together the two strands previously investigated in isolation and take a step further by endowing the robot with the capability to adapt its regulatory behavior along the "needy" and "independent" axis as a function of the varying responsiveness of the caregiver; and (c) analyze the effects that the varying regulatory behavior has on the exploratory and learning patterns of the adaptive robot.

The effects of short-term and long-term learning on the responses of lateral intraparietal neurons to visually presented objects.

PubMed

Sigurdardottir, Heida M; Sheinberg, David L

2015-07-01

The lateral intraparietal area (LIP) is thought to play an important role in the guidance of where to look and pay attention. LIP can also respond selectively to differently shaped objects. We sought to understand to what extent short-term and long-term experience with visual orienting determines the responses of LIP to objects of different shapes. We taught monkeys to arbitrarily associate centrally presented objects of various shapes with orienting either toward or away from a preferred spatial location of a neuron. The training could last for less than a single day or for several months. We found that neural responses to objects are affected by such experience, but that the length of the learning period determines how this neural plasticity manifests. Short-term learning affects neural responses to objects, but these effects are only seen relatively late after visual onset; at this time, the responses to newly learned objects resemble those of familiar objects that share their meaning or arbitrary association. Long-term learning affects the earliest bottom-up responses to visual objects. These responses tend to be greater for objects that have been associated with looking toward, rather than away from, LIP neurons' preferred spatial locations. Responses to objects can nonetheless be distinct, although they have been similarly acted on in the past and will lead to the same orienting behavior in the future. Our results therefore indicate that a complete experience-driven override of LIP object responses may be difficult or impossible. We relate these results to behavioral work on visual attention.

Long-Term Viscoelastic Response of E-glass/Bismaleimide Composite in Seawater Environment

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Yian, Zhao; Zhiying, Wang; Keey, Seah Leong; Boay, Chai Gin

2015-12-01

The effect of seawater absorption on the long-term viscoelastic response of E-glass/BMI composite is presented in this paper. The diffusion of seawater into the composite shows a two-stage behavior, dominated by Fickian diffusion initially and followed by polymeric relaxation. The Glass transition temperature (Tg) of the composite with seawater absorption is considerably lowered due to the plasticization effect. However the effect of water absorption at 50 °C is found to be reversible after drying process. The time-temperature superposition (TTS) was performed based on the results of Dynamic Mechanical Analysis to construct the master curve of storage modulus. The shift factors exhibit Arrhenius behavior when temperature is well below Tg and Vogel-Fulcher-Tammann (VFT) like behavior when temperature gets close to glass transition region. As a result, a semi-empirical formulation is proposed to account for the seawater absorption effect in predicting long-term viscoelastic response of BMI composites based on temperature dependent storage modulus and TTS. The predicted master curves show that the degradation of storage modulus accelerates with both seawater exposure and increasing temperature. The proposed formulation can be applied to predict the long-term durability of any thermorheologically simple composite materials in seawater environment.

Social responsibility, substance use, and sexual risk behavior in men who have sex with men.

PubMed

Martin, Aaron M; Benotsch, Eric G; Cejka, Anna; Luckman, Diana

2014-01-01

Considerable public health literature focuses on relationships between problematic human characteristics (e.g., psychopathology) and unhealthy behaviors. A recent movement termed positive psychology emphasizes the advantages of assessing relationships between human strengths (e.g., altruism) and beneficial health behaviors. The present study assessed social responsibility, an orientation to help or protect others even when there is nothing to be gained as an individual, and its relationship to HIV-relevant behaviors. In our sample of 350 men who have sex with men (MSM), social responsibility was negatively correlated with substance use and HIV risk behaviors. Men who had been tested for HIV and knew their HIV status-a behavior that helps men protect their partners but does not protect themselves from the virus-also scored higher in social responsibility. Interventions designed to reduce HIV risk behavior in MSM may benefit from efforts to promote human strengths.

Disruptive Student Behavior in the Classroom. What Research Says to the Teacher. Second Edition.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Swick, Kevin J.

The purpose of this research report is to explore practices that teachers can use to respond to behavior problems in their classes. Preliminary discussion focuses on understanding the context of student behavior and identifying student behavior problems early. Positive responses to student behavior problems are discussed in terms of the following…

Short term total sleep deprivation in the rat increases antioxidant responses in multiple brain regions without impairing spontaneous alternation behavior

PubMed Central

Ramanathan, Lalini; Hu, Shuxin; Frautschy, Sally A.; Siegel, Jerome M.

2009-01-01

Total sleep deprivation (TSD) induces a broad spectrum of cognitive, behavioral and cellular changes. We previously reported that long term (5–11 days) TSD in the rat, by the disk-over-water method, decreases the activity of the antioxidant enzyme superoxide dismutase (SOD) in the brainstem and hippocampus. To gain insight into the mechanisms causing cognitive impairment, here we explore the early associations between metabolic activity, antioxidant responses and working memory (one form of cognitive impairment). Specifically we investigated the impact of short term (6 h) TSD, by gentle handling, on the levels of the endogenous antioxidant, total glutathione (GSHt), and the activities of the antioxidative enzymes, SOD and glutathione peroxidase (GPx). Short term TSD had no significant impact on SOD activity, but increased GSHt levels in the rat cortex, brainstem and basal forebrain, and GPx activity in the rat hippocampus and cerebellum. We also observed increased activity of hexokinase, (HK), the rate limiting enzyme of glucose metabolism, in the rat cortex and hypothalamus. We further showed that 6h of TSD leads to increased exploratory behavior to a new environment, without impairing spontaneous alternation behavior (SAB) in the Y maze. We conclude that acute (6h) sleep loss may trigger compensatory mechanisms (like increased antioxidant responses) that prevent initial deterioration in working memory. PMID:19850085

Neuroscience of opiates for addiction medicine: From stress-responsive systems to behavior.

PubMed

Zhou, Yan; Leri, Francesco

2016-01-01

Opiate addiction, similarly to addiction to other psychoactive drugs, is chronic relapsing brain disease caused by drug-induced short-term and long-term neuroadaptations at the molecular, cellular, and behavioral levels. Preclinical research in laboratory animals has found important interactions between opiate exposure and stress-responsive systems. In this review, we will discuss the dysregulation of several stress-responsive systems in opiate addiction: vasopressin and its receptor system, endogenous opioid systems (including proopiomelanocortin/mu opioid receptor and dynorphin/kappa opioid receptor), orexin and its receptor system, and the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis. A more complete understanding of how opiates alter these stress systems, through further laboratory-based studies, is required to identify novel and effective pharmacological targets for the long-term treatment of heroin addiction. © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Sexual odor discrimination and physiological profiles in adult male rats after a neonatal, short term, reversible nasal obstruction.

PubMed

Thornton, S N; Padzys, G S; Trabalon, M

2014-05-01

The present study was designed to examine behavioral responses (interpreted as preferences) to olfactory cues (nest bedding odor and odors of estrous and anestrus females) in adult male rats after they had a short term reversible, bilateral, nasal obstruction (RbNO) as developing rat pups. These results were compared to behavior of control (untreated) and sham operated male littermates. Behavioral tests and physiological parameters were analyzed 90 days after recovery of nasal breathing. Experiments investigated the time spent in arms or the center of a maze of male rats in response to odors from the nest bedding or from adult females. There were no differences in responses between untreated, sham and RbNO adult male rats to fresh and nest bedding odors. RbNO males spent more time in the center of the maze when given a choice of estrus or anestrus female odors, or bedding odors from untreated or sham operated female rats. In contrast untreated and sham male rats preferred the odors of estrous females and of untreated or sham females. Plasma corticosterone levels in the males increased during the behavioral tests. Plasma testosterone levels were significantly lower in RbNO males compared to untreated males and did not increase during the behavioral tests compared to sham operated males. Males from all groups had similar preferences for the odor of bedding from adult RbNO females. Plasma levels of cholesterol and triglycerides were increased in RbNO adults. In conclusion, short term nasal obstruction in males while juvenile has long term consequences on hormones and behavioral preferences, thus potential partner selection when adult. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Separation, Motivation, and Depression: Neonatal Isolation Reduces Food-Rewarded Operant Responding in Rats

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Zellner, Margaret R.; Ranaldi, Robert

2006-01-01

One symptom of depression is loss of motivation, which can be defined as responsiveness to response-eliciting stimuli and quantified as reward-related behavioral output. Long-term changes in reward-related behavior have been shown to follow early life stress. Most rodent studies investigating the effects of postnatal separation, an early stress,…

The effectiveness of experiential environmental education: O'Neill Sea Odyssey program case study

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hanneman, Lauren E.

Environmental education programs aim to develop participant awareness, sensitivity, and understanding of their affective relationship to the natural environment through conceptual knowledge and personal experiences. Previous findings have suggested that participation in environmental education programs leads to short-term positive increases in environmental knowledge, pro-environmental attitudes, and intentions to act in environmentally responsible behaviors; however, few studies have included long-term, follow-up assessment. This research provided an analysis of the effectiveness of the O'Neill Sea Odyssey (OSO) education program in fostering a long-term awareness of personal responsibility about ocean pollution among student participants. A survey administered to 261 students from the greater San Francisco Bay Area in California was used to explore 7th through 10 th grade students' conceptions about the connection between ocean pollution and stewardship behaviors. The study revealed that 75% of 86 former OSO participants retained a high level of awareness of the connection between non-point source pollution and personal behaviors two to five years after the program, regardless of differences in sex, language, grade level, and community setting. These results indicate that OSO participants retained a long-term conceptual awareness about environmental stewardship behaviors taught during the OSO program.

Role of phosphoinositide 3-kinase in ischemic postconditioning-induced attenuation of cerebral ischemia-evoked behavioral deficits in mice.

PubMed

Rehni, Ashish K; Singh, Nirmal

2007-01-01

The present study has been designed to pharmacologically investigate the role of phosphoinositide 3-kinase in ischemic postconditioning-induced reversal of global cerebral ischemia and reperfusion-induced behavioral dysfunction in mice. Bilateral carotid artery occlusion for 10 min followed by reperfusion for 24 h was employed in the present study to produce ischemia and reperfusion-induced cerebral injury in mice. Short-term memory was evaluated using the elevated plus maze test. The inclined beam walking test was employed to assess motor incoordination. Bilateral carotid artery occlusion followed by reperfusion produced impaired short-term memory, motor co-ordination and lateral push response. Three episodes of carotid artery occlusion for a period of 10 s and reperfusion of 10 s (ischemic postconditioning) significantly prevented ischemia-reperfusion-induced behavioral deficit measured in terms of loss of short-term memory, motor coordination and lateral push response. Wortmannin (2 mg/kg, iv), a phosphoinositide 3-kinase inhibitor given 10 min before ischemia attenuated the beneficial effects of ischemic postconditioning. It may be concluded that beneficial effects of ischemic postconditioning on global cerebral ischemia and reperfusion-induced behavioral deficits may involve activation of phosphoinositide 3-kinase-linked pathway.

Frontal Theta Dynamics during Response Conflict in Long-Term Mindfulness Meditators

PubMed Central

Jo, Han-Gue; Malinowski, Peter; Schmidt, Stefan

2017-01-01

Mindfulness meditators often show greater efficiency in resolving response conflicts than non-meditators. However, the neural mechanisms underlying the improved behavioral efficiency are unclear. Here, we investigated frontal theta dynamics—a neural mechanism involved in cognitive control processes—in long-term mindfulness meditators. The dynamics of EEG theta oscillations (4–8 Hz) recorded over the medial frontal cortex (MFC) were examined in terms of their power (MFC theta power) and their functional connectivity with other brain areas (the MFC-centered theta network). Using a flanker-type paradigm, EEG data were obtained from 22 long-term mindfulness meditators and compared to those from 23 matched controls without meditation experience. Meditators showed more efficient cognitive control after conflicts, evidenced by fewer error responses irrespective of response timing. Furthermore, meditators exhibited enhanced conflict modulations of the MFC-centered theta network shortly before the response, in particular for the functional connection between the MFC and the motor cortex. In contrast, MFC theta power was comparable between groups. These results suggest that the higher behavioral efficiency after conflicts in mindfulness meditators could be a function of increased engagement to control the motor system in association with the MFC-centered theta network. PMID:28638334

Long-Term Habituation of the C-Start Escape Response in Zebrafish Larvae

PubMed Central

Roberts, Adam C.; Pearce, Kaycey C.; Choe, Ronny C.; Alzagatiti, Joseph B.; Yeung, Anthony K.; Bill, Brent R.; Glanzman, David L.

2016-01-01

The cellular and molecular basis of long-term memory in vertebrates remains poorly understood. Knowledge regarding long-term memory has been impeded by the enormous complexity of the vertebrate brain, particularly the mammalian brain, as well as by the relative complexity of the behavioral alterations examined in most studies of long-term memory in vertebrates. Here, we demonstrate a long-term form of nonassociative learning—specifically, long-term habituation (LTH)—of a simple reflexive escape response, the C-start, in zebrafish larvae. The C-start is triggered by the activation of one of a pair of giant neurons in the zebrafish’s hindbrain, the Mauthner cells. We show that LTH of the C-start requires the activity of NMDA receptors and involves macromolecular synthesis. We further show that the long-term habituated reflex can by rapidly dishabituated by a brief tactile stimulus. Our results set the stage for rigorous, mechanistic investigations of the long-term memory for habituation of a reflexive behavioral response, one that is mediated by a relatively simple, neurobiologically tractable, neural circuit. Moreover, the demonstration of NMDAR and transcriptionally dependent LTH in a translucent vertebrate organism should facilitate the use of optical recording, and optogenetic manipulation, of neuronal activity to elucidate the cellular basis of a long-term vertebrate memory. PMID:27555232

Field evidence for pervasive indirect effects of fishing on prey foraging behavior.

PubMed

Madin, Elizabeth M P; Gaines, Steven D; Warner, Robert R

2010-12-01

The indirect, ecosystem-level consequences of ocean fishing, and particularly the mechanisms driving them, are poorly understood. Most studies focus on density-mediated trophic cascades, where removal of predators alternately causes increases and decreases in abundances of lower trophic levels. However, cascades could also be driven by where and when prey forage rather than solely by prey abundance. Over a large gradient of fishing intensity in the central Pacific's remote northern Line Islands, including a nearly pristine, baseline coral reef system, we found that changes in predation risk elicit strong behavioral responses in foraging patterns across multiple prey fish species. These responses were observed as a function of both short-term ("acute") risk and longer-term ("chronic") risk, as well as when prey were exposed to model predators to isolate the effect of perceived predation risk from other potentially confounding factors. Compared to numerical prey responses, antipredator behavioral responses such as these can potentially have far greater net impacts (by occurring over entire assemblages) and operate over shorter temporal scales (with potentially instantaneous response times) in transmitting top-down effects. A rich body of literature exists on both the direct effects of human removal of predators from ecosystems and predators' effects on prey behavior. Our results draw together these lines of research and provide the first empirical evidence that large-scale human removal of predators from a natural ecosystem indirectly alters prey behavior. These behavioral changes may, in turn, drive previously unsuspected alterations in reef food webs.

Presynaptic learning and memory with a persistent firing neuron and a habituating synapse: a model of short term persistent habituation.

PubMed

Ramanathan, Kiruthika; Ning, Ning; Dhanasekar, Dhiviya; Li, Guoqi; Shi, Luping; Vadakkepat, Prahlad

2012-08-01

Our paper explores the interaction of persistent firing axonal and presynaptic processes in the generation of short term memory for habituation. We first propose a model of a sensory neuron whose axon is able to switch between passive conduction and persistent firing states, thereby triggering short term retention to the stimulus. Then we propose a model of a habituating synapse and explore all nine of the behavioral characteristics of short term habituation in a two neuron circuit. We couple the persistent firing neuron to the habituation synapse and investigate the behavior of short term retention of habituating response. Simulations show that, depending on the amount of synaptic resources, persistent firing either results in continued habituation or maintains the response, both leading to longer recovery times. The effectiveness of the model as an element in a bio-inspired memory system is discussed.

Sustained Cortical and Subcortical Measures of Auditory and Visual Plasticity following Short-Term Perceptual Learning.

PubMed

Lau, Bonnie K; Ruggles, Dorea R; Katyal, Sucharit; Engel, Stephen A; Oxenham, Andrew J

2017-01-01

Short-term training can lead to improvements in behavioral discrimination of auditory and visual stimuli, as well as enhanced EEG responses to those stimuli. In the auditory domain, fluency with tonal languages and musical training has been associated with long-term cortical and subcortical plasticity, but less is known about the effects of shorter-term training. This study combined electroencephalography (EEG) and behavioral measures to investigate short-term learning and neural plasticity in both auditory and visual domains. Forty adult participants were divided into four groups. Three groups trained on one of three tasks, involving discrimination of auditory fundamental frequency (F0), auditory amplitude modulation rate (AM), or visual orientation (VIS). The fourth (control) group received no training. Pre- and post-training tests, as well as retention tests 30 days after training, involved behavioral discrimination thresholds, steady-state visually evoked potentials (SSVEP) to the flicker frequencies of visual stimuli, and auditory envelope-following responses simultaneously evoked and measured in response to rapid stimulus F0 (EFR), thought to reflect subcortical generators, and slow amplitude modulation (ASSR), thought to reflect cortical generators. Enhancement of the ASSR was observed in both auditory-trained groups, not specific to the AM-trained group, whereas enhancement of the SSVEP was found only in the visually-trained group. No evidence was found for changes in the EFR. The results suggest that some aspects of neural plasticity can develop rapidly and may generalize across tasks but not across modalities. Behaviorally, the pattern of learning was complex, with significant cross-task and cross-modal learning effects.

Sustained Cortical and Subcortical Measures of Auditory and Visual Plasticity following Short-Term Perceptual Learning

PubMed Central

Katyal, Sucharit; Engel, Stephen A.; Oxenham, Andrew J.

2017-01-01

Short-term training can lead to improvements in behavioral discrimination of auditory and visual stimuli, as well as enhanced EEG responses to those stimuli. In the auditory domain, fluency with tonal languages and musical training has been associated with long-term cortical and subcortical plasticity, but less is known about the effects of shorter-term training. This study combined electroencephalography (EEG) and behavioral measures to investigate short-term learning and neural plasticity in both auditory and visual domains. Forty adult participants were divided into four groups. Three groups trained on one of three tasks, involving discrimination of auditory fundamental frequency (F0), auditory amplitude modulation rate (AM), or visual orientation (VIS). The fourth (control) group received no training. Pre- and post-training tests, as well as retention tests 30 days after training, involved behavioral discrimination thresholds, steady-state visually evoked potentials (SSVEP) to the flicker frequencies of visual stimuli, and auditory envelope-following responses simultaneously evoked and measured in response to rapid stimulus F0 (EFR), thought to reflect subcortical generators, and slow amplitude modulation (ASSR), thought to reflect cortical generators. Enhancement of the ASSR was observed in both auditory-trained groups, not specific to the AM-trained group, whereas enhancement of the SSVEP was found only in the visually-trained group. No evidence was found for changes in the EFR. The results suggest that some aspects of neural plasticity can develop rapidly and may generalize across tasks but not across modalities. Behaviorally, the pattern of learning was complex, with significant cross-task and cross-modal learning effects. PMID:28107359

Effects of hemisphere speech dominance and seizure focus on patterns of behavioral response errors for three types of stimuli.

PubMed

Rausch, R; MacDonald, K

1997-03-01

We used a protocol consisting of a continuous presentation of stimuli with associated response requests during an intracarotid sodium amobarbital procedure (IAP) to study the effects of hemisphere injected (speech dominant vs. nondominant) and seizure focus (left temporal lobe vs. right temporal lobe) on the pattern of behavioral response errors for three types of visual stimuli (pictures of common objects, words, and abstract forms). Injection of the left speech dominant hemisphere compared to the right nondominant hemisphere increased overall errors and affected the pattern of behavioral errors. The presence of a seizure focus in the contralateral hemisphere increased overall errors, particularly for the right temporal lobe seizure patients, but did not affect the pattern of behavioral errors. Left hemisphere injections disrupted both naming and reading responses at a rate similar to that of matching-to-sample performance. Also, a short-term memory deficit was observed with all three stimuli. Long-term memory testing following the left hemisphere injection indicated that only for pictures of common objects were there fewer errors during the early postinjection period than for the later long-term memory testing. Therefore, despite the inability to respond to picture stimuli, picture items, but not words or forms, could be sufficiently encoded for later recall. In contrast, right hemisphere injections resulted in few errors, with a pattern suggesting a mild general cognitive decrease. A selective weakness in learning unfamiliar forms was found. Our findings indicate that different patterns of behavioral deficits occur following the left vs. right hemisphere injections, with selective patterns specific to stimulus type.

Effects of physical aging on long-term creep of polymers and polymer matrix composites

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Brinson, L. Catherine; Gates, Thomas S.

1994-01-01

For many polymeric materials in use below the glass transition temperature, the long term viscoelastic behavior is greatly affected by physical aging. To use polymer matrix composites as critical structural components in existing and novel technological applications, this long term behavior of the material system must be understood. Towards that end, this study applied the concepts governing the mechanics of physical aging in a consistent manner to the study of laminated composite systems. Even in fiber-dominated lay-ups the effects of physical aging are found to be important in the long-term behavior of the composite. The basic concepts describing physical aging of polymers are discussed. Several aspects of physical aging which have not been previously documented are also explored in this study, namely the effects of aging into equilibrium and a relationship to the time-temperature shift factor. The physical aging theory is then extended to develop the long-term compliance/modulus of a single lamina with varying fiber orientation. The latter is then built into classical lamination theory to predict long-time response of general oriented lamina and laminates. It is illustrated that the long term response can be counterintuitive, stressing the need for consistent modeling efforts to make long term predictions of laminates to be used in structural situations.

Altruistic Behavior among College Students: An Investigation of the Social and Psychological Characteristics of Blood Donors.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Leonard, Wilbert Marcellus, II

The document describes a field study to investigate the relationship between altruism and blood donating behavior among members of a large midwestern college community. Altruistic behavior is interpreted as combining three motivations: (1) reward-cost, also referred to in terms of behavior as social exchange; (2) social responsibility and…

Severity of killer whale behavioral responses to ship noise: a dose-response study.

PubMed

Williams, Rob; Erbe, Christine; Ashe, Erin; Beerman, Amber; Smith, Jodi

2014-02-15

Critical habitats of at-risk populations of northeast Pacific "resident" killer whales can be heavily trafficked by large ships, with transits occurring on average once every hour in busy shipping lanes. We modeled behavioral responses of killer whales to ship transits during 35 "natural experiments" as a dose-response function of estimated received noise levels in both broadband and audiogram-weighted terms. Interpreting effects is contingent on a subjective and seemingly arbitrary decision about severity threshold indicating a response. Subtle responses were observed around broadband received levels of 130 dB re 1 μPa (rms); more severe responses are hypothesized to occur at received levels beyond 150 dB re 1 μPa, where our study lacked data. Avoidance responses are expected to carry minor energetic costs in terms of increased energy expenditure, but future research must assess the potential for reduced prey acquisition, and potential population consequences, under these noise levels. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Spatial performance correlates with in vitro potentiation in young and aged Fischer 344 rats.

PubMed

Deupree, D L; Turner, D A; Watters, C L

1991-07-19

Young adult (2-4 months old) and aged (24-26 months old) Fischer 344 (F344) rats were trained for spatial behavior (locating a hidden escape platform) in a circular water maze. The aged rats showed deficits in both the acquisition and retention of the learned response. Following the behavioral training, hippocampal slices from the rats were prepared. Potentiation of CA1 extracellular, somatic field potentials was studied in vitro following either a short stimulus train (4 pulses) or a longer train (50 pulses). Slices from the aged rats showed less short-term potentiation (124.8 +/- 4.9% baseline, mean +/- S.E.M.) at 1 min following the short train in comparison to slices from the young rats (151.8 +/- 7.5%, P less than 0.05). However, following the longer train, no differences were found between the groups in the degree of either short-term (measured at 1 min after stimulation) or long-term potentiation (measured at 60 min). The amount of potentiation seen at various time points after either train correlated with the behavioral measure of retention. These results indicate that F344 rats exhibit age-related behavioral deficits, and age-related synaptic potentiation deficits in response to short stimulation trains. The correlation between the degree of potentiation (both short-term and long-term) and retention of a behavioral task adds strength to the hypothesis that potentiation mechanisms may underlie memory processes.

Distinguishing between learning and motivation in behavioral tests of the reinforcement sensitivity theory of personality.

PubMed

Smillie, Luke D; Dalgleish, Len I; Jackson, Chris J

2007-04-01

According to Gray's (1973) Reinforcement Sensitivity Theory (RST), a Behavioral Inhibition System (BIS) and a Behavioral Activation System (BAS) mediate effects of goal conflict and reward on behavior. BIS functioning has been linked with individual differences in trait anxiety and BAS functioning with individual differences in trait impulsivity. In this article, it is argued that behavioral outputs of the BIS and BAS can be distinguished in terms of learning and motivation processes and that these can be operationalized using the Signal Detection Theory measures of response-sensitivity and response-bias. In Experiment 1, two measures of BIS-reactivity predicted increased response-sensitivity under goal conflict, whereas one measure of BAS-reactivity predicted increased response-sensitivity under reward. In Experiment 2, two measures of BIS-reactivity predicted response-bias under goal conflict, whereas a measure of BAS-reactivity predicted motivation response-bias under reward. In both experiments, impulsivity measures did not predict criteria for BAS-reactivity as traditionally predicted by RST.

Testing a bioenergetics-based habitat choice model: bluegill (Lepomis macrochirus) responses to food availability and temperature

USGS Publications Warehouse

2011-01-01

Using an automated shuttlebox system, we conducted patch choice experiments with 32, 8–12 g bluegill sunfish (Lepomis macrochirus) to test a behavioral energetics hypothesis of habitat choice. When patch temperature and food levels were held constant within patches but different between patches, we expected bluegill to choose patches that maximized growth based on the bioenergetic integration of food and temperature as predicted by a bioenergetics model. Alternative hypotheses were that bluegill may choose patches based only on food (optimal foraging) or temperature (behavioral thermoregulation). The behavioral energetics hypothesis was not a good predictor of short-term (from minutes to weeks) patch choice by bluegill; the behavioral thermoregulation hypothesis was the best predictor. In the short-term, food and temperature appeared to affect patch choice hierarchically; temperature was more important, although food can alter temperature preference during feeding periods. Over a 19-d experiment, mean temperatures occupied by fish offered low rations did decline as predicted by the behavioral energetics hypothesis, but the decline was less than 1.0 °C as opposed to a possible 5 °C decline. A short-term, bioenergetic response to food and temperature may be precluded by physiological costs of acclimation not considered explicitly in the behavioral energetics hypothesis.

Response to Nadler's Commentary on Arch and Craske's (2011) "Addressing Relapse in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Panic Disorder: Methods for Optimizing Long-Term Treatment Outcomes"

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Arch, Joanna J.; Craske, Michelle G.

2012-01-01

Nadler (this issue), in his commentary of our article, "Addressing Relapse in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Panic Disorder: Methods for Optimizing Long-Term Treatment Outcomes" (Arch & Craske, 2011), argues that we misrepresent the role of panic attacks within learning theory and overlook cognitive treatment targets. He presents several case…

Nonlinear response and avalanche behavior in metallic glasses

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Riechers, B.; Samwer, K.

2017-08-01

The response to different stress amplitudes at temperatures below the glass transition temperature is analyzed by mechanical oscillatory excitation of Pd40Ni40P20 metallic glass samples in single cantilever bending geometry. While low amplitude oscillatory excitations are commonly used in mechanical spectroscopy to probe the relaxation spectrum, in this work the response to comparably high amplitudes is investigated. The strain response of the material is well below the critical yield stress even for highest stress amplitudes, implying the expectation of a linear relation between stress and strain according to Hooke's Law. However, a deviation from the linear behavior is evident, which is analyzed in terms of temperature dependence and influence of the applied stress amplitude by two different approaches of evaluation. The nonlinear approach is based on a nonlinear expansion of the stress-strain-relation, assuming an intrinsic nonlinear character of the shear or elastic modulus. The degree of nonlinearity is extracted by a period-by-period Fourier-analysis and connected to nonlinear coefficients, describing the intensity of nonlinearity at the fundamental and higher harmonic frequencies. The characteristic timescale to adapt to a significant change in stress amplitude in terms of a recovery timescale to a steady state value is connected to the structural relaxation time of the material, suggesting a connection between the observed nonlinearity and primary relaxation processes. The second approach of evaluation is termed the incremental analysis and relates the observed response behavior to avalanches, which occur due to the activation and correlation of local microstructural rearrangements. These rearrangements are connected with shear transformation zones and correspond to localized plastic events, which are superimposed on the linear response behavior of the material.

Is outcome responsibility at work emotionally exhausting? Investigating employee proactivity as a moderator.

PubMed

Schmitt, Antje; Den Hartog, Deanne N; Belschak, Frank D

2015-10-01

This study investigates the relationship between outcome responsibility and employees' well-being in terms of emotional exhaustion. Outcome responsibility is a job demand implying that employees' decisions at work have high material and/or nonmaterial consequences. Previous research indicates that outcome responsibility can have both positive and negative effects on employee well-being. Based on the person-job fit approach we hypothesize that whether or not outcome responsibility is positively or negatively related to emotional exhaustion depends on whether employees' behavioral style fits with this job demand. We investigate the role of proactive behavior as a personal resource that fits with high responsibility. We test our hypothesis in a multisource study among 138 employee-colleague dyads. Results of hierarchical moderated regression analysis reveal that peer-rated proactive behavior moderates the relationship between outcome responsibility and emotional exhaustion, such that the relationship is negative for employees showing high and nonsignificant for employees showing low proactivity. This finding holds also when controlling for trait positive and negative affect. The current study contributes to previous research on job design, proactivity, and occupational well-being and offers practical implications in terms of selection and training of employees for jobs high in outcome responsibility. (c) 2015 APA, all rights reserved).

Serum Response Factor (SRF) Ablation Interferes with Acute Stress-Associated Immediate and Long-Term Coping Mechanisms.

PubMed

Zimprich, Annemarie; Mroz, Gabi; Meyer Zu Reckendorf, Christopher; Anastasiadou, Sofia; Förstner, Philip; Garrett, Lillian; Hölter, Sabine M; Becker, Lore; Rozman, Jan; Prehn, Cornelia; Rathkolb, Birgit; Moreth, Kristin; Wurst, Wolfgang; Klopstock, Thomas; Klingenspor, Martin; Adamski, Jerzy; Wolf, Eckhard; Bekeredjian, Raffi; Fuchs, Helmut; Gailus-Durner, Valerie; de Angelis, Martin Hrabe; Knöll, Bernd

2017-12-01

Stress experience modulates behavior, metabolism, and energy expenditure of organisms. One molecular hallmark of an acute stress response is a rapid induction of immediate early genes (IEGs) such as c-Fos and Egr family members. IEG transcription in neurons is mediated by the neuronal activity-driven gene regulator serum response factor (SRF). We show a first role of SRF in immediate and long-lasting acute restraint stress (AS) responses. For this, we employed a standardized mouse phenotyping protocol at the German Mouse Clinic (GMC) including behavioral, metabolic, and cardiologic tests as well as gene expression profiling to analyze the consequences of forebrain-specific SRF deletion in mice exposed to AS. Adult mice with an SRF deletion in glutamatergic neurons (Srf; CaMKIIa-CreERT2 ) showed hyperactivity, decreased anxiety, and impaired working memory. In response to restraint AS, instant stress reactivity including locomotor behavior and corticosterone induction was impaired in Srf mutant mice. Interestingly, even several weeks after previous AS exposure, SRF-deficient mice showed long-lasting AS-associated changes including altered locomotion, metabolism, energy expenditure, and cardiovascular changes. This suggests a requirement of SRF for mediating long-term stress coping mechanisms in wild-type mice. SRF ablation decreased AS-mediated IEG induction and activity of the actin severing protein cofilin. In summary, our data suggest an SRF function in immediate AS reactions and long-term post-stress-associated coping mechanisms.

Maternal behavior and infant physiology during feeding in premature and term infants over the first year of life.

PubMed

Weber, Ashley M; Harrison, Tondi M

2014-12-01

Little is known about the relationship between maternal behavior and the stability of premature infants' physiologic responses during feeding. In a secondary data analysis, we examined relationships between quality of maternal behavior and cardiorespiratory physiology during feeding in 61 premature and 53 term infants at four times over the first year of life. Measures included heart rate (HR), respiratory rate (RR), and oxygen saturation; Child Feeding Skills Checklist; and Parent-Child Early Relational Assessment. Birthweight, gestational age, and neurodevelopmental risk were covariates. Quality of maternal behavior did not predict infants' physiologic response to feeding. However, birthweight was related to infant feeding physiology among all infants over the first year of life. Stress during fetal life, which may lead to impaired intrauterine growth and low birthweight, may have longitudinal effects on cardiorespiratory functioning of premature infants. Research is needed to further investigate the biological pathways by which maternal-infant interaction supports behavioral and physiologic feeding outcomes of premature infants. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

A behavior-analytic critique of Bandura's self-efficacy theory

PubMed Central

Biglan, Anthony

1987-01-01

A behavior-analytic critique of self-efficacy theory is presented. Self-efficacy theory asserts that efficacy expectations determine approach behavior and physiological arousal of phobics as well as numerous other clinically important behaviors. Evidence which is purported to support this assertion is reviewed. The evidence consists of correlations between self-efficacy ratings and other behaviors. Such response-response relationships do not unequivocally establish that one response causes another. A behavior-analytic alternative to self-efficacy theory explains these relationships in terms of environmental events. Correlations between self-efficacy rating behavior and other behavior may be due to the contingencies of reinforcement that establish a correspondence between such verbal predictions and the behavior to which they refer. Such a behavior-analytic account does not deny any of the empirical relationships presented in support of self-efficacy theory, but it points to environmental variables that could account for those relationships and that could be manipulated in the interest of developing more effective treatment procedures. PMID:22477956

Predicting long-term outcome of Internet-delivered cognitive behavior therapy for social anxiety disorder using fMRI and support vector machine learning.

PubMed

Månsson, K N T; Frick, A; Boraxbekk, C-J; Marquand, A F; Williams, S C R; Carlbring, P; Andersson, G; Furmark, T

2015-03-17

Cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) is an effective treatment for social anxiety disorder (SAD), but many patients do not respond sufficiently and a substantial proportion relapse after treatment has ended. Predicting an individual's long-term clinical response therefore remains an important challenge. This study aimed at assessing neural predictors of long-term treatment outcome in participants with SAD 1 year after completion of Internet-delivered CBT (iCBT). Twenty-six participants diagnosed with SAD underwent iCBT including attention bias modification for a total of 13 weeks. Support vector machines (SVMs), a supervised pattern recognition method allowing predictions at the individual level, were trained to separate long-term treatment responders from nonresponders based on blood oxygen level-dependent (BOLD) responses to self-referential criticism. The Clinical Global Impression-Improvement scale was the main instrument to determine treatment response at the 1-year follow-up. Results showed that the proportion of long-term responders was 52% (12/23). From multivariate BOLD responses in the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC) together with the amygdala, we were able to predict long-term response rate of iCBT with an accuracy of 92% (confidence interval 95% 73.2-97.6). This activation pattern was, however, not predictive of improvement in the continuous Liebowitz Social Anxiety Scale-Self-report version. Follow-up psychophysiological interaction analyses revealed that lower dACC-amygdala coupling was associated with better long-term treatment response. Thus, BOLD response patterns in the fear-expressing dACC-amygdala regions were highly predictive of long-term treatment outcome of iCBT, and the initial coupling between these regions differentiated long-term responders from nonresponders. The SVM-neuroimaging approach could be of particular clinical value as it allows for accurate prediction of treatment outcome at the level of the individual.

Correctional Officers and Workplace Adversity: Identifying Interpersonal, Cognitive, and Behavioral Response Tendencies.

PubMed

Trounson, Justin S; Pfeifer, Jeffrey E

2017-10-01

This study explored correctional officers' response tendencies (i.e., cognitive, interpersonal, and behavioral response patterns they engage in) when managing workplace adversity. In total, 53 Australian correctional officers participated in the study. Eight exploratory focus group discussions ( n = 42) were conducted to identify a set of officer-endorsed response tendencies. Thematic analysis of group data revealed that correctional officers engage in a range of response tendencies when facing workplace adversity and that these tendencies may be categorized as interpersonally, cognitively, or behaviorally based. Semistructured interviews ( n = 11) were then conducted to provide further depth of information regarding officer response tendency usage. Results are discussed in terms of common themes, future research, and implications for developing training programs designed to ameliorate the effects of workplace adversity.

Use of acoustic tools to reveal otherwise cryptic responses of forest elephants to oil exploration.

PubMed

Wrege, Peter H; Rowland, Elizabeth D; Thompson, Bruce G; Batruch, Nikolas

2010-12-01

Most evaluations of the effects of human activities on wild animals have focused on estimating changes in abundance and distribution of threatened species; however, ecosystem disturbances also affect aspects of animal behavior such as short-term movement, activity budgets, and reproduction. It may take a long time for changes in behavior to manifest as changes in abundance or distribution. Therefore, it is important to have methods with which to detect short-term behavioral responses to human activity. We used continuous acoustic and seismic monitoring to evaluate the short-term effects of seismic prospecting for oil on forest elephants (Loxodonta cyclotis) in Gabon, Central Africa. We monitored changes in elephant abundance and activity as a function of the frequency and intensity of acoustic and seismic signals from dynamite detonation and human activity. Elephants did not flee the area being explored; the relative number of elephants increased in a seasonal pattern typical of elsewhere in the ecosystem. In the exploration area, however, they became more nocturnal. Neither the intensity nor the frequency of dynamite blasts affected the frequency of calling or the daily pattern of elephant activity. Nevertheless, the shift of activity to nocturnal hours became more pronounced as human activity neared each monitored area of forest. This change in activity pattern and its likely causes would not have been detected through standard monitoring methods, which are not sensitive to behavioral changes over short time scales (e.g., dung transects, point counts) or cover a limited area (e.g., camera traps). Simultaneous acoustic monitoring of animal communication, human, and environmental sounds allows the documentation of short-term behavioral changes in response to human disturbance. © 2010 Society for Conservation Biology.

Short- and long-term antidepressant effects of ketamine in a rat chronic unpredictable stress model.

PubMed

Jiang, Yinghong; Wang, Yiqiang; Sun, Xiaoran; Lian, Bo; Sun, Hongwei; Wang, Gang; Du, Zhongde; Li, Qi; Sun, Lin

2017-08-01

This research was aimed to evaluate the behaviors of short- or long-term antidepressant effects of ketamine in rats exposed to chronic unpredictable stress (CUS). Ketamine, a glutamate noncompetitive NMDA receptor antagonist, regulates excitatory amino acid functions, such as anxiety disorders and major depression, and plays an important role in synaptic plasticity and learning and memory. After 42 days of CUS model, male rats received either a single injection of ketamine (10 mg/kg; day 43) or 15 daily injections (days 43-75). The influence of ketamine on behavioral reactivity was assessed 24 hr (short-term) or 7 weeks after ketamine treatment (long-term). Behavioral tests used to assess the effects of these treatments included the sucrose preference (SP), open field (OF), elevated plus maze (EPM), forced swimming (FS), and water maze (WM) to detect anxiety-like behavior (OF and EPM), forced swimming (FS), and water maze (WM). Results: Short-term ketamine administration resulted in increases of body weight gain, higher sensitivity to sucrose, augmented locomotor activity in the OF, more entries into the open arms of the EPM, along increased activity in the FS test; all responses indicative of reductions in depression/despair in anxiety-eliciting situations. No significant differences in these behaviors were obtained under conditions of long-term ketamine administration ( p  > .05). The CUS + Ketamine group showed significantly increased activity as compared with the CUS + Vehicle group for analysis of the long-term effects of ketamine (* p  < .05). Nor were significant differences obtained in learning and memory performance in rats receiving ketamine ( p  > .05). Taken together these findings demonstrate that a short-term administration of ketamine induced rapid antidepressant-like effects in adult male rats exposed to CUS conditions, effects that were not observed in response to the long-term treatment regime.

The Modification of Covert Behavior: A Survey of the Literature.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Johnson, R. Gilmore; Elson, Steven E.

This review of the research literature focuses on processes that Cautela (1972a) has called covert conditioning and Mahoney, Thoresen, and Danaher (1972) have called covert behavior modification. Both of these terms refer to processes for changing behavior through imaginal responses. Two general strategies have been employed. One has been to…

Temporal Prediction Errors Affect Short-Term Memory Scanning Response Time.

PubMed

Limongi, Roberto; Silva, Angélica M

2016-11-01

The Sternberg short-term memory scanning task has been used to unveil cognitive operations involved in time perception. Participants produce time intervals during the task, and the researcher explores how task performance affects interval production - where time estimation error is the dependent variable of interest. The perspective of predictive behavior regards time estimation error as a temporal prediction error (PE), an independent variable that controls cognition, behavior, and learning. Based on this perspective, we investigated whether temporal PEs affect short-term memory scanning. Participants performed temporal predictions while they maintained information in memory. Model inference revealed that PEs affected memory scanning response time independently of the memory-set size effect. We discuss the results within the context of formal and mechanistic models of short-term memory scanning and predictive coding, a Bayes-based theory of brain function. We state the hypothesis that our finding could be associated with weak frontostriatal connections and weak striatal activity.

Long-term programing of psychopathology-like behaviors in male rats by peripubertal stress depends on individual's glucocorticoid responsiveness to stress.

PubMed

Walker, Sophie E; Sandi, Carmen

2018-02-07

Experience of adversity early in life and dysregulation of hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenocortical (HPA) axis activity are risk factors often independently associated with the development of psychopathological disorders, including depression, PTSD and pathological aggression. Additional evidence suggests that in combination these factors may interact to shape the development and expression of psychopathology differentially, though little is known about underlying mechanisms. Here, we studied the long-term consequences of early life stress exposure on individuals with differential constitutive glucocorticoid responsiveness to repeated stressor exposure, assessing both socio-affective behaviors and brain activity in regions sensitive to pathological alterations following stress. Two rat lines, genetically selected for either low or high glucocorticoid responsiveness to repeated stress were exposed to a series of unpredictable, fear-inducing stressors on intermittent days during the peripuberty period. Results obtained at adulthood indicated that having high glucocorticoid responses to repeated stress and having experience of peripuberty stress independently enhanced levels of psychopathology-like behaviors, as well as increasing basal activity in several prefrontal and limbic brain regions in a manner associated with enhanced behavioral inhibition. Interestingly, peripuberty stress had a differential impact on aggression in the two rat lines, enhancing aggression in the low-responsive line but not in the already high-aggressive, high-responsive rats. Taken together, these findings indicate that aberrant HPA axis activity around puberty, a key period in the development of social repertoire in both rats and humans, may alter behavior such that it becomes anti-social in nature.

Stimuli-Responsive Polymer-Clay Nanocomposites under Electric Fields

PubMed Central

Piao, Shang Hao; Kwon, Seung Hyuk; Choi, Hyoung Jin

2016-01-01

This short Feature Article reviews electric stimuli-responsive polymer/clay nanocomposites with respect to their fabrication, physical characteristics and electrorheological (ER) behaviors under applied electric fields when dispersed in oil. Their structural characteristics, morphological features and thermal degradation behavior were examined by X-ray diffraction pattern, scanning electron microscopy and transmission electron microscopy, and thermogravimetric analysis, respectively. Particular focus is given to the electro-responsive ER characteristics of the polymer/clay nanocomposites in terms of the yield stress and viscoelastic properties along with their applications. PMID:28787852

Probabilistic Polling And Voting In The 2008 Presidential Election

PubMed Central

Delavande, Adeline; Manski, Charles F.

2010-01-01

This article reports new empirical evidence on probabilistic polling, which asks persons to state in percent-chance terms the likelihood that they will vote and for whom. Before the 2008 presidential election, seven waves of probabilistic questions were administered biweekly to participants in the American Life Panel (ALP). Actual voting behavior was reported after the election. We find that responses to the verbal and probabilistic questions are well-aligned ordinally. Moreover, the probabilistic responses predict voting behavior beyond what is possible using verbal responses alone. The probabilistic responses have more predictive power in early August, and the verbal responses have more power in late October. However, throughout the sample period, one can predict voting behavior better using both types of responses than either one alone. Studying the longitudinal pattern of responses, we segment respondents into those who are consistently pro-Obama, consistently anti-Obama, and undecided/vacillators. Membership in the consistently pro- or anti-Obama group is an almost perfect predictor of actual voting behavior, while the undecided/vacillators group has more nuanced voting behavior. We find that treating the ALP as a panel improves predictive power: current and previous polling responses together provide more predictive power than do current responses alone. PMID:24683275

Interactions between behaviorally relevant rhythms and synaptic plasticity alter coding in the piriform cortex

PubMed Central

Urban, Nathaniel N.

2012-01-01

Understanding how neural and behavioral timescales interact to influence cortical activity and stimulus coding is an important issue in sensory neuroscience. In air-breathing animals, voluntary changes in respiratory frequency alter the temporal patterning olfactory input. In the olfactory bulb, these behavioral timescales are reflected in the temporal properties of mitral/tufted (M/T) cell spike trains. As the odor information contained in these spike trains is relayed from the bulb to the cortex, interactions between presynaptic spike timing and short-term synaptic plasticity dictate how stimulus features are represented in cortical spike trains. Here we demonstrate how the timescales associated with respiratory frequency, spike timing and short-term synaptic plasticity interact to shape cortical responses. Specifically, we quantified the timescales of short-term synaptic facilitation and depression at excitatory synapses between bulbar M/T cells and cortical neurons in slices of mouse olfactory cortex. We then used these results to generate simulated M/T population synaptic currents that were injected into real cortical neurons. M/T population inputs were modulated at frequencies consistent with passive respiration or active sniffing. We show how the differential recruitment of short-term plasticity at breathing versus sniffing frequencies alters cortical spike responses. For inputs at sniffing frequencies, cortical neurons linearly encoded increases in presynaptic firing rates with increased phase locked, firing rates. In contrast, at passive breathing frequencies, cortical responses saturated with changes in presynaptic rate. Our results suggest that changes in respiratory behavior can gate the transfer of stimulus information between the olfactory bulb and cortex. PMID:22553016

Propranolol medication among coronary patients: relationship to type A behavior and cardiovascular response.

PubMed

Krantz, D S; Durel, L A; Davia, J E; Shaffer, R T; Arabian, J M; Dembroski, T M; MacDougall, J M

1982-09-01

The present correlational study compared behavioral and psychophysiological characteristics of coronary patients who were either medicated or not medicated with the beta-adrenergic blocking drug propranolol. Eighty-eight patients were given a structured Type A interview (SI) and a history quiz while heart rate and blood pressure were monitored. Data were analyzed controlling for age, sex, extent of coronary artery disease, and history of angina. Results indicated that patients taking propranolol (n = 65) were significantly lower in intensity of Type A behavior than patients not taking propranolol (n = 23). No effects were obtained for patients medicated or not medicated with diuretics, nitrates, or other CNS active drugs. Propranolol patients also showed lesser heart rate and rate-pressure product responses to the interview, but did not differ in blood pressure responses. Components of Type A which were lower in propranolol patients included speech stylistics (loud/explosive, rapid/accelerated, potential for hostility). Content of responses to the SI and scores on the Jenkins Activity Survey did not differ between the groups. An explanation for these results is offered in terms of the effects of propranolol on peripheral sympathetic responses, and evidence for a physiological substrate for Type A behavior. A conceptualization of the Type A pattern in terms of cognitive and physiological components is advanced, and implications for clinical intervention are discussed.

Salmonid behavior and water temperature

Treesearch

Sally T. Sauter; John McMillan; Jason B. Dunham

2001-01-01

Animals react not only to immediate changes in their environment but also to cues that signal long-term changes to which they must adapt to survive. A proximate factor stimulates an animal’s immediate behavioral response, whereas what is known as an ultimate factor causes an animal to adjust its behavior to evolving conditions, thereby increasing its fitness and...

Why Have Multiple Plastic Responses? Interactions between Color Change and Heat Avoidance Behavior in Battus philenor Larvae.

PubMed

Nielsen, Matthew E; Papaj, Daniel R

2017-06-01

Having multiple plastic responses to a change in the environment, such as increased temperature, can be adaptive for two major reasons: synergy (the plastic responses perform better when expressed simultaneously) or complementarity (each plastic response provides a greater net benefit in a different environmental context). We investigated these hypotheses for two forms of temperature-induced plasticity of Battus philenor caterpillars in southern Arizona populations: color change (from black to red at high temperatures) and heat avoidance behavior (movement from host to elevated refuges at high host temperatures). Field assays using aluminum models showed that the cooling effect of the red color is greatly reduced in a refuge position relative to that on a host. Field assays with live caterpillars demonstrated that refuge seeking is much more important for survival under hot conditions than coloration; however, in those assays, red coloration reduced the need to seek refuges. Our results support the complementarity hypothesis: refuge seeking facilitates survival during daily temperature peaks, while color change reduces the need to leave the host over longer warm periods. We propose that combinations of rapid but costly short-term behavioral responses and slow but efficient long-term morphological responses may be common when coping with temperature change.

Short-term desensitization of fast escape behavior associated with suppression of Mauthner cell activity in larval zebrafish.

PubMed

Takahashi, Megumi; Inoue, Maya; Tanimoto, Masashi; Kohashi, Tsunehiko; Oda, Yoichi

2017-08-01

Escape is among the simplest animal behaviors employed to study the neural mechanisms underlying learning. Teleost fishes exhibit behavioral learning of fast escape initiated with a C-shaped body bend (C-start). C-starts are subdivided into short-latency (SLC) and long-latency (LLC) types in larval zebrafish. Whether these two can be separately modified, and the neural correlates of this modification, however, remains undetermined. We thus performed Ca 2+ imaging of Mauthner (M-) cells, a pair of giant hindbrain neurons constituting a core element of SLC circuit, during behavioral learning in larval zebrafish. The Ca 2+ response corresponding to a single spiking of the M-cells was coupled with SLCs but not LLCs. Conditioning with a repeated weak sound at subthreshold intensity to elicit C-starts selectively suppressed SLC occurrence for 10min without affecting LLC responsiveness. The short-term desensitization of SLC was associated with the suppression of M-cell activity, suggesting that changes in single neuron responsiveness mediate behavioral learning. The conditioning did not affect the acoustically evoked mechanotransduction of inner ear hair cells, further suggesting plastic change in transmission efficacy within the auditory input circuit between the hair cells and the M-cell. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ireland Ltd and Japan Neuroscience Society. All rights reserved.

Alprazolam treatment immediately after stress exposure interferes with the normal HPA-stress response and increases vulnerability to subsequent stress in an animal model of PTSD.

PubMed

Matar, Michael A; Zohar, Joseph; Kaplan, Zeev; Cohen, Hagit

2009-04-01

In light of clinical reports suggesting that early benzodiazepine administration interferes with long-term recovery from traumatic stress, a prospective animal model for PTSD was employed to assess the short- and long-term effects of a brief course of alprazolam following stress exposure. Animals exposed to stress were treated either 1 h or 7 days later with alprazolam or vehicle for 3-days. Outcome measures included behavior in the elevated plus-maze (EPM) and acoustic startle response (ASR) tests 30 days after initial exposure and freezing behavior upon exposure to a trauma-cue on day 31. One group was repeatedly exposed to the triggering trauma shortly before and after treatment and assessed as above. Circulating corticosterone levels were assessed 4 h after initiation of alprazolam and post-treatment. Pre-set cut-off behavioral criteria classified exposed animals according to their EPM and ASR response-patterns into 'extreme', 'minimal,' or 'partial' behavioral response for analysis of prevalence rates. Immediate alprazolam treatment was effective in alleviating anxiety at day 4. No observable anxiolytic effects remained at day 30. Immediate alprazolam also resulted in significantly greater freezing response to trauma-cue exposure and in extreme responses to double-exposure. Corticosterone levels were significantly suppressed by alprazolam during treatment and rebounded after cessation. A brief course of alprazolam in the immediate aftermath of stress-exposure is associated with less favorable responses to additional stress-exposure later on. Alprazolam was associated with a significant attenuation of the HPA-response, suggesting a possible link between initial HPA-axis response disruption and the subsequent unfavorable outcomes.

False memory for face in short-term memory and neural activity in human amygdala.

PubMed

Iidaka, Tetsuya; Harada, Tokiko; Sadato, Norihiro

2014-12-03

Human memory is often inaccurate. Similar to words and figures, new faces are often recognized as seen or studied items in long- and short-term memory tests; however, the neural mechanisms underlying this false memory remain elusive. In a previous fMRI study using morphed faces and a standard false memory paradigm, we found that there was a U-shaped response curve of the amygdala to old, new, and lure items. This indicates that the amygdala is more active in response to items that are salient (hit and correct rejection) compared to items that are less salient (false alarm), in terms of memory retrieval. In the present fMRI study, we determined whether the false memory for faces occurs within the short-term memory range (a few seconds), and assessed which neural correlates are involved in veridical and illusory memories. Nineteen healthy participants were scanned by 3T MRI during a short-term memory task using morphed faces. The behavioral results indicated that the occurrence of false memories was within the short-term range. We found that the amygdala displayed a U-shaped response curve to memory items, similar to those observed in our previous study. These results suggest that the amygdala plays a common role in both long- and short-term false memory for faces. We made the following conclusions: First, the amygdala is involved in detecting the saliency of items, in addition to fear, and supports goal-oriented behavior by modulating memory. Second, amygdala activity and response time might be related with a subject's response criterion for similar faces. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Decoupling processes and scales of shoreline morphodynamics

USGS Publications Warehouse

Hapke, Cheryl J.; Plant, Nathaniel G.; Henderson, Rachel E.; Schwab, William C.; Nelson, Timothy R.

2016-01-01

Behavior of coastal systems on time scales ranging from single storm events to years and decades is controlled by both small-scale sediment transport processes and large-scale geologic, oceanographic, and morphologic processes. Improved understanding of coastal behavior at multiple time scales is required for refining models that predict potential erosion hazards and for coastal management planning and decision-making. Here we investigate the primary controls on shoreline response along a geologically-variable barrier island on time scales resolving extreme storms and decadal variations over a period of nearly one century. An empirical orthogonal function analysis is applied to a time series of shoreline positions at Fire Island, NY to identify patterns of shoreline variance along the length of the island. We establish that there are separable patterns of shoreline behavior that represent response to oceanographic forcing as well as patterns that are not explained by this forcing. The dominant shoreline behavior occurs over large length scales in the form of alternating episodes of shoreline retreat and advance, presumably in response to storms cycles. Two secondary responses include long-term response that is correlated to known geologic variations of the island and the other reflects geomorphic patterns with medium length scale. Our study also includes the response to Hurricane Sandy and a period of post-storm recovery. It was expected that the impacts from Hurricane Sandy would disrupt long-term trends and spatial patterns. We found that the response to Sandy at Fire Island is not notable or distinguishable from several other large storms of the prior decade.

Restraint training for awake functional brain scanning of rodents can cause long-lasting changes in pain and stress responses

PubMed Central

Low, Lucie A.; Bauer, Lucy C.; Pitcher, Mark H.; Bushnell, M. Catherine

2016-01-01

Abstract With the increased interest in longitudinal brain imaging of awake rodents, it is important to understand both the short-term and long-term effects of restraint on sensory and emotional processing in the brain. To understand the effects of repeated restraint on pain behaviors and stress responses, we modeled a restraint protocol similar to those used to habituate rodents for magnetic resonance imaging scanning, and studied sensory sensitivity and stress hormone responses over 5 days. To uncover lasting effects of training, we also looked at responses to the formalin pain test 2 weeks later. We found that while restraint causes acute increases in the stress hormone corticosterone, it can also cause lasting reductions in nociceptive behavior in the formalin test, coupled with heightened corticosterone levels and increased activation of the “nociceptive” central nucleus of the amygdala, as seen by Fos protein expression. These results suggest that short-term repeated restraint, similar to that used to habituate rats for awake functional brain scanning, could potentially cause long-lasting changes in physiological and brain responses to pain stimuli that are stress-related, and therefore could potentially confound the functional activation patterns seen in awake rodents in response to pain stimuli. PMID:27058679

Restraint training for awake functional brain scanning of rodents can cause long-lasting changes in pain and stress responses.

PubMed

Low, Lucie A; Bauer, Lucy C; Pitcher, Mark H; Bushnell, M Catherine

2016-08-01

With the increased interest in longitudinal brain imaging of awake rodents, it is important to understand both the short-term and long-term effects of restraint on sensory and emotional processing in the brain. To understand the effects of repeated restraint on pain behaviors and stress responses, we modeled a restraint protocol similar to those used to habituate rodents for magnetic resonance imaging scanning, and studied sensory sensitivity and stress hormone responses over 5 days. To uncover lasting effects of training, we also looked at responses to the formalin pain test 2 weeks later. We found that while restraint causes acute increases in the stress hormone corticosterone, it can also cause lasting reductions in nociceptive behavior in the formalin test, coupled with heightened corticosterone levels and increased activation of the "nociceptive" central nucleus of the amygdala, as seen by Fos protein expression. These results suggest that short-term repeated restraint, similar to that used to habituate rats for awake functional brain scanning, could potentially cause long-lasting changes in physiological and brain responses to pain stimuli that are stress-related, and therefore could potentially confound the functional activation patterns seen in awake rodents in response to pain stimuli.

Health risk behaviors in adolescents and emerging adults with congenital heart disease: psychometric properties of the Health Behavior Scale-Congenital Heart Disease.

PubMed

Goossens, Eva; Luyckx, Koen; Mommen, Nele; Gewillig, Marc; Budts, Werner; Zupancic, Nele; Moons, Philip

2013-12-01

To optimize long-term outcomes, patients with congenital heart disease (CHD) should adopt health-promoting behaviors. Studies on health behavior in afflicted patients are scarce and comparability of study results is limited. To enlarge the body of evidence, we have developed the Health Behavior Scale-Congenital Heart Disease (HBS-CHD). We examined the psychometric properties of the HBS-CHD by providing evidence for (a) the content validity; (b) validity based on the relationships with other variables; (c) reliability in terms of stability; and (d) responsiveness. Ten experts rated the relevance of the HBS-CHD items. The item content validity index (I-CVI) and the averaged scale content validity index (S-CVI/Ave); the modified multi-rater Kappa and proportion of missing values for each question were calculated. Relationships with other variables were evaluated using six hypotheses that were tested in 429 adolescents with CHD. Stability of the instrument was assessed using Heise's method; and responsiveness was tested by calculating the Guyatt's Responsiveness Index (GRI). Overall, 86.3% of the items had a good to excellent content validity; the S-CVI/Ave (0.81) and multi-rater Kappa (0.78) were adequate. The average proportion of missing values was low (1.2%). Because five out of six hypotheses were confirmed, evidence for the validity of the HBS-CHD based on relationships with other variables was provided. The stability of the instrument could not be confirmed based on our data. The GRI showed good to excellent capacity of the HBS-CHD to detect clinical changes in the health behavior over time. We found that the HBS-CHD is a valid and responsive questionnaire to assess health behaviors in patients with CHD.

Probabilistic Polling And Voting In The 2008 Presidential Election: Evidence From The American Life Panel.

PubMed

Delavande, Adeline; Manski, Charles F

2010-01-01

This article reports new empirical evidence on probabilistic polling , which asks persons to state in percent-chance terms the likelihood that they will vote and for whom. Before the 2008 presidential election, seven waves of probabilistic questions were administered biweekly to participants in the American Life Panel (ALP). Actual voting behavior was reported after the election. We find that responses to the verbal and probabilistic questions are well-aligned ordinally. Moreover, the probabilistic responses predict voting behavior beyond what is possible using verbal responses alone. The probabilistic responses have more predictive power in early August, and the verbal responses have more power in late October. However, throughout the sample period, one can predict voting behavior better using both types of responses than either one alone. Studying the longitudinal pattern of responses, we segment respondents into those who are consistently pro-Obama , consistently anti-Obama , and undecided/vacillators . Membership in the consistently pro- or anti-Obama group is an almost perfect predictor of actual voting behavior, while the undecided/vacillators group has more nuanced voting behavior. We find that treating the ALP as a panel improves predictive power: current and previous polling responses together provide more predictive power than do current responses alone.

A Neuroprotective Effect of the Glutamate Receptor Antagonist MK801 on Long-Term Cognitive and Behavioral Outcomes Secondary to Experimental Cerebral Malaria.

PubMed

de Miranda, Aline Silva; Brant, Fátima; Vieira, Luciene Bruno; Rocha, Natália Pessoa; Vieira, Érica Leandro Marciano; Rezende, Gustavo Henrique Souza; de Oliveira Pimentel, Pollyana Maria; Moraes, Marcio F D; Ribeiro, Fabíola Mara; Ransohoff, Richard M; Teixeira, Mauro Martins; Machado, Fabiana Simão; Rachid, Milene Alvarenga; Teixeira, Antônio Lúcio

2017-11-01

Cerebral malaria (CM) is a life-threatening complication of Plasmodium falciparum infection, which can result in long-term cognitive and behavioral deficits despite successful anti-malarial therapy. Due to the substantial social and economic burden of CM, the development of adjuvant therapies is a scientific goal of highest priority. Apart from vascular and immune responses, changes in glutamate system have been reported in CM pathogenesis suggesting a potential therapeutic target. Based on that, we hypothesized that interventions in the glutamatergic system induced by blockage of N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptors could attenuate experimental CM long-term cognitive and behavioral outcomes. Before the development of evident CM signs, susceptible mice infected with Plasmodium berghei ANKA (PbA) strain were initiated on treatment with dizocilpine maleate (MK801, 0.5 mg/kg), a noncompetitive NMDA receptor antagonist. On day 5 post-infection, mice were treated orally with a 10-day course chloroquine (CQ, 30 mg/kg). Control mice also received saline, CQ or MK801 + CQ therapy. After 10 days of cessation of CQ treatment, magnetic resonance images (MRI), behavioral and immunological assays were performed. Indeed, MK801 combined with CQ prevented long-term memory impairment and depressive-like behavior following successful PbA infection resolution. In addition, MK801 also modulated the immune system by promoting a balance of TH1/TH2 response and upregulating neurotrophic factors levels in the frontal cortex and hippocampus. Moreover, hippocampus abnormalities observed by MRI were partially prevented by MK801 treatment. Our results indicate that NMDA receptor antagonists can be neuroprotective in CM and could be a valuable adjuvant strategy for the management of the long-term impairment observed in CM.

Short-term dynamic behavior of Escherichia coli in response to successive glucose pulses on glucose-limited chemostat cultures.

PubMed

Sunya, Sirichai; Bideaux, Carine; Molina-Jouve, Carole; Gorret, Nathalie

2013-04-15

The effect of repeated glucose perturbations on dynamic behavior of Escherichia coli DPD2085, yciG::LuxCDABE reporter strain, was studied and characterized on a short-time scale using glucose-limited chemostat cultures at dilution rates close to 0.18h(-1). The substrate disturbances were applied on independent steady-state cultures, firstly using a single glucose pulse under different aeration conditions and secondly using repeated glucose pulses under fully aerobic condition. The dynamic responses of E. coli to a single glucose pulse of different intensities (0.25 and 0.6gL(-1)) were significantly similar at macroscopic level, revealing the independency of the macroscopic microbial behavior to the perturbation intensity in the range of tested glucose concentrations. The dynamic responses of E. coli to repeated glucose pulses to simulate fluctuating environments between glucose-limited and glucose-excess conditions were quantified; similar behavior regarding respiration and by-product formations was observed, except for the first perturbation denoted by an overshoot of the specific oxygen uptake rate in the first minutes after the pulse. In addition, transcriptional induction of yciG promoter gene involved in general stress response, σ(S), was monitored through the bioluminescent E. coli strain. This study aims to provide and compare short-term quantitative kinetics data describing the dynamic behavior of E. coli facing repeated transient substrate conditions. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Cognitive Model of Animal Behavior to Comprehend an Aspect of Decision-Making

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Migita, Masao; Moriyama, Tohru

2004-08-01

Most animal behaviors are considered to have been evolved through their own courses of natural selection. Since mechanisms of natural selection depend tightly on environments in which animals of interest inhabit, the environment for an animal appears a priori, and stimulus-response (S-R) relationships are stable as long as it returns constant benefit. We claim, however, no environment for an animal cannot be regarded as a priori and any animal can exhibit more elaborated behavior than S-R. In other words, every animal is more or less cognitive in terms that it may modify a meaning of stimulus. We introduce a minimal model to demonstrate the cognitive aspect of the pill bug's turn alternation (TA) behavior. The simulated pill bug can modify its own response pattern to the stimulus of water, though stable response appears to be prerequisite to TA behavior.

Normative Emotional Responses to Behavior Analysis Jargon or How Not to Use Words to Win Friends and Influence People.

PubMed

Critchfield, Thomas S; Doepke, Karla J; Kimberly Epting, L; Becirevic, Amel; Reed, Derek D; Fienup, Daniel M; Kremsreiter, Jamie L; Ecott, Cheryl L

2017-06-01

It has been suggested that non-experts regard the jargon of behavior analysis as abrasive, harsh, and unpleasant. If this is true, excessive reliance on jargon could interfere with the dissemination of effective services. To address this often discussed but rarely studied issue, we consulted a large, public domain list of English words that have been rated by members of the general public for the emotional reactions they evoke. Selected words that behavior analysts use as technical terms were compared to selected words that are commonly used to discuss general science, general clinical work, and behavioral assessment. There was a tendency for behavior analysis terms to register as more unpleasant than other kinds of professional terms and also as more unpleasant than English words generally. We suggest possible reasons for this finding, discuss its relevance to the challenge of deciding how to communicate with consumers who do not yet understand or value behavior analysis, and advocate for systematic research to guide the marketing of behavior analysis.

Responsive parenting: establishing early foundations for social, communication, and independent problem-solving skills.

PubMed

Landry, Susan H; Smith, Karen E; Swank, Paul R

2006-07-01

Mothers whose infants varied in early biological characteristics (born at term, n = 120; born at very low birth weight [VLBW], n = 144) were randomized to a target group (n = 133) or developmental feedback comparison group (n = 131) to determine whether learning responsive behaviors would facilitate infant development. The target condition included videotaped examples, problem-solving activities, and mothers' critique of their own behaviors through video procedures across 10 home visits. All target versus comparison mothers showed greater increases across multiple responsiveness behaviors observed in 4 assessments conducted across 6-13 months of age; changes in emotionally supportive behaviors were strongest for target mothers of infants born at VLBW. Increased maternal responsiveness facilitated greater growth in target infants' social, emotional, communication, and cognitive competence, supporting a causal role for responsiveness on infant development. Although benefits were generally comparable across risk groups, aspects of social and emotional skills showed greater change for those born at VLBW. Evidence for responsiveness as a multidimensional construct was provided as well as the importance of different aspects of responsiveness mediating the effect of the intervention on different infant skill domains.

Repeated Exposure to Media Violence Is Associated with Diminished Response in an Inhibitory Frontolimbic Network

PubMed Central

Hirsch, Joy

2007-01-01

Background Media depictions of violence, although often claimed to induce viewer aggression, have not been shown to affect the cortical networks that regulate behavior. Methodology/Principal Findings Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), we found that repeated exposure to violent media, but not to other equally arousing media, led to both diminished response in right lateral orbitofrontal cortex (right ltOFC) and a decrease in right ltOFC-amygdala interaction. Reduced function in this network has been previously associated with decreased control over a variety of behaviors, including reactive aggression. Indeed, we found reduced right ltOFC responses to be characteristic of those subjects that reported greater tendencies toward reactive aggression. Furthermore, the violence-induced reduction in right ltOFC response coincided with increased throughput to behavior planning regions. Conclusions These novel findings establish that even short-term exposure to violent media can result in diminished responsiveness of a network associated with behaviors such as reactive aggression. PMID:18060062

Observations on the behavior of bowhead whales (Balaena mysticetus) in the presence of operating seismic exploration vessels in the Alaskan Beaufort Sea

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Ljungblad, D.K.; Wuersig, B.; Swartz, S.L.

1985-10-01

The response of bowhead whales to active geophysical vessels was observed during the course of 4 field experiments conducted in the Alaskan Beaufort Sea, September 1984. Conspicuous short-term behavioral changes were observed when active vessels approached to within 10km of bowheads, with the strongest responses occurring when whales were within 5km of active vessels. Behavioral responses included shorter surfacing and dive times, fewer blows per surfacing, and longer blow intervals. Total avoidance responses occured at vessel distances of 1.25km, 7.2km, 3.5km and 3.5km with associated measured sound levels from the seismic airgun arrays of 152dB, 164dB, 178dB and 163dB, respectively.

A Rhesus Monkey Model of Self Injury: Effects of Relocation Stress on Behavior and Neuroendocrine Function

PubMed Central

Davenport, Matthew D.; Lutz, Corrine K.; Tiefenbacher, Stefan; Novak, Melinda A.; Meyer, Jerrold S.

2008-01-01

Background Self-injurious behavior (SIB), a disorder that afflicts many individuals within both clinical and non-clinical populations, has been linked to states of heightened stress and arousal. However, there are no published longitudinal data on the relationship between increases in stress and changes in the incidence of SIB. The present study investigated the short- and long-term behavioral and neuroendocrine responses of SIB and control monkeys to the stress of relocation. Methods Twenty adult male rhesus macaques were exposed to the stress of relocation to a new housing arrangement in a newly constructed facility. Daytime behavior, sleep, and multiple measures of hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenocortical (HPA) axis function were investigated before and after the move. Results Relocation induced a complex pattern of short- and long-term effects in the animals. The SIB animals showed a long-lasting increase in self-biting behavior as well as evidence of sleep disturbance. Both groups exhibited elevated cortisol levels in saliva, serum, and hair, and also an unexpected delayed increase in circulating concentrations of corticosteroid binding globulin (CBG). Conclusions Our results indicate that relocation is a significant stressor for rhesus macaques, and that this stressor triggers an increase in self-biting behavior as well as sleep disturbance in monkeys previously identified as suffering from SIB. These findings suggest that life stresses may similarly exacerbate SIB in humans with this disorder. The HPA axis results underscore the potential role of CBG in regulating long-term neuroendocrine responses to major stressors. PMID:18164279

The efficacy of an educational intervention on health behaviors in a sample of Turkish female nursing students: a longitudinal, quasi-experimental study.

PubMed

Kara, Belgüzar

2015-01-01

Unhealthy behaviors are a key factors leading to health problems. It remains unclear whether an educational intervention has a long term effect on health behaviors of nursing students. The aim of this study was to evaluate the long term effect of an educational intervention on the health behaviors and examine predictors of change in these behaviors in Turkish female baccalaureate nursing students. Quasi-experimental design with one-group, pre- and posttest, and 3-year follow-up. The study was conducted in a school of nursing in Turkey. One hundred-eight students participated in this study. Data were collected before and after the implementation of the educational intervention by using the Health-Promoting Lifestyle Profile-I (HPLP-I). Descriptive statistics, the one-way analysis of variance for repeated measures and multiple linear regression analysis were used. There were significant differences among the three time points in terms of the HPLP-I total and subscales scores (self-actualization, health responsibility, exercise, nutrition and stress management), except for interpersonal support (p<.05). The positive effect of intervention on the HPLP-I total and health responsibility subscale scores was maintained during the 3-year follow-up period (p<.05). The amount of change from pretest to posttest in the total HPLP-I score was the only predictor of the 3-year change in the total scale score (unstandardized β=0.538; p<.001), after adjustment for the potential confounding factors. The educational intervention was partially effective in improving all health behaviors of the nursing students over the long term. Nursing students who demonstrated higher levels of benefit from the intervention were more likely to have more positive health behaviors at the 3-year point. The findings of this study highlight the importance of the integration of health behaviors within the nursing curriculum. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

3D Holographic Observatory for Long-term Monitoring of Complex Behaviors in Drosophila

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kumar, S. Santosh; Sun, Yaning; Zou, Sige; Hong, Jiarong

2016-09-01

Drosophila is an excellent model organism towards understanding the cognitive function, aging and neurodegeneration in humans. The effects of aging and other long-term dynamics on the behavior serve as important biomarkers in identifying such changes to the brain. In this regard, we are presenting a new imaging technique for lifetime monitoring of Drosophila in 3D at spatial and temporal resolutions capable of resolving the motion of limbs and wings using holographic principles. The developed system is capable of monitoring and extracting various behavioral parameters, such as ethograms and spatial distributions, from a group of flies simultaneously. This technique can image complicated leg and wing motions of flies at a resolution, which allows capturing specific landing responses from the same data set. Overall, this system provides a unique opportunity for high throughput screenings of behavioral changes in 3D over a long term in Drosophila.

Auto- Versus Heterohypnosis: Behavioral and Subjective Differences.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Johnson, Lynn S.; Weight, David G.

This paper examines and compares tyo hypnotic modes in terms of behavioral and experimental responses. The two modes are: (1) autohypnosis and (2) heterohypnosis. The two types of hypnosis experiences were administered to each of two randomly assigned groups. Subjects were 25 male and 23 female volunteer introductory psychology students. The…

Properties of the Deep Scattering Layer Analyzed in Terms of Bioluminescent Behavior of Its Components.

DTIC Science & Technology

1984-02-28

15:203-221. 1975 Anderson, P. & Case, J.F. Electrical activity associated with luminescence and other colonial behavior in the pennatulid Renilla ...Development of bioluminescence and other effector responses in the pennatulid coelentrate Renilla kollikeri. Biol. Bull. 157:506-523. Satterlie, R.A. & Case

The Decision Tree: A Tool for Achieving Behavioral Change.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Saren, Dru

1999-01-01

Presents a "Decision Tree" process for structuring team decision making and problem solving about specific student behavioral goals. The Decision Tree involves a sequence of questions/decisions that can be answered in "yes/no" terms. Questions address reasonableness of the goal, time factors, importance of the goal, responsibilities, safety,…

Pheromone responsiveness threshold depends on temporal integration by antennal lobe projection neurons

PubMed Central

Tabuchi, Masashi; Sakurai, Takeshi; Mitsuno, Hidefumi; Namiki, Shigehiro; Minegishi, Ryo; Shiotsuki, Takahiro; Uchino, Keiro; Sezutsu, Hideki; Tamura, Toshiki; Haupt, Stephan Shuichi; Nakatani, Kei; Kanzaki, Ryohei

2013-01-01

The olfactory system of male moths has an extreme sensitivity with the capability to detect and recognize conspecific pheromones dispersed and greatly diluted in the air. Just 170 molecules of the silkmoth (Bombyx mori) sex pheromone bombykol are sufficient to induce sexual behavior in the male. However, it is still unclear how the sensitivity of olfactory receptor neurons (ORNs) is relayed through the brain to generate high behavioral responsiveness. Here, we show that ORN activity that is subthreshold in terms of behavior can be amplified to suprathreshold levels by temporal integration in antennal lobe projection neurons (PNs) if occurring within a specific time window. To control ORN inputs with high temporal resolution, channelrhodopsin-2 was genetically introduced into bombykol-responsive ORNs. Temporal integration in PNs was only observed for weak inputs, but not for strong inputs. Pharmacological dissection revealed that GABAergic mechanisms inhibit temporal integration of strong inputs, showing that GABA signaling regulates PN responses in a stimulus-dependent fashion. Our results show that boosting of the PNs’ responses by temporal integration of olfactory information occurs specifically near the behavioral threshold, effectively defining the lower bound for behavioral responsiveness. PMID:24006366

Responding to Vaccine Safety Signals during Pandemic Influenza: A Modeling Study

PubMed Central

Maro, Judith C.; Fryback, Dennis G.; Lieu, Tracy A.; Lee, Grace M.; Martin, David B.

2014-01-01

Background Managing emerging vaccine safety signals during an influenza pandemic is challenging. Federal regulators must balance vaccine risks against benefits while maintaining public confidence in the public health system. Methods We developed a multi-criteria decision analysis model to explore regulatory decision-making in the context of emerging vaccine safety signals during a pandemic. We simulated vaccine safety surveillance system capabilities and used an age-structured compartmental model to develop potential pandemic scenarios. We used an expert-derived multi-attribute utility function to evaluate potential regulatory responses by combining four outcome measures into a single measure of interest: 1) expected vaccination benefit from averted influenza; 2) expected vaccination risk from vaccine-associated febrile seizures; 3) expected vaccination risk from vaccine-associated Guillain-Barre Syndrome; and 4) expected change in vaccine-seeking behavior in future influenza seasons. Results Over multiple scenarios, risk communication, with or without suspension of vaccination of high-risk persons, were the consistently preferred regulatory responses over no action or general suspension when safety signals were detected during a pandemic influenza. On average, the expert panel valued near-term vaccine-related outcomes relative to long-term projected outcomes by 3∶1. However, when decision-makers had minimal ability to influence near-term outcomes, the response was selected primarily by projected impacts on future vaccine-seeking behavior. Conclusions The selected regulatory response depends on how quickly a vaccine safety signal is identified relative to the peak of the pandemic and the initiation of vaccination. Our analysis suggested two areas for future investment: efforts to improve the size and timeliness of the surveillance system and behavioral research to understand changes in vaccine-seeking behavior. PMID:25536228

Juvenile stress impairs body temperature regulation and augments anticipatory stress-induced hyperthermia responses in rats.

PubMed

Yee, Nicole; Plassmann, Kerstin; Fuchs, Eberhard

2011-09-01

Clinical studies have implicated adolescence as an important and vulnerable period during which traumatic experiences can predispose individuals to anxiety and mood disorders. As such, a stress model in juvenile rats (age 27-29 d) was previously developed to investigate the long-term effects of stress exposure during adolescence on behavior and physiology. This paradigm involves exposing rats to different stressors on consecutive days over a 3-day period. Here, we studied the effects of juvenile stress on long-term core body temperature regulation and acute stress-induced hyperthermia (SIH) responses using telemetry. We found no differences between control and juvenile stress rats in anxiety-related behavior on the elevated plus maze, which we attribute to stress associated with surgical implantation of telemetry devices. This highlights the severe impact of surgical stress on the results of subsequent behavioral measurements. Nonetheless, juvenile stress disrupted the circadian rhythmicity of body temperature and decreased circadian amplitude. It also induced chronic hypothermia during the dark phase of the day, when rats are most active. When subjected to acute social defeat stress as adults, juvenile stress had no impact on the SIH response relative to controls. However, 24 h later, juvenile stress rats displayed an elevated SIH response in anticipation of social defeat when re-exposed to the social defeat environment. Taken together, our findings indicate that juvenile stress can induce long-term alterations in body temperature regulation and heighten the increase in temperature associated with anticipation of social defeat. The outcomes of behavioral measurements in these experiments, however, are severely affected by surgical stress. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Enduring influences of peripubertal/adolescent stressors on behavioral response to estradiol and progesterone in adult female mice.

PubMed

Laroche, Julie; Gasbarro, Lauren; Herman, James P; Blaustein, Jeffrey D

2009-08-01

Exposure to stressors during particular stages of development leads to acute and long-term physiological and behavioral changes. We have reported that shipping mice during the peripubertal/adolescent period results in decreased induction of feminine sexual behavior by estradiol and progesterone in adult female mice. To study further the factors involved in this decreased behavioral response, female mice were exposed to a variety of experimental stressors when 6 wk old. Effects of peripubertal/adolescent exposure to these stressors on acute plasma corticosterone levels and changes in body weight and adult behavioral response to estradiol and progesterone were assessed. Although restraint for three daily 3-h periods, 36-h food deprivation, or a multiple stressor regimen acutely increased plasma corticosterone levels and reduced body weight, only exposure to particular doses of the bacterial endotoxin lipopolysaccharide (LPS; 1-1.5 mg/kg body weight, doses that induced moderate levels of sickness behavior in these studies) resulted in reduced behavioral response to estradiol and progesterone in adulthood. Like the effects of shipping, the effects of LPS on adult feminine sexual behavior appear most robust when injected at 6 wk old and are limited to exposure during a vulnerable period at approximately 4-6 wk of age. Therefore, an immune stressor during the peripubertal/adolescent period, but not restraint, food restriction, or a combined stressor, has an enduring influence on behavioral response to estradiol and progesterone. This demonstrates that the decreased response to estradiol and progesterone is not a general response to all stressors during this developmental stage.

Solar Cycle Response and Long-Term Trends in the Mesospheric Metal Layers

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Dawkins, E. C. M.; Plane, J. M. C.; Chipperfield, M.; Feng, W.; Marsh, D. R.; Hoffner, J.; Janches, D.

2016-01-01

The meteoric metal layers (Na, Fe, and K) which form as a result of the ablation of incoming meteors act as unique tracers for chemical and dynamical processes that occur within the upper mesosphere lower thermosphere region. In this work, we examine whether these metal layers are sensitive Fe indicators of decadal long-term changes within the upper atmosphere. Output from a whole-atmosphere climate model is used to assess the response of the Na, K, and Fe layers across a 50 year period (1955-2005). At short timescales, the K layer has previously been shown to exhibit a very different seasonal behavior compared to the other metals. Here we show that this unusual behavior is also exhibited at longer time scales (both the 11 year solar cycle and 50 year periods), where K displays a much more pronounced response to atmospheric temperature changes than either Na or Fe. The contrasting solar cycle behavior of the K and Na layers predicted by the model is confirmed using satellite and lidar observations for the period 2004-2013.

Phylogenetic perspectives on noise-induced fear and annoyance

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bowles, Ann

2003-04-01

Negative human responses to noise are typically interpreted in terms of human psychological, cognitive, or social processes. However, it may be useful to frame hypotheses about human responses in terms of evolutionary history, during which negative responses have been part of a suite of adaptions to a variable sound environment. By comparing the responses of a range of nonhuman animals to various types of noise, it is possible to develop hypotheses about the ecology of human responses. Examples of noise-related phenomena that could be explained usefully from this perspective include the Schulz curve, noise-induced physical stress, acute fear responses induced by transient noise, and the relationship between temperament and noise-induced annoyance. Responses of animals from a range of taxa will be described and their behavior interpreted in terms of their life-history strategies. With this perspective, some testable hypotheses about noise-induced fear and annoyance will be suggested.

Behavior Therapy for Tics in Children: Acute and Long-Term Effects on Psychiatric and Psychosocial Functioning

PubMed Central

Woods, Douglas W.; Piacentini, John C.; Scahill, Lawrence; Peterson, Alan L.; Wilhelm, Sabine; Chang, Susanna; Deckersbach, Thilo; McGuire, Joseph; Specht, Matt; Conelea, Christine A.; Rozenman, Michelle; Dzuria, James; Liu, Haibei; Levi-Pearl, Sue; Walkup, John T.

2014-01-01

Children (n = 126) ages 9 to 17 years with chronic tic or Tourette disorder were randomly assigned to receive either behavior therapy or a control treatment over 10 weeks. This study examined acute effects of behavior therapy on secondary psychiatric symptoms and psychosocial functioning and long-term effects on these measures for behavior therapy responders only. Baseline and end point assessments conducted by a masked independent evaluator assessed several secondary psychiatric symptoms and measures of psychosocial functioning. Responders to behavior therapy at the end of the acute phase were reassessed at 3-month and 6-month follow-up. Children in the behavior therapy and control conditions did not differentially improve on secondary psychiatric or psychosocial outcome measures at the end of the acute phase. At 6-month posttreatment, positive response to behavior therapy was associated with decreased anxiety, disruptive behavior, and family strain and improved social functioning. Behavior therapy is a tic-specific treatment for children with tic disorders. PMID:21555779

A combined experimental atomic force microscopy-based nanoindentation and computational modeling approach to unravel the key contributors to the time-dependent mechanical behavior of single cells.

PubMed

Florea, Cristina; Tanska, Petri; Mononen, Mika E; Qu, Chengjuan; Lammi, Mikko J; Laasanen, Mikko S; Korhonen, Rami K

2017-02-01

Cellular responses to mechanical stimuli are influenced by the mechanical properties of cells and the surrounding tissue matrix. Cells exhibit viscoelastic behavior in response to an applied stress. This has been attributed to fluid flow-dependent and flow-independent mechanisms. However, the particular mechanism that controls the local time-dependent behavior of cells is unknown. Here, a combined approach of experimental AFM nanoindentation with computational modeling is proposed, taking into account complex material behavior. Three constitutive models (porohyperelastic, viscohyperelastic, poroviscohyperelastic) in tandem with optimization algorithms were employed to capture the experimental stress relaxation data of chondrocytes at 5 % strain. The poroviscohyperelastic models with and without fluid flow allowed through the cell membrane provided excellent description of the experimental time-dependent cell responses (normalized mean squared error (NMSE) of 0.003 between the model and experiments). The viscohyperelastic model without fluid could not follow the entire experimental data that well (NMSE = 0.005), while the porohyperelastic model could not capture it at all (NMSE = 0.383). We also show by parametric analysis that the fluid flow has a small, but essential effect on the loading phase and short-term cell relaxation response, while the solid viscoelasticity controls the longer-term responses. We suggest that the local time-dependent cell mechanical response is determined by the combined effects of intrinsic viscoelasticity of the cytoskeleton and fluid flow redistribution in the cells, although the contribution of fluid flow is smaller when using a nanosized probe and moderate indentation rate. The present approach provides new insights into viscoelastic responses of chondrocytes, important for further understanding cell mechanobiological mechanisms in health and disease.

The long-term behavior of lightweight and heavyweight meshes used to repair abdominal wall defects is determined by the host tissue repair process provoked by the mesh.

PubMed

Pascual, Gemma; Hernández-Gascón, Belén; Rodríguez, Marta; Sotomayor, Sandra; Peña, Estefania; Calvo, Begoña; Bellón, Juan M

2012-11-01

Although heavyweight (HW) or lightweight (LW) polypropylene (PP) meshes are widely used for hernia repair, other alternatives have recently appeared. They have the same large-pore structure yet are composed of polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE). This study compares the long-term (3 and 6 months) behavior of meshes of different pore size (HW compared with LW) and composition (PP compared with PTFE). Partial defects were created in the lateral wall of the abdomen in New Zealand White rabbits and then repaired by the use of a HW or LW PP mesh or a new monofilament, large-pore PTFE mesh (Infinit). At 90 and 180 days after implantation, tissue incorporation, gene and protein expression of neocollagens (reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction/immunofluorescence), macrophage response (immunohistochemistry), and biomechanical strength were determined. Shrinkage was measured at 90 days. All three meshes induced good host tissue ingrowth, yet the macrophage response was significantly greater in the PTFE implants (P < .05). Collagen 1/3 mRNA levels failed to vary at 90 days yet in the longer term, the LW meshes showed the reduced genetic expression of both collagens (P < .05) accompanied by increased neocollagen deposition, indicating more efficient mRNA translation. After 90-180 days of implant, tensile strengths and elastic modulus values were similar for all 3 implants (P > .05). Host collagen deposition is mesh pore size dependent whereas the macrophage response induced is composition dependent with a greater response shown by PTFE. In the long term, macroporous meshes show comparable biomechanical behavior regardless of their pore size or composition. Copyright © 2012 Mosby, Inc. All rights reserved.

High performance humidity sensor and photodetector based on SnSe nanorods

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Pawbake, Amit S.; Jadkar, Sandesh R.; Late, Dattatray J.

2016-10-01

Tin selenide (SnSe) nanorods were synthesized using a one-step solvothermal route and their humidity sensing and photodetection performance at room temperature were investigated. The results depict that SnSe nanorod-based humidity and photosensors have good long-term stability, are highly sensitive and have fast response and recovery times. In the case of the humidity sensor it was observed that the resistance of the films decreased with increasing relative humidity (RH). The humidity sensing behaviors were investigated in the range 11-97% RH at room temperature. A response time of ˜68 s and recovery time of ˜149 s were observed for the humidity sensor. The photosensing behavior showed typical response /recovery times of ˜3 s with highly reproducible behavior.

Individual decision making in the non-purchase of long-term care insurance.

PubMed

Curry, Leslie A; Robison, Julie; Shugrue, Noreen; Keenan, Patricia; Kapp, Marshall B

2009-08-01

Although prior research suggests that economic, behavioral, and psychosocial factors influence decisions not to purchase long-term care insurance, few studies have examined the interplay among these factors in depth and from the consumer's point of view. This study was intended to further illuminate these considerations, generate hypotheses about non-purchasing decisions, and inform the design of policies that are responsive to concerns and preferences of potential purchasers. Qualitative study using 32 in-depth interviews and 6 focus groups, following a grounded theory approach. Five themes characterize decisions not to purchase long-term care insurance: (a) the determination that a policy is "too costly" reflects highly individualized and complex trade-offs not solely economic in nature, (b) non-purchasers are skeptical about the viability and integrity of private insurance companies and seek an unbiased source of information, (c) family dynamics play an important role in insurance decisions, (d) contemplating personal risk for long-term care triggers psychological responses that have implications for decision making, and (e) non-purchasers feel inadequately informed and overwhelmed by the process of deciding whether to purchase long-term care insurance. States are seeking to offset escalating Medicaid long-term care expenditures through a variety of policy mechanisms, including stimulating individual purchase of long-term care insurance. Findings suggest that economic incentives such as lowering premiums will be necessary but not sufficient to attract appropriate candidates. Attention to behavioral and psychosocial factors is essential to designing incentives that are responsive to concerns and preferences of potential purchasers.

"Why some consumers don't care": Heterogeneity in household responses to a food scandal.

PubMed

Rieger, Jörg; Weible, Daniela; Anders, Sven

2017-06-01

In the aftermath of food scandals, household perceptions about the health risks posed by failures in food safety play a central role in determining their mitigating behavior. A stream of literature has shown that factors including media coverage of a scandal, risk perceptions, trust in food safety information, and consumption habits matter. This paper deviates from the standard assumption of a homogeneous response to media information across all households exposed to a food scandal. Instead, we present an innovative multi-method approach to investigate the impacts of household heterogeneity in underlying psychological and behavioral, media usage patterns and consumption habits on poultry demand in the aftermath of the 2011 German dioxin scandal. The analysis employs weekly retail purchase and matching survey data for 6133 households covering pre and post scandal periods. The supplementary survey data elicits household respondent's risk perceptions and risk attitudes, product label and media information behavior. Initial factor and cluster analysis identify household segments based on psychographic and behavioral indicators. We then estimate a correlated random effect Tobit model to account for clustered household responses to quantify the influence of media effects distinguishing between short-term risk mitigation behavior and longer-term habit persistence. Our results confirm significant heterogeneity in household's media-induced risk-mitigation responses to the dioxin scandal across three clusters. However, we find that habit persistence in the form of consumption preferences for the affected products were able to largely compensate for demand-reducing media effects across household clusters. Considering heterogeneity in household's risk mitigation behaviors to food scandals holds implications for policy makers and food industry alike. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Self-stimulatory behavior and perceptual reinforcement.

PubMed Central

Lovaas, I; Newsom, C; Hickman, C

1987-01-01

Self-stimulatory behavior is repetitive, stereotyped, functionally autonomous behavior seen in both normal and developmentally disabled populations, yet no satisfactory theory of its development and major characteristics has previously been offered. We present here a detailed hypothesis of the acquisition and maintenance of self-stimulatory behavior, proposing that the behaviors are operant responses whose reinforcers are automatically produced interoceptive and exteroceptive perceptual consequences. The concept of perceptual stimuli and reinforcers, the durability of self-stimulatory behaviors, the sensory extinction effect, the inverse relationship between self-stimulatory and other behaviors, the blocking effect of self-stimulatory behavior on new learning, and response substitution effects are discussed in terms of the hypothesis. Support for the hypothesis from the areas of sensory reinforcement and sensory deprivation is also reviewed. Limitations of major alternative theories are discussed, along with implications of the perceptual reinforcement hypothesis for the treatment of excessive self-stimulatory behavior and for theoretical conceptualizations of functionally related normal and pathological behaviors. PMID:3583964

A Materials Approach to Collective Behavior

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ouellette, Nicholas

Aggregations of social animals, such as flocks of birds, schools of fish, or swarms of insects, are beautiful, natural examples of self-organized behavior far from equilibrium. Understanding these systems, however, has proved to be quite challenging. Determining the rules of interaction from empirical measurements of animals is a difficult inverse problem. Thus, researchers tend to focus on the macroscopic behavior of the group instead. Because so many of these systems display large-scale ordered patterns, it has become the norm in modeling animal aggregations to focus on this order. Large-scale patterns alone, however, are not sufficient information to characterize all the dynamics of animal aggregations, and do not provide stringent enough conditions to benchmark models. Instead, I will argue that we should borrow ideas from materials characterization to describe the macroscopic state of an animal group in terms of its response to external stimuli. I will illustrate these ideas with recent experiments on mating swarms of the non-biting midge Chironomus riparius, where we have developed methods to apply controlled perturbations and measure the detailed swarm response. Our results allow us to begin to describe swarms in terms of state variables and response functions, bringing them into the purview of theories of active matter. These results also point towards new, more detailed ways of characterizing and hopefully comparing collective behavior in animal groups.

Maternal Responses and Development of Communication Skills in Extremely Preterm Infants

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Benassi, Erika; Guarini, Annalisa; Savini, Silvia; Iverson, Jana Marie; Caselli, Maria Cristina; Alessandroni, Rosina; Faldella, Giacomo; Sansavini, Alessandra

2018-01-01

The present study examined maternal responses to infants' spontaneous communicative behaviors in a sample of 20 extremely-low-gestational-age (ELGA) infants and 20 full-term (FT) infants during 30 minutes of play interaction when infants were 12 months of age. Relations between maternal responses and infants' communication skills at 12 and 24…

Extinction of chained instrumental behaviors: Effects of consumption extinction on procurement responding

PubMed Central

Thrailkill, Eric A.; Bouton, Mark E.

2015-01-01

Operant behavior is typically organized into sequences of responses that eventually lead to a reinforcer. Response elements can be categorized as those that directly lead to reward consumption (i.e., a consumption response), and those that lead to the opportunity to make the consumption response (i.e., a procurement response). These responses often differ topographically and in terms of the discriminative stimuli that set the occasion for them. We have recently shown that extinction of the procurement response acts to weaken the specific associated consumption response, and that active inhibition of the procurement response is required for this effect. To expand the analysis of the associative structure of chains, the present experiments asked the reverse question of whether extinction of consumption behavior results in a decrease in the associated procurement response in a discriminated heterogeneous chain. In Experiment 1, extinction of consumption alone led to an attenuation of the associated procurement response only when rats were allowed to make the consumption response in extinction. Exposure to the consumption stimulus alone was not sufficient to produce weakened procurement responding. In Experiment 2, rats learned two distinct heterogeneous chains; extinction of one consumption response specifically weakened the procurement response associated with it. The results add to evidence suggesting that rats learn a highly specific associative structure in behavior chains, and emphasize the role of learning response inhibition in extinction. PMID:26276367

Extinction of chained instrumental behaviors: Effects of consumption extinction on procurement responding.

PubMed

Thrailkill, Eric A; Bouton, Mark E

2016-03-01

Operant behavior is typically organized into sequences of responses that eventually lead to a reinforcer. Response elements can be categorized as those that directly lead to reward consumption (i.e., a consumption response) and those that lead to the opportunity to make the consumption response (i.e., a procurement response). These responses often differ topographically and in terms of the discriminative stimuli that set the occasion for them. We have recently shown that extinction of the procurement response acts to weaken the specific associated consumption response, and that active inhibition of the procurement response is required for this effect. To expand the analysis of the associative structure of chains, in the present experiments we asked the reverse question: whether extinction of consumption behavior results in a decrease in the associated procurement response in a discriminated heterogeneous chain. In Experiment 1, extinction of consumption alone led to an attenuation of the associated procurement response only when rats were allowed to make the consumption response in extinction. Exposure to the consumption stimulus alone was not sufficient to produce weakened procurement responding. In Experiment 2, rats learned two distinct heterogeneous chains, and extinction of one consumption response specifically weakened the procurement response associated with it. The results add to the evidence suggesting that rats learn a highly specific associative structure in behavior chains, emphasizing the role of learning response inhibition in extinction.

A note on the temporal behavior of bucket hydrologies

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Suarez, M. J.

1984-01-01

The use of a "canopy' bucket to more accurately represent evapotranspiration over land surfaces is explained. The temporal behavior of the traditional bucket model is compared with one that mimics the effects of interception loss. Results are presented in terms of the spectral response of the parameterization to a hypothetical white noise forcing.

Regulation of Corticoid and Serotonin Receptor Brain System following Early Life Exposure of Glucocorticoids: Long Term Implications for the Neurobiology of Mood

PubMed Central

Vázquez, Delia M.; Neal, Charles R.; Patel, Paresh D.; Kaciroti, Niko; López, Juan F.

2011-01-01

Potent glucocorticoids (GC) administered early in life has improved premature infant survival dramatically. However, these agents may increase the risk for physical, neurological and behavior alterations. Anxiety, depression and attention difficulties are commonly described in adolescent and young adult survivors of prematurity. In the present study we administered vehicle, dexamethasone, or hydrocortisone to Sprague-Dawley rat pups on postnatal days 5 and 6, mimicking a short term clinical protocol commonly used in human infants. Two systems that are implicated in the regulation of stress and behavior were assessed: the limbic-hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis [LHPA, glucocorticoid and mineralocorticoid receptors within] and the Serotonin (5-HT) system. We found that as adults, male Sprague-Dawley pups treated with GC showed agent specific altered growth, anxiety-related behavior, changes in corticoid response to novelty and gene expression changes within LHPA and 5-HT–related circuitry. The data suggest that prolonged GC-receptor stimulation during the early neonatal period can contribute to the development of individual differences in stress response and anxiety-related behavior later in life. PMID:21855221

Repeated exposure to cat urine induces complex behavioral, hormonal, and c-fos mRNA responses in Norway rats ( Rattus norvegicus)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Yin, Baofa; Gu, Chen; Lu, Yi; Hegab, Ibrahim M.; Yang, Shengmei; Wang, Aiqin; Wei, Wanhong

2017-08-01

Prey species show specific adaptations that allow recognition, avoidance, and defense against predators. This study was undertaken to investigate the processing of a chronic, life-threatening stimulus to Norway rats ( Rattus norvegicus). One hundred forty-four Norway rats were tested by repeated presentation of cat urine for 1 h at different days in a defensive withdrawal apparatus. Rats exposed to urine for short periods showed significantly larger defensive behavioral and medial hypothalamic c-fos messenger RNA (mRNA) responses than other groups. These defensive responses habituated shortly after the presentation of cat urine. Serum levels of adrenocorticotropic hormone and corticosterone increased significantly when animals were repeatedly exposed to cat urine. However, the hormonal responses took longer to habituate than the behavioral and molecular responses did. We conclude that the behavioral and c-fos mRNA responses are "primed" for habituation to repeated exposures to cat urine, while the hormonal responses show "resistance." The results support our hypothesis that the strongest anti-predator responses at three levels would occur during short-term exposure to cat urine and that these responses would subsequently disappear on prolonged exposure. This study assists understanding the way in which the different levels of defensive responses are integrated and react during chronic stress.

Repeated exposure to cat urine induces complex behavioral, hormonal, and c-fos mRNA responses in Norway rats (Rattus norvegicus).

PubMed

Yin, Baofa; Gu, Chen; Lu, Yi; Hegab, Ibrahim M; Yang, Shengmei; Wang, Aiqin; Wei, Wanhong

2017-08-01

Prey species show specific adaptations that allow recognition, avoidance, and defense against predators. This study was undertaken to investigate the processing of a chronic, life-threatening stimulus to Norway rats (Rattus norvegicus). One hundred forty-four Norway rats were tested by repeated presentation of cat urine for 1 h at different days in a defensive withdrawal apparatus. Rats exposed to urine for short periods showed significantly larger defensive behavioral and medial hypothalamic c-fos messenger RNA (mRNA) responses than other groups. These defensive responses habituated shortly after the presentation of cat urine. Serum levels of adrenocorticotropic hormone and corticosterone increased significantly when animals were repeatedly exposed to cat urine. However, the hormonal responses took longer to habituate than the behavioral and molecular responses did. We conclude that the behavioral and c-fos mRNA responses are "primed" for habituation to repeated exposures to cat urine, while the hormonal responses show "resistance." The results support our hypothesis that the strongest anti-predator responses at three levels would occur during short-term exposure to cat urine and that these responses would subsequently disappear on prolonged exposure. This study assists understanding the way in which the different levels of defensive responses are integrated and react during chronic stress.

Women's finger sensitivity correlates with partnered sexual behavior but not solitary masturbation frequencies.

PubMed

Brody, Stuart; Fischer, Agneta H; Hess, Ursula

2008-01-01

In a sample of 97 healthy Dutch female university students, women with greater finger tactile sensitivity (von Frey-type filaments) engaged more in partnered (but not solitary masturbation) sexual behavior. Orgasmic responses in the past 30 days were not correlated with finger sensitivity. Results are discussed in terms of differences between different sexual behaviors, as well as susceptibility to reinforcement, and psychoanalytic views of conversion hysteria.

Parental educational practices in relation to children's anxiety disorder-related behavior.

PubMed

Mellon, Robert C; Moutavelis, Adrianos G

2011-08-01

Schoolchildren reported their parents' use of aversive control and positive reinforcement contingencies in their educational interventions, as well as parental non-responsiveness to their requests for educational assistance. They also reported their own levels of six dimensions of anxiety disorder-related phenomena. Both parental use of aversive control and non-responsiveness were directly related to overall levels of child anxiety disorder-related behavior; these correlations were more robust than those observed in previous investigations of more diffuse dimensions of parenting style and trait anxiety. Panic disorder/agoraphobia and Generalized anxiety disorder were the dimensions most strongly correlated with both parental aversive control and non-responsiveness, while Compulsive behavior was uniquely uncorrelated with parental non-responsiveness and uniquely correlated with parental use of positive reinforcement contingencies. Differences in the magnitudes of correlations between anxiety disorder-related dimensions and parental educational practices are interpreted in terms of the probable differential effectiveness of their constituent behaviors in terminating parent-mediated negative reinforcers. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Growing Pains: Development of the Larval Nocifensive Response in Drosophila

PubMed Central

SULKOWSKI, MIKOLAJ J.; KUROSAWA, MATHIEU S.; OX, DANIEL N.

2014-01-01

The ability to perceive and avoid harmful substances or stimuli is key to an organism’s survival. The neuronal cognate of the perception of pain is known as nociception, and the reflexive motion to avoid pain is termed the nocifensive response. As the nocifensive response is an ancient and evolutionarily conserved behavioral response to nociceptive stimuli, it is amenable to study in relatively simple and genetically tractable model systems such as Drosophila. Recent studies have taken advantage of the useful properties of Drosophila larvae to begin elucidating the neuronal connectivity and molecular machinery underlying the nocifensive response. However, these studies have primarily utilized the third-instar larval stage, and many mutations that potentially influence nociception survive only until earlier larval stages. Here we characterize the nocifensive responses of Drosophila throughout larval development and find dramatic changes in the nature of the behavior. Notably, we find that prior to the third instar, larvae are unable to perform the characteristic “corkscrew-like roll” behavior. Also, we identify an avoidance behavior consistent with a nocifensive response that is present immediately after larval hatching, representing a paradigm that may be useful in examining mutations with an early lethal phenotype. PMID:22186918

Effects of immunostimulation on social behavior, chemical communication and genome-wide gene expression in honey bee workers (Apis mellifera)

PubMed Central

2012-01-01

Background Social insects, such as honey bees, use molecular, physiological and behavioral responses to combat pathogens and parasites. The honey bee genome contains all of the canonical insect immune response pathways, and several studies have demonstrated that pathogens can activate expression of immune effectors. Honey bees also use behavioral responses, termed social immunity, to collectively defend their hives from pathogens and parasites. These responses include hygienic behavior (where workers remove diseased brood) and allo-grooming (where workers remove ectoparasites from nestmates). We have previously demonstrated that immunostimulation causes changes in the cuticular hydrocarbon profiles of workers, which results in altered worker-worker social interactions. Thus, cuticular hydrocarbons may enable workers to identify sick nestmates, and adjust their behavior in response. Here, we test the specificity of behavioral, chemical and genomic responses to immunostimulation by challenging workers with a panel of different immune stimulants (saline, Sephadex beads and Gram-negative bacteria E. coli). Results While only bacteria-injected bees elicited altered behavioral responses from healthy nestmates compared to controls, all treatments resulted in significant changes in cuticular hydrocarbon profiles. Immunostimulation caused significant changes in expression of hundreds of genes, the majority of which have not been identified as members of the canonical immune response pathways. Furthermore, several new candidate genes that may play a role in cuticular hydrocarbon biosynthesis were identified. Effects of immune challenge expression of several genes involved in immune response, cuticular hydrocarbon biosynthesis, and the Notch signaling pathway were confirmed using quantitative real-time PCR. Finally, we identified common genes regulated by pathogen challenge in honey bees and other insects. Conclusions These results demonstrate that honey bee genomic responses to immunostimulation are substantially broader than the previously identified canonical immune response pathways, and may mediate the behavioral changes associated with social immunity by orchestrating changes in chemical signaling. These studies lay the groundwork for future research into the genomic responses of honey bees to native honey bee parasites and pathogens. PMID:23072398

Effects of immunostimulation on social behavior, chemical communication and genome-wide gene expression in honey bee workers (Apis mellifera).

PubMed

Richard, Freddie-Jeanne; Holt, Holly L; Grozinger, Christina M

2012-10-16

Social insects, such as honey bees, use molecular, physiological and behavioral responses to combat pathogens and parasites. The honey bee genome contains all of the canonical insect immune response pathways, and several studies have demonstrated that pathogens can activate expression of immune effectors. Honey bees also use behavioral responses, termed social immunity, to collectively defend their hives from pathogens and parasites. These responses include hygienic behavior (where workers remove diseased brood) and allo-grooming (where workers remove ectoparasites from nestmates). We have previously demonstrated that immunostimulation causes changes in the cuticular hydrocarbon profiles of workers, which results in altered worker-worker social interactions. Thus, cuticular hydrocarbons may enable workers to identify sick nestmates, and adjust their behavior in response. Here, we test the specificity of behavioral, chemical and genomic responses to immunostimulation by challenging workers with a panel of different immune stimulants (saline, Sephadex beads and Gram-negative bacteria E. coli). While only bacteria-injected bees elicited altered behavioral responses from healthy nestmates compared to controls, all treatments resulted in significant changes in cuticular hydrocarbon profiles. Immunostimulation caused significant changes in expression of hundreds of genes, the majority of which have not been identified as members of the canonical immune response pathways. Furthermore, several new candidate genes that may play a role in cuticular hydrocarbon biosynthesis were identified. Effects of immune challenge expression of several genes involved in immune response, cuticular hydrocarbon biosynthesis, and the Notch signaling pathway were confirmed using quantitative real-time PCR. Finally, we identified common genes regulated by pathogen challenge in honey bees and other insects. These results demonstrate that honey bee genomic responses to immunostimulation are substantially broader than the previously identified canonical immune response pathways, and may mediate the behavioral changes associated with social immunity by orchestrating changes in chemical signaling. These studies lay the groundwork for future research into the genomic responses of honey bees to native honey bee parasites and pathogens.

Caregivers' responses to an intervention to improve young child feeding behaviors in rural Bangladesh: a mixed method study of the facilitators and barriers to change.

PubMed

Affleck, William; Pelto, Gretel

2012-08-01

Behavior change communications regarding child feeding have met with mixed success. The present study analyzes responses of 34 Bangladeshi caregivers seven months after they received a responsive feeding intervention. The intervention communicated and demonstrated five feeding interactions: hand-washing, self-feeding, verbal responsivity, managing refusals non-forcefully, and dietary diversity. Seventeen caregivers who adopted key behaviors addressed by the intervention and 17 who did not were compared in terms of socio-demographic variables, but more importantly in terms of their recall of the messages, their reported practice, and reported facilitators and barriers. Both those who changed and those who did not reported similar facilitators and barriers to practicing the new behaviors; there was also no difference in recall or in socio-demographic variables. Key themes identified through a constant comparative analysis helped to focus on common features of the lives of caregivers that made it easy or difficult to perform the practices. Some of these were household constraints such as poverty, shortage of time in which to complete chores, and avoiding waste and messiness; others related to the child's demands. Many caregivers misinterpreted instructions about talking to one's child in response to signals, as opposed to more common forms of supervision. Facilitators such as the child's evident pleasure and the caregiver's satisfaction did not always outweigh the barriers. Recommendations for improving interventions include helping caregivers solve problems tied to barriers and including more family members in the intervention. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Uncoupling primer and releaser responses to pheromone in honey bees

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Grozinger, Christina M.; Fischer, Patrick; Hampton, Jacob E.

2007-05-01

Pheromones produce dramatic behavioral and physiological responses in a wide variety of species. Releaser pheromones elicit rapid responses within seconds or minutes, while primer pheromones produce long-term changes which may take days to manifest. Honeybee queen mandibular pheromone (QMP) elicits multiple distinct behavioral and physiological responses in worker bees, as both a releaser and primer, and thus produces responses on vastly different time scales. In this study, we demonstrate that releaser and primer responses to QMP can be uncoupled. First, treatment with the juvenile hormone analog methoprene leaves a releaser response (attraction to QMP) intact, but modulates QMP’s primer effects on sucrose responsiveness. Secondly, two components of QMP (9-ODA and 9-HDA) do not elicit a releaser response (attraction) but are as effective as QMP at modulating a primer response, downregulation of foraging-related brain gene expression. These results suggest that different responses to a single pheromone may be produced via distinct pathways.

Long-Term Provision of Environmental Resources Alters Behavior but not Physiology or Neuroanatomy of Male and Female BALB/c and C57BL/6 Mice

PubMed Central

Clipperton-Allen, Amy E; Ingrao, Joelle C; Ruggiero, Laura; Batista, Lucas; Ovari, Jelena; Hammermueller, Jutta; Armstrong, John N; Bienzle, Dorothee; Choleris, Elena; Turner, Patricia V

2015-01-01

Few studies have evaluated the long-term effects of providing environmental resources to mice. This consideration is important given that mice are often maintained in vivaria for months. We evaluated the effects of providing simple cage resources (wood wool, cotton nesting material, a plastic tunnel, and oat cereal) compared with standard housing (solid-bottom cage with hardwood chips) to group-housed adult male and female C57BL/6 and BALB/c mice (n = 20/sex/strain/group) over 6 mo to determine whether these resources had a lasting effect on animal physiology, anatomy, and behavior. Body weights increased in all groups over time but were proportionately higher in male and female BALB/c mice housed in resource-supplemented environments. Throughout the study, adding environmental resources had no effect on hematology and lymphocyte subsets, fecal corticoid metabolite levels, response to LPS injection, or dendritic spine length or density. Strain- or sex×environment-specific changes occurred in dark–light activity and thermal nociceptive responses. Dominant agonistic behaviors, abnormal conspecific sexual behaviors, and social nonagonistic behaviors demonstrated sex and strain×environment interactions such that fewer maladaptive social behaviors were noted in mice that were provided with environmental resources. This association was particularly evident in male mice of both strains in resource-supplemented environments. A small but significant increase in brain weight:body weight ratios occurred in mice in resource-supplemented environments. Under the conditions evaluated here, consistent use of simple environmental resources had a positive long-term effect on the behavioral wellbeing of male and female BALB/c and C57BL/6 mice yet minimally affected other aspects of murine physiology and neuroanatomy. PMID:26632781

The Parental Emotional Response to Children Index.

PubMed

Lambek, Rikke; Sonuga-Barke, Edmund; Psychogiou, Lamprini; Thompson, Margaret; Tannock, Rosemary; Daley, David; Damm, Dorte; Thomsen, Per Hove

2017-04-01

The current study introduces the Parental Emotional Response to Children Index (PERCI), a new questionnaire specifically designed to measure parents' emotional response to ADHD and related behaviors (delay discounting and delay aversion). The PERCI was completed by parents of 6- to 14-year-old children with ( n = 126) and without ( n = 160) ADHD. Factor analysis confirmed five separate subscales with acceptable psychometric properties. Parents of children with ADHD reported a stronger emotional response to ADHD behaviors than parents of typically developing children and inattention symptoms evoked the strongest emotional response in parents regardless of child diagnostic status. Parents' emotional responses appear to be differentiated in terms of specific ADHD-related triggers mapping onto the different domains of ADHD and delay-related responses. Further research is required to understand changes in parental emotional responses over time and their impact on children's developmental trajectories.

Neural Events in the Reinforcement Contingency

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Silva, Maria Teresa Araujo; Goncalves, Fabio Leyser; Garcia-Mijares, Miriam

2007-01-01

When neural events are analyzed as stimuli and responses, functional relations among them and among overt stimuli and responses can be unveiled. The integration of neuroscience and the experimental analysis of behavior is beginning to provide empirical evidence of involvement of neural events in the three-term contingency relating discriminative…

Stability and change: Stress responses and the shaping of behavioral phenotypes over the life span.

PubMed

Hennessy, Michael B; Kaiser, Sylvia; Tiedtke, Tobias; Sachser, Norbert

2015-01-01

In mammals, maternal signals conveyed via influences on hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) activity may shape behavior of the young to be better adapted for prevailing environmental conditions. However, the mother's influence extends beyond classic stress response systems. In guinea pigs, several hours (h) of separation from the mother activates not only the HPA axis, but also the innate immune system, which effects immediate behavioral change, as well as modifies behavioral responsiveness in the future. Moreover, the presence of the mother potently suppresses the behavioral consequences of this innate immune activation. These findings raise the possibility that long-term adaptive behavioral change can be mediated by the mother's influence on immune-related activity of her pups. Furthermore, the impact of social partners on physiological stress responses and their behavioral outcomes are not limited to the infantile period. A particularly crucial period for social development in male guinea pigs is that surrounding the attainment of sexual maturation. At this time, social interactions with adults can dramatically affect circulating cortisol concentrations and social behavior in ways that appear to prepare the male to best cope in its likely future social environment. Despite such multiple social influences on the behavior of guinea pigs at different ages, inter-individual differences in the magnitude of the cortisol response remain surprisingly stable over most of the life span. Together, it appears that throughout the life span, physiological stress responses may be regulated by social stimuli. These influences are hypothesized to adjust behavior for predicted environmental conditions. In addition, stable individual differences might provide a means of facilitating adaptation to less predictable conditions.

Spatiotemporal Detection of Unusual Human Population Behavior Using Mobile Phone Data

PubMed Central

Dobra, Adrian; Williams, Nathalie E.; Eagle, Nathan

2015-01-01

With the aim to contribute to humanitarian response to disasters and violent events, scientists have proposed the development of analytical tools that could identify emergency events in real-time, using mobile phone data. The assumption is that dramatic and discrete changes in behavior, measured with mobile phone data, will indicate extreme events. In this study, we propose an efficient system for spatiotemporal detection of behavioral anomalies from mobile phone data and compare sites with behavioral anomalies to an extensive database of emergency and non-emergency events in Rwanda. Our methodology successfully captures anomalous behavioral patterns associated with a broad range of events, from religious and official holidays to earthquakes, floods, violence against civilians and protests. Our results suggest that human behavioral responses to extreme events are complex and multi-dimensional, including extreme increases and decreases in both calling and movement behaviors. We also find significant temporal and spatial variance in responses to extreme events. Our behavioral anomaly detection system and extensive discussion of results are a significant contribution to the long-term project of creating an effective real-time event detection system with mobile phone data and we discuss the implications of our findings for future research to this end. PMID:25806954

A nonlinear dynamics of trunk kinematics during manual lifting tasks.

PubMed

Khalaf, Tamer; Karwowski, Waldemar; Sapkota, Nabin

2015-01-01

Human responses at work may exhibit nonlinear properties where small changes in the initial task conditions can lead to large changes in system behavior. Therefore, it is important to study such nonlinearity to gain a better understanding of human performance under a variety of physical, perceptual, and cognitive tasks conditions. The main objective of this study was to investigate whether the human trunk kinematics data during a manual lifting task exhibits nonlinear behavior in terms of determinist chaos. Data related to kinematics of the trunk with respect to the pelvis were collected using Industrial Lumbar Motion Monitor (ILMM), and analyzed applying the nonlinear dynamical systems methodology. Nonlinear dynamics quantifiers of Lyapunov exponents and Kaplan-Yorke dimensions were calculated and analyzed under different task conditions. The study showed that human trunk kinematics during manual lifting exhibits chaotic behavior in terms of trunk sagittal angular displacement, velocity and acceleration. The findings support the importance of accounting for nonlinear dynamical properties of biomechanical responses to lifting tasks.

Decoding the content of visual short-term memory under distraction in occipital and parietal areas.

PubMed

Bettencourt, Katherine C; Xu, Yaoda

2016-01-01

Recent studies have provided conflicting accounts regarding where in the human brain visual short-term memory (VSTM) content is stored, with strong univariate fMRI responses being reported in superior intraparietal sulcus (IPS), but robust multivariate decoding being reported in occipital cortex. Given the continuous influx of information in everyday vision, VSTM storage under distraction is often required. We found that neither distractor presence nor predictability during the memory delay affected behavioral performance. Similarly, superior IPS exhibited consistent decoding of VSTM content across all distractor manipulations and had multivariate responses that closely tracked behavioral VSTM performance. However, occipital decoding of VSTM content was substantially modulated by distractor presence and predictability. Furthermore, we found no effect of target-distractor similarity on VSTM behavioral performance, further challenging the role of sensory regions in VSTM storage. Overall, consistent with previous univariate findings, our results indicate that superior IPS, but not occipital cortex, has a central role in VSTM storage.

Long-term aging behaviors in a model soft colloidal system.

PubMed

Li, Qi; Peng, Xiaoguang; McKenna, Gregory B

2017-02-15

Colloidal and molecular systems share similar behaviors near to the glass transition volume fraction or temperature. Here, aging behaviors after volume fraction up-jump (induced by performing temperature down-jumps) conditions for a PS-PNIPAM/AA soft colloidal system were investigated using light scattering (diffusing wave spectroscopy, DWS). Both aging responses and equilibrium dynamics were investigated. For the aging responses, long-term experiments (100 000 s) were performed, and both equilibrium and non-equilibrium behaviors of the system were obtained. In the equilibrium state, as effective volume fraction increases (or temperature decreases), the colloidal dispersion displays a transition from the liquid to a glassy state. The equilibrium α-relaxation dynamics strongly depend on both the effective volume fraction and the initial mass concentration for the studied colloidal systems. Compared with prior results from our lab [X. Di, X. Peng and G. B. McKenna, J. Chem. Phys., 2014, 140, 054903], the effective volume fractions investigated spanned a wider range, to deeper into the glassy domain. The results show that the α-relaxation time τ α of the samples aged into equilibrium deviate from the classical Vogel-Fulcher-Tammann (VFT)-type expectations and the super-Arrhenius signature disappears above the glass transition volume fraction. The non-equilibrium aging response shows that the time for the structural evolution into equilibrium and the α-relaxation time are decoupled. The DWS investigation of the aging behavior after different volume fraction jumps reveals a different non-equilibrium or aging behavior for the considered colloidal systems compared with either molecular glasses or the macroscopic rheology of a similar colloidal dispersions.

Do rats have orgasms?

PubMed Central

Pfaus, James G.; Scardochio, Tina; Parada, Mayte; Gerson, Christine; Quintana, Gonzalo R.; Coria-Avila, Genaro A.

2016-01-01

Background Although humans experience orgasms with a degree of statistical regularity, they remain among the most enigmatic of sexual responses; difficult to define and even more difficult to study empirically. The question of whether animals experience orgasms is hampered by similar lack of definition and the additional necessity of making inferences from behavioral responses. Method Here we define three behavioral criteria, based on dimensions of the subjective experience of human orgasms described by Mah and Binik, to infer orgasm-like responses (OLRs) in other species: 1) physiological criteria that include pelvic floor and anal muscle contractions that stimulate seminal emission and/or ejaculation in the male, or that stimulate uterine and cervical contractions in the female; 2) short-term behavioral changes that reflect immediate awareness of a pleasurable hedonic reward state during copulation; and 3) long-term behavioral changes that depend on the reward state induced by the OLR, including sexual satiety, the strengthening of patterns of sexual arousal and desire in subsequent copulations, and the generation of conditioned place and partner preferences for contextual and partner-related cues associated with the reward state. We then examine whether physiological and behavioral data from observations of male and female rats during copulation, and in sexually-conditioned place- and partner-preference paradigms, are consistent with these criteria. Results Both male and female rats display behavioral patterns consistent with OLRs. Conclusions The ability to infer OLRs in rats offers new possibilities to study the phenomenon in neurobiological and molecular detail, and to provide both comparative and translational perspectives that would be useful for both basic and clinical research. PMID:27799081

Selection by consequences, behavioral evolution, and the price equation.

PubMed

Baum, William M

2017-05-01

Price's equation describes evolution across time in simple mathematical terms. Although it is not a theory, but a derived identity, it is useful as an analytical tool. It affords lucid descriptions of genetic evolution, cultural evolution, and behavioral evolution (often called "selection by consequences") at different levels (e.g., individual vs. group) and at different time scales (local and extended). The importance of the Price equation for behavior analysis lies in its ability to precisely restate selection by consequences, thereby restating, or even replacing, the law of effect. Beyond this, the equation may be useful whenever one regards ontogenetic behavioral change as evolutionary change, because it describes evolutionary change in abstract, general terms. As an analytical tool, the behavioral Price equation is an excellent aid in understanding how behavior changes within organisms' lifetimes. For example, it illuminates evolution of response rate, analyses of choice in concurrent schedules, negative contingencies, and dilemmas of self-control. © 2017 Society for the Experimental Analysis of Behavior.

Does restructuring theory and clinical courses better prepare nursing students to manage residents with challenging behaviors in long-term care settings?

PubMed

O'Connell, Beverly; Guse, Lorna; Greenslade, Loreley

2018-01-30

Bachelor of Nursing students (BN) placed in long-term care encounter residents who exhibit challenging behaviors. Students are often inadequately prepared to manage these behaviors, and this is a source of distress for students. This study explored whether enhancing and restructuring theoretical and clinical courses resulted in student nurses feeling better prepared to manage residents' challenging behaviors and improve their levels of distress. This study was conducted in two phases with 116 BN students (first phase) and 99 students (second phase) where the course on older adults was restructured. The findings of this study indicated that students who felt less prepared experienced greater distress by residents' behaviors than those who felt better prepared. Scheduling a theoretical course on the care of older adults prior to the clinical course placement, as well as offering an online learning module focused on responsive behaviors, significantly increased students' feelings of preparedness to manage residents' complex behaviors.

A New Look at the Science of Weight Control: How Acceptance and Commitment Strategies Can Address the Challenge of Self-Regulation

PubMed Central

Forman, Evan M.; Butryn, Meghan L.

2014-01-01

Despite decades of work, behavioral interventions for obesity are not yet able to facilitate long-term weight loss maintenance for most participants. The current manuscript proposes an acceptance-based, self-regulation framework for understanding the challenge of maintaining changes in weight-related behavior and describes how this framework can be integrated into the behavioral treatment of obesity. According to this framework, intrinsic drives to consume palatable, high-calorie food interact with a modern environment in which high calorie foods are easily accessible. This combination produces a chronic desire to eat unhealthy foods that exists in opposition to individuals’ weight control goals. Similarly, energy expenditure requirements in the modern environment are limited, and people’s innate preferences to conserve energy typically prevent the concerted effort that would be necessary to engage in lifestyle activity and structured activity. Both external (e.g., sight of food) and internal (e.g., an aversive emotion) cues motivate overeating and sedentary behavior. However, individuals vary in their responsivity to these cues. While standard behavior skills may enable those lower in responsivity to successfully achieve weight control, we suggest that those higher in responsivity need specialized self-regulatory skills to maintain healthy eating and exercise behaviors. These skills include an ability to tolerate uncomfortable internal reactions to triggers and a reduction of pleasure, behavioral commitment to clearly-defined values, and metacognitive awareness of decision-making processes. So-called “acceptance-based” interventions based on these skills have so far proven efficacious for weight control, especially for those who are the most susceptible to eating in response to internal and external cues (as predicted by the model). Despite the current empirical support for the postulated model and for the interventions which stem from it, much remains to be learned including whether acceptance-based interventions will prove efficacious in the longer-term. PMID:25445199

The Etymology of Basic Concepts in the Experimental Analysis of Behavior

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Dinsmoor, James A.

2004-01-01

The origins of many of the basic concepts used in the experimental analysis of behavior can be traced to Pavlov's (1927/1960) discussion of unconditional and conditional reflexes in the dog, but often with substantial changes in meaning (e.g., stimulus, response, and reinforcement). Other terms were added by Skinner (1938/1991) to describe his…

Pro-social 50-kHz ultrasonic communication in rats: post-weaning but not post-adolescent social isolation leads to social impairments—phenotypic rescue by re-socialization

PubMed Central

Seffer, Dominik; Rippberger, Henrike; Schwarting, Rainer K. W.; Wöhr, Markus

2015-01-01

Rats are highly social animals and social play during adolescence has an important role for social development, hence post-weaning social isolation is widely used to study the adverse effects of juvenile social deprivation and to induce behavioral phenotypes relevant to neuropsychiatric disorders, like schizophrenia. Communication is an important component of the rat's social behavior repertoire, with ultrasonic vocalizations (USV) serving as situation-dependent affective signals. High-frequency 50-kHz USV occur in appetitive situations and induce approach behavior, supporting the notion that they serve as social contact calls; however, post-weaning isolation effects on the behavioral changes displayed by the receiver in response to USV have yet to be studied. We therefore investigated the impact of post-weaning isolation on socio-affective information processing as assessed by means of our established 50-kHz USV radial maze playback paradigm. We showed that post-weaning social isolation specifically affected the behavioral response to playback of pro-social 50-kHz but not alarm 22-kHz USV. While group-housed rats showed the expected preference, i.e., approach, toward 50-kHz USV, the response was even stronger in short-term isolated rats (i.e., 1 day), possibly due to a higher level of social motivation. In contrast, no approach was observed in long-term isolated rats (i.e., 4 weeks). Importantly, deficits in approach were reversed by peer-mediated re-socialization and could not be observed after post-adolescent social isolation, indicating a critical period for social development during adolescence. Together, these results highlight the importance of social experience for affiliative behavior, suggesting a critical involvement of play behavior on socio-affective information processing in rats. PMID:25983681

Arousal regulation and affective adaptation to human responsiveness by a robot that explores and learns a novel environment

PubMed Central

Hiolle, Antoine; Lewis, Matthew; Cañamero, Lola

2014-01-01

In the context of our work in developmental robotics regarding robot–human caregiver interactions, in this paper we investigate how a “baby” robot that explores and learns novel environments can adapt its affective regulatory behavior of soliciting help from a “caregiver” to the preferences shown by the caregiver in terms of varying responsiveness. We build on two strands of previous work that assessed independently (a) the differences between two “idealized” robot profiles—a “needy” and an “independent” robot—in terms of their use of a caregiver as a means to regulate the “stress” (arousal) produced by the exploration and learning of a novel environment, and (b) the effects on the robot behaviors of two caregiving profiles varying in their responsiveness—“responsive” and “non-responsive”—to the regulatory requests of the robot. Going beyond previous work, in this paper we (a) assess the effects that the varying regulatory behavior of the two robot profiles has on the exploratory and learning patterns of the robots; (b) bring together the two strands previously investigated in isolation and take a step further by endowing the robot with the capability to adapt its regulatory behavior along the “needy” and “independent” axis as a function of the varying responsiveness of the caregiver; and (c) analyze the effects that the varying regulatory behavior has on the exploratory and learning patterns of the adaptive robot. PMID:24860492

Traces of Drosophila Memory

PubMed Central

Davis, Ronald L.

2012-01-01

Summary Studies using functional cellullar imaging of living flies have identified six memory traces that form in the olfactory nervous system after conditioning with odors. These traces occur in distinct nodes of the olfactory nervous system, form and disappear across different windows of time, and are detected in the imaged neurons as increased calcium influx or synaptic release in response to the conditioned odor. Three traces form at, or near acquisition and co-exist with short-term behavioral memory. One trace forms with a delay after learning and co-exists with intermediate-term behavioral memory. Two traces form many hours after acquisition and co-exist with long-term behavioral memory. The transient memory traces may support behavior across the time-windows of their existence. The experimental approaches for dissecting memory formation in the fly, ranging from the molecular to the systems, make it an ideal system for dissecting the logic by which the nervous system organizes and stores different temporal forms of memory. PMID:21482352

Long-lasting behavioral effects in neonatal mice with multiple exposures to ketamine-xylazine anesthesia

PubMed Central

Huang, Lianyan; Hayes, Scott; Yang, Guang

2016-01-01

Anesthetic agents are often administered in the neonatal period, a time of rapid brain development and synaptogenesis. Mounting evidence suggests that anesthetics can disrupt neurocognitive development, particularly in cases of multiple or prolonged anesthetic exposure. Previous studies have shown that administering multiple doses of ketamine-xylazine (KX) anesthesia to neonatal mice can induce long-term changes to synaptic plasticity in the cortex, but the effect on neurocognitive function remains unclear. In this study, we exposed neonatal mice to single dose and multiple doses of KX anesthesia in the neonatal period (postnatal days 7, 9, 11), and conducted a series of behavioral tests in young adulthood (1 month of age). Mice receiving multiple doses of KX anesthesia showed deficits in novel object recognition, sociability, preference for social novelty and contextual fear response, but no effect on auditory-cued fear response. Single dose of KX anesthesia had no effect on these behaviors except for contextual fear response. We also observed that multiple exposures to KX anesthesia were associated with decreased CaMKII phosphorylation, which is known to play a role in synapse development and long-term potentiation, likely contributing to learning impairment. PMID:27622724

Evidences from Rewarding System, FRN and P300 Effect in Internet-Addiction in Young People SHORT TITLE: Rewarding System and EEG in Internet-Addiction

PubMed Central

Venturella, Irene; Finocchiaro, Roberta

2017-01-01

The present research explored rewarding bias and attentional deficits in Internet addiction (IA) based on the IAT (Internet Addiction Test) construct, during an attentional inhibitory task (Go/NoGo task). Event-related Potentials (ERPs) effects (Feedback Related Negativity (FRN) and P300) were monitored in concomitance with Behavioral Activation System (BAS) modulation. High-IAT young participants showed specific responses to IA-related cues (videos representing online gambling and videogames) in terms of cognitive performance (decreased Response Times, RTs; and Error Rates, ERs) and ERPs modulation (decreased FRN and increased P300). Consistent reward and attentional biases was adduced to explain the cognitive “gain” effect and the anomalous response in terms of both feedback behavior (FRN) and attentional (P300) mechanisms in high-IAT. In addition, BAS and BAS-Reward subscales measures were correlated with both IAT and ERPs variations. Therefore, high sensitivity to IAT may be considered as a marker of dysfunctional reward processing (reduction of monitoring) and cognitive control (higher attentional values) for specific IA-related cues. More generally, a direct relationship among reward-related behavior, Internet addiction and BAS attitude was suggested. PMID:28704978

Effects of Long-Term Ayahuasca Administration on Memory and Anxiety in Rats

PubMed Central

Favaro, Vanessa Manchim; Yonamine, Maurício; Soares, Juliana Carlota Kramer; Oliveira, Maria Gabriela Menezes

2015-01-01

Ayahuasca is a hallucinogenic beverage that combines the action of the 5-HT2A/2C agonist N,N-dimethyltryptamine (DMT) from Psychotria viridis with the monoamine oxidase inhibitors (MAOIs) induced by beta-carbonyls from Banisteriopsis caapi. Previous investigations have highlighted the involvement of ayahuasca with the activation of brain regions known to be involved with episodic memory, contextual associations and emotional processing after ayahuasca ingestion. Moreover long term users show better performance in neuropsychological tests when tested in off-drug condition. This study evaluated the effects of long-term administration of ayahuasca on Morris water maze (MWM), fear conditioning and elevated plus maze (EPM) performance in rats. Behavior tests started 48h after the end of treatment. Freeze-dried ayahuasca doses of 120, 240 and 480 mg/kg were used, with water as the control. Long-term administration consisted of a daily oral dose for 30 days by gavage. The behavioral data indicated that long-term ayahuasca administration did not affect the performance of animals in MWM and EPM tasks. However the dose of 120 mg/kg increased the contextual conditioned fear response for both background and foreground fear conditioning. The tone conditioned response was not affected after long-term administration. In addition, the increase in the contextual fear response was maintained during the repeated sessions several weeks after training. Taken together, these data showed that long-term ayahuasca administration in rats can interfere with the contextual association of emotional events, which is in agreement with the fact that the beverage activates brain areas related to these processes. PMID:26716991

Effects of Long-Term Ayahuasca Administration on Memory and Anxiety in Rats.

PubMed

Favaro, Vanessa Manchim; Yonamine, Maurício; Soares, Juliana Carlota Kramer; Oliveira, Maria Gabriela Menezes

2015-01-01

Ayahuasca is a hallucinogenic beverage that combines the action of the 5-HT2A/2C agonist N,N-dimethyltryptamine (DMT) from Psychotria viridis with the monoamine oxidase inhibitors (MAOIs) induced by beta-carbonyls from Banisteriopsis caapi. Previous investigations have highlighted the involvement of ayahuasca with the activation of brain regions known to be involved with episodic memory, contextual associations and emotional processing after ayahuasca ingestion. Moreover long term users show better performance in neuropsychological tests when tested in off-drug condition. This study evaluated the effects of long-term administration of ayahuasca on Morris water maze (MWM), fear conditioning and elevated plus maze (EPM) performance in rats. Behavior tests started 48h after the end of treatment. Freeze-dried ayahuasca doses of 120, 240 and 480 mg/kg were used, with water as the control. Long-term administration consisted of a daily oral dose for 30 days by gavage. The behavioral data indicated that long-term ayahuasca administration did not affect the performance of animals in MWM and EPM tasks. However the dose of 120 mg/kg increased the contextual conditioned fear response for both background and foreground fear conditioning. The tone conditioned response was not affected after long-term administration. In addition, the increase in the contextual fear response was maintained during the repeated sessions several weeks after training. Taken together, these data showed that long-term ayahuasca administration in rats can interfere with the contextual association of emotional events, which is in agreement with the fact that the beverage activates brain areas related to these processes.

Adulthood stress responses in rats are variably altered as a factor of adolescent stress exposure.

PubMed

Moore, Nicole L T; Altman, Daniel E; Gauchan, Sangeeta; Genovese, Raymond F

2016-05-01

Stress exposure during development may influence adulthood stress response severity. The present study investigates persisting effects of two adolescent stressors upon adulthood response to predator exposure (PE). Rats were exposed to underwater trauma (UWT) or PE during adolescence, then to PE after reaching adulthood. Rats were then exposed to predator odor (PO) to test responses to predator cues alone. Behavioral and neuroendocrine assessments were conducted to determine acute effects of each stress experience. Adolescent stress altered behavioral response to adulthood PE. Acoustic startle response was blunted. Bidirectional changes in plus maze exploration were revealed as a factor of adolescent stress type. Neuroendocrine response magnitude did not predict severity of adolescent or adult stress response, suggesting that different adolescent stress events may differentially alter developmental outcomes regardless of acute behavioral or neuroendocrine response. We report that exposure to two different stressors in adolescence may differentially affect stress response outcomes in adulthood. Acute response to an adolescent stressor may not be consistent across all stressors or all dependent measures, and may not predict alterations in developmental outcomes pertaining to adulthood stress exposure. Further studies are needed to characterize factors underlying long-term effects of a developmental stressor.

Stress-induced gene expression and behavior are controlled by DNA methylation and methyl donor availability in the dentate gyrus

PubMed Central

Saunderson, Emily A.; Spiers, Helen; Gutierrez-Mecinas, Maria; Trollope, Alexandra F.; Shaikh, Abeera; Mill, Jonathan; Reul, Johannes M. H. M.

2016-01-01

Stressful events evoke long-term changes in behavioral responses; however, the underlying mechanisms in the brain are not well understood. Previous work has shown that epigenetic changes and immediate-early gene (IEG) induction in stress-activated dentate gyrus (DG) granule neurons play a crucial role in these behavioral responses. Here, we show that an acute stressful challenge [i.e., forced swimming (FS)] results in DNA demethylation at specific CpG (5′-cytosine–phosphate–guanine-3′) sites close to the c-Fos (FBJ murine osteosarcoma viral oncogene homolog) transcriptional start site and within the gene promoter region of Egr-1 (early growth response protein 1) specifically in the DG. Administration of the (endogenous) methyl donor S-adenosyl methionine (SAM) did not affect CpG methylation and IEG gene expression at baseline. However, administration of SAM before the FS challenge resulted in an enhanced CpG methylation at the IEG loci and suppression of IEG induction specifically in the DG and an impaired behavioral immobility response 24 h later. The stressor also specifically increased the expression of the de novo DNA methyltransferase Dnmt3a [DNA (cytosine-5-)-methyltransferase 3 alpha] in this hippocampus region. Moreover, stress resulted in an increased association of Dnmt3a enzyme with the affected CpG loci within the IEG genes. No effects of SAM were observed on stress-evoked histone modifications, including H3S10p-K14ac (histone H3, phosphorylated serine 10 and acetylated lysine-14), H3K4me3 (histone H3, trimethylated lysine-4), H3K9me3 (histone H3, trimethylated lysine-9), and H3K27me3 (histone H3, trimethylated lysine-27). We conclude that the DNA methylation status of IEGs plays a crucial role in FS-induced IEG induction in DG granule neurons and associated behavioral responses. In addition, the concentration of available methyl donor, possibly in conjunction with Dnmt3a, is critical for the responsiveness of dentate neurons to environmental stimuli in terms of gene expression and behavior. PMID:27078100

The Adaptive Calibration Model of stress responsivity

PubMed Central

Ellis, Bruce J.; Shirtcliff, Elizabeth A.

2010-01-01

This paper presents the Adaptive Calibration Model (ACM), an evolutionary-developmental theory of individual differences in the functioning of the stress response system. The stress response system has three main biological functions: (1) to coordinate the organism’s allostatic response to physical and psychosocial challenges; (2) to encode and filter information about the organism’s social and physical environment, mediating the organism’s openness to environmental inputs; and (3) to regulate the organism’s physiology and behavior in a broad range of fitness-relevant areas including defensive behaviors, competitive risk-taking, learning, attachment, affiliation and reproductive functioning. The information encoded by the system during development feeds back on the long-term calibration of the system itself, resulting in adaptive patterns of responsivity and individual differences in behavior. Drawing on evolutionary life history theory, we build a model of the development of stress responsivity across life stages, describe four prototypical responsivity patterns, and discuss the emergence and meaning of sex differences. The ACM extends the theory of biological sensitivity to context (BSC) and provides an integrative framework for future research in the field. PMID:21145350

Optical manipulation for optogenetics: otoliths manipulation in zebrafish (Conference Presentation)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Favre-Bulle, Itia A.; Scott, Ethan; Rubinsztein-Dunlop, Halina

2016-03-01

Otoliths play an important role in Zebrafish in terms of hearing and sense of balance. Many studies have been conducted to understand its structure and function, however the encoding of its movement in the brain remains unknown. Here we developed a noninvasive system capable of manipulating the otolith using optical trapping while we image its behavioral response and brain activity. We'll also present our tools for behavioral response detection and brain activity mapping. Acceleration is sensed through movements of the otoliths in the inner ear. Because experimental manipulations involve movements, electrophysiology and fluorescence microscopy are difficult. As a result, the neural codes underlying acceleration sensation are poorly understood. We have developed a technique for optically trapping otoliths, allowing us to simulate acceleration in stationary larval zebrafish. By applying forces to the otoliths, we can elicit behavioral responses consistent with compensation for perceived acceleration. Since the animal is stationary, we can use calcium imaging in these animals' brains to identify the functional circuits responsible for mediating responses to acceleration in natural settings.

Tension and Compression Creep Apparatus for wood-Plastic Composites

Treesearch

Scott E. Hamel; John C. Hermanson; Steven M. Cramer

2011-01-01

Design of structural members made of wood-plastic composites (WPC) is not possible without accurate test data for tension and compression. The viscoelastic behavior of these materials means that these data are required for both the quasi-static stress-strain response, and the long-term creep response. Their relative incompressibility causes inherent difficulties in...

Predicting Couples' Response to Marital Therapy: A Comparison of Short- and Long-Term Predictors.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Snyder, Douglas K.; And Others

1993-01-01

Examined couples' response to marital therapy at termination and 4 years posttreatment for 55 couples receiving either behavioral or insight-oriented marital therapy. Couples were more likely to be divorced or maritally distressed four years posttreatment if intake measures reflected high levels of negative marital affect, poor problem-solving…

Modeling Unproductive Behavior in Online Homework in Terms of Latent Student Traits: An Approach Based on Item Response Theory

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Gönülateş, Emre; Kortemeyer, Gerd

2017-04-01

Homework is an important component of most physics courses. One of the functions it serves is to provide meaningful formative assessment in preparation for examinations. However, correlations between homework and examination scores tend to be low, likely due to unproductive student behavior such as copying and random guessing of answers. In this study, we attempt to model these two counterproductive learner behaviors within the framework of Item Response Theory in order to provide an ability measurement that strongly correlates with examination scores. We find that introducing additional item parameters leads to worse predictions of examination grades, while introducing additional learner traits is a more promising approach.

Segregating the significant from the mundane on a moment-to-moment basis via direct and indirect amygdala contributions

PubMed Central

Lim, Seung-Lark; Padmala, Srikanth; Pessoa, Luiz

2009-01-01

If the amygdala is involved in shaping perceptual experience when affectively significant visual items are encountered, responses in this structure should be correlated with both visual cortex responses and behavioral reports. Here, we investigated how affective significance shapes visual perception during an attentional blink paradigm combined with aversive conditioning. Behaviorally, following aversive learning, affectively significant scenes (CS+) were better detected than neutral (CS−) ones. In terms of mean brain responses, both amygdala and visual cortical responses were stronger during CS+ relative to CS− trials. Increased brain responses in these regions were associated with improved behavioral performance across participants and followed a mediation-like pattern. Importantly, the mediation pattern was observed in a trial-by-trial analysis, revealing that the specific pattern of trial-by-trial variability in brain responses was closely related to single-trial behavioral performance. Furthermore, the influence of the amygdala on visual cortical responses was consistent with a mediation, although partial, via frontal brain regions. Our results thus suggest that affective significance potentially determines the fate of a visual item during competitive interactions by enhancing sensory processing through both direct and indirect paths. In so doing, the amygdala helps separate the significant from the mundane. PMID:19805383

Particulate matter triggers depressive-like response associated with modulation of inflammatory cytokine homeostasis and brain-derived neurotrophic factor signaling pathway in mice.

PubMed

Liu, Xuemei; Qian, Xin; Xing, Jing; Wang, Jinhua; Sun, Yixuan; Wang, Qin'geng; Li, Huiming

2018-04-23

Particulate matter (PM) exposure may contribute to depressive-like response in mice. However, few studies have evaluated the adaptive impacts of long-term PM exposure on depressive-like response associated with systemic inflammation and brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) signaling pathway. We studied the association among depressive-like behaviors, mRNA levels of pro- and anti-inflammatory cytokines, and the expression of BDNF signaling pathway in mice by long-term PM exposure. C57BL/6 male mice were exposed to ambient air alongside control mice breathing air filtered through a high-efficiency air PM (HEPA) filter. Depressive-like behaviors were assessed together with pro-inflammatory, anti-inflammatory cytokine mRNA levels and the modulation of BDNF pathway in hippocampus and olfactory-bulb of mice exposed to PM for 4, 8, and 12 weeks. Exposure to HEPA filtered air for 4 weeks may exert antidepressant like effects in mice. Pro-inflammatory cytokines were up-regulated while the expression of BDNF, its high-affinity receptor tropomyosin-related kinase B (TrkB), and the transcription factor cAMP-response-element binding protein (CREB) were down-regulated in ambient air mice. However, after 8 weeks, there was no significant difference in the rate of depressive-like behaviors between the two groups. After 12 weeks, mice exposed to ambient air again had a higher rate of depressive-like behaviors, significant up-regulation of pro-inflammatory cytokines, down-regulation of interleukin-10 (IL-10), BDNF, TrkB, and CREB than HEPA mice. Ultrafine PM in brain tissues of mice exposed to ambient air was observed. Our results suggest continuous high-level PM exposure alters the depressive-like response in mice and induces a damage-repair-imbalance reaction.

The effect of praise, positive nonverbal response, reprimand, and negative nonverbal response on child compliance: a systematic review.

PubMed

Owen, Daniela J; Slep, Amy M S; Heyman, Richard E

2012-12-01

Lack of compliance has both short- and long-term costs and is a leading reason why parents seek mental health services for children. What parents do to help children comply with directives or rules is an important part of child socialization. The current review examines the relationship between a variety of parenting discipline behaviors (i.e., praise, positive nonverbal response, reprimand, negative nonverbal response) and child compliance. Forty-one studies of children ranging in age from 1½ to 11 years were reviewed. Reprimand and negative nonverbal responses consistently resulted in greater compliance. Praise and positive nonverbal responses resulted in mixed child outcomes. The findings are discussed based on theory and populations studied. The authors propose a mechanism that may increase children's sensitivity to both positive and negative behavioral contingencies.

Rapid response predicts 12-month post-treatment outcomes in binge-eating disorder: theoretical and clinical implications

PubMed Central

Grilo, C. M.; White, M. A.; Wilson, G. T.; Gueorguieva, R.; Masheb, R. M.

2011-01-01

Background We examined rapid response in obese patients with binge-eating disorder (BED) in a clinical trial testing cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and behavioral weight loss (BWL). Method Altogether, 90 participants were randomly assigned to CBT or BWL. Assessments were performed at baseline, throughout and post-treatment and at 6- and 12-month follow-ups. Rapid response, defined as ≥70% reduction in binge eating by week four, was determined by receiver operating characteristic curves and used to predict outcomes. Results Rapid response characterized 57% of participants (67% of CBT, 47% of BWL) and was unrelated to most baseline variables. Rapid response predicted greater improvements across outcomes but had different prognostic significance and distinct time courses for CBT versus BWL. Patients receiving CBT did comparably well regardless of rapid response in terms of reduced binge eating and eating disorder psychopathology but did not achieve weight loss. Among patients receiving BWL, those without rapid response failed to improve further. However, those with rapid response were significantly more likely to achieve binge-eating remission (62% v. 13%) and greater reductions in binge-eating frequency, eating disorder psychopathology and weight loss. Conclusions Rapid response to treatment in BED has prognostic significance through 12-month follow-up, provides evidence for treatment specificity and has clinical implications for stepped-care treatment models for BED. Rapid responders who receive BWL benefit in terms of both binge eating and short-term weight loss. Collectively, these findings suggest that BWL might be a candidate for initial intervention in stepped-care models with an evaluation of progress after 1 month to identify non-rapid responders who could be advised to consider a switch to a specialized treatment. PMID:21923964

Modeling Unproductive Behavior in Online Homework in Terms of Latent Student Traits: An Approach Based on Item Response Theory

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Gönülates, Emre; Kortemeyer, Gerd

2017-01-01

Homework is an important component of most physics courses. One of the functions it serves is to provide meaningful formative assessment in preparation for examinations. However, correlations between homework and examination scores tend to be low, likely due to unproductive student behavior such as copying and random guessing of answers. In this…

Assessing Mand Topography Preference When Developing a Functional Communication Training Intervention.

PubMed

Kunnavatana, S Shanun; Wolfe, Katie; Aguilar, Alexandra N

2018-05-01

Functional communication training (FCT) is a common function-based behavioral intervention used to decrease problem behavior by teaching an alternative communication response. Therapists often arbitrarily select the topography of the alternative response, which may influence long-term effectiveness of the intervention. Assessing individual mand topography preference may increase treatment effectiveness and promote self-determination in the development of interventions. This study sought to reduce arbitrary selection of FCT mand topography by determining preference during response training and acquisition for two adults with autism who had no functional communication skills. Both participants demonstrated a clear preference for one mand topography during choice probes, and the preferred topography was then reinforced during FCT to reduce problem behavior and increase independent communication. The implications of the results for future research on mand selection during FCT are discussed.

Regulation of corticoid and serotonin receptor brain system following early life exposure of glucocorticoids: long term implications for the neurobiology of mood.

PubMed

Vázquez, Delia M; Neal, Charles R; Patel, Paresh D; Kaciroti, Niko; López, Juan F

2012-03-01

Potent glucocorticoids (GC) administered early in life have improved premature infant survival dramatically. However, these agents may increase the risk for physical, neurological and behavior alterations. Anxiety, depression and attention difficulties are commonly described in adolescent and young adult survivors of prematurity. In the present study we administered vehicle, dexamethasone, or hydrocortisone to Sprague-Dawley rat pups on postnatal days 5 and 6, mimicking a short term clinical protocol commonly used in human infants. Two systems that are implicated in the regulation of stress and behavior were assessed: the limbic-hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis [LHPA; glucocorticoid and mineralocorticoid receptors within] and the Serotonin (5-HT) system. We found that as adults, male Sprague-Dawley pups treated with GC showed agent specific altered growth, anxiety-related behavior, changes in corticoid response to novelty and gene expression changes within LHPA and 5-HT-related circuitry. The data suggest that prolonged GC-receptor stimulation during the early neonatal period can contribute to the development of individual differences in stress response and anxiety-related behavior later in life. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Enhanced long-term recollection for emotional pictures: evidence from high-density ERPs.

PubMed

Weymar, Mathias; Löw, Andreas; Melzig, Christiane A; Hamm, Alfons O

2009-11-01

The present study used behavioral and electrophysiological measures to investigate the processes mediating long-term recognition memory for emotional and neutral pictures. The results show enhanced memory recollection for emotional arousing pictures compared to neutral low arousing pictures. In accordance with the behavioral data, we observed enhanced old/new effects in the ERPs for emotionally arousing pictures in the recollection-sensitive old/new component at centro-parietal sites (500-800 ms). Moreover, early old/new effects were present over frontal and parietal sites (300-500 ms) irrespective of picture contents. Analysis of the subjective awareness, indexed by the confidence ratings, showed that the late parietal old/new effect was increased for high confidence responses whereas the early component (300-500 ms) was mainly driven by low confidence responses, an indication for familiarity based recognition processes.

Inaccessibility of reinforcement increases persistence and signaling behavior in the fox squirrel (Sciurus niger).

PubMed

Delgado, Mikel M; Jacobs, Lucia F

2016-05-01

Under natural conditions, wild animals encounter situations where previously rewarded actions do not lead to reinforcement. In the laboratory, a surprising omission of reinforcement induces behavioral and emotional responses described as frustration. Frustration can lead to aggressive behaviors and to the persistence of noneffective responses, but it may also lead to new behavioral responses to a problem, a potential adaptation. We assessed the responses to inaccessible reinforcement in free-ranging fox squirrels (Sciurus niger). We trained squirrels to open a box to obtain food reinforcement, a piece of walnut. After 9 training trials, squirrels were tested in 1 of 4 conditions: a control condition with the expected reward, an alternative reinforcement (a piece of dried corn), an empty box, or a locked box. We measured the presence of signals suggesting arousal (e.g., tail flags and tail twitches) and found that squirrels performed fewer of these behaviors in the control condition and increased certain behaviors (tail flags, biting box) in the locked box condition, compared to other experimental conditions. When faced with nonreinforcement, that is, frustration, squirrels increased the number of interactions with the apparatus and spent more time interacting with the apparatus. This study of frustration responses in a free-ranging animal extends the conclusions of captive studies to the field and demonstrates that fox squirrels show short-term negatively valenced responses to the inaccessibility, omission, and change of reinforcement. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved).

Mothers’ Power Assertion, Children’s Negative, Adversarial Orientation, and Future Behavior Problems in Low-Income Families: Early Maternal Responsiveness as a Moderator of the Developmental Cascade

PubMed Central

Kim, Sanghag; Kochanska, Grazyna

2014-01-01

Parental power assertion, a key dimension of family environment, generally sets in motion detrimental developmental cascades; however, evidence suggests that other qualities of parenting, such as responsiveness, can significantly moderate those processes. Mechanisms that account for such moderating effects are not fully understood. We propose a conceptual model of processes linking parental power assertion, parental responsiveness, children’s negative, adversarial, rejecting orientation toward the parent, and behavior problems. We test that model in a short-term longitudinal design involving 186 low-income, ethnically diverse mothers and their toddlers. When children were 30 months, the dyads were observed in multiple, lengthy, naturalistic laboratory interactions to assess behaviorally mothers’ responsiveness and their power-assertive control style. At 33 months, we observed behavioral indicators of children’s negative, adversarial, rejecting orientation toward the mothers in several naturalistic and standardized paradigms. At 40 months, mothers rated children’s behavior problems. The proposed moderated mediation sequence, tested using a new approach, PROCESS (Hayes, 2013), was supported. The indirect effect from maternal power assertion to children’s negative, adversarial orientation to future behavior problems was present when mothers’ responsiveness was either low or average but absent when mothers were highly responsive. This study elucidates a potential process that may link parental power assertion with behavior problems and highlights how positive aspects of parenting can moderate this process and defuse maladaptive developmental cascades. It also suggests possible targets for parenting intervention and prevention efforts. PMID:25401483

Mothers' power assertion; children's negative, adversarial orientation; and future behavior problems in low-income families: early maternal responsiveness as a moderator of the developmental cascade.

PubMed

Kim, Sanghag; Kochanska, Grazyna

2015-02-01

Parental power assertion, a key dimension of family environment, generally sets in motion detrimental developmental cascades; however, evidence suggests that other qualities of parenting, such as responsiveness, can significantly moderate those processes. Mechanisms that account for such moderating effects are not fully understood. We propose a conceptual model of processes linking parental power assertion, parental responsiveness, children's negative, adversarial, rejecting orientation toward the parent, and behavior problems. We test that model in a short-term longitudinal design involving 186 low-income, ethnically diverse mothers and their toddlers. When children were 30 months, the dyads were observed in multiple, lengthy, naturalistic laboratory interactions to assess behaviorally mothers' responsiveness and their power-assertive control style. At 33 months, we observed behavioral indicators of children's negative, adversarial, rejecting orientation toward the mothers in several naturalistic and standardized paradigms. At 40 months, mothers rated children's behavior problems. The proposed moderated mediation sequence, tested using a new approach, PROCESS (Hayes, 2013), was supported. The indirect effect from maternal power assertion to children's negative, adversarial orientation to future behavior problems was present when mothers' responsiveness was either low or average but absent when mothers were highly responsive. This study elucidates a potential process that may link parental power assertion with behavior problems and highlights how positive aspects of parenting can moderate this process and defuse maladaptive developmental cascades. It also suggests possible targets for parenting intervention and prevention efforts. PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2015 APA, all rights reserved.

The Multiple Control of Verbal Behavior

PubMed Central

Michael, Jack; Palmer, David C; Sundberg, Mark L

2011-01-01

Amid the novel terms and original analyses in Skinner's Verbal Behavior, the importance of his discussion of multiple control is easily missed, but multiple control of verbal responses is the rule rather than the exception. In this paper we summarize and illustrate Skinner's analysis of multiple control and introduce the terms convergent multiple control and divergent multiple control. We point out some implications for applied work and discuss examples of the role of multiple control in humor, poetry, problem solving, and recall. Joint control and conditional discrimination are discussed as special cases of multiple control. We suggest that multiple control is a useful analytic tool for interpreting virtually all complex behavior, and we consider the concepts of derived relations and naming as cases in point. PMID:22532752

Environmental effects on long term behavior of composite laminates

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Singhal, S. N.; Chamis, C. C.

Model equations are presented for approximate methods simulating the long-term behavior of composite materials and structures in hot/humid service environments. These equations allow laminate property upgradings with time, and can account for the effects of service environments on creep response. These methodologies are illustrated for various individual and coupled temperature/moisture, longitudinal/transverse, and composite material type cases. Creep deformation is noted to rise dramatically for cases of matrix-borne, but not of fiber-borne, loading in hot, humid environments; the coupled influence of temperature and moisture is greater than a mere combination of their individual influences.

Environmental effects on long term behavior of composite laminates

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Singhal, S. N.; Chamis, C. C.

1992-01-01

Model equations are presented for approximate methods simulating the long-term behavior of composite materials and structures in hot/humid service environments. These equations allow laminate property upgradings with time, and can account for the effects of service environments on creep response. These methodologies are illustrated for various individual and coupled temperature/moisture, longitudinal/transverse, and composite material type cases. Creep deformation is noted to rise dramatically for cases of matrix-borne, but not of fiber-borne, loading in hot, humid environments; the coupled influence of temperature and moisture is greater than a mere combination of their individual influences.

Influence of prenatal iron deficiency and MAOA genotype on response to social challenge in rhesus monkey infants.

PubMed

Golub, M S; Hogrefe, C E; Unger, E L

2012-04-01

Social and emotional behaviors are known to be sensitive to both developmental iron deficiency (ID) and monoamine oxidase A (MAOA) gene polymorphisms. In this study, male rhesus monkey infants deprived of dietary iron in utero were compared with iron sufficient (IS) controls (n = 10/group). Half of each group had low MAOA activity genotypes and half had high MAOA activity genotypes. A series of social response tests were conducted at 3-14 months of age. MAOA genotype influenced attention to a video of aggressive behavior, emotional expression (fear, grimace and sniff) in the social intruder test, social actions (displacement, grooming) in the social dyad test, and aggressive responses to a threatening picture. Interactions between MAOA and prenatal ID were seen in response to the aggressive video, in temperament ratings, in affiliative behavior in the social dyad test, in cortisol response in the social buffering test and in response to a social intruder and to pictures with social and nonsocial themes. In general, the effects of ID were dependent on MAOA genotype in terms of both direction and size of the effect. Nutrition/genotype interactions may shed new light on behavioral consequences of nutritional deprivation during brain development. © 2012 The Authors. Genes, Brain and Behavior © 2012 Blackwell Publishing Ltd and International Behavioural and Neural Genetics Society.

Immediate perception of a reward is distinct from the reward’s long-term salience

PubMed Central

McGinnis, John P; Jiang, Huoqing; Agha, Moutaz Ali; Sanchez, Consuelo Perez; Lange, Jeff; Yu, Zulin; Marion-Poll, Frederic; Si, Kausik

2016-01-01

Reward perception guides all aspects of animal behavior. However, the relationship between the perceived value of a reward, the latent value of a reward, and the behavioral response remains unclear. Here we report that, given a choice between two sweet and chemically similar sugars—L- and D-arabinose—Drosophila melanogaster prefers D- over L- arabinose, but forms long-term memories of L-arabinose more reliably. Behavioral assays indicate that L-arabinose-generated memories require sugar receptor Gr43a, and calcium imaging and electrophysiological recordings indicate that L- and D-arabinose differentially activate Gr43a-expressing neurons. We posit that the immediate valence of a reward is not always predictive of the long-term reinforcement value of that reward, and that a subset of sugar-sensing neurons may generate distinct representations of similar sugars, allowing for rapid assessment of the salient features of various sugar rewards and generation of reward-specific behaviors. However, how sensory neurons communicate information about L-arabinose quality and concentration—features relevant for long-term memory—remains unknown. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.22283.001 PMID:28005005

Virally delivered Channelrhodopsin-2 Safely and Effectively Restores Visual Function in Multiple Mouse Models of Blindness

PubMed Central

Doroudchi, M Mehdi; Greenberg, Kenneth P; Liu, Jianwen; Silka, Kimberly A; Boyden, Edward S; Lockridge, Jennifer A; Arman, A Cyrus; Janani, Ramesh; Boye, Shannon E; Boye, Sanford L; Gordon, Gabriel M; Matteo, Benjamin C; Sampath, Alapakkam P; Hauswirth, William W; Horsager, Alan

2011-01-01

Previous work established retinal expression of channelrhodopsin-2 (ChR2), an algal cation channel gated by light, restored physiological and behavioral visual responses in otherwise blind rd1 mice. However, a viable ChR2-based human therapy must meet several key criteria: (i) ChR2 expression must be targeted, robust, and long-term, (ii) ChR2 must provide long-term and continuous therapeutic efficacy, and (iii) both viral vector delivery and ChR2 expression must be safe. Here, we demonstrate the development of a clinically relevant therapy for late stage retinal degeneration using ChR2. We achieved specific and stable expression of ChR2 in ON bipolar cells using a recombinant adeno-associated viral vector (rAAV) packaged in a tyrosine-mutated capsid. Targeted expression led to ChR2-driven electrophysiological ON responses in postsynaptic retinal ganglion cells and significant improvement in visually guided behavior for multiple models of blindness up to 10 months postinjection. Light levels to elicit visually guided behavioral responses were within the physiological range of cone photoreceptors. Finally, chronic ChR2 expression was nontoxic, with transgene biodistribution limited to the eye. No measurable immune or inflammatory response was observed following intraocular vector administration. Together, these data indicate that virally delivered ChR2 can provide a viable and efficacious clinical therapy for photoreceptor disease-related blindness. PMID:21505421

A sex-dependent change in behavioral temperature regulation in African house snakes (Lamprophis fuliginosus) challenged with different pathogens.

PubMed

Ryan, Michael P; Neuman-Lee, Lorin A; Durham, Susan L; Smith, Geoffrey D; French, Susannah S

2018-04-01

Behavioral fever in reptiles is often considered an adaptive response used to eliminate pathogens, yet empirical data showing the wide-spread use of this response is mixed. This behavioral change can be beneficial by enhancing the host's immune response and increasing the animal's chance of survival, but it can also be detrimental in terms of host energetic requirements and enzymatic performance. Thus, we examined whether captive-bred African house snakes (Lamprophis fuliginosus) employed behavioral fever in response to pathogen stimulus. Twenty-one African house snakes were injected separately with three different strains of ultraviolet (UV) light-killed bacteria (Escherichia coli, Staphylococcus aureus, Salmonella enterica). We found an increased variance of hourly cloacal temperatures following exposure to pathogens in male but not female house snakes. We did not, however, find a significant febrile response to pathogen exposure as measured via mean cloacal temperature. This research adds critical information to the field of reptilian physiology as this field remains understudied. Reptilian immune function and its relationship with thermal biology is ever more pertinent as new challenges arise, such as novel pathogens and changing climate. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Caudate neuronal recording in freely behaving animals following acute and chronic dose response methylphenidate exposure

PubMed Central

Claussen, Catherine M; Dafny, Nachum

2016-01-01

The misuse and abuse of the psychostimulant, methylphenidate (MPD) the drug of choice in the treatment of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) has seen a sharp uprising in recent years among both youth and adults for its cognitive enhancing effects and for recreational purposes. This uprise in illicit use has lead to many questions concerning the long term consequences of MPD exposure. The objective of this study was to record animal behavior concomitantly with the caudate nucleus (CN) neuronal activity following acute and repetitive (chronic) dose response exposure to methylphenidate (MPD). A saline control and three MPD dose (0.6, 2.5, and 10.0 mg/kg) groups were used. Behaviorally, the same MPD dose in some animals following chronic MPD exposure elicited behavioral sensitization and other animals elicited behavioral tolerance. Based on this finding, the CN neuronal population recorded from animals expressing behavioral sensitization were also evaluated separately from CN neurons recorded from animals expressing behavioral tolerance to chronic MPD exposure, respectively. Significant differences in CN neuronal population responses between the behaviorally sensitized and the behaviorally tolerant animals was observed for the 2.5 and 10.0 mg/kg MPD exposed groups. For 2.5 mg/kg MPD, behaviorally sensitized animals responded by decreasing their firing rates while behaviorally tolerant animals showed mainly an increase in their firing rates. The CN neuronal responses recorded from the behaviorally sensitized animals following 10.0 mg/kg MPD responded by increasing their firing rates whereas the CN neuronal recordings from the behaviorally tolerant animals showed that approximately half decreased their firing rates in response to 10.0 mg/kg MPD exposure. The comparison of percentage change in neuronal firing rates showed that the behaviorally tolerant animals trended to exhibit increases in their neuronal firing rates at ED1 following initial MPD exposure and oppositely at ED10 MPD rechallenge. While the behaviorally sensitized animals in general increased in their percentage change of firing rats were observed following acute 10.0 mg/kg MPD and the behaviorally sensitized 10.0 mg/kg MPD animals and a robust increase in neuronal firing rates at ED1 and ED10 rechallenge. These results suggest the need to first individually analyze animal behavioral activity, and than to evaluate the neuronal responses to the drug based on the animals behavioral response to chronic MPD exposure. PMID:26101057

Downregulation of vitellogenin gene activity increases the gustatory responsiveness of honey bee workers (Apis mellifera)

PubMed Central

Amdam, Gro V.; Norberg, Kari; Page, Robert E.; Erber, Joachim; Scheiner, Ricarda

2008-01-01

In the honey bee (Apis mellifera), young workers usually perform tasks in the nest while older workers forage in the field. The behavioral shift from nest-task to foraging activity is accompanied by physiological and sensory changes so that foragers can be characterized by a higher juvenile hormone (JH) level, a lower vitellogenin protein titer, and an increased responsiveness to water and sucrose stimuli. JH was hypothesized to be the key mediator of behavioral development, physiology, and sensory sensitivity in honey bee workers. Recent research, however, has shown that JH is controlled by the hemolymph vitellogenin level, which implies that the fat body specific vitellogenin gene can be a key regulator of behavioral change. Here, we show that downregulation of vitellogenin activity by RNA interference (RNAi) causes an increase in the gustatory responsiveness of worker bees. Our observations suggest that vitellogenin is an important regulator of long-term changes in honey bee behavior. PMID:16466813

Experimental characterization and modeling of isothermal and nonisothermal physical aging in glassy polymer films

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Guo, Yunlong

This dissertation focuses on nonisothermal physical aging of polymers from both experimental and theoretical aspects. The study concentrates on pure polymers rather than fiber-reinforced composites; this step removes several complicating factors to simplify the study. It is anticipated that the findings of this work can then be applied to composite materials applications. The physical aging tests in this work are performed using a dynamic mechanical analyzer (DMA). The viscoelastic response of glassy polymers under various loading and thermal histories are observed as stress-strain data at a series of time points. The first stage of the experimental work involves the characterization of the isothermal physical aging behavior of two advanced thermoplastics. The second stage conducts tests on the same materials with varying thermal histories and with long-term test duration. This forms the basis to assess and modify a nonisothermal physical aging model (KAHR-ate model). Based on the experimental findings, the KAHR-ate model has been revised by new correlations between aging shift factors and volume response; this revised model performed well in predicting the nonisothermal physical aging behavior of glassy polymers. In the work on isothermal physical aging, short-term creep and stress relaxation tests were performed at several temperatures within 15-35°C below the glass transition temperature (Tg) at various aging times, using the short-term test method established by Struik. Stress and strain levels were such that the materials remained in the linear viscoelastic regime. These curves were then shifted together to determine momentary master curves and shift rates. In order to validate the obtained isothermal physical aging behavior, the results of creep and stress relaxation testing were compared and shown to be consistent with one another using appropriate interconversion of the viscoelastic material functions. Time-temperature superposition of the master curves was also performed. The temperature shift factors and aging shift rates for both PEEK and PPS were consistent for both creep and stress relaxation test results. Nonisothermal physical aging was monitored by sequential short-term creep tests after a series of temperature jumps; the resulting strain histories were analyzed to determine aging shift factors (ate) for each of the creep tests. The nonisothermal aging response was predicted using the KAHR-ate model, which combines the KAHR model of volume recovery with a suitable linear relationship between aging shift factors and specific volume. The KAHR-ate model can be utilized to both predict aging response and to determine necessary model parameters from a set of aging shift factor data. For the PEEK and PPS materials considered in the current study, predictions of mechanical response were demonstrated to be in good agreement with the experimental results for several complicated thermal histories. In addition to short-term nonisothermal aging, long-term creep tests under identical thermal conditions were also analyzed. Effective time theory was unitized to predict long-term response under both isothermal and nonisothermal temperature histories. The long-term compliance after a series of temperature changes was predicted by the KAHR- ate model, and the theoretical predictions and experimental data showed good agreement for various thermal histories. Lastly, physical aging behavior of PPS near the glass transition temperature was investigated, in order to observe the mechanical response in the process of the evolution of the material into equilibrium. At several temperatures near Tg, the time need to reach equilibrium were determined by the creep test results at various aging times. In addition to isothermal physical aging, mechanical shift factors in the period of approaching equilibrium at a common temperature after temperature up-jumps and down-jumps are monitored from creep tests; prior to these temperature jumps, the materials were aged to reach equilibrium states. From these tests, asymmetry of approaching equilibrium phenomenon in ate was observed, which is first-time reported in the literature. This finding shows the similarity between the thermodynamic and mechanical properties during structural relaxation. This work will lead to improved understanding of the viscoelastic behavior of glassy polymers, which is important for better understanding and design of PMCs in elevated temperature applications. With the above findings, this dissertation deals with nonisothermal physical aging of glassy polymers, including both experimental characterization and constructing a framework for predictions of mechanical behavior of polymeric materials under complicated thermal conditions. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)

A study of possible ``reef effects'' caused by a long-term time-lapse camera in the deep North Pacific

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Vardaro, M. F.; Parmley, D.; Smith, K. L.

2007-08-01

The aggregation response of fish populations following the addition of artificial structures to seafloor habitats has been well documented in shallow-water reefs and at deeper structures such as oil extraction platforms. A long-term time-lapse camera was deployed for 27 four-month deployment periods at 4100 m in the eastern North Pacific to study abyssal megafauna activity and surface-benthos connections. The unique time-series data set provided by this research presented an opportunity to examine how deep-sea benthopelagic fish and epibenthic megafauna populations were affected by an isolated artificial structure and whether animal surveys at this site were biased by aggregation behavior. Counts were taken of benthopelagic grenadiers, Coryphaenoides spp., observed per week as well as numbers of the epibenthic echinoid Echinocrepis rostrata. No significant correlation ( rs=-0.39; p=0.11) was found between the duration of deployment (in weeks) and the average number of Coryphaenoides observed at the site. There was also no evidence of associative behavior around the time-lapse camera by E. rostrata ( rs=-0.32; p=0.19). The results of our study suggest that abyssal fish and epibenthic megafauna do not aggregate around artificial structures and that long-term time-lapse camera studies should not be impacted by aggregation response behaviors.

Bridge response due to temperature variations.

DOT National Transportation Integrated Search

2014-05-01

In order to more accurately quantify the behavior and degradation of bridges throughout their service life, the : Federal Highway Administration lunched the Long-Term Bridge Performance Program. As part of this program : an I-girder, integral abutmen...

Cellular, molecular, and epigenetic mechanisms in non-associative conditioning: implications for pain and memory.

PubMed

Rahn, Elizabeth J; Guzman-Karlsson, Mikael C; David Sweatt, J

2013-10-01

Sensitization is a form of non-associative conditioning in which amplification of behavioral responses can occur following presentation of an aversive or noxious stimulus. Understanding the cellular and molecular underpinnings of sensitization has been an overarching theme spanning the field of learning and memory as well as that of pain research. In this review we examine how sensitization, both in the context of learning as well as pain processing, shares evolutionarily conserved behavioral, cellular/synaptic, and epigenetic mechanisms across phyla. First, we characterize the behavioral phenomenon of sensitization both in invertebrates and vertebrates. Particular emphasis is placed on long-term sensitization (LTS) of withdrawal reflexes in Aplysia following aversive stimulation or injury, although additional invertebrate models are also covered. In the context of vertebrates, sensitization of mammalian hyperarousal in a model of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), as well as mammalian models of inflammatory and neuropathic pain is characterized. Second, we investigate the cellular and synaptic mechanisms underlying these behaviors. We focus our discussion on serotonin-mediated long-term facilitation (LTF) and axotomy-mediated long-term hyperexcitability (LTH) in reduced Aplysia systems, as well as mammalian spinal plasticity mechanisms of central sensitization. Third, we explore recent evidence implicating epigenetic mechanisms in learning- and pain-related sensitization. This review illustrates the fundamental and functional overlay of the learning and memory field with the pain field which argues for homologous persistent plasticity mechanisms in response to sensitizing stimuli or injury across phyla. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Influence of prenatal iron deficiency and MAOA genotype on response to social challenge in rhesus monkey infants

PubMed Central

Golub, Mari S.; Hogrefe, Casey E.; Unger, Erica L.

2012-01-01

Social and emotional behavior are known to be sensitive to both developmental iron deficiency and monoamine oxidase A (MAOA) gene polymorphisms. In this study, male rhesus monkey infants deprived of dietary iron in utero (ID) were compared to iron sufficient (IS) controls (n=10/group). Half of each group had low MAOA activity genotypes and half had high MAOA activity genotypes. A series of social response tests were conducted at 3 to 14 months of age. MAOA genotype influenced attention to a video of aggressive behavior, emotional expression (fear grimace and sniff) in the social intruder test, social actions (displacement, grooming) in the social dyad test, and aggressive responses to a threatening picture. Interactions between MAOA and prenatal ID were seen in response to the aggressive video, in temperament ratings, in affiliative behavior in the social dyad test, in cortisol response in the social buffering test, and in response to a social intruder and to pictures with social and nonsocial themes. In general the effects of ID were dependent on MAOA genotype in terms of both direction and size of the effect. Nutrition/genotype interactions may shed new light on behavioral consequences of nutritional deprivation during brain development. PMID:22340208

The virtual child: evaluation of an internet-based pediatric behavior management simulation.

PubMed

Boynton, James R; Green, Thomas G; Johnson, Lynn A; Nainar, S M Hashim; Straffon, Lloyd H

2007-09-01

This article describes an Internet-based instructional tool designed to give predoctoral dental students a virtual simulation of clinical pediatric dentistry to develop their pediatric behavior management knowledge. Effectiveness of this tool was evaluated using two consecutive classes of junior dental students. The control group was exposed to the traditional behavior management curriculum (two lectures) in a spring term course. The next class of dental students was exposed to the two lectures and, in addition, completed the behavior management simulation during the following spring term. Both groups completed a two-part examination (objective section=18 questions; open-ended section=responses to a clinical situation) designed to test their behavior management knowledge. The simulation group performed significantly better in both parts of the examination (objective section: p=.028; open-ended section: p=.012). The simulation was evaluated by students and perceived by most to be an effective addition to the curriculum. It was concluded that the experimental behavior management simulation, when added to the traditional lecture curriculum, improved pediatric behavior management knowledge in predoctoral dental students.

Attentional Demands Predict Short-Term Memory Load Response in Posterior Parietal Cortex

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Magen, Hagit; Emmanouil, Tatiana-Aloi; McMains, Stephanie A.; Kastner, Sabine; Treisman, Anne

2009-01-01

Limits to the capacity of visual short-term memory (VSTM) indicate a maximum storage of only 3 or 4 items. Recently, it has been suggested that activity in a specific part of the brain, the posterior parietal cortex (PPC), is correlated with behavioral estimates of VSTM capacity and might reflect a capacity-limited store. In three experiments that…

Dynamics of change in Alaska's boreal forests: resilience and vulnerability in response to climate warming

Treesearch

A. David McGuire; F.S. Chapin; R.W. Ruess

2010-01-01

Long-term research by the Bonanza Creek (BNZ) Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) program has documented natural patterns of interannual and successional variability of the boreal forest in interior Alaska against which we can detect changes in system behavior. Between 2004 and 2010 the BNZ LTER program focused on understanding the dynamics of change through studying...

Pharmacological characterization of psychosis-like behavior in the MPTP-lesioned nonhuman primate model of Parkinson's disease.

PubMed

Visanji, Naomi P; Gomez-Ramirez, Jordi; Johnston, Tom H; Pires, Donna; Voon, Valerie; Brotchie, Jonathan M; Fox, Susan H

2006-11-01

Investigation of the pathophysiology of psychosis in Parkinson's disease (PD), as well as the assessment of potential novel therapeutics, has been limited by the lack of a well-validated animal model. MPTP-lesioned primates exhibit abnormal behaviors that are distinct from dyskinesia and parkinsonism and may represent behavioral correlates of neural processes related to psychosis in PD. Here we assess four types of behavior--agitation, hallucinatory-like responses to nonapparent stimuli, obsessive grooming, and stereotypies that are termed "psychosis-like"--and define their pharmacology using a psychosis-like behavior rating scale. By assessing the actions of drugs known to enhance or attenuate psychosis in PD patients, we find that the pharmacology of these behaviors recapitulates, in several respects, the pharmacology of psychosis in PD. Thus, levodopa and apomorphine elicited psychosis-like behaviors. Amantadine significantly decreased levodopa-induced dyskinesia but exacerbated psychosis-like behaviors. Haloperidol reduced psychosis-like behaviors but at the expense of increased parkinsonian disability while the atypical neuroleptics clozapine and quetiapine reduced psychosis-like behaviors without significant effect on parkinsonian disability. The response of different components of the psychotomimetic behavior suggested the involvement of both dopaminergic and nondopaminergic mechanisms in their expression.

A comparison of procedures for unpairing conditioned reflexive motivating operations.

PubMed

Kettering, Tracy L; Neef, Nancy A; Kelley, Michael E; Heward, William L

2018-03-01

This study compared the effectiveness of two procedures to reduce behavior evoked by a reflexive conditioned motivating operation (CMO-R). Task demands were shown to evoke escape-maintained problem behavior for 4 students with disabilities. Alternative communication responses were taught as an appropriate method to request escape and this treatment combined with extinction for problem behavior led to decreases in problem behavior for all students. A beeping timer was then arranged to temporally precede the task demand to create a CMO-R that evoked communication responses. When data showed that the sound of the timer was functioning as a CMO-R, two methods to reduce behavior evoked by a CMO-R-extinction unpairing and noncontingent unpairing-were evaluated. Results indicated that noncontingent unpairing was an effective method to reduce the evocative effects of the CMO-R. Extinction produced unsystematic effects across participants. Results are discussed in terms of abolishing CMOs and the implications of CMOs. © 2018 Society for the Experimental Analysis of Behavior.

Periaqueductal gray glutamatergic, cannabinoid and vanilloid receptor interplay in defensive behavior and aversive memory formation.

PubMed

Back, Franklin P; Carobrez, Antonio P

2018-06-01

Stimulation of the midbrain periaqueductal gray matter (PAG) in humans elicits sensations of fear and impending terror, and mediates predator defensive responses in rodents. In rats, pharmacological stimulation of the dorsolateral portion of the PAG (dlPAG) with N-Methyl-d-Aspartate (NMDA) induces aversive conditioning that acts as an unconditioned stimulus (US). In the present work, we investigated the interplay between the vanilloid TRPV1 and cannabinoid CB1 receptors in the NMDA-dlPAG defensive response and in subsequent aversive learning. Rats were subjected to dlPAG NMDA infusion in an olfactory conditioned stimulus (CS) task allowing the evaluation of immediate and long-term defensive behavioral responses during CS presentation. The results indicated that an intermediate dose of NMDA (50 pmol) induced both immediate and long-term effects. A sub-effective dose of NMDA (25 pmol) was potentiated by the TRPV1 receptor agonist capsaicin (CAP, 1 nmol) and the CB1 receptor antagonist, AM251 (200 pmol). CAP (10 nmol) or the combination of CAP (1 nmol) and AM251 (200 pmol) induced long-term effects without increasing immediate defensive responses. The glutamate release inhibitor riluzole (2 or 4 nmol) and the AMPA/kainate receptor antagonist DNQX (2 or 4 nmol) potentiated the immediate effects but blocked the long-term effects. The results showed that immediate defensive responses rely on NMDA receptors, and aversive learning on the fine-tuning of TRPV1, CB1, metabotropic glutamate and AMPA receptors located in pre- and postsynaptic membranes. In conclusion, the activity of the dlPAG determines core affective aspects of aversive memory formation controlled by local TRPV1/CB1 balance. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Social Behavior, Prolactin and the Immune Response

DTIC Science & Technology

1989-04-01

an ubiquitous characteristic of primate societies , including man’s. While social behavior and organization confer definite advantages on primate...groups, is characteristic of most primate species, including man. The ubiquity of primate societies makes the study of nonhuman primate groups of...organizations, man is much more flexible in terms of the kinds of social organization exhibited in his societies . Thus, generalizations from studies of

Analysis of the flow, thermal and geomechanical behavior of offshore hydrate deposits at the NGHP-02-09-A site during short- and long-term gas production scenarios

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Moridis, G. J.; Reagan, M. T.; Queiruga, A. F.

2017-12-01

We analyze the gas production potential of recently discovered offshore hydrate deposits at the NGHP-02-09-A sSite in the Krishna-Godawari Basin of India, and the corresponding geomechanical system response during short- and long-term production. Using the most current data on the flow and geomechanical properties of the hydrate-bearing media and of the overburden, as well as information on the system boundaries, we investigate (a) the production rates of gas (CH4) and of water, their relative magnitudes and the reservoir thermal behavior in an effort to assess the viability of these deposits as energy sources, as well as (b) the potential subsidence and the effect of changing pressure and stress regimes on the porosity and permeability (and, consequently, on production). Additionally, we conduct a thorough sensitivity analysis in order to determine (a) the properties and conditions that control and dominate the system behavior, and (b) the range of the possible system response to production.

On the nature and consequences of early loss.

PubMed

Hofer, M A

1996-01-01

To describe how an animal model system can be used to explore basic questions about the nature of loss and the effects of early loss on later vulnerability to disease. The physiological and behavioral responses of infant rats to separation from their mothers are first described and then analyzed experimentally into component mechanisms. These studies have revealed an extensive layer of processes underlying the psychological constructs generally used to understand the response to loss. Hidden within the observable interactions of parent and offspring, we found a number of discrete sensorimotor, thermal, and nutrient-based events that have unexpected long-term regulatory effects on specific components of infant physiology and behavior. Release from all of these inhibitory and excitatory regulators together during maternal separation constitutes a novel mechanism by which the experience of loss can be translated into a complex patterned response. Evidence for early regulatory processes has also been found in monkey and human mother-infant interactions. Here they may well constitute the building blocks from which attachment and object representations develop. We and others have found long-term effects of loss, and of selective replacement of regulators, on behavioral development and on later vulnerability to disease. The results give us a new understanding of early attachment as a developmental force and of human grief as a risk to health.

Human-polar bear interactions in a changing Arctic: Existing and emerging concerns

USGS Publications Warehouse

Atwood, Todd C.; Simac, Kristin; Breck, Stewart; York, Geoff; Wilder, James

2017-01-01

The behavior and sociality of polar bears (Ursus maritimus) have been shaped by evolved preferences for sea ice habitat and preying on marine mammals. However, human behavior is causing changes to the Arctic marine ecosystem through the influence of greenhouse gas emissions that drive long-term change in ecosystem processes and via the presence of in situ stressors associated with increasing human activities. These changes are making it more difficult for polar bears to reliably use their traditional habitats and maintain fitness. Here, we provide an overview of how human activities in the Arctic are likely to change a polar bear’s behavior and to influence their resilience to environmental change. Developing a more thorough understanding of polar bear behavior and their capacity for flexibility in response to anthropogenic disturbances and subsequent mitigations may lead to successful near-term management interventions.

Some early similarities and later differences between Bertrand Russell and B. F. Skinner

PubMed Central

Moxley, Roy A.

2003-01-01

B. F. Skinner credited Bertrand Russell with converting him to behaviorism and with writing one of the books that most influenced him. Particularly in Skinner's early work, there are similarities between Skinner and Russell that extend across mathematics, determinism, positivism, verbal behavior, future communities, evolution, and pragmatism. Later, Skinner's views changed, and he parted company with Russell in most of these areas. Perhaps the most dramatic and fundamental departure came when Skinner embraced pragmatism, which Russell said he “hated.” However, there was a time during which Russell wrote favorably of pragmatism as a view for science. Although the similarities between Skinner and Russell may have resulted from common cultural influences, Russell appears to deserve credit for leading Skinner into the stimulus-response behaviorism of two-term necessities; he may also deserve some credit for helping to lead him out of it and into the selectionist behaviorism of three-term contingencies. PMID:22478397

Adolescent responses toward a new technology: first associations, information seeking and affective responses to ecogenomics.

PubMed

Bos, Mark J W; Koolstra, Cees M; Willems, Jaap T J M

2009-03-01

This paper reports on an exploratory study among adolescents (N = 752) who were introduced to the emerging technology of ecogenomics for the first time. An online survey focused on their associations with the term ecogenomics, their planned information seeking behaviors if they were to acquire information about the new technology, and their first affective responses toward ecogenomics after having read some introductory information about it. Adolescents were found to associate ecogenomics most frequently with economy. Although the Internet was the most popular medium to be used in their planned information seeking behaviors, books and science communication professionals were judged as the most trustworthy information sources. After having read the introductory information about ecogenomics most adolescents reported positive affective responses toward the new technology.

Perception of Health Problems Among Competitive Runners

PubMed Central

Jelvegård, Sara; Timpka, Toomas; Bargoria, Victor; Gauffin, Håkan; Jacobsson, Jenny

2016-01-01

Background: Approximately 2 of every 3 competitive runners sustain at least 1 health problem each season. Most of these problems are nontraumatic injuries with gradual onset. The main known risk indicator for sustaining a new running-related injury episode is a history of a previous injury, suggesting that behavioral habits are part of the causal mechanisms. Purpose: Identification of elements associated with purposeful interpretations of body perceptions and balanced behavioral responses may supply vital information for prevention of health problems in runners. This study set out to explore competitive runners’ cognitive appraisals of perceived symptoms on injury and illness and how these appraisals are transformed into behavior. Study Design: Cross-sectional study; Level of evidence, 3. Methods: The study population consisted of Swedish middle- and long-distance runners from the national top 15 list. Qualitative research methods were used to categorize interview data and perform a thematic analysis. The categories resulting from the analysis were used to construct an explanatory model. Results: Saturation of the thematic classification required that data from 8 male and 6 female runners (age range, 20-36 years) were collected. Symptoms interpreted to be caused by illness or injury with a sudden onset were found to lead to immediate action and changes to training and competition programs (activity pacing). In contrast, perceptions interpreted to be due to injuries with gradual onset led to varied behavioral reactions. These behavioral responses were planned with regard to short-term consequences and were characterized by indifference and neglect of long-term implications, consistent with an overactivity behavioral pattern. The latter pattern was consistent with a psychological adaptation to stimuli that is presented progressively to the athlete. Conclusion: Competitive runners appraise whether a health problem requires immediate withdrawal from training based on whether the problem is interpreted as an illness and/or has a sudden onset. The ensuing behaviors follow 2 distinct patterns that can be termed “activity pacing” and “overactivity.” PMID:28210643

In Situ Observations of Electric-Field Induced Nanoparticle Aggregation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Woehl, T. J.; Browning, N. D.; Ristenpart, W. D.

2010-11-01

Nanoparticles have been widely observed to aggregate laterally on electrodes in response to applied electric fields. The mechanism driving this behavior, however, is unclear. Several groups have interpreted the aggregation in terms of electrohydrodynamic or electroosmotic fluid motion, but little corroborating evidence has been presented. Notably, work to date has relied on post situ observations using electron microscopy. Here we present a fluorescence microscopy technique to track the dynamics of nanoparticle aggregation in situ. Fluorescent 20-nm polystyrene nanoparticles are observed to form optically visible aggregates in response to an applied AC field. Although single particle resolution is lost, the existence of aggregates on the electrode surface is marked by growing clusters of increasingly bright intensity. We present a systematic investigation of the effects of applied potential and frequency on the aggregation rate, and we interpret the behavior in terms of a mechanism based on electrically induced convective flow.

Public Perspectives Toward the Sexual Behavior of an Individual With Dementia Residing in Long-Term Care.

PubMed

Yelland, Erin L; Cless, Adam W; Mallory, Allen B; Cless, Jessica D

2018-06-01

This study examines public perspectives toward sexual behavior within a heterosexually married couple in which one individual has dementia and resides in a long-term care facility. Respondents included 318 adults in the Southern United States. Paired sample t tests were used to understand how the diagnosis of dementia statistically influenced participants' responses, and a logistic regression model was used to understand how a vignette character's sex and respondent characteristics influenced attitudes. Fifty-eight percent of respondents believed that a sexual relationship should be permitted for an adult with dementia, and t tests revealed that dementia had a statistical effect on participants' responses. Sex of the vignette character was not a predictor of attitudes. Participant's qualitative rationales are offered for additional insight. Respondents who felt that a couple should not engage in a sexual relationship commonly cited consent-related issues as their primary concern. Implications for policy development are discussed.

Using high frequency consumption data to identify demand response potential for solar energy integration

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Jin, L.; Borgeson, S.; Fredman, D.; Hans, L.; Spurlock, A.; Todd, A.

2015-12-01

California's renewable portfolio standard (2012) requires the state to get 33% of its electricity from renewable sources by 2020. Increased share of variable renewable sources such as solar and wind in the California electricity system may require more grid flexibility to insure reliable power services. Such grid flexibility can be potentially provided by changes in end use electricity consumptions in response to grid conditions (demand-response). In the solar case, residential consumption in the late afternoon can be used as reserve capacity to balance the drop in solar generation. This study presents our initial attempt to identify, from a behavior perspective, residential demand response potentials in relation to solar ramp events using a data-driven approach. Based on hourly residential energy consumption data, we derive representative daily load shapes focusing on discretionary consumption with an innovative clustering analysis technique. We aggregate the representative load shapes into behavior groups in terms of the timing and rhythm of energy use in the context of solar ramp events. Households of different behavior groups that are active during hours with high solar ramp rates are identified for capturing demand response potential. Insights into the nature and predictability of response to demand-response programs are provided.

Long-term Behavioral Consequences of Brief, Repeated Neonatal Isolation

PubMed Central

Knuth, Emily D.; Etgen, Anne M.

2007-01-01

Rats subjected to stressful stimuli during the stress hyporesponsive period exhibit varied neuroendocrine and behavioral changes as neonates, adolescents and adults. The current work examined the effects of neonatal isolation stress, using a within-litter design, on adult anxiety-related behavior and endocrine stress reactivity. Neonatal rats were isolated daily for 1 hr from postnatal day (P) 4-9, a manipulation previously shown to induce hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) responses on P9 (Knuth and Etgen, 2005). Control animals were either handled briefly or left undisturbed (with-dam). Adult rats were tested for anxiety-related behavior using the elevated plus maze and open field, and for endocrine responses following restraint stress. Neonatal isolation decreased center exploration of the open field following 1 hr restraint, including decreased time in the center compared to with-dam or handled controls, and decreased center entries and distance traveled in the center compared to with-dam controls. It also decreased time in and entries into the open arms of the elevated plus maze compared to handled controls, suggesting enhanced anxiety-related behavior. Neonatal isolation had no effect on basal or restraint-induced levels of ACTH or corticosterone. These findings indicate that neonatal isolation may enhance anxiety-related behaviors, especially in response to stress, without altering HPA function. Section: Cognitive and Behavioral Neuroscience PMID:17125746

The effects of fear appeal message repetition on perceived threat, perceived efficacy, and behavioral intention in the extended parallel process model.

PubMed

Shi, Jingyuan Jolie; Smith, Sandi W

2016-01-01

This study examined the effect of moderately repeated exposure (three times) to a fear appeal message on the Extended Parallel Processing Model (EPPM) variables of threat, efficacy, and behavioral intentions for the recommended behaviors in the message, as well as the proportions of systematic and message-related thoughts generated after each message exposure. The results showed that after repeated exposure to a fear appeal message about preventing melanoma, perceived threat in terms of susceptibility and perceived efficacy in terms of response efficacy significantly increased. The behavioral intentions of all recommended behaviors did not change after repeated exposure to the message. However, after the second exposure the proportions of both systematic and all message-related thoughts (relative to total thoughts) significantly decreased while the proportion of heuristic thoughts significantly increased, and this pattern held after the third exposure. The findings demonstrated that the predictions in the EPPM are likely to be operative after three exposures to a persuasive message.

Perinatal asphyxia in the guinea pig leads to morphologic but not neurologic, cognitive, or behavioral changes.

PubMed

Hoeger, Harald; Bubna-Littitz, Herrmann; Engelmann, Mario; Schwerdtner, Ingrid; Schmid, Diethard; Lahoda, Robert; Seidl, Rainer; Lubec, Gert; Lubec, Barbara

2003-07-01

In a recent publication, we described neurodegeneration along with neurotransmitter deficits and impaired differentiation in the guinea pig 3 months following severe perinatal asphyxia (PA). We were therefore interested in the clinical features in terms of neurology, cognitive functions, and behavior. We tested the long-term effects of PA in an animal model, which in the rat are well documented and resemble the clinical situation. Examinations consisted of an observational battery for motor and reflex functions and the acoustic startle response setting. We tested cognitive functions in the multiple T-maze and evaluated behavior using the elevated plus maze and open field studies. No neurologic deficits were observed in the observational battery, including the acoustic startle response. Cognitive functions of memory and learning were not impaired in the multiple T-maze. In the open field and in the elevated plus maze, the system to test anxiety-related behavior, guinea pigs performed well. Our findings of patent neurology, cognitive functions, and behavior do not reflect the prominent morphologic findings of neurodegeneration. This is in agreement with corresponding studies on PA in the rat at the identical time point. We learned from this study that both test systems, although representing the standard in neuroscience, are either not sensitive enough or central nervous system lesions are clinically fully compensated.

No evidence for common processes of cognitive control and self-control.

PubMed

Scherbaum, Stefan; Frisch, Simon; Holfert, Anna-Maria; O'Hora, Denis; Dshemuchadse, Maja

2018-01-01

Cognitive control and self-control are often used as interchangeable terms. Both terms refer to the ability to pursue long-term goals, but the types of controlled behavior that are typically associated with these terms differ, at least superficially. Cognitive control is observed in the control of attention and the overcoming of habitual responses, while self-control is observed in resistance to short-term impulses and temptations. Evidence from clinical studies and neuroimaging studies suggests that below these superficial differences, common control process (e.g., inhibition) might guide both types of controlled behavior. Here, we study this hypothesis in a behavioral experiment, which interlaced trials of a Simon task with trials of an intertemporal decision task. If cognitive control and self-control depend on a common control process, we expected conflict adaptation from Simon task trials to lead to increased self-control in the intertemporal decision trials. However, despite successful manipulations of conflict and conflict adaptation, we found no evidence for this hypothesis. We investigate a number of alternative explanations of this result and conclude that the differences between cognitive control and self-control are not superficial, but rather reflect differences at the process level. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Electrokinesis is a microbial behavior that requires extracellular electron transport

PubMed Central

Harris, H. W.; El-Naggar, M. Y.; Bretschger, O.; Ward, M. J.; Romine, M. F.; Obraztsova, A. Y.; Nealson, K. H.

2009-01-01

We report a previously undescribed bacterial behavior termed electrokinesis. This behavior was initially observed as a dramatic increase in cell swimming speed during reduction of solid MnO2 particles by the dissimilatory metal-reducing bacterium Shewanella oneidensis MR-1. The same behavioral response was observed when cells were exposed to small positive applied potentials at the working electrode of a microelectrochemical cell and could be tuned by adjusting the potential on the working electrode. Electrokinesis was found to be different from both chemotaxis and galvanotaxis but was absent in mutants defective in electron transport to solid metal oxides. Using in situ video microscopy and cell tracking algorithms, we have quantified the response for different strains of Shewanella and shown that the response correlates with current-generating capacity in microbial fuel cells. The electrokinetic response was only exhibited by a subpopulation of cells closest to the MnO2 particles or electrodes. In contrast, the addition of 1 mM 9,10-anthraquinone-2,6-disulfonic acid, a soluble electron shuttle, led to increases in motility in the entire population. Electrokinesis is defined as a behavioral response that requires functional extracellular electron transport and that is observed as an increase in cell swimming speeds and lengthened paths of motion that occur in the proximity of a redox active mineral surface or the working electrode of an electrochemical cell. PMID:20018675

Intergenerational transmission of risk for social inhibition: the interplay between parental responsiveness and genetic influences.

PubMed

Natsuaki, Misaki N; Leve, Leslie D; Neiderhiser, Jenae M; Shaw, Daniel S; Scaramella, Laura V; Ge, Xiaojia; Reiss, David

2013-02-01

To better understand mechanisms underlying the intergenerational transmission of social anxiety, we used a prospective adoption design to examine the roles of genetic influences (inferred from birth mothers' social phobia) and rearing environment (adoptive mothers' and fathers' responsiveness) on the development of socially inhibited, anxious behaviors in children between 18 and 27 months of age. The sample consisted of 275 adoption-linked families, each including an adopted child, adoptive parents, and a birth mother. Results indicated that children whose birth mothers met criteria for the diagnosis of social phobia showed elevated levels of observed behavioral inhibition in a social situation at 27 months of age if their adoptive mothers provided less emotionally and verbally responsive rearing environments at 18 months of age. Conversely, in the context of higher levels of maternal responsiveness, children of birth mothers with a history of social phobia did not show elevated levels of behavioral inhibition. These findings on maternal responsiveness were replicated in a model predicting parent reports of child social anxiety. The findings are discussed in terms of gene-environment interactions in the intergenerational transmission of social anxiety.

Stimulus-Responsive Nanoparticles and Associated (Reversible) Polymorphism via Polymerization Induced Self-assembly (PISA).

PubMed

Pei, Yiwen; Lowe, Andrew B; Roth, Peter J

2017-01-01

Polymerization-induced self-assembly (PISA) is an extremely versatile method for the in situ preparation of soft-matter nanoparticles of defined size and morphologies at high concentrations, suitable for large-scale production. Recently, certain PISA-prepared nanoparticles have been shown to exhibit reversible polymorphism ("shape-shifting"), typically between micellar, worm-like, and vesicular phases (order-order transitions), in response to external stimuli including temperature, pH, electrolytes, and chemical modification. This review summarises the literature to date and describes molecular requirements for the design of stimulus-responsive nano-objects. Reversible pH-responsive behavior is rationalised in terms of increased solvation of reversibly ionized groups. Temperature-triggered order-order transitions, conversely, do not rely on inherently thermo-responsive polymers, but are explained based on interfacial LCST or UCST behavior that affects the volume fractions of the core and stabilizer blocks. Irreversible morphology transitions, on the other hand, can result from chemical post-modification of reactive PISA-made particles. Emerging applications and future research directions of this "smart" nanoparticle behavior are reviewed. © 2016 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.

Modeling deformation behavior of the baseball.

PubMed

Nicholls, Rochelle Llewelyn; Miller, Karol; Elliott, Bruce C

2005-02-01

Regulating ball response to impact is one way to control ball exit velocity in baseball. This is necessary to reduce injuries to defensive players and maintain the balance between offense and defense in the game. This paper presents a model for baseball velocity-dependent behavior. Force-displacement data were obtained using quasi-static compression tests to 50% of ball diameter (n = 70 baseballs). The force-displacement curves for a very stiff baseball (Model B) and a softer type (Model C) were characterized by a Mooney-Rivlin model using implicit finite element analysis (ANSYS software, version 6.1). Agreement between experimental and numerical results was excellent for both Model B (C(10) = 0, C(01) = 3.7e(6) Pa) and Model C (C(10) = 0, C(01) = 2.6e(6) Pa). However, this material model was not available in the ANSYS/LSDYNA explicit dynamic software (version 6.1) used to quantify the transient behavior of the ball. Therefore the modeling process was begun again using a linear viscoelastic material. G(infinity), the long-term shear modulus of the material, was determined by the same implicit FEA procedure. Explicit FEA was used to quantify the time-dependent response of each ball in terms of instantaneous shear modulus (G0) and a decay term (beta). The results were evaluated with respect to published experimental data for the ball coefficient of restitution at five velocities (13.4-40.2 ms(-1)) and were in agreement with the experimental values. The model forms the basis for future research on baseball response to impact with the bat.

Preventive intervention for preschoolers at high risk for antisocial behavior: long-term effects on child physical aggression and parenting practices.

PubMed

Brotman, Laurie Miller; Gouley, Kathleen Kiely; Huang, Keng-Yen; Rosenfelt, Amanda; O'Neal, Colleen; Klein, Rachel G; Shrout, Patrick

2008-04-01

This article presents long-term effects of a preventive intervention for young children at high risk for antisocial behavior. Ninety-two children (M age = 4 years) were randomly assigned to an 8-month family intervention or no-intervention control condition and assessed 4 times over a 24-month period. Intent-to-treat analyses revealed significant intervention effects on observed child physical aggression, and significant intervention effects found at the end of the program were maintained at follow-up for responsive parenting, harsh parenting and stimulation for learning. Parent ratings of child aggression did not show significant effects of intervention.

Physiological Stress and Refuge Behavior by African Elephants

PubMed Central

Jachowski, David S.; Slotow, Rob; Millspaugh, Joshua J.

2012-01-01

Physiological stress responses allow individuals to adapt to changes in their status or surroundings, but chronic exposure to stressors could have detrimental effects. Increased stress hormone secretion leads to short-term escape behavior; however, no studies have assessed the potential of longer-term escape behavior, when individuals are in a chronic physiological state. Such refuge behavior is likely to take two forms, where an individual or population restricts its space use patterns spatially (spatial refuge hypothesis), or alters its use of space temporally (temporal refuge hypothesis). We tested the spatial and temporal refuge hypotheses by comparing space use patterns among three African elephant populations maintaining different fecal glucocorticoid metabolite (FGM) concentrations. In support of the spatial refuge hypothesis, the elephant population that maintained elevated FGM concentrations (iSimangaliso) used 20% less of its reserve than did an elephant population with lower FGM concentrations (Pilanesberg) in a reserve of similar size, and 43% less than elephants in the smaller Phinda reserve. We found mixed support for the temporal refuge hypothesis; home range sizes in the iSimangaliso population did not differ by day compared to nighttime, but elephants used areas within their home ranges differently between day and night. Elephants in all three reserves generally selected forest and woodland habitats over grasslands, but elephants in iSimangaliso selected exotic forest plantations over native habitat types. Our findings suggest that chronic stress is associated with restricted space use and altered habitat preferences that resemble a facultative refuge behavioral response. Elephants can maintain elevated FGM levels for ≥6 years following translocation, during which they exhibit refuge behavior that is likely a result of human disturbance and habitat conditions. Wildlife managers planning to translocate animals, or to initiate other management activities that could result in chronic stress responses, should consider the potential for, and consequences of, refuge behavior. PMID:22384079

Visual and Cardiac Responses to Animate and Inanimate Faces by Young Term and Preterm Infants.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Field, Tiffany Martini

This paper presents a study of the looking and looking away or gaze alternation behavior of both full term and preterm infants in the presence of varying degrees of facial animation. The faces used in the study included, in increasing order of animation, a Raggedy Ann doll's face, a moving and talking doll's face, a mother's less animated face…

Long-term effects of fuel treatments on aboveground biomass accumulation in ponderosa pine forests of the northern Rocky Mountains

Treesearch

Kate A. Clyatt; Christopher R. Keyes; Sharon M. Hood

2017-01-01

Fuel treatments in ponderosa pine forests of the northern Rocky Mountains are commonly used to modify fire behavior, but it is unclear how different fuel treatments impact the subsequent production and distribution of aboveground biomass, especially in the long term. This research evaluated aboveground biomass responses 23 years after treatment in two silvicultural...

Environmental Perturbations, Behavioral Change, and Population Response in a Long-Term Northern Elephant Seal Study

DTIC Science & Technology

2011-09-30

2010. Measurements of Foraging Success in a Highly Pelagic Marine Predator, the Northern Elephant Seal. Journal of Animal Ecology 79, 1146–1156...this challenge, the National Research Council established the Committee on Characterizing Biologically Significant Marine Mammal Behavior. This...committee developed a framework for analyzing the population consequences of acoustic disturbance, or PCAD (NRC 2005). The PCAD framework defines a

Serotonin Coordinates Responses to Social Stress-What We Can Learn from Fish.

PubMed

Backström, Tobias; Winberg, Svante

2017-01-01

Social interaction is stressful and subordinate individuals are often subjected to chronic stress, which greatly affects both their behavior and physiology. In teleost fish the social position of an individual may have long-term effects, such as effects on migration, age of sexual maturation or even sex. The brain serotonergic system plays a key role in coordinating autonomic, behavioral and neuroendocrine stress responses. Social subordination results in a chronic activation of the brain serotonergic system an effect, which seems to be central in the subordinate phenotype. However, behavioral effects of short-term acute activation of the serotonergic system are less obvious. As in other vertebrates, divergent stress coping styles, often referred to as proactive and reactive, has been described in teleosts. As demonstrated by selective breeding, stress coping styles appear to be partly heritable. However, teleost fish are characterized by plasticity, stress coping style being affected by social experience. Again, the brain serotonergic system appears to play an important role. Studies comparing brain gene expression of fish of different social rank and/or displaying divergent stress coping styles have identified several novel factors that seem important for controlling aggressive behavior and stress coping, e.g., histamine and hypocretin/orexin. These may also interact with brain monoaminergic systems, including serotonin.

Simulation of the mechanical behavior of random fiber networks with different microstructure.

PubMed

Hatami-Marbini, H

2018-05-24

Filamentous protein networks are broadly encountered in biological systems such as cytoskeleton and extracellular matrix. Many numerical studies have been conducted to better understand the fundamental mechanisms behind the striking mechanical properties of these networks. In most of these previous numerical models, the Mikado algorithm has been used to represent the network microstructure. Here, a different algorithm is used to create random fiber networks in order to investigate possible roles of architecture on the elastic behavior of filamentous networks. In particular, random fibrous structures are generated from the growth of individual fibers from random nucleation points. We use computer simulations to determine the mechanical behavior of these networks in terms of their model parameters. The findings are presented and discussed along with the response of Mikado fiber networks. We demonstrate that these alternative networks and Mikado networks show a qualitatively similar response. Nevertheless, the overall elasticity of Mikado networks is stiffer compared to that of the networks created using the alternative algorithm. We describe the effective elasticity of both network types as a function of their line density and of the material properties of the filaments. We also characterize the ratio of bending and axial energy and discuss the behavior of these networks in terms of their fiber density distribution and coordination number.

Long-Term Monitoring of Physical Behavior Reveals Different Cardiac Responses to Physical Activity among Subjects with and without Chronic Neck Pain.

PubMed

Hallman, David M; Mathiassen, Svend Erik; Lyskov, Eugene

2015-01-01

We determined the extent to which heart rate variability (HRV) responses to daily physical activity differ between subjects with and without chronic neck pain. Twenty-nine subjects (13 women) with chronic neck pain and 27 age- and gender-matched healthy controls participated. Physical activity (accelerometry), HRV (heart rate monitor), and spatial location (Global Positioning System (GPS)) were recorded for 74 hours. GPS data were combined with a diary to identify periods of work and of leisure at home and elsewhere. Time- and frequency-domain HRV indices were calculated and stratified by period and activity type (lying/sitting, standing, or walking). ANCOVAs with multiple adjustments were used to disclose possible group differences in HRV. The pain group showed a reduced HRV response to physical activity compared with controls (p = .001), according to the sympathetic-baroreceptor HRV index (LF/HF, ratio between low- and high-frequency power), even after adjustment for leisure time physical activity, work stress, sleep quality, mental health, and aerobic capacity (p = .02). The parasympathetic response to physical activity did not differ between groups. Relying on long-term monitoring of physical behavior and heart rate variability, we found an aberrant sympathetic-baroreceptor response to daily physical activity among subjects with chronic neck pain.

An alarm pheromone reduces ventral tegmental area-nucleus accumbens shell responsivity.

PubMed

Gutiérrez-García, Ana G; Contreras, Carlos M; Saldivar-Lara, Mauricio

2018-06-21

2-Heptanone (methyl n-amyl ketone) is a ketone that produces alarm reactions in insects (e.g., bees and ants). As an olfactory stimulus, 2-heptanone produces anxiety reactions in the short term and despair in the long term in rodent models. Among the anatomical connections of the olfactory system that integrate behavioral responses, connections between the amygdala and nucleus accumbens are important, which in turn form a circuit with the ventral tegmental area (VTA). 2-Heptanone increases the firing rate of amygdala neurons without participation of the vomeronasal organ. The olfactory amygdala-VTA-nucleus accumbens circuit may integrate defensive behaviors, but the possible actions of 2-heptanone on the responsivity of VTA-nucleus accumbens connections have not yet been explored. In the present study, multiunit activity recordings were obtained in adult Wistar rats from the core and shell subregions of the nucleus accumbens during electrical stimulation of the VTA under basal conditions and later during simultaneous stimulation of the VTA and olfactory exposure to 2-heptanone. 2-Heptanone reduced the responsivity of the VTA-nucleus accumbens shell but did not influence the responsivity of the VTA-nucleus accumbens core. The lower VTA-nucleus accumbens shell excitability may be related to a primary defensive warning when exposed to an alarm pheromone. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Overexpression of corticotropin-releasing factor receptor type 2 in the bed nucleus of stria terminalis improves posttraumatic stress disorder-like symptoms in a model of incubation of fear.

PubMed

Elharrar, Einat; Warhaftig, Gal; Issler, Orna; Sztainberg, Yehezkel; Dikshtein, Yahav; Zahut, Roy; Redlus, Lior; Chen, Alon; Yadid, Gal

2013-12-01

Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a severe, persistent psychiatric disorder in response to a traumatic event, causing intense anxiety and fear. These responses may increase over time upon conditioning with fear-associated cues, a phenomenon termed fear incubation. Corticotropin-releasing factor receptor type 1 (CRFR1) is involved in activation of the central stress response, while corticotropin-releasing factor receptor type 2 (CRFR2) has been suggested to mediate termination of this response. Corticotropin-releasing factor (CRF) receptors are found in stress-related regions, including the bed nucleus of stria terminalis (BNST), which is implicated in sustained fear. Fear-related behaviors were analyzed in rats exposed to predator-associated cues, a model of psychological trauma, over 10 weeks. Rats were classified as susceptible (PTSD-like) or resilient. Expression levels of CRF receptors were measured in the amygdala nuclei and BNST of the two groups. In addition, lentiviruses overexpressing CRFR2 were injected into the medial division, posterointermediate part of the BNST (BSTMPI) of susceptible and resilient rats and response to stress cues was measured. We found that exposure to stress and stress-associated cues induced a progressive increase in fear response of susceptible rats. The behavioral manifestations of these rats were correlated both with sustained elevation in CRFR1 expression and long-term downregulation in CRFR2 expression in the BSTMPI. Intra-BSTMPI injection of CRFR2 overexpressing lentiviruses attenuated behavioral impairments of susceptible rats. These results implicate the BNST CRF receptors in the mechanism of coping with stress. Our findings suggest increase of CRFR2 levels as a new approach for understanding stress-related atypical psychiatric syndromes such as PTSD. © 2013 Society of Biological Psychiatry.

Analysis of c-Fos induction in response to social interaction in male and female Fisher 344 rats.

PubMed

Perkins, Amy E; Woodruff, Elizabeth R; Chun, Lauren E; Spencer, Robert L; Varlinskaya, Elena; Deak, Terrence

2017-10-01

Sex differences in the expression of social behavior are typically apparent in adolescent and adult rats. While the neurobiology underlying juvenile social play behavior has been well characterized, less is known about discrete brain regions involved in adult responsiveness to a same sex peer. Furthermore, whether adult males and females differ in their responsiveness to a social interaction in terms of neuronal activation indexed via immediate early gene (IEG) expression remains to be determined. Thus, the present study was designed to identify key sites relevant to the processing of sensory stimuli (generally) or social stimuli (specifically) after brief exposure to a same-sex social partner by assessing IEG expression. Four-month-old male and female Fisher (F) 344 rats (N=38; n=5-8/group) were either left undisturbed in their home cage as controls (HCC), exposed to a testing context alone for 30min (CXT), or were placed in the context for 20min and then allowed to socially interact (SI) with a sex-matched conspecific for 10min. Females demonstrated greater levels of social behavior, relative to males. Analysis of c-Fos induction revealed that females exhibited greater c-Fos expression in the prefrontal cortex, regardless of condition. In many brain regions, induction was similar in the CXT and SI groups. However, in the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis (BNST), females exhibited greater c-Fos induction in response to the social interaction relative to their male counterparts, indicating a sex difference in responsivity to social stimuli. Taken together, these data suggest that the BNST is a sexually dimorphic region in terms of activation in response to social stimuli. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Spatiotemporal properties of microsaccades: Model predictions and experimental tests

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zhou, Jian-Fang; Yuan, Wu-Jie; Zhou, Zhao

2016-10-01

Microsaccades are involuntary and very small eye movements during fixation. Recently, the microsaccade-related neural dynamics have been extensively investigated both in experiments and by constructing neural network models. Experimentally, microsaccades also exhibit many behavioral properties. It’s well known that the behavior properties imply the underlying neural dynamical mechanisms, and so are determined by neural dynamics. The behavioral properties resulted from neural responses to microsaccades, however, are not yet understood and are rarely studied theoretically. Linking neural dynamics to behavior is one of the central goals of neuroscience. In this paper, we provide behavior predictions on spatiotemporal properties of microsaccades according to microsaccade-induced neural dynamics in a cascading network model, which includes both retinal adaptation and short-term depression (STD) at thalamocortical synapses. We also successfully give experimental tests in the statistical sense. Our results provide the first behavior description of microsaccades based on neural dynamics induced by behaving activity, and so firstly link neural dynamics to behavior of microsaccades. These results indicate strongly that the cascading adaptations play an important role in the study of microsaccades. Our work may be useful for further investigations of the microsaccadic behavioral properties and of the underlying neural dynamical mechanisms responsible for the behavioral properties.

Neighborhood and community factors: effects on deviant behavior and social competence.

PubMed

Fariña, Francisca; Arce, Ramón; Novo, Mercedes

2008-05-01

Socialization in a neighborhood and community at risk, defined in terms of violence, social alienation, school failure, and disruptive behavior, is a risk factor for the acquisition of antisocial and delinquent behavior. In order to test this hypothesis and examine the underlying mechanisms involved, 346 participants, 155 high-risk and 191 low-risk, aged 11 to 13, that is, under the age of criminal responsibility as established by the Spanish Law 5/2000 were selected. The results reveal that high-risk youngsters had higher rates of antisocial behavior and lower levels of social skills (i.e., greater tendency to externalize attribution of responsibility, fewer conflict resolution strategies, lower self esteem, and a lower degrees of emotional intelligence) in comparison to the lower-risk group. Finally, the results and implications of the study are discussed in the light of designing prevention programs.

Bonding and magnetic response properties of several toroid structures. Insights of the role of Ni2S2 as a building block from relativistic density functional theory calculations.

PubMed

Muñoz-Castro, Alvaro

2011-10-06

Relativistic density functional calculations were carried out on several nickel toroid mercaptides of the general formula [Ni(μ-SR)(2)](n), with the aim to characterize and analyze their stability and magnetic response properties, in order to gain more insights into their stabilization and size-dependent behavior. The Ni-ligand interaction has been studied by means projected density of states and energy decomposition analysis, which denotes its stabilizing character. The graphical representation of the response to an external magnetic field is applied for the very first time taking into account the spin-orbit term. This map allows one to clearly characterize the magnetic behavior inside and in the closeness of the toroid structure showing the prescence of paratropic ring currents inside the Ni(n) ring, and by contrast, diatropic currents confined in each Ni(2)S(2) motif denoting an aromatic behavior (in terms of magnetic criteria). The calculated data suggests that the Ni(2)S(2) moiety can be regarded as a stable constructing block, which can afford several toroid structures of different nuclearities in agreement with that reported in the experimental literature. In addition, the effects of the relativistic treatment over the magnetic response properties on these lighter compounds are denoted by comparing nonrelativistic, scalar relativistic, and scalar plus spin-orbit relativistic treatments, showing their acting, although nonpronunced, role.

Individual-level behavioral responses of immature green turtles to snorkeler disturbance.

PubMed

Griffin, Lucas P; Brownscombe, Jacob W; Gagné, Tyler O; Wilson, Alexander D M; Cooke, Steven J; Danylchuk, Andy J

2017-03-01

Despite many positive benefits of ecotourism, increased human encounters with wildlife may have detrimental effects on wild animals. As charismatic megafauna, nesting and foraging sea turtles are increasingly the focus of ecotourism activities. The purpose of our study was to quantify the behavioral responses of immature green turtles (Chelonia mydas) to disturbance by snorkelers, and to investigate whether turtles have individual-level responses to snorkeler disturbance. Using a standardized disturbance stimulus in the field, we recorded turtle behaviors pre- and post-disturbance by snorkelers. Ninety percent of turtles disturbed by snorkeler (n = 192) initiated their flights at distances of ≤3 m. Using principal component analysis, we identified two distinct turtle personality types, 'bold' and 'timid', based upon 145 encounters of 19 individually identified turtles and five disturbance response variables. There was significant intra-individual repeatability in behavioral responses to disturbance, but bolder turtles had more behavioral plasticity and less consistent responses than more timid individuals. Bolder individuals with reduced evasion responses might be at a higher risk of shark predation, while more timid turtles might have greater energetic consequences due to non-lethal predator effects and repeated snorkeler disturbance. Over the longer term, a turtle population with a mix of bold and timid individuals may promote more resilient populations. We recommend that snorkelers maintain >3 m distance from immature green turtles when snorkeling, and that ecotourism activities be temporally and spatially stratified. Further, turtle watching guidelines need to be communicated to both tour operators and independent snorkelers to reduce the disturbance of turtles.

Sir2/Sirt1 Links Acute Inebriation to Presynaptic Changes and the Development of Alcohol Tolerance, Preference, and Reward.

PubMed

Engel, Gregory L; Marella, Sunanda; Kaun, Karla R; Wu, Julia; Adhikari, Pratik; Kong, Eric C; Wolf, Fred W

2016-05-11

Acute ethanol inebriation causes neuroadaptive changes in behavior that favor increased intake. Ethanol-induced alterations in gene expression, through epigenetic and other means, are likely to change cellular and neural circuit function. Ethanol markedly changes histone acetylation, and the sirtuin Sir2/SIRT1 that deacetylates histones and transcription factors is essential for the rewarding effects of long-term drug use. The molecular transformations leading from short-term to long-term ethanol responses mostly remain to be discovered. We find that Sir2 in the mushroom bodies of the fruit fly Drosophila promotes short-term ethanol-induced behavioral plasticity by allowing changes in the expression of presynaptic molecules. Acute inebriation strongly reduces Sir2 levels and increases histone H3 acetylation in the brain. Flies lacking Sir2 globally, in the adult nervous system, or specifically in the mushroom body α/β-lobes show reduced ethanol sensitivity and tolerance. Sir2-dependent ethanol reward is also localized to the mushroom bodies, and Sir2 mutants prefer ethanol even without a priming ethanol pre-exposure. Transcriptomic analysis reveals that specific presynaptic molecules, including the synaptic vesicle pool regulator Synapsin, depend on Sir2 to be regulated by ethanol. Synapsin is required for ethanol sensitivity and tolerance. We propose that the regulation of Sir2/SIRT1 by acute inebriation forms part of a transcriptional program in mushroom body neurons to alter presynaptic properties and neural responses to favor the development of ethanol tolerance, preference, and reward. We identify a mechanism by which acute ethanol inebriation leads to changes in nervous system function that may be an important basis for increasing ethanol intake and addiction liability. The findings are significant because they identify ethanol-driven transcriptional events that target presynaptic properties and direct behavioral plasticity. They also demonstrate that multiple forms of ethanol behavioral plasticity that are relevant to alcoholism are initiated by a shared mechanism. Finally, they link these events to the Drosophila brain region that associates context with innate approach and avoidance responses to code for reward and other higher-order behavior, similar in aspects to the role of the vertebrate mesolimbic system. Copyright © 2016 the authors 0270-6474/16/365241-11$15.00/0.

Conflict management by hamadryas baboons (Papio hamadryas hamadryas) during crowding: a tension-reduction strategy.

PubMed

Judge, P G; Griffaton, N S; Fincke, A M

2006-10-01

Primates change a variety of behavioral responses during short-term exposure to crowding. Under crowded conditions, rates of aggression, submissive behavior, and affiliative behavior may increase or decrease. Different patterns of change among these three categories of response have been interpreted as various coping "strategies" for managing the increased risk of conflict under crowded conditions. Grooming is of particular interest because this behavior is known to have a calming influence on the recipient and could be used to manage conflict under tense situations. A captive group of nine hamadryas baboons (Papio hamadryas hamadryas) composed of two harems was observed under short-term crowding to determine whether this species adopts conflict-management strategies similar to those described in other primates. The aggression, submission, affiliation, and displacement activities of the six adults in the group (two males and four females) were recorded, and behaviors in their small indoor quarters was compared with baseline behaviors in the outdoor section of their enclosure, which had over 10 times more space. Repeated-measures analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used to compare behavioral rates during crowding with baseline rates recorded immediately after crowding and during matched controls collected at the same time of day as the crowding sessions. Aggression and submission rates did not change significantly across conditions. Huddling together and proximity increased during crowding, and females increased grooming of their harem male during crowding. Displacement activities (e.g., pacing and self-grooming) increased during crowding, but scratching, an indicator of anxiety in primates, did not. The pattern of behavior exhibited by this group conforms to an active "tension-reduction" strategy in which animals successfully reduce the higher risk of aggression during crowding.

The Cognitive Impact of Past Behavior: Influences on Beliefs, Attitudes, and Future Behavioral Decisions

PubMed Central

Albarracín, Dolores; Wyer, Robert S.

2016-01-01

To study the processes by which past behavior influences future behavior, participants were led to believe that without being aware of it, they had expressed either support for or opposition to the institution of comprehensive exams. Judgment and response time data suggested that participants’ perceptions of their past behavior often influenced their decisions to repeat the behavior. This influence was partly the result of cognitive activity that influenced participants’ cognitions about specific behavioral consequences and the attitude they based on these cognitions. More generally, however, feedback about past behavior had a direct effect on participants’ attitudes and ultimate behavioral decisions that was independent of the outcome-specific cognitions. Results are discussed in terms of their implications for biased scanning of memory, dissonance reduction, self-perception, and the use of behavior as a heuristic. PMID:10909874

Comparative study on short- and long-term behavioral consequences of organophosphate exposure: relationship to AChE mRNA expression.

PubMed

López-Granero, Caridad; Cardona, Diana; Giménez, Estela; Lozano, Rafael; Barril, José; Aschner, Michael; Sánchez-Santed, Fernando; Cañadas, Fernando

2014-01-01

Organophosphates (OPs) affect behavior by inhibiting acetylcholinesterase (AChE). While the cognitive short-term effects may be directly attributed to this inhibition, the mechanisms that underlie OP's long-term cognitive effects remain controversial and poorly understood. Accordingly, two experiments were designed to assess the effects of OPs on cognition, and to ascertain whether both the short- and long-term effects of are AChE-dependent. A single subcutaneous dose of 250 mg/kg chlorpyrifos (CPF), 1.5mg/kg diisopropylphosphorofluoridate (DFP) or 15 mg/kg parathion (PTN) was administered to male Wistar rats. Spatial learning was evaluated 72 h or 23 weeks after exposure, and impulsive choice was tested at 10 and 30 weeks following OPs administration (experiment 1 and 2, respectively). Brain soluble and membrane-bound AChE activity, synaptic AChE-S mRNA, read-through AChE-R mRNA and brain acylpeptide hydrolase (APH) activity (as alternative non-cholinergic target) were analyzed upon completion of the behavioral testing (17 and 37 weeks after OPs exposure). Both short- and long-term CPF treatment caused statistically significant effects on spatial learning, while PTN treatment led only to statistically significant short-term effects. Neither CPF, DFP nor PTN affected the long-term impulsivity response. Long-term exposure to CPF and DFP significantly decreased AChE-S and AChE-R mRNA, while in the PTN treated group only AChE-S mRNA levels were decreased. However, after long-term OP exposure, soluble and membrane-bound AChE activity was indistinguishable from controls. Finally, no changes were noted in brain APH activity in response to OP treatment. Taken together, this study demonstrates long-term effects of OPs on AChE-S and AChE-R mRNA in the absence of changes in AChE soluble and membrane-bound activity. Thus, changes in AChE mRNA expression imply non-catalytic properties of the AChE enzyme. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Behavioral and physiologic responses to environmental enrichment in the maned wolf (Chrysocyon brachyurus).

PubMed

Cummings, Dawn; Brown, Janine L; Rodden, Melissa D; Songsasen, Nucharin

2007-09-01

The ex situ population of maned wolves is not self-sustaining due to poor reproduction, caused primarily by parental incompetence. Studies have shown that environmental enrichment can promote natural parental behaviors in zoo animals. The objective of this study was to determine the effects of environmental enrichment on behavioral and physiological responses of maned wolves. During an 8-week experimental period, daily behavior observations and fecal sample collection were conducted on four adult wolves (2.2) individually housed in environments without enrichment. After 2 weeks, the wolves were chronologically provided with 2-week intervals of hiding dead mice around the exhibit, no enrichment, and introduction of boomer balls. Responses of the wolves to enrichment were assessed based on activity levels and exploratory rates, as well as the level of corticoid metabolites in fecal samples collected daily throughout the study period. Providing wolves with environmental enrichment significantly increased exploratory behaviors (P<0.05), especially when mice were hidden in the enclosure. Fecal corticoid concentrations were increased during periods of enrichment in males (P<0.05), but not in females. Overall, there were no correlations between behavioral responses to enrichment and fecal corticoid levels. Behavioral results suggest that environmental enrichment elicits positive effects on the behavior of captive maned wolves. There is evidence suggesting that providing animals with ability to forage for food is a more effective enrichment strategy than introducing objects. There is need for a longer term study to determine the impact of environmental enrichment in this species. Zoo Biol 26:331-343, 2007. (c) 2007 Wiley-Liss, Inc.

Short-term impacts of Hurricanes Irma and Maria on tropical stream chemistry as measured by in-situ sensors

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

McDowell, W. H.; Potter, J.; López-Lloreda, C.

2017-12-01

High intensity hurricanes have been shown to alter topical forest productivity and stream chemistry for years to decades in the montane rain forest of Puerto Rico, but much less is known about the immediate ecosystem response to these extreme events. Here we report the short-term impacts of Hurricanes Irma and Maria on the chemistry of Quebrada Sonadora immediately before and after the storms. We place the results from our 15-minute sensor record in the context of long-term weekly sampling that spans 34 years and includes two earlier major hurricanes (Hugo and Geoges). As expected, turbidity during Maria was the highest in our sensor record (> 1000 NTU). Contrary to our expectations, we found that solute-flow behavior changed with the advent of the storms. Specific conductance showed a dilution response to flow before the storms, but then changed to an enrichment response during and after Maria. This switch in system behavior is likely due to the deposition of marine aerosols during the hurricane. Nitrate concentrations showed very little response to discharge prior to the recent hurricanes, but large increase in concentration occurred at high flow both during and after the hurricanes. Baseflow nitrate concentrations decreased immediately after Irma to below the long-term background concentrations, which we attribute to the immobilization of N on organic debris choking the stream channel. Within three weeks of Hurricane Maria, baseflow nitrate concentrations began to rise. This is likely due to mineralization of N from decomposing canopy vegetation on the forest floor, and reduced N uptake by hurricane-damaged vegetation. The high frequency sensors are providing new insights into the response of this ecosystem in the days and weeks following two major disturbance events. The flipping of nitrate response to storms, from source limited to transport limited, suggests that these two severe hurricanes have fundamentally altered the nitrogen cycle at the site in ways that would not be evident without sensors.

Dynamic studies of small animals with a four-color diffuse optical tomography imager

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Schmitz, Christoph H.; Graber, Harry L.; Pei, Yaling; Farber, Mark; Stewart, Mark; Levina, Rita D.; Levin, Mikhail B.; Xu, Yong; Barbour, Randall L.

2005-09-01

We present newly developed instrumentation for full-tomographic four-wavelength, continuous wave, diffuse optical tomography (DOT) imaging on small animals. A small-animal imaging stage was constructed, from materials compatible with in-magnet studies, which offers stereotaxic fixation of the animal and precise, stable probe positioning. Instrument performance, based on calibration and phantom studies, demonstrates excellent long-term signal stability. DOT measurements of the functional rat brain response to electric paw stimulation are presented, and these demonstrate high data quality and excellent sensitivity to hemodynamic changes. A general linear model analysis on individual trials is used to localize and quantify the occurrence of functional behavior associated with the different hemoglobin state responses. Statistical evaluation of outcomes of individual trials is employed to identify significant regional response variations for different stimulation sites. Image results reveal a diffuse cortical response and a strong reaction of the thalamus, both indicative of activation of pain pathways by the stimulation. In addition, a weaker lateralized functional component is observed in the brain response, suggesting presence of motor activation. An important outcome of the experiment is that it shows that reactions to individual provocations can be monitored, without having to resort to signal averaging. Thus the described technology may be useful for studies of long-term trends in hemodynamic response, as would occur, for example, in behavioral studies involving freely moving animals.

Macroscopic behavior and fluctuation-dissipation response of stochastic ecohydrological systems

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Porporato, A. M.

2017-12-01

The coupled dynamics of water, carbon and nutrient cycles in ecohydrological systems is forced by unpredictable and intermittent hydroclimatic fluctuations at different time scales. While modeling and long-term prediction of these complex interactions often requires a probabilistic approach, the resulting stochastic equations however are only solvable in special cases. To obtain information on the behavior of the system one typically has to resort to approximation methods. Here we discuss macroscopic equations for the averages and fluctuation-dissipation estimates for the general correlations between the forcing and the ecohydrological response for the soil moisture-plant biomass interaction and the problem of primary salinization and nitrogen retention in soils.

Home care for the disabled elderly: predictors and expected costs.

PubMed Central

Coughlin, T A; McBride, T D; Perozek, M; Liu, K

1992-01-01

While interest in publicly funded home care for the disabled elderly is keen, basic policy issues need to be addressed before an appropriate program can be adopted and financed. This article presents findings from a study in which the cost implications of anticipated behavioral responses (for example, caregiver substitution) are estimated. Using simulation techniques, the results demonstrate that anticipated behavioral responses would likely add between $1.8 and $2.7 billion (1990 dollars) to the costs of a public home care program. Results from a variety of cost simulations are presented. The data base for the study was the 1982 National Long-Term Care Survey. PMID:1399652

Impact of an Educational Text Message Intervention on Adolescents' Knowledge and High-Risk Behaviors.

PubMed

Hickman, Nichole Erin; Schaar, Gina

2018-03-01

Health care providers need to develop improved methods of educating adolescents. This study was developed to evaluate adolescents' responses to and satisfaction with an educational text message intervention to promote healthy behaviors, reduce the incidence of unhealthy behaviors, and prevent high-risk behaviors. Adolescent participants received weekly text messages regarding high-risk sexual behaviors, healthy dietary habits, exercise, drug, or alcohol use, and social issues. Results indicate adolescents learned something new, made a behavioral change, and overall liked the delivery of educational information via text message. This indicates long-term continuation of a text message intervention is a viable means to deliver adolescent health information, thereby improving an adolescent's current and future health status.

The Effect of Praise, Positive Nonverbal Response, Reprimand, and Negative Nonverbal Response on Child Compliance: A Systematic Review

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Owen, Daniela J.; Slep, Amy M. S.; Heyman, Richard E.

2012-01-01

Lack of compliance has both short- and long-term costs and is a leading reason why parents seek mental health services for children. What parents do to help children comply with directives or rules is an important part of child socialization. The current review examines the relationship between a variety of parenting discipline behaviors (i.e.,…

Health Plans' Early Response to Federal Parity Legislation for Mental Health and Addiction Services.

PubMed

Horgan, Constance M; Hodgkin, Dominic; Stewart, Maureen T; Quinn, Amity; Merrick, Elizabeth L; Reif, Sharon; Garnick, Deborah W; Creedon, Timothy B

2016-02-01

In 2008, the federal Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act (MHPAEA) passed, prohibiting U.S. health plans from subjecting mental health and substance use disorder (behavioral health) coverage to more restrictive limitations than those applied to general medical care. This require d some health plans to make changes in coverage and management of services. The aim of this study was to examine private health plans' early responses to MHPAEA (after its 2010 implementation), in terms of both intended and unintended effects. Data were from a nationally representative survey of commercial health plans regarding the 2010 benefit year and the preparity 2009 benefit year (weighted N=8,431 products; 89% response rate). Annual limits specific to behavioral health care were virtually eliminated between 2009 and 2010. Prevalence of behavioral health coverage was unchanged, and copayments for both behavioral and general medical services increased slightly. Prior authorization requirements for specialty medical and behavioral health outpatient services continued to decline, and the proportion of products reporting strict continuing review requirements increased slightly. Contrary to expectations, plans did not make significant changes in contracting arrangements for behavioral health services, and 80% reported an increase in size of their behavioral health provider network. The law had the intended effect of eliminating quantitative limitations that applied only to behavioral health care without unintended consequences such as eliminating behavioral health coverage. Plan decisions may also reflect other factors, including anticipation of the 2010 regulations and a continuation of trends away from requiring prior authorization.

Treatment With CRH-1 Antagonist Antalarmin Reduces Behavioral and Endocrine Responses to Social Stressors in Marmosets (Callithrix kuhlii)

PubMed Central

FRENCH, JEFFREY A.; FITE, JEFFREY E.; JENSEN, HEATHER; OPAROWSKI, KATIE; RUKSTALIS, MICHAEL R.; FIX, HOLLY; JONES, BRENDA; MAXWELL, HEATHER; PACER, MOLLY; POWER, MICHAEL L.; SCHULKIN, JAY

2010-01-01

Corticotropin-releasing hormone (CRH) has multiple roles in coordinating the behavioral and endocrine responses to a host of environmental challenges, including social stressors. In the present study we evaluated the role of CRH in mediating responses to a moderate social stressor in Wied’s black tufted-eared marmosets (Callithrix kuhlii). Male and female marmosets (n = 14) were administered antalarmin (a selective CRH-1 receptor antagonist; 50μg/kg, p.o.) or vehicle in a blind, counterbalanced, crossover design. One hr after treatment, marmosets were separated from long-term pairmates and then housed alone in a novel enclosure for 7 hr. Behavior was recorded during separation and upon reunion with the partner, and urine samples for cortisol assay collected before, during, and after the intervention. Separation from partners elevated urinary cortisol concentrations over baseline for both conditions, but antalarmin treatment reduced the magnitude of the elevation. Antalarmin also lowered rates of behavioral patterns associated with arousal (alarm and ‘‘e-e’’ vocalizations, object manipulate/chew), but had no effect on contact calls, locomotory activity or alertness. Although most patterns of social behavior upon reunion with the partner were not affected by antalarmin, antalarmin-treated marmosets displayed more sexual behavior (mounts and copulations) upon reunion. These data indicate that antagonism of the CRH-1 receptor acts to reduce the magnitude of both endocrine and behavioral responses to a moderate social stressor without causing any overall reduction in alertness or general activity. This supports the hypothesis that CRH, acting through its type 1 receptor, is involved in coordinating the responses to anxiety-producing events. These results further suggest that the marmoset is a useful model for exploration of the role of CRH in mediating the behavioral and neuroendocrine responses to psychosocial stressors, particularly in the context of heterosexual social relationships. PMID:17397037

Pre-pubertal stress exposure affects adult behavioral response in association with changes in circulating corticosterone and brain-derived neurotrophic factor.

PubMed

Bazak, Noam; Kozlovsky, Nitsan; Kaplan, Zeev; Matar, Michael; Golan, Hava; Zohar, Joseph; Richter-Levin, Gal; Cohen, Hagit

2009-07-01

Early-life stress produces a cascade of neurobiological events that cause enduring changes in neural plasticity and synaptic efficacy that appear to play pivotal roles in the pathophysiology of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) has been implicated in the neurobiological mechanisms of these changes, in interaction with components of the stress response, such as corticosterone. This study examined the consequences of juvenile stress for behavior during adulthood in association with circulating corticosterone levels and BDNF expression. The experiments examined single exposure to predator scent stress (soiled cat litter for 10 min) as compared to repeated exposure, early in life and later on. Behavioral responses were assessed in the elevated plus maze and the acoustic startle response paradigms at 28, 60 and 90 days of age. Plasma corticosterone was measured and brain areas analyzed for BDNF levels. The results show that juvenile stress exposure increased anxiety-like behavior and startle amplitude and decreased plasma corticosterone. This response was seen immediately after exposure and also long term. Adult stress exposure increased anxiety-like behavior, startle amplitude and plasma corticosterone. Exposure to both early and later life trauma elicited reduced levels of corticosterone following the initial exposure, which were not raised by re-exposure, and elicited significant downregulation of BDNF mRNA and protein levels in the hippocampus CA1 subregion. The consequences of adult stress exposure were more severe in rats were exposed to the same stressor as juveniles, indicated increased vulnerability. The results suggest that juvenile stress has resounding effects in adulthood reflected in behavioral responses. The concomitant changes in BDNF and corticosterone levels may mediate the changes in neural plasticity and synaptic functioning underlying clinical manifestations of PTSD.

The effects of short-term and long-term learning on the responses of lateral intraparietal neurons to visually presented objects

PubMed Central

Sigurdardottir, Heida M.; Sheinberg, David L.

2015-01-01

The lateral intraparietal area (LIP) of the dorsal visual stream is thought to play an important role in visually directed orienting, or the guidance of where to look and pay attention. LIP can also respond selectively to differently shaped objects. We sought to understand how and to what extent short-term and long-term experience with visual orienting can determine the nature of responses of LIP neurons to objects of different shapes. We taught monkeys to arbitrarily associate centrally presented objects of various shapes with orienting either toward or away from a preferred peripheral spatial location of a neuron. For some objects the training lasted for less than a single day, while for other objects the training lasted for several months. We found that neural responses to visual objects are affected both by such short-term and long-term experience, but that the length of the learning period determines exactly how this neural plasticity manifests itself. Short-term learning over the course of a single training session affects neural responses to objects, but these effects are only seen relatively late after visual onset; at this time, the neural responses to newly learned objects start to resemble those of familiar over-learned objects that share their meaning or arbitrary association. Long-term learning, on the other hand, affects the earliest and apparently bottom-up responses to visual objects. These responses tend to be greater for objects that have repeatedly been associated with looking toward, rather than away from, LIP neurons’ preferred spatial locations. Responses to objects can nonetheless be distinct even though the objects have both been similarly acted on in the past and will lead to the same orienting behavior in the future. Our results therefore also indicate that a complete experience-driven override of LIP object responses is difficult or impossible. PMID:25633647

Distinct fronto-striatal couplings reveal the double-faced nature of response-outcome relations in instruction-based learning.

PubMed

Ruge, Hannes; Wolfensteller, Uta

2015-06-01

Higher species commonly learn novel behaviors by evaluating retrospectively whether actions have yielded desirable outcomes. By relying on explicit behavioral instructions, only humans can use an acquisition shortcut that prospectively specifies how to yield intended outcomes under the appropriate stimulus conditions. A recent and largely unexplored hypothesis suggests that striatal areas interact with lateral prefrontal cortex (LPFC) when novel behaviors are learned via explicit instruction, and that regional subspecialization exists for the integration of differential response-outcome contingencies into the current task model. Behaviorally, outcome integration during instruction-based learning has been linked to functionally distinct performance indices. This includes (1) compatibility effects, measured in a postlearning test procedure probing the encoding strength of outcome-response (O-R) associations, and (2) increasing response slowing across learning, putatively indicating active usage of O-R associations for the online control of goal-directed action. In the present fMRI study, we examined correlations between these behavioral indices and the dynamics of fronto-striatal couplings in order to mutually constrain and refine the interpretation of neural and behavioral measures in terms of separable subprocesses during outcome integration. We found that O-R encoding strength correlated with LPFC-putamen coupling, suggesting that the putamen is relevant for the formation of both S-R habits and habit-like O-R associations. By contrast, response slowing as a putative index of active usage of O-R associations correlated with LPFC-caudate coupling. This finding highlights the relevance of the caudate for the online control of goal-directed action also under instruction-based learning conditions, and in turn clarifies the functional relevance of the behavioral slowing effect.

Applying a Cognitive Neuroscience Perspective to Disruptive Behavior Disorders: Implications for Schools.

PubMed

Tyler, Patrick M; White, Stuart F; Thompson, Ronald W; Blair, R J R

2018-02-12

A cognitive neuroscience perspective seeks to understand behavior, in this case disruptive behavior disorders (DBD), in terms of dysfunction in cognitive processes underpinned by neural processes. While this type of approach has clear implications for clinical mental health practice, it also has implications for school-based assessment and intervention with children and adolescents who have disruptive behavior and aggression. This review articulates a cognitive neuroscience account of DBD by discussing the neurocognitive dysfunction related to emotional empathy, threat sensitivity, reinforcement-based decision-making, and response inhibition. The potential implications for current and future classroom-based assessments and interventions for students with these deficits are discussed.

AgRP neurons regulate development of dopamine neuronal plasticity and nonfood-associated behaviors

PubMed Central

Dietrich, Marcelo O; Bober, Jeremy; Ferreira, Jozélia G; Tellez, Luis A; Mineur, Yann S; Souza, Diogo O; Gao, Xiao-Bing; Picciotto, Marina R; Araújo, Ivan; Liu, Zhong-Wu; Horvath, Tamas L

2012-01-01

It is not known whether behaviors unrelated to feeding are affected by hypothalamic regulators of hunger. We found that impairment of Agouti-related protein (AgRP) circuitry by either Sirt1 knockdown in AgRP-expressing neurons or early postnatal ablation of these neurons increased exploratory behavior and enhanced responses to cocaine. In AgRP circuit–impaired mice, ventral tegmental dopamine neurons exhibited enhanced spike timing–dependent long-term potentiation, altered amplitude of miniature postsynaptic currents and elevated dopamine in basal forebrain. Thus, AgRP neurons determine the set point of the reward circuitry and associated behaviors. PMID:22729177

Research on Web Search Behavior: How Online Query Data Inform Social Psychology.

PubMed

Lai, Kaisheng; Lee, Yan Xin; Chen, Hao; Yu, Rongjun

2017-10-01

The widespread use of web searches in daily life has allowed researchers to study people's online social and psychological behavior. Using web search data has advantages in terms of data objectivity, ecological validity, temporal resolution, and unique application value. This review integrates existing studies on web search data that have explored topics including sexual behavior, suicidal behavior, mental health, social prejudice, social inequality, public responses to policies, and other psychosocial issues. These studies are categorized as descriptive, correlational, inferential, predictive, and policy evaluation research. The integration of theory-based hypothesis testing in future web search research will result in even stronger contributions to social psychology.

Essays in Applied Microeconomics

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ge, Qi

This dissertation consists of three self-contained applied microeconomics essays on topics related to behavioral economics and industrial organization. Chapter 1 studies how sentiment as a result of sports event outcomes affects consumers' tipping behavior in the presence of social norms. I formulate a model of tipping behavior that captures consumer sentiment following a reference-dependent preference framework and empirically test its relevance using the game outcomes of the NBA and the trip and tipping data on New York City taxicabs. While I find that consumers' tipping behavior responds to unexpected wins and losses of their home team, particularly in close game outcomes, I do not find evidence for loss aversion. Coupled with the findings on default tipping, my empirical results on the asymmetric tipping responses suggest that while social norms may dominate loss aversion, affect and surprises can result in freedom on the upside of tipping. Chapter 2 utilizes a novel data source of airline entry and exit announcements and examines how the incumbent airlines adjust quality provisions as a response to their competitors' announcements and the role of timing in such responses. I find no evidence that the incumbents engage in preemptive actions when facing probable entry and exit threats as signaled by the competitors' announcements in either short term or long term. There is, however, evidence supporting their responses to the competitors' realized entry or exit. My empirical findings underscore the role of timing in determining preemptive actions and suggest that previous studies may have overestimated how the incumbent airlines respond to entry threats. Chapter 3, which is collaborated with Benjamin Ho, investigates the habit formation of consumers' thermostat setting behavior, an often implicitly made decision and yet a key determinant of home energy consumption and expenditures. We utilize a high frequency dataset on household thermostat usage and find that while thermostat usage exhibits strong persistence in habits, consumers do respond to salient outdoor temperature shocks and the underlying heterogeneity in preferences can help explain much of the variation in responses. Our findings have direct policy implications on how conservation policies impact energy use.

Monoamine Oxidase A is Required for Rapid Dendritic Remodeling in Response to Stress

PubMed Central

Godar, Sean C; Bortolato, Marco; Richards, Sarah E; Li, Felix G; Chen, Kevin; Wellman, Cara L

2015-01-01

Background: Acute stress triggers transient alterations in the synaptic release and metabolism of brain monoamine neurotransmitters. These rapid changes are essential to activate neuroplastic processes aimed at the appraisal of the stressor and enactment of commensurate defensive behaviors. Threat evaluation has been recently associated with the dendritic morphology of pyramidal cells in the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) and basolateral amygdala (BLA); thus, we examined the rapid effects of restraint stress on anxiety-like behavior and dendritic morphology in the BLA and OFC of mice. Furthermore, we tested whether these processes may be affected by deficiency of monoamine oxidase A (MAO-A), the primary enzyme catalyzing monoamine metabolism. Methods: Following a short-term (1–4h) restraint schedule, MAO-A knockout (KO) and wild-type (WT) mice were sacrificed, and histological analyses of dendrites in pyramidal neurons of the BLA and OFC of the animals were performed. Anxiety-like behaviors were examined in a separate cohort of animals subjected to the same experimental conditions. Results: In WT mice, short-term restraint stress significantly enhanced anxiety-like responses, as well as a time-dependent proliferation of apical (but not basilar) dendrites of the OFC neurons; conversely, a retraction in BLA dendrites was observed. None of these behavioral and morphological changes were observed in MAO-A KO mice. Conclusions: These findings suggest that acute stress induces anxiety-like responses by affecting rapid dendritic remodeling in the pyramidal cells of OFC and BLA; furthermore, our data show that MAO-A and monoamine metabolism are required for these phenomena. PMID:25857821

Multiwalled Carbon Nanotube Dispersion Methods Affect Their Aggregation, Deposition, and Biomarker Response

EPA Science Inventory

To systematically evaluate how dispersion methods affect the environmental behaviors of multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWNTs), MWNTs were dispersed in various solutions (e.g., surfactants, natural organic matter (NOM), and etc.) via ultrasonication (SON) and long-term stirring (LT...

Roles of p75NTR, long-term depression and cholinergic transmission in anxiety and acute stress coping

PubMed Central

Martinowich, Keri; Schloesser, Robert J.; Lu, Yuan; Jimenez, Dennisse V.; Paredes, Daniel; Greene, Joshua S.; Greig, Nigel H.; Manji, Husseini K.; Lu, Bai

2011-01-01

Background Stress is causally associated with anxiety. While the underlying cellular mechanisms are not well understood, the basal forebrain cholinergic neurons (BFCNs) have been implicated in stress response. p75NTR is a pan-neurotrophin receptor expressed almost exclusively in BFCNs in adult brain. The present study investigates whether and how p75NTR, via regulation of the cholinergic system and hippocampal synaptic plasticity, influences stress-related behaviors. Methods We used a combination of slice electrophysiology, behavioral analyses, pharmacology, in vivo microdialysis and neuronal activity mapping to assess the role of p75NTR in mood and stress-related behaviors and its underlying cellular and molecular mechanisms. Results We show that acute stress enables hippocampal long-term depression (LTD) in adult wild-type mice, but not in mice lacking p75NTR. The p75NTR mutant mice also exhibit two distinct behavioral impairments: baseline anxiety-like behavior and a deficit in coping with and recovering from stressful situations. Blockade of stress-enabled LTD with a GluA2-derived peptide impaired stress recovery without affecting baseline anxiety. Pharmacological manipulations of cholinergic transmission mimicked the p75NTR perturbation in both baseline anxiety and responses to acute stress. Finally, we show evidence of misregulated cholinergic signaling in animals with p75NTR deletion. Conclusions Our results suggest that loss of p75NTR leads to changes in hippocampal cholinergic signaling, which may be involved in regulation of stress-enabled hippocampal LTD and in modulating behaviors related to stress and anxiety. PMID:21978521

Persistent Increase in Microglial RAGE Contributes to Chronic Stress-Induced Priming of Depressive-like Behavior.

PubMed

Franklin, Tina C; Wohleb, Eric S; Zhang, Yi; Fogaça, Manoela; Hare, Brendan; Duman, Ronald S

2018-01-01

Chronic stress-induced inflammatory responses occur in part via danger-associated molecular pattern (DAMP) molecules, such as high mobility group box 1 protein (HMGB1), but the receptor(s) underlying DAMP signaling have not been identified. Microglia morphology and DAMP signaling in enriched rat hippocampal microglia were examined during the development and expression of chronic unpredictable stress (CUS)-induced behavioral deficits, including long-term, persistent changes after CUS. The results show that CUS promotes significant morphological changes and causes robust upregulation of HMGB1 messenger RNA in enriched hippocampal microglia, an effect that persists for up to 6 weeks after CUS exposure. This coincides with robust and persistent upregulation of receptor for advanced glycation end products (RAGE) messenger RNA, but not toll-like receptor 4 in hippocampal microglia. CUS also increased surface expression of RAGE protein on hippocampal microglia as determined by flow cytometry and returned to basal levels 5 weeks after CUS. Importantly, exposure to short-term stress was sufficient to increase RAGE surface expression as well as anhedonic behavior, reflecting a primed state that results from a persistent increase in RAGE messenger RNA expression. Further evidence for DAMP signaling in behavioral responses is provided by evidence that HMGB1 infusion into the hippocampus was sufficient to cause anhedonic behavior and by evidence that RAGE knockout mice were resilient to stress-induced anhedonia. Together, the results provide evidence of persistent microglial HMGB1-RAGE expression that increases vulnerability to depressive-like behaviors long after chronic stress exposure. Copyright © 2017 Society of Biological Psychiatry. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Visual search accelerates during adolescence.

PubMed

Burggraaf, Rudolf; van der Geest, Jos N; Frens, Maarten A; Hooge, Ignace T C

2018-05-01

We studied changes in visual-search performance and behavior during adolescence. Search performance was analyzed in terms of reaction time and response accuracy. Search behavior was analyzed in terms of the objects fixated and the duration of these fixations. A large group of adolescents (N = 140; age: 12-19 years; 47% female, 53% male) participated in a visual-search experiment in which their eye movements were recorded with an eye tracker. The experiment consisted of 144 trials (50% with a target present), and participants had to decide whether a target was present. Each trial showed a search display with 36 Gabor patches placed on a hexagonal grid. The target was a vertically oriented element with a high spatial frequency. Nontargets differed from the target in spatial frequency, orientation, or both. Search performance and behavior changed during adolescence; with increasing age, fixation duration and reaction time decreased. Response accuracy, number of fixations, and selection of elements to fixate upon did not change with age. Thus, the speed of foveal discrimination increases with age, while the efficiency of peripheral selection does not change. We conclude that the way visual information is gathered does not change during adolescence, but the processing of visual information becomes faster.

A Simple Exploration of Complexity at the Climate-Weather-Social-Conflict Nexus

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Shaw, M.

2017-12-01

The conceptualization, exploration, and prediction of interplay between climate, weather, important resources, and social and economic - so political - human behavior is cast, and analyzed, in terms familiar from statistical physics and nonlinear dynamics. A simple threshold toy model is presented which emulates human tendencies to either actively engage in responses deriving, in part, from environmental circumstances or to maintain some semblance of status quo, formulated based on efforts drawn from the sociophysics literature - more specifically vis a vis a model akin to spin glass depictions of human behavior - with threshold/switching of individual and collective dynamics influenced by relatively more detailed weather and land surface model (hydrological) analyses via a land data assimilation system (a custom rendition of the NASA GSFC Land Information System). Parameters relevant to human systems' - e.g., individual and collective switching - sensitivity to hydroclimatology are explored towards investigation of overall system behavior; i.e., fixed points/equilibria, oscillations, and bifurcations of systems composed of human interactions and responses to climate and weather through, e.g., agriculture. We discuss implications in terms of conceivable impacts of climate change and associated natural disasters on socioeconomics, politics, and power transfer, drawing from relatively recent literature concerning human conflict.

Effects of Transport at Weaning on the Behavior, Physiology and Performance of Pigs

PubMed Central

Sutherland, Mhairi A.; Backus, Brittany L.; McGlone, John J.

2014-01-01

Simple Summary Pigs are commonly transported to separate production facilities at weaning to reduce disease transfer, enhance productivity and to improve overall operational efficiency. A review of the scientific literature suggests that these animals experience stress due to concurrent weaning and transport; however, gaps in the knowledge include the short and long term health and welfare implications of transporting pigs at weaning. Pig welfare and the efficiency of the swine industry may improve if science-based recommendations were in place. Abstract Transport of pigs to separate production facilities at the time of weaning is a common practice, primarily performed to reduce vertical transfer of disease and enhance production and overall farm efficiency. During transport, pigs are exposed to numerous stressors in conjunction with the stress experienced as a result of weaning. In this review, the behavioral and physiological response of pigs experiencing weaning and transport simultaneously will be described, including the effects of space allowance, season and transport duration. Based on the scientific literature, the gaps in the knowledge regarding potential welfare issues are discussed. Changes in behavior and physiology suggest that weaned pigs may experience stress due to transport. Space allowance, season and duration are aspects of transport that can have a marked impact on these responses. To date, the literature regarding the effects of transport on weaned pigs has primarily focused on the short term stress response and little is known about the effects of concurrent weaning and transport on other aspects of pig welfare including morbidity and mortality rates. Greater understanding of the short and long term consequences of transport on weaned pig welfare particularly in relation to factors such as trip duration, provision of feed and water, and best handling practices would benefit the swine industry. Furthermore, the development of guidelines and recommendations to enhance the short and long term welfare of weaned pigs in relation to transport are needed. PMID:26479005

Understanding Emotions in Frontotemporal Dementia: The Explicit and Implicit Emotional Cue Mismatch.

PubMed

Balconi, Michela; Cotelli, Maria; Brambilla, Michela; Manenti, Rosa; Cosseddu, Maura; Premi, Enrico; Gasparotti, Roberto; Zanetti, Orazio; Padovani, Alessandro; Borroni, Barbara

2015-01-01

Previous studies have reported significant deficits in emotion recognition among individuals along the frontotemporal dementia (FTD) spectrum. The basis of emotional impairment is still poorly understood and explicit (emotion appraisal) and implicit (autonomic system activity) responses have not been carefully evaluated. We investigated explicit evaluation of emotions by testing valence and arousal using self-report measures and we also assessed automatic responses to emotional cues, using autonomic measures (skin conductance response and heart rate). 16 behavioral variant FTD and 12 agrammatic variants of primary progressive aphasia patients were included. The performance of these patients was compared to a group of 14 patients with Alzheimer's disease and 20 healthy controls. Each subject was required to observe and evaluate affective pictures while autonomic parameters were recorded. FTD patients preserved a functional general competency in terms of valence (correct positive versus negative attribution) and arousal (correct dichotomy between high versus low arousal category) distinction. These patients showed significant changes in autonomic implicit response compared to the other groups. The mismatch between explicit and implicit responsiveness to emotional cues was found both in behavioral variant FTD and in agrammatic variants of primary progressive aphasia. Emotional responsiveness was related to the severity of behavioral abnormalities as measured by the Frontal Behavioral Inventory and associated with atrophy of the left putamen. The present findings indicate that FTD patients are able to explicitly "appraise" the emotion, but they cannot implicitly "feel" the emotion. This mismatch between the two levels may help explain the general emotional behavior impairment found in these patients.

Reward magnitude tracking by neural populations in ventral striatum

PubMed Central

Fiallos, Ana M.; Bricault, Sarah J.; Cai, Lili X.; Worku, Hermoon A.; Colonnese, Matthew T.; Westmeyer, Gil; Jasanoff, Alan

2017-01-01

Evaluation of the magnitudes of intrinsically rewarding stimuli is essential for assigning value and guiding behavior. By combining parametric manipulation of a primary reward, medial forebrain bundle (MFB) microstimulation, with functional magnetic imaging (fMRI) in rodents, we delineated a broad network of structures activated by behaviorally characterized levels of rewarding stimulation. Correlation of psychometric behavioral measurements with fMRI response magnitudes revealed regions whose activity corresponded closely to the subjective magnitude of rewards. The largest and most reliable focus of reward magnitude tracking was observed in the shell region of the nucleus accumbens (NAc). Although the nonlinear nature of neurovascular coupling complicates interpretation of fMRI findings in precise neurophysiological terms, reward magnitude tracking was not observed in vascular compartments and could not be explained by saturation of region-specific hemodynamic responses. In addition, local pharmacological inactivation of NAc changed the profile of animals’ responses to rewards of different magnitudes without altering mean reward response rates, further supporting a hypothesis that neural population activity in this region contributes to assessment of reward magnitudes. PMID:27789262

The costs and benefits of self-monitoring for higher functioning children and adolescents with autism.

PubMed

Henderson, Heather A; Ono, Kim E; McMahon, Camilla M; Schwartz, Caley B; Usher, Lauren V; Mundy, Peter C

2015-02-01

The ability to regulate behaviors and emotions depends in part on the ability to flexibly monitor one's own progress toward a goal. Atypical patterns of response monitoring have been reported in individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). In the current study we examined the error related negativity (ERN), an electrophysiological index of response monitoring, in relation to behavioral, social cognitive, and emotional presentation in higher functioning children (8-16 years) diagnosed with autism (HFA: N = 38) and an age- and IQ-matched sample of children without autism (COM: N = 36). Both HFA and COM participants displayed larger amplitude responses to error compared to correct response trials and these amplitudes did not differ by diagnostic group. For participants with HFA, larger ERN amplitudes were associated with more parent-reported autistic symptoms and more self-reported internalizing problems. However, across the full sample, larger ERN amplitudes were associated with better performance on theory of mind tasks. The results are discussed in terms of the utility of electrophysiological measures for understanding essential moderating processes that contribute to the spectrum of behavioral expression in the development of ASD.

Motivational Disturbances and Effects of L-dopa Administration in Neurofibromatosis-1 Model Mice

PubMed Central

Wozniak, David F.; Diggs-Andrews, Kelly A.; Conyers, Sara; Yuede, Carla M.; Dearborn, Joshua T.; Brown, Jacquelyn A.; Tokuda, Kazuhiro; Izumi, Yukitoshi; Zorumski, Charles F.; Gutmann, David H.

2013-01-01

Children with neurofibromatosis type 1 (NF1) frequently have cognitive and behavioral deficits. Some of these deficits have been successfully modeled in Nf1 genetically-engineered mice that develop optic gliomas (Nf1 OPG mice). In the current study, we show that abnormal motivational influences affect the behavior of Nf1 OPG mice, particularly with regard to their response to novel environmental stimuli. For example, Nf1 OPG mice made fewer spontaneous alternations in a Y-maze and fewer arm entries relative to WT controls. However, analysis of normalized alternation data demonstrated that these differences were not due to a spatial working memory deficit. Other reported behavioral results (e.g., open-field test, below) suggest that differential responses to novelty and/or other motivational influences may be more important determinants of these kinds of behavior than simple differences in locomotor activity/spontaneous movements. Importantly, normal long-term depression was observed in hippocampal slices from Nf1 OPG mice. Results from elevated plus maze testing showed that differences in exploratory activity between Nf1 OPG and WT control mice may be dependent on the environmental context (e.g., threatening or non-threatening) under which exploration is being measured. Nf1 OPG mice also exhibited decreased exploratory hole poking in a novel holeboard and showed abnormal olfactory preferences, although L-dopa (50 mg/kg) administration resolved the abnormal olfactory preference behaviors. Nf1 OPG mice displayed an attenuated response to a novel open field in terms of decreased ambulatory activity and rearing but only during the first 10 min of the session. Importantly, Nf1 OPG mice demonstrated investigative rearing deficits with regard to a novel hanging object suspended on one side of the field which were not rescued by L-dopa administration. Collectively, our results provide new data important for evaluating therapeutic treatments aimed at ameliorating NF1-associated cognitive/behavioral deficits. PMID:23762458

The Price of Fame: The Impact of Stimulus Familiarity on Proactive Interference Resolution

PubMed Central

Prabhakaran, Ranjani; Thompson-Schill, Sharon L.

2013-01-01

Interference from previously learned information, known as proactive interference (PI), limits our memory retrieval abilities. Previous studies of PI resolution have focused on the role of short-term familiarity, or recency, in causing PI. In the present study, we investigated the impact of long-term stimulus familiarity on PI resolution processes. In two behavioral experiments and one event-related fMRI experiment, long-term familiarity was manipulated through the use of famous and nonfamous stimuli, and short-term familiarity was manipulated through the use of recent and nonrecent probe items in an item recognition task. The right middle frontal gyrus demonstrated greater sensitivity to famous stimuli, suggesting that long-term stimulus familiarity plays a role in influencing PI resolution processes. Further examination of the effect of long-term stimulus familiarity on PI resolution revealed a larger behavioral interference effect for famous stimuli, but only under speeded response conditions. Thus, models of memory retrieval—and of the cognitive control mechanisms that guide retrieval processes—should consider the impact of and interactions among sources of familiarity on multiple time scales. PMID:20429858

The price of fame: the impact of stimulus familiarity on proactive interference resolution.

PubMed

Prabhakaran, Ranjani; Thompson-Schill, Sharon L

2011-04-01

Interference from previously learned information, known as proactive interference (PI), limits our memory retrieval abilities. Previous studies of PI resolution have focused on the role of short-term familiarity, or recency, in causing PI. In the present study, we investigated the impact of long-term stimulus familiarity on PI resolution processes. In two behavioral experiments and one event-related fMRI experiment, long-term familiarity was manipulated through the use of famous and nonfamous stimuli, and short-term familiarity was manipulated through the use of recent and nonrecent probe items in an item recognition task. The right middle frontal gyrus demonstrated greater sensitivity to famous stimuli, suggesting that long-term stimulus familiarity plays a role in influencing PI resolution processes. Further examination of the effect of long-term stimulus familiarity on PI resolution revealed a larger behavioral interference effect for famous stimuli, but only under speeded response conditions. Thus, models of memory retrieval--and of the cognitive control mechanisms that guide retrieval processes--should consider the impact of and interactions among sources of familiarity on multiple time scales.

Long-term alterations in vulnerability to addiction to drugs of abuse and in brain gene expression after early life ethanol exposure.

PubMed

Barbier, Estelle; Pierrefiche, Olivier; Vaudry, David; Vaudry, Hubert; Daoust, Martine; Naassila, Mickaël

2008-12-01

Exposure to ethanol early in life can have long-lasting implications on brain function and drug of abuse response later in life. The present study investigated in rats, the long-term consequences of pre- and postnatal (early life) ethanol exposure on drug consumption/reward and the molecular targets potentially associated with these behavioral alterations. Since a relationship has been demonstrated between heightened drugs intake and susceptibility to drugs-induced locomotor activity/sensitization, anxiolysis, we tested these behavioral responses, depending on the drug, in control and early life ethanol-exposed animals. Our results show that progeny exposed to early life ethanol displayed increased consumption of ethanol solutions and increased sensitivity to cocaine rewarding effects assessed in the conditioned place preference test. Offspring exposed to ethanol were more sensitive to the anxiolytic effect of ethanol and the increased sensitivity could, at least in part, explain the alteration in the consumption of ethanol for its anxiolytic effects. In addition, the sensitivity to hypothermic effects of ethanol and ethanol metabolism were not altered by early life ethanol exposure. The sensitization to cocaine (20 mg/kg) and to amphetamine (1.2 mg/kg) was increased after early life ethanol exposure and, could partly explain, an increase in the rewarding properties of psychostimulants. Gene expression analysis revealed that expression of a large number of genes was altered in brain regions involved in the reinforcing effects of drugs of abuse. Dopaminergic receptors and transporter binding sites were also down-regulated in the striatum of ethanol-exposed offspring. Such long-term neurochemical alterations in transmitter systems and in the behavioral responses to ethanol and other drugs of abuse may confer an increased liability for addiction in exposed offspring.

Neural and behavioral suppression of interfering flankers by children with and without autism spectrum disorder

PubMed Central

Faja, Susan; Clarkson, Tessa; Webb, Sara Jane

2016-01-01

Electrophysiological responses, accuracy and reaction time were recorded while 7-11-year-olds with typical development (TYP; N=30) and autism spectrum disorder (ASD; N=19) inhibited conflicting information. Relative to the TYP group, children with ASD had larger decrements in accuracy for incongruent trials and were slower. In terms of neural responses, N2 mean amplitude was greater overall for children with ASD relative to TYP children. N2 neural responses related to a behavioral measure of inhibition and cognitive flexibility for TYP children, whereas it related to suppression of interfering information and maintenance of accurate responding for the children with ASD. Results suggest children with ASD recruit more neural resources and perform worse when inhibiting conflicting information relative to TYP peers. PMID:27825750

Nomadic-colonial life strategies enable paradoxical survival and growth despite habitat destruction

PubMed Central

Tan, Zong Xuan; Cheong, Kang Hao

2017-01-01

Organisms often exhibit behavioral or phenotypic diversity to improve population fitness in the face of environmental variability. When each behavior or phenotype is individually maladaptive, alternating between these losing strategies can counter-intuitively result in population persistence–an outcome similar to the Parrondo’s paradox. Instead of the capital or history dependence that characterize traditional Parrondo games, most ecological models which exhibit such paradoxical behavior depend on the presence of exogenous environmental variation. Here we present a population model that exhibits Parrondo’s paradox through capital and history-dependent dynamics. Two sub-populations comprise our model: nomads, who live independently without competition or cooperation, and colonists, who engage in competition, cooperation, and long-term habitat destruction. Nomads and colonists may alternate behaviors in response to changes in the colonial habitat. Even when nomadism and colonialism individually lead to extinction, switching between these strategies at the appropriate moments can paradoxically enable both population persistence and long-term growth. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.21673.001 PMID:28084993

Disorganized attachment and defense: exploring John Bowlby’s unpublished reflections

PubMed Central

Reisz, Samantha; Duschinsky, Robbie; Siegel, Daniel J

2018-01-01

ABSTRACT Main and Solomon were the first to create a formal infant Strange Situation classification of attachment disorganization. Bowlby’s reflections on the underlying psychological processes of such behaviors, however, began early in his career, including the term “disorganization.” Most of these remained unpublished but are available through the John Bowlby Archive. Bowlby saw affective experiences as the source of the attachment behavioral system’s organization and regulation, and he introduced the term “effector equipment” to describe the emergent organization of attention, expectation, affect, and behavior to orchestrate responses to the environment. In his thinking, disorganization results from threat conflict, safe haven ambiguity, and/or activation without assuagement, which interfere with coordination and integration across a behavioral system. Bowlby’s unpublished writings also amplify his published work on segregated systems and defensive exclusion. Bowlby’s insights are relevant today and can provide greater background and clarity to current work, as researchers and clinicians consider the origins, manifestations, and meaning of disorganization. PMID:28952412

Maternal beliefs as long-term predictors of mother-child interaction and report.

PubMed

Kochanska, G

1990-12-01

2 kinds of parental beliefs: endorsed rearing philosophy (authoritative-authoritarian dimension) and affective attitude toward child (positive-negative affect dimension) were examined in 20 normal and 36 depressed mothers as long-term predictors of their rearing behaviors and interaction patterns with their children, and of their ratings of child externalizing problems (Achenbach CBCL). The beliefs were measured when the children were toddlers (Time 1), and maternal behaviors 2-3 years later (Time 2). Mothers' endorsement of the belief in authoritative parenting predicted their frequent avoidance of prohibitive interventions. It also predicted maternal autonomy-granting to the child (more compliant and liberal responses to child-initiated control interventions). Endorsed child-rearing philosophy was a relatively more important predictor of behavior for normal mothers, and affective attitude toward child for the behavior of depressed mothers. Both actual child noncompliance and parental beliefs predicted mothers' ratings of externalizing problems in their children. The former was relatively more important for normal and latter for depressed mothers.

Effects of Aging-Time Reference on the Long Term Behavior of the IM7/K3B Composite

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Veazie, David R.; Gates, Thomas S.

1998-01-01

An analytical study was undertaken to investigate the effects of the time-based shift reference on the long term behavior of the graphite reinforced thermoplastic polyimide composite IM7/K3B at elevated temperature. Creep compliance and the effects of physical aging on the time dependent response was measured for uniaxial loading at several isothermal conditions below the glass transition temperature (T(sub g). Two matrix dominated loading modes, shear and transverse, were investigated in tension and compression. The momentary sequenced creep/aging curves were collapsed through a horizontal (time) shift using the shortest, middle and longest aging time curve as the reference curve. Linear viscoelasticity was used to characterize the creep/recovery behavior and superposition techniques were used to establish the physical aging related material constants. The use of effective time expressions in a laminated plate model allowed for the prediction of long term creep compliance. The effect of using different reference curves with time/aging-time superposition was most sensitive to the physical aging shift rate at lower test temperatures. Depending on the loading mode, the reference curve used can result in a more accurate long term prediction, especially at lower test temperatures.

Neurobehavioral perspectives on the distinction between fear and anxiety

PubMed Central

Perusini, Jennifer N.

2015-01-01

In this review, we discuss the usefulness of the distinction between fear and anxiety. The clinical use of the labels is ambiguous, often defining one in terms of the other. We first consider what a useful, objective, and scientifically valid definition would entail and then evaluate several fear/anxiety distinctions that have been made in the neurobiological literature. A strong distinction should specify the difference in conditions that lead to fear versus anxiety. Additionally, fear and anxiety should generate distinct sets of behaviors. Ideally, the two states should be supported by distinguishable neuroanatomical circuits. Such a conceptualization would be consistent with the National Institute of Mental Health's Research Domain Criteria (RDoc). The majority of neurobiological approaches to the fear versus anxiety distinction fail to differentiate the two states in terms of behavior, often using the exact same behavioral measures as indicators. Of the two that do, only Predatory Imminence Theory provides a distinction both in terms of cause and effect. Indeed, that approach provides a ready distinction of anxiety, fear, and panic in terms of both antecedent conditions and response selection rules. Additionally, it appeals to distinct neural circuits to generate these modes of action. PMID:26286652

APPROACHING THE BIOLOGY OF HUMAN PARENTAL ATTACHMENT: BRAIN IMAGING, OXYTOCIN AND COORDINATED ASSESSMENTS OF MOTHERS AND FATHERS

PubMed Central

Swain, JE; Kim, P; Spicer, J; Ho, SS; Dayton, CJ; Elmadih, A; Abel, KM

2014-01-01

Brain networks that govern parental response to infant signals have been studied with imaging techniques over the last 15 years. The complex interaction of thoughts and behaviors required for sensitive parenting of offspring enable formation of each individual’s first social bonds and critically shape infants’ behavior. This review concentrates on magnetic resonance imaging experiments which directly examine the brain systems involved in parental responses to infant cues. First, we introduce themes in the literature on parental brain circuits studied to date. Next, we present a thorough chronological review of state-of-the-art fMRI studies that probe the parental brain with a range of baby audio and visual stimuli. We also highlight the putative role of oxytocin and effects of psychopathology, as well as the most recent work on the paternal brain. Taken together, a new model emerges in which we propose that cortico-limbic networks interact to support parental brain responses to infants for arousal/salience/motivation/reward, reflexive/instrumental caring, emotion response/regulation and integrative/complex cognitive processing. Maternal sensitivity and the quality of caregiving behavior are likely determined by the responsiveness of these circuits toward long-term influence of early-life experiences on offspring. The function of these circuits is modifiable by current and early-life experiences, hormonal and other factors. Known deviation from the range of normal function in these systems is particularly associated with (maternal) mental illnesses – commonly, depression and anxiety, but also schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. Finally, we discuss the limits and extent to which brain imaging may broaden our understanding of the parental brain, and consider a current model and future directions that may have profound implications for intervention long term outcomes in families across risk and resilience profiles. PMID:24637261

Behavioral characteristics and neurobiological substrates shared by Pavlovian sign-tracking and drug abuse.

PubMed

Tomie, Arthur; Grimes, Kathryn L; Pohorecky, Larissa A

2008-06-01

Drug abuse researchers have noted striking similarities between behaviors elicited by Pavlovian sign-tracking procedures and prominent symptoms of drug abuse. In Pavlovian sign-tracking procedures, repeated paired presentations of a small object (conditioned stimulus, CS) with a reward (unconditioned stimulus, US) elicits a conditioned response (CR) that typically consists of approaching the CS, contacting the CS, and expressing consummatory responses at the CS. Sign-tracking CR performance is poorly controlled and exhibits spontaneous recovery and long-term retention, effects that resemble relapse. Sign-tracking resembles psychomotor activation, a syndrome of behavioral responses evoked by addictive drugs, and the effects of sign-tracking on corticosterone levels and activation of dopamine pathways resemble the neurobiological effects of abused drugs. Finally, the neurobiological profile of individuals susceptible to sign-tracking resembles the pathophysiological profile of vulnerability to drug abuse, and vulnerability to sign-tracking predicts vulnerability to impulsive responding and alcohol self-administration. Implications of sign-tracking for models of drug addiction are considered.

Testing the risk of predation hypothesis: the influence of recolonizing wolves on habitat use by moose.

PubMed

Nicholson, Kerry L; Milleret, Cyril; Månsson, Johan; Sand, Håkan

2014-09-01

Considered as absent throughout Scandinavia for >100 years, wolves (Canis lupus) have recently naturally recolonized south-central Sweden. This recolonization has provided an opportunity to study behavioral responses of moose (Alces alces) to wolves. We used satellite telemetry locations from collared moose and wolves to determine whether moose habitat use was affected by predation risk based on wolf use distributions. Moose habitat use was influenced by reproductive status and time of day and showed a different selection pattern between winter and summer, but there was weak evidence that moose habitat use depended on predation risk. The seemingly weak response may have several underlying explanations that are not mutually exclusive from the long term absence of non-human predation pressure: intensive harvest by humans during the last century is more important than wolf predation as an influence on moose behavior; moose have not adapted to recolonizing wolves; and responses may include other behavioral adaptations or occur at finer temporal and spatial levels than investigated.

Anxiety and spatial attention moderate the electrocortical response to aversive pictures.

PubMed

MacNamara, Annmarie; Hajcak, Greg

2009-11-01

Aversive stimuli capture attention and elicit increased neural activity, as indexed by behavioral, electrocortical and hemodynamic measures; moreover, individual differences in anxiety relate to a further increased sensitivity to threatening stimuli. Evidence has been mixed, however, as to whether aversive pictures elicit increased neural response when presented in unattended spatial locations. In the current study, ERP and behavioral data were recorded from 49 participants as aversive and neutral pictures were simultaneously presented in spatially attended and unattended locations; on each trial, participants made same/different judgments about pictures presented in attended locations. Aversive images presented in unattended locations resulted in increased error rate and reaction time. The late positive potential (LPP) component of the ERP was only larger when aversive images were presented in attended locations, and this increase was positively correlated with self-reported state anxiety. Findings are discussed in regard to the sensitivity of ERP and behavioral responses to aversive distracters, and in terms of increased neural processing of threatening stimuli in anxiety.

Behavioral Characteristics and Neurobiological Substrates Shared by Pavlovian Sign-Tracking and Drug Abuse

PubMed Central

Tomie, Arthur; Grimes, Kathryn L.; Pohorecky, Larissa A.

2008-01-01

Drug abuse researchers have noted striking similarities between behaviors elicited by Pavlovian sign-tracking procedures and prominent symptoms of drug abuse. In Pavlovian sign-tracking procedures, repeated paired presentations of a small object (conditioned stimulus, CS) with a reward (unconditioned stimulus, US) elicits a conditioned response (CR) that typically consists of approaching the CS, contacting the CS, and expressing consummatory responses at the CS. Sign-tracking CR performance is poorly controlled and exhibits spontaneous recovery and long-term retention, effects that resemble relapse. Sign-tracking resembles psychomotor activation, a syndrome of behavioral responses evoked by addictive drugs, and the effects of sign-tracking on corticosterone levels and activation of dopamine pathways resemble the neurobiological effects of abused drugs. Finally, the neurobiological profile of individuals susceptible to sign-tracking resembles the pathophysiological profile of vulnerability to drug abuse, and vulnerability to sign-tracking predicts vulnerability to impulsive responding and alcohol self-administration. Implications of sign-tracking for models of drug addiction are considered. PMID:18234349

Long-term exposure to elevated carbon dioxide does not alter activity levels of a coral reef fish in response to predator chemical cues.

PubMed

Sundin, Josefin; Amcoff, Mirjam; Mateos-González, Fernando; Raby, Graham D; Jutfelt, Fredrik; Clark, Timothy D

2017-01-01

Levels of dissolved carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) projected to occur in the world's oceans in the near future have been reported to increase swimming activity and impair predator recognition in coral reef fishes. These behavioral alterations would be expected to have dramatic effects on survival and community dynamics in marine ecosystems in the future. To investigate the universality and replicability of these observations, we used juvenile spiny chromis damselfish ( Acanthochromis polyacanthus ) to examine the effects of long-term CO 2 exposure on routine activity and the behavioral response to the chemical cues of a predator ( Cephalopholis urodeta ). Commencing at ~3-20 days post-hatch, juvenile damselfish were exposed to present-day CO 2 levels (~420 μatm) or to levels forecasted for the year 2100 (~1000 μatm) for 3 months of their development. Thereafter, we assessed routine activity before and after injections of seawater (sham injection, control) or seawater-containing predator chemical cues. There was no effect of CO 2 treatment on routine activity levels before or after the injections. All fish decreased their swimming activity following the predator cue injection but not following the sham injection, regardless of CO 2 treatment. Our results corroborate findings from a growing number of studies reporting limited or no behavioral responses of fishes to elevated CO 2 . Alarmingly, it has been reported that levels of dissolved carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) forecasted for the year 2100 cause coral reef fishes to be attracted to the chemical cues of predators. However, most studies have exposed the fish to CO 2 for very short periods before behavioral testing. Using long-term acclimation to elevated CO 2 and automated tracking software, we found that fish exposed to elevated CO 2 showed the same behavioral patterns as control fish exposed to present-day CO 2 levels. Specifically, activity levels were the same between groups, and fish acclimated to elevated CO 2 decreased their swimming activity to the same degree as control fish when presented with cues from a predator. These findings indicate that behavioral impacts of elevated CO 2 levels are not universal in coral reef fishes.

Intergenerational Transmission of Risk for Social Inhibition: the Interplay between Parental Responsiveness and Genetic Influences

PubMed Central

Natsuaki, Misaki N.; Leve, Leslie D.; Neiderhiser, Jenae M.; Shaw, Daniel S.; Scaramella, Laura V.; Ge, Xiaojia; Reiss, David

2013-01-01

To better understand mechanisms underlying the intergenerational transmission of social anxiety, we used a prospective adoption design to examine the roles of genetic influences (inferred from birth mothers’ social phobia) and rearing environment (adoptive mothers’ and fathers’ responsiveness) on the development of socially inhibited, anxious behaviors in children between 18 and 27 months of age. The sample consisted of 275 adoption-linked families, each including an adopted child, adoptive parents, and a birth mother. Results indicated that children whose birth mothers met criteria for the diagnosis of social phobia showed elevated levels of observed behavioral inhibition in a social situation at 27 months of age if their adoptive mothers provided less emotionally and verbally responsive rearing environments at 18 months of age. Conversely, in the context of higher levels of maternal responsiveness, children of birth mothers with a history of social phobia did not show elevated levels of behavioral inhibition. These findings on maternal responsiveness were replicated in a model predicting parent reports of child social anxiety. The findings are discussed in terms of genotype × environment interactions in the intergenerational transmission of social anxiety. PMID:23398764

Hyper-responsiveness to acute stress, emotional problems and poorer memory in former preterm children.

PubMed

Quesada, Andrea A; Tristão, Rosana M; Pratesi, Riccardo; Wolf, Oliver T

2014-09-01

The prevalence of preterm birth (PTB) is high worldwide, especially in developing countries like Brazil. PTB is marked by a stressful environment in intra- as well as extrauterine life, which can affect neurodevelopment and hormonal and physiological systems and lead to long-term negative outcomes. Nevertheless, little is known about PTB and related outcomes later on in childhood. Thus, the goals of the current study were threefold: (1) comparing cortisol and alpha-amylase (sAA) profiles, including cortisol awakening response (CAR), between preterm and full-term children; (2) evaluating whether preterm children are more responsive to acute stress and (3) assessing their memory skills and emotional and behavioral profiles. Basal cortisol and sAA profiles, including CAR of 30 preterm children, aged 6 to 10 years, were evaluated. Further, we assessed memory functions using the Wide Range Assessment of Memory and Learning, and we screened behavior/emotion using the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire. The results of preterm children were compared to an age- and sex-matched control group. One week later, participants were exposed to a standardized laboratory stressor [Trier Social Stress Test for Children (TSST-C)], in which cortisol and sAA were measured at baseline, 1, 10 and 25 min after stressor exposure. Preterm children had higher cortisol concentrations at awakening, a flattened CAR and an exaggerated response to TSST-C compared to full-term children. These alterations were more pronounced in girls. In addition, preterm children were characterized by more emotional problems and poorer memory performance. Our findings illustrate the long-lasting and in part sex-dependent effects of PTB on the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis, internalizing behavior and memory. The findings are in line with the idea that early adversity alters the set-point of the HPA axis, thereby creating a more vulnerable phenotype.

Experiences and interpersonal consequences of hurt feelings and anger.

PubMed

Lemay, Edward P; Overall, Nickola C; Clark, Margaret S

2012-12-01

This research compared the experiences and consequences of hurt feelings and anger in 3 retrospective studies (Studies 1a, 1b, and 2), a dyadic daily diary study (Study 3), and a dyadic behavioral observation study (Study 4). Although victims felt both hurt and angry in response to perpetrators' behaviors that signaled relational devaluation (Studies 1-4), hurt and anger differed in terms of victims' subjective experiences and behaviors, perpetrators' responses, and relationship consequences. Hurt was characterized by the experience of commitment, dependence, and vulnerability; goals to restore the perpetrator's acceptance; and constructive behavior. Moreover, victims' hurt was associated with perpetrators evaluating victims and victims' commitment more positively, with perpetrators' feelings of guilt and empathy and with perpetrators' constructive responses. Hurt also had positive consequences for relationships. In contrast, victims' anger was generally independent of commitment and characterized by the experience of control, invulnerability, and low dependence; goals to change perpetrators' behavior; and victims' destructive behavior. Furthermore, victims' anger was associated with perpetrators perceiving victims to be less committed and elicited reciprocated anger and destructive behaviors from perpetrators. These findings suggest that despite relational devaluation being a cause of both hurt and anger, these feelings have distinct social functions. Hurt reflects a desire to maintain interpersonal connection and repair relationships, which will often successfully elicit repair attempts by perpetrators, whereas anger reflects a desire to control others via antagonistic destructive behaviors, which exacerbate interpersonal difficulties. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved).

Intermediate-term emotional bookkeeping is necessary for long-term reciprocal grooming partner preferences in an agent-based model of macaque groups

PubMed Central

Evers, Ellen; de Vries, Han; Spruijt, Berry M.

2016-01-01

Whether and how primates are able to maintain long-term affiliative relationships is still under debate. Emotional bookkeeping (EB), the partner-specific accumulation of emotional responses to earlier interactions, is a candidate mechanism that does not require high cognitive abilities. EB is difficult to study in real animals, due to the complexity of primate social life. Therefore, we developed an agent-based model based on macaque behavior, the EMO-model, that implements arousal and two emotional dimensions, anxiety-FEAR and satisfaction-LIKE, which regulate social behavior. To implement EB, model individuals assign dynamic LIKE attitudes towards their group members, integrating partner-specific emotional responses to earlier received grooming episodes. Two key parameters in the model were varied to explore their effects on long-term affiliative relationships: (1) the timeframe over which earlier affiliation is accumulated into the LIKE attitudes; and (2) the degree of partner selectivity. EB over short and long timeframes gave rise to low variation in LIKE attitudes, and grooming partner preferences were only maintained over one to two months. Only EB over intermediate-term timeframes resulted in enough variation in LIKE attitudes, which, in combination with high partner selectivity, enables individuals to differentiate between regular and incidental grooming partners. These specific settings resulted in a strong feedback between differentiated LIKE attitudes and the distribution of grooming, giving rise to strongly reciprocated partner preferences that could be maintained for longer periods, occasionally up to one or two years. Moreover, at these settings the individual’s internal, socio-emotional memory of earlier affiliative episodes (LIKE attitudes) corresponded best to observable behavior (grooming partner preferences). In sum, our model suggests that intermediate-term LIKE dynamics and high partner selectivity seem most plausible for primates relying on emotional bookkeeping to maintain their social bonds. PMID:26839737

Intermediate-term emotional bookkeeping is necessary for long-term reciprocal grooming partner preferences in an agent-based model of macaque groups.

PubMed

Evers, Ellen; de Vries, Han; Spruijt, Berry M; Sterck, Elisabeth H M

2016-01-01

Whether and how primates are able to maintain long-term affiliative relationships is still under debate. Emotional bookkeeping (EB), the partner-specific accumulation of emotional responses to earlier interactions, is a candidate mechanism that does not require high cognitive abilities. EB is difficult to study in real animals, due to the complexity of primate social life. Therefore, we developed an agent-based model based on macaque behavior, the EMO-model, that implements arousal and two emotional dimensions, anxiety-FEAR and satisfaction-LIKE, which regulate social behavior. To implement EB, model individuals assign dynamic LIKE attitudes towards their group members, integrating partner-specific emotional responses to earlier received grooming episodes. Two key parameters in the model were varied to explore their effects on long-term affiliative relationships: (1) the timeframe over which earlier affiliation is accumulated into the LIKE attitudes; and (2) the degree of partner selectivity. EB over short and long timeframes gave rise to low variation in LIKE attitudes, and grooming partner preferences were only maintained over one to two months. Only EB over intermediate-term timeframes resulted in enough variation in LIKE attitudes, which, in combination with high partner selectivity, enables individuals to differentiate between regular and incidental grooming partners. These specific settings resulted in a strong feedback between differentiated LIKE attitudes and the distribution of grooming, giving rise to strongly reciprocated partner preferences that could be maintained for longer periods, occasionally up to one or two years. Moreover, at these settings the individual's internal, socio-emotional memory of earlier affiliative episodes (LIKE attitudes) corresponded best to observable behavior (grooming partner preferences). In sum, our model suggests that intermediate-term LIKE dynamics and high partner selectivity seem most plausible for primates relying on emotional bookkeeping to maintain their social bonds.

Foreword: The dynamics of change in Alaska’s boreal forests: Resilience and vulnerability in response to climate warming

USGS Publications Warehouse

McGuire, A. David; Chapin, F. Stuart; Ruess, Roger W.

2016-01-01

Long-term research by the Bonanza Creek (BNZ) Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) program has documented natural patterns of interannual and successional variability of the boreal forest in interior Alaska against which we can detect changes in system behavior. Between 2004 and 2010 the BNZ LTER program focused on understanding the dynamics of change through studying the resilience and vulnerability of Alaska's boreal forest in response to climate warming. The overarching question in this endeavor has been “How are boreal ecosystems responding, both gradually and abruptly, to climate warming, and what new landscape patterns are emerging?”

Neurophysiological responses to stressful motion and anti-motion sickness drugs as mediated by the limbic system

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Kohl, R. L.; Odell, S.

1982-01-01

Performance is characterized in terms of attention and memory, categorizing extrinsic mechanism mediated by ACTH, norepinephrine and dopamine, and intrinsic mechanisms as cholinergic. The cholinergic role in memory and performance was viewed from within the limbic system and related to volitional influences of frontal cortical afferents and behavioral responses of hypothalamic and reticular system efferents. The inhibitory influence of the hippocampus on the autonomic and hormonal responses mediated through the hypothalamus, pituitary, and brain stem are correlated with the actions of such anti-motion sickness drugs as scopolamine and amphetamine. These drugs appear to exert their effects on motion sickness symptomatology through diverse though synergistic neurochemical mechanisms involving the septohippocampal pathway and other limbic system structures. The particular impact of the limbic system on an animal's behavioral and hormonal responses to stress is influenced by ACTH, cortisol, scopolamine, and amphetamine.

Children exposed to war/terrorism.

PubMed

Shaw, Jon A

2003-12-01

This paper reviews the prevalence of psychological morbidities in children who have been exposed to war-related traumas or terrorism as well as the diversity of war-related casualties and their associated psychological responses. The psychological responses to war-related stressors are categorized as (1) little or no reaction, (2) acute emotional and behavioral effects, and (3) long-term effects. Specific categories of war-related casualties discussed include refugee status, traumatic bereavement, effects of parental absence, and child soldiers. Psychological responses associated with terrorism and bioterrorism are presented. Lastly, mediators of the psychological response to war-related stressors are discussed, to include exposure effects, gender effects, parental, family and social factors, and child-specific factors. Children exposed to war-related stressors experience a spectrum of psychological morbidities including posttraumatic stress symptomatology, mood disorders, externalizing and disruptive behaviors, and somatic symptoms determined by exposure dose effect. Specific questions for future research are identified.

Long-term trihexyphenidyl exposure alters neuroimmune response and inflammation in aging rat: relevance to age and Alzheimer's disease.

PubMed

Huang, Yuqi; Zhao, Zhe; Wei, Xiaoli; Zheng, Yong; Yu, Jianqiang; Zheng, Jianquan; Wang, Liyun

2016-07-01

Clinical studies have shown an association between long-term anticholinergic (AC) drug exposure and Alzheimer's disease (AD) pathogenesis, which has been primarily investigated in Parkinson's disease (PD). However, long-term AC exposure as a risk factor for developing neurodegenerative disorders and the exact mechanisms and potential for disease progression remain unclear. Here, we have addressed the issue using trihexyphenidyl (THP), a commonly used AC drug in PD patients, to determine if THP can accelerate AD-like neurodegenerative progression and study potential mechanisms involved. Male Sprague-Dawley rats (SD) were intraperitoneally injected with THP (0.3 and 1.0 mg/kg) or normal saline (NS) for 7 months. Alterations in cognitive and behavioral performance were assessed using the Morris water maze (MWM) and open field tests. After behavior tests, whole genome oligo microarrays, quantitative real-time reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR), immunohistochemistry, and immunofluorescence-confocal were used to investigate the global mechanisms underlying THP-induced neuropathology with aging. Compared with NS controls, the MWM test results showed that THP-treated rats exhibited significantly extended mean latencies during the initial 3 months of testing; however, this behavioral deficit was restored between the fourth and sixth month of MWM testing. The same tendencies were confirmed by MWM probe and open field tests. Gene microarray analysis identified 68 (47 %) upregulated and 176 (53 %) downregulated genes in the "THP-aging" vs. "NS-aging" group. The most significant populations of genes downregulated by THP were the immune response-, antigen processing and presentation-, and major histocompatibility complex (MHC)-related genes, as validated by qRT-PCR. The decreased expression of MHC class I in THP-treated aging brains was confirmed by confocal analysis. Notably, long-term THP treatment primed hippocampal and cortical microglia to undergo an inflammatory phenotypic switch, causing microgliosis and microglia activation, which were positively accompanied by pathological misfolded tau lesions. Our findings suggest that immune response and neuroinflammation represent a pivotal mechanism in THP-induced AD-like neuropathology processes with long-term exposure to AC drugs.

Exposure to Violence, Social Information Processing, and Problem Behavior in Preschool Children

PubMed Central

Ziv, Yair

2012-01-01

Understanding the mechanisms by which early risk factors for social maladjustment contribute to disruptive behaviors in social settings is vital to developmental research and practice. A major risk factor for social maladjustment is early exposure to violence which was examined in this short-term longitudinal study in relation to social information processing patterns and externalizing and internalizing behaviors in a sample of 256 preschool children. Data on exposure to violence were obtained via parent report, data on social information processing were obtained via child interview, and data on child problem behavior were obtained via teacher report. Findings supported the hypothesis that, compared to children not exposed to violence, children reported to witness and/or experience violence are more likely to attribute hostile intent to peers, generate aggressive responses, and evaluate socially unaccepted responses (aggressive and inept) as socially suitable. The former were also found to exhibit higher levels of externalizing and internalizing behaviors. Finally, social information processing mediated the link between exposure to violence and problem behavior thus supporting this study’s general approach which argues that the link between exposure to violence and children’s problem behaviors are better understood within the context of their perceptions about social relationships. PMID:23011955

Exposure to violence, social information processing, and problem behavior in preschool children.

PubMed

Ziv, Yair

2012-01-01

Understanding the mechanisms by which early risk factors for social maladjustment contribute to disruptive behaviors in social settings is vital to developmental research and practice. A major risk factor for social maladjustment is early exposure to violence, which was examined in this short-term longitudinal study in relation to social information processing (SIP) patterns and externalizing and internalizing behaviors in a sample of 256 preschool children. Data on exposure to violence were obtained via parent report, data on SIP were obtained via child interview, and data on child problem behavior were obtained via teacher report. Findings supported the hypothesis that, compared to children not exposed to violence, children reported to witness and/or experience violence are more likely to attribute hostile intent to peers, generate aggressive responses, and evaluate socially unaccepted responses (aggressive and inept) as socially suitable. The former were also found to exhibit higher levels of externalizing and internalizing behaviors. Finally, SIP mediated the link between exposure to violence and problem behavior thus supporting this study's general approach, which argues that the link between exposure to violence and children's problem behaviors are better understood within the context of their perceptions about social relationships. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Analysis of High-order Social Interaction of Female Mice on the International Space Station

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Lowe, M.; Solomides, P.; Moyer, E. L.; Talyansky, Y.; Choi, S.; Gong, C.; Cadena, S.; Stodieck, L.; Globus, R. K.; Ronca, A. E.

2017-01-01

Social interactions are adaptive responses to environmental pressures that have evolved to facilitate the success of individual animals and their progeny. Quantifying social behavior in social animals is therefore one method of evaluating an animal's health, wellbeing and their adjustment to changes in their environment. The interaction between environment and animal can influence numerous other physiological and psychological responses that may enhance, deter or shift an animals social paradigm. For this study, we utilized flight video from the Rodent Research Hardware and Operations Validation mission (Rodent Research-1; RR1) on the International Space Station (ISS). Female mice spent 37 days in microgravity on the ISS and video was captured during the final 33 days. In a previous analysis of individual behavior, we also reported an observed spontaneous ambulatory behavior which we termed circling or 'race tracking,' and we anecdotally observed an increase in group organization around this behavior. In this analysis we further examined this behavior, and other social interactions, to determine if (1) animals joining in on this behavior were induced by other cohort members already participating in this circling behavior, (2) rates of joining varied by number already participating.

Greater brain response to emotional expressions of their own children in mothers of preterm infants: an fMRI study.

PubMed

Montirosso, R; Arrigoni, F; Casini, E; Nordio, A; De Carli, P; Di Salle, F; Moriconi, S; Re, M; Reni, G; Borgatti, R

2017-06-01

The birth of a preterm infant and Neonatal Intensive Care Unit hospitalization constitute a potentially traumatic experience for mothers. Although behavioral studies investigated the parenting stress in preterm mothers, no study focused on the underlying neural mechanisms. We examined the effect of preterm births in mothers, by comparing brain activation in mothers of preterm and full-term infants. We used functional magnetic resonance imaging to measure the cerebral response of 10 first-time mothers of preterm infants (gestational age <32 weeks and/or birth weight <1500) and 11 mothers of full-term infants, viewing happy-, neutral- and distress-face images of their own infant, along with a matched unknown infant. While viewing own infant's face preterm mothers showed increased activation in emotional processing area (i.e., inferior frontal gyrus) and social cognition (i.e., supramarginal gyrus) and affiliative behavior (i.e., insula). Differential brain activation patterns in mothers appears to be a function of the atypical parenthood transition related to prematurity.

Behavioral and Physiological Response of Baleen Whales to Ships and Ship Noise

DTIC Science & Technology

2014-09-30

student Angela Szesciorka) on tag designs to provide longer term deployments of archival tags especially for work with humpback whales off northern...California. 2. Conduct test deployments of dart-attached archival tags in 2014 on humpback whales in Monterey Bay and the Gulf of the Farallones on... humpback whales to tests different dart attachment configurations and develop a new longer term dart-attached archival tag system. 3. Successfully

Prenatal lipopolysaccharide exposure increases anxiety-like behaviors and enhances stress-induced corticosterone responses in adult rats.

PubMed

Lin, Yu-Lung; Lin, Shu-Yi; Wang, Sabrina

2012-03-01

Maternal infection during pregnancy may affect fetal brain development and lead to neurological and mental disorders. Previously, we used lipopolysaccharide [LPS, 33 μg/kg, intraperitoneal injection] exposure on gestation day 10.5 to mimic maternal bacterial infection in rats and found reduced dopaminergic and serotoninergic neurons in the offspring. In the present study, we examined the anxiety and stress responses of the affected offspring and the neurophysiological changes in their brains. Our results show that LPS rats displayed more anxiety-like behaviors and heightened stress responses. Dopamine (DA) in the nucleus accumbens and serotonin (5-HT) in the medial prefrontal cortex and the hippocampus were significantly reduced in LPS rats. Their glucocorticoid receptors in the dorsal hippocampus and the 5-HT(1A) receptors in the dorsal and ventral hippocampus were also reduced. In addition, chronic but not acute fluoxetine treatment reversed the behavioral changes and increased hippocampal 5-HT(1A) receptor expression. This study demonstrates that LPS exposure during a critical time of embryonic development could produce long-term reduction of DA and 5-HT and other neurophysiological changes; such alterations may be associated with the increases in stress response and anxiety-like behaviors in the offspring. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Role Breadth Self-Efficacy and Foci of Proactive Behavior: Moderating Role of Collective, Relational, and Individual Self-Concept.

PubMed

Hwang, Pin-Chyuan; Han, Ming-Chuan; Chiu, Su-Fen

2015-01-01

This study aims to identify the interactive effect of role breadth self-efficacy (RBSE) and the three levels of self-concept (collective, relational, and individual) in predicting of different foci of proactive behaviors. Results from 259 matched responses from an airline company in Taiwan showed that RBSE had a positive effect on (1) pro-organizational proactive behavior among those with higher collective self-concept, (2) pro-supervisor proactive behavior among those with higher relational self-concept, and (3) pro-self proactive behavior among those with higher individual self-concept. Our findings provide insights into the moderating role of different levels of self-concept on RBSE-proactive behavior process in terms of specific targets or beneficiaries. Further implications for organizational research and practice are discussed.

A learning theory account of depression.

PubMed

Ramnerö, Jonas; Folke, Fredrik; Kanter, Jonathan W

2015-06-11

Learning theory provides a foundation for understanding and deriving treatment principles for impacting a spectrum of functional processes relevant to the construct of depression. While behavioral interventions have been commonplace in the cognitive behavioral tradition, most often conceptualized within a cognitive theoretical framework, recent years have seen renewed interest in more purely behavioral models. These modern learning theory accounts of depression focus on the interchange between behavior and the environment, mainly in terms of lack of reinforcement, extinction of instrumental behavior, and excesses of aversive control, and include a conceptualization of relevant cognitive and emotional variables. These positions, drawn from extensive basic and applied research, cohere with biological theories on reduced reward learning and reward responsiveness and views of depression as a heterogeneous, complex set of disorders. Treatment techniques based on learning theory, often labeled Behavioral Activation (BA) focus on activating the individual in directions that increase contact with potential reinforcers, as defined ideographically with the client. BA is considered an empirically well-established treatment that generalizes well across diverse contexts and populations. The learning theory account is discussed in terms of being a parsimonious model and ground for treatments highly suitable for large scale dissemination. © 2015 Scandinavian Psychological Associations and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Reprint of "Repeated adolescent activity-based anorexia influences central estrogen signaling and adulthood anxiety-like behaviors in rats".

PubMed

Lee, Tien-Jui; Kinzig, Kimberly P

2017-09-01

Anorexia nervosa (AN) typically presents in adolescence and is highly comorbid with anxiety and depression, which often persist after elimination of AN symptomology. The activity-based anorexia (ABA) paradigm allows for evaluation of behavioral and neuroendocrine consequences of AN-like behaviors, including voluntary anorexia, hyperactivity, and disruption of the hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal (HPG) and the hypothalamic pituitary adrenal (HPA) axis. Because ABA in adolescent females results in increased anxiety-like behavior in adulthood and the estrogen signaling system has been shown to play a role in anxiety and food intake, we investigated the role of ovarian hormones in adolescent ABA-treated rats, and long-term effects of mid- and late adolescent ABA exposure on behavior and estrogen signaling. While previous research demonstrated that two bouts of ABA during adolescence resulted in decreased time in the open arm of the elevated plus maze (EPM) and increased activity of the HPA axis in response to a novel stressor, here we show that one bout of ABA in mid-or late-adolescence did not result in the same behavioral outcome. Two exposures to ABA during adolescence were necessary to produce long-term anxiety-like behavior on the EPM. Finally, removal of ovarian hormones by ovariectomy (OVX) prior to puberty did not attenuate long-term behavioral consequences of ABA in adolescence, and estrogen receptor β (ERβ) expression level in the amygdala of ABA rats was significantly lower than control subjects. Taken together, these studies identify enduring effects of ABA in adolescent females that may be mediated by ABA-induced changes to CNS ERβ signaling that increase anxiety-like behaviors. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Rapid response in psychological treatments for binge eating disorder.

PubMed

Hilbert, Anja; Hildebrandt, Thomas; Agras, W Stewart; Wilfley, Denise E; Wilson, G Terence

2015-06-01

Analysis of short- and long-term effects of rapid response across 3 different treatments for binge eating disorder (BED). In a randomized clinical study comparing interpersonal psychotherapy (IPT), cognitive-behavioral therapy guided self-help (CBTgsh), and behavioral weight loss (BWL) treatment in 205 adults meeting Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (4th ed.; DSM-IV; APA, 1994) criteria for BED, the predictive value of rapid response, defined as ≥70% reduction in binge eating by Week 4, was determined for remission from binge eating and global eating disorder psychopathology at posttreatment, 6-, 12-, 18-, and 24-month follow-ups. Rapid responders in CBTgsh, but not in IPT or BWL, showed significantly greater rates of remission from binge eating than nonrapid responders, which was sustained over the long term. Rapid and nonrapid responders in IPT and rapid responders in CBTgsh showed a greater remission from binge eating than nonrapid responders in CBTgsh and BWL. Rapid responders in CBTgsh showed greater remission from binge eating than rapid responders in BWL. Although rapid responders in all treatments had lower global eating disorder psychopathology than nonrapid responders in the short term, rapid responders in CBTgsh and IPT were more improved than those in BWL and nonrapid responders in each treatment. Rapid responders in BWL did not differ from nonrapid responders in CBTgsh and IPT. Rapid response is a treatment-specific positive prognostic indicator of sustained remission from binge eating in CBTgsh. Regarding an evidence-based, stepped-care model, IPT, equally efficacious for rapid and nonrapid responders, could be investigated as a second-line treatment in case of nonrapid response to first-line CBTgsh. (c) 2015 APA, all rights reserved).

Rapid Response in Psychological Treatments for Binge-Eating Disorder

PubMed Central

Hilbert, Anja; Hildebrandt, Thomas; Agras, W. Stewart; Wilfley, Denise E.; Wilson, G. Terence

2015-01-01

Objective Analysis of short- and long-term effects of rapid response across three different treatments for binge-eating disorder (BED). Method In a randomized clinical study comparing interpersonal psychotherapy (IPT), cognitive-behavioral guided self-help (CBTgsh), and behavioral weight loss (BWL) treatment in 205 adults meeting DSM-IV criteria for BED, the predictive value of rapid response, defined as ≥ 70% reduction in binge-eating by week four, was determined for remission from binge-eating and global eating disorder psychopathology at posttreatment, 6-, 12-, 18-, and 24-month follow-up. Results Rapid responders in CBTgsh, but not in IPT or BWL, showed significantly greater rates of remission from binge-eating than non-rapid responders, which was sustained over the long term. Rapid and non-rapid responders in IPT and rapid responders in CBTgsh showed a greater remission from binge-eating than non-rapid responders in CBTgsh and BWL. Rapid responders in CBTgsh showed greater remission from binge-eating than rapid responders in BWL. Although rapid responders in all treatments had lower global eating disorder psychopathology than non-rapid responders in the short term, rapid responders in CBTgsh and IPT were more improved than those in BWL and non-rapid responders in each treatment. Rapid responders in BWL did not differ from non-rapid responders in CBTgsh and IPT. Conclusions Rapid response is a treatment-specific positive prognostic indicator of sustained remission from binge-eating in CBTgsh. Regarding an evidence-based stepped care model, IPT, equally efficacious for rapid and non-rapid responders, could be investigated as a second-line treatment in case of non-rapid response to first-line CBTgsh. PMID:25867446

Child gender influences paternal behavior, language, and brain function

PubMed Central

Mascaro, Jennifer S.; Rentscher, Kelly E.; Hackett, Patrick D.; Mehl, Matthias R.; Rilling, James K.

2017-01-01

Multiple lines of research indicate that fathers often treat boys and girls differently in ways that impact child outcomes. The complex picture that has emerged, however, is obscured by methodological challenges inherent to the study of parental caregiving, and no studies to date have examined the possibility that gender differences in observed real-world paternal behavior are related to differential paternal brain responses to male and female children. Here we compare fathers of daughters and fathers of sons in terms of naturalistically observed everyday caregiving behavior and neural responses to child picture stimuli. Compared to fathers of sons, fathers of daughters were more attentively engaged with their daughters, sang more to their daughters, used more analytical language and language related to sadness and the body with their daughters, and had a stronger neural response to their daughter’s happy facial expressions in areas of the brain important for reward and emotion regulation (medial and lateral orbitofrontal cortex [OFC]). In contrast, fathers of sons engaged in more rough and tumble play (RTP), used more achievement language with their sons, and had a stronger neural response to their son’s neutral facial expressions in the medial OFC (mOFC). Whereas the mOFC response to happy faces was negatively related to RTP, the mOFC response to neutral faces was positively related to RTP, specifically for fathers of boys. These results indicate that real world paternal behavior and brain function differ as a function of child gender. PMID:28541079

Child gender influences paternal behavior, language, and brain function.

PubMed

Mascaro, Jennifer S; Rentscher, Kelly E; Hackett, Patrick D; Mehl, Matthias R; Rilling, James K

2017-06-01

Multiple lines of research indicate that fathers often treat boys and girls differently in ways that impact child outcomes. The complex picture that has emerged, however, is obscured by methodological challenges inherent to the study of parental caregiving, and no studies to date have examined the possibility that gender differences in observed real-world paternal behavior are related to differential paternal brain responses to male and female children. Here we compare fathers of daughters and fathers of sons in terms of naturalistically observed everyday caregiving behavior and neural responses to child picture stimuli. Compared with fathers of sons, fathers of daughters were more attentively engaged with their daughters, sang more to their daughters, used more analytical language and language related to sadness and the body with their daughters, and had a stronger neural response to their daughter's happy facial expressions in areas of the brain important for reward and emotion regulation (medial and lateral orbitofrontal cortex [OFC]). In contrast, fathers of sons engaged in more rough and tumble play (RTP), used more achievement language with their sons, and had a stronger neural response to their son's neutral facial expressions in the medial OFC (mOFC). Whereas the mOFC response to happy faces was negatively related to RTP, the mOFC response to neutral faces was positively related to RTP, specifically for fathers of boys. These results indicate that real-world paternal behavior and brain function differ as a function of child gender. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved).

Differential behavioral effects of the antidepressants reboxetine, fluoxetine, and moclobemide in a modified forced swim test following chronic treatment.

PubMed

Cryan, John F; Page, Michelle E; Lucki, Irwin

2005-11-01

The forced swim test (FST) is the most widely used model for assessing potential antidepressant activity in rodents following acute or short-term treatment. However, few studies have compared the effects of short- and long-term antidepressant treatment on behaviors in the test, despite the need to treat patients chronically to produce clinical effects. The current studies examined whether antidepressants from different classes produce different behavioral effects following short-term treatment and whether such effects change following administration for a longer duration. The effects of administering short-term (3 days) and long-term (14 days) treatments of antidepressants from three different chemical classes with distinct mechanisms of action via osmotic minipump were examined: the selective norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor reboxetine (10 and 60 mg kg(-1) day(-1)), the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor fluoxetine (2.5 and 15 mg kg(-1) day(-1)), and the reversible inhibitor of monoamine oxidase moclobemide (2.5 and 15 mg kg(-1) day(-1)). All testing was carried out in a 15-min test with no preswim session in order to negate any confounding aspect of an induction procedure. The majority of antidepressant-sensitive behavioral changes were observed in the first 5 min of the test. The low dose of reboxetine failed to alter behavior in the test after 3 days but significantly decreased immobility and increased climbing behavior following administration for 14 days, whereas the high dose of reboxetine was equally effective following 3 and 14 days of treatment. In a similar fashion, the low dose of fluoxetine failed to alter behavior in the test following 3 days, but showed an augmented response on immobility and increased swimming following administration for 14 days. The high dose of fluoxetine was slightly more effective at reducing immobility following administration for 14 days than 3 days. The low dose of moclobemide decreased immobility and increased climbing behavior following treatment for 3 days, but increases in both swimming and climbing behaviors were measured following treatment for 14 days. Treatment with the high dose of moclobemide for 3 days decreased immobility and increased swimming, whereas treatment for 14 days significantly increased both active behaviors (swimming and climbing). Antidepressants from three different classes produce different effects on active behaviors in the FST. The effects of antidepressants were augmented following chronic administration for 14 days, especially when given at low doses. This suggests that modifications of the FST can be used to examine the onset of action of antidepressant agents produced by long-term administration.

Health Plans’ Early Response to Federal Parity Legislation for Mental Health and Addiction Services

PubMed Central

Horgan, Constance M.; Hodgkin, Dominic; Stewart, Maureen T.; Merrick, Elizabeth L.; Reif, Sharon; Garnick, Deborah W.; Quinn, Amity E.; Creedon, Timothy B.

2015-01-01

Objective In 2008 the federal Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act (MHPAEA) passed, prohibiting U.S. health plans from subjecting mental health and substance use disorder (behavioral health) coverage to more restrictive limitations than those applied to general medical care. This require d some health plans to make changes in coverage and management of services. The aim of this study was to examine private health plans’ early responses to MHPAEA (after its 2010 implementation), in terms of both the intended and unintended effects. Methods Data were from a nationally representative survey of commercial health plans regarding the 2010 benefit year and the preparity 2009 benefit year (weighted N=8,431 products; 89% response rate). Results Annual limits specific to behavioral health care were virtually eliminated between 2009 and 2010. Prevalence of behavioral health coverage was unchanged, and copayments for both behavioral and general medical services increased slightly. Prior authorization requirements for specialty medical and behavioral health outpatient services continued to decline, and the proportion of products reporting strict continuing review requirements increased slightly. Contrary to expectations, plans did not make significant changes in contracting arrangements for behavioral health services, and 80% reported an increase in size of their behavioral health provider network. Conclusions The law had the intended effect of eliminating quantitative limitations that applied only to behavioral health care without unintended consequences such as eliminating behavioral health coverage. Plan decisions may also reflect other factors, including anticipation of the 2010 regulations and a continuation of trends away from requiring prior authorization. PMID:26369886

Maternal Work Absence: A Longitudinal Study of Language Impairment and Behavior Problems in Preschool Children

PubMed Central

Nes, Ragnhild B.; Hauge, Lars J.; Kornstad, Tom; Landolt, Markus A.; Irgens, Lorentz; Eskedal, Leif; Kristensen, Petter; Vollrath, Margarete E.

2015-01-01

Combining work and family responsibilities is challenging when children have special needs, and mothers commonly make employment-related adjustments. In this study, the authors examined associations between maternal work absence and child language impairment and behavior problems in preschool children. Questionnaire data at child age 3 years from 33,778 mothers participating in the prospective population-based Norwegian Mother and Child Cohort Study were linked to national register data on employment and long-term physician-certified sick leave at child age 3–5 years. Mothers who reported having a child with language impairment had a consistently higher risk of not being employed and were at increased risk of taking long-term sick leave at child age 5 years. Co-occurring problems were associated with excess risk. Language impairments in preschool children, in particular when they are co-occurring with behavior problems, are likely to have a range of negative short- and long-term consequences for the financial and overall health and well-being of mothers and their families. PMID:27087703

A temporal study on fate of Al2O3 nanoparticles in a fresh water microcosm at environmentally relevant low concentrations.

PubMed

Pakrashi, Sunandan; Dalai, Swayamprava; Ritika; Sneha, B; Chandrasekaran, N; Mukherjee, Amitava

2012-10-01

This study on a microcosm, brings out the temporal changes in physico-chemical behavior of aluminum oxide nanoparticles (for a period of 210 days), at environmentally relevant concentrations (1000 μg/L and below). The dynamics of particle behavior in terms of mean hydrodynamic diameter, specific surface area and dissolution of soluble aluminum and, their possible ecological implications have been presented in this study. A thorough statistical analysis brings out nanoparticle behavior, where a rapid aggregation of particles (79±13 nm at 0 h to 1464±80 nm at 48 h), with a decrease in specific surface area (32 m2/g at 0 h to 1.7 m2/g at 48 h) was observed. Ion release profile indicated a significant increase in soluble aluminum concentration only after 36 h (277±15 μg/L at 0 h to 462±3 μg/L at 36 h) which reduced over a period of 60 days (279±20 μg/L). A differential response at 1000 μg/L concentration was observed, short term exposure (5 days) showed an immediate effect on the resident algal population (∼25% decreased viability) and the long term (7 months/210 days) exposure showed a gradual recovery. Thus, nanomaterials may not have the stipulated toxic response, at low concentration and longer standing period, presumably owing to the complexity of the natural systems. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Dopamine in the Brain: Hypothesizing Surfeit or Deficit Links to Reward and Addiction.

PubMed

Blum, Kenneth; Thanos, Peter K; Oscar-Berman, Marlene; Febo, Marcelo; Baron, David; Badgaiyan, Rajendra D; Gardner, Eliot; Demetrovics, Zsolt; Fahlke, Claudia; Haberstick, Brett C; Dushaj, Kristina; Gold, Mark S

Recently there has been debate concerning the role of brain dopamine in reward and addiction. David Nutt and associates eloquently proposed that dopamine (DA) may be central to psycho stimulant dependence and some what important for alcohol, but not important for opiates, nicotine or even cannabis. Others have also argued that surfeit theories can explain for example cocaine seeking behavior as well as non-substance-related addictive behaviors. It seems prudent to distinguish between what constitutes "surfeit" compared to" deficit" in terms of short-term (acute) and long-term (chronic) brain reward circuitry responsivity. In an attempt to resolve controversy regarding the contributions of mesolimbic DA systems to reward, we review the three main competing explanatory categories: "liking", "learning", and "wanting". They are (a) the hedonic impact -liking reward, (b) the ability to predict rewarding effects-learning and (c) the incentive salience of reward-related stimuli -wanting. In terms of acute effects, most of the evidence seems to favor the "surfeit theory". Due to preferential dopamine release at mesolimbic-VTA-caudate-accumbens loci most drugs of abuse and Reward Deficiency Syndrome (RDS) behaviors have been linked to heightened feelings of well-being and hyperdopaminergic states.The "dopamine hypotheses" originally thought to be simple, is now believed to be quite complex and involves encoding the set point of hedonic tone, encoding attention, reward expectancy, and incentive motivation. Importantly, Willuhn et al. shows that in a self-administration paradigm, (chronic) excessive use of cocaine is caused by decreased phasic dopamine signaling in the striatum. In terms of chronic addictions, others have shown a blunted responsivity at brain reward sites with food, nicotine, and even gambling behavior. Finally, we are cognizant of the differences in dopaminergic function as addiction progresses and argue that relapse may be tied to dopamine deficiency. Vulnerability to addiction and relapse may be the result of the cumulative effects of dopaminergic and other neurotransmitter genetic variants and elevated stress levels. We therefore propose that dopamine homeostasis may be a preferred goal to combat relapse.

Early Stages of Melody Processing: Stimulus-Sequence and Task-Dependent Neuronal Activity in Monkey Auditory Cortical Fields A1 and R

PubMed Central

Yin, Pingbo; Mishkin, Mortimer; Sutter, Mitchell; Fritz, Jonathan B.

2008-01-01

To explore the effects of acoustic and behavioral context on neuronal responses in the core of auditory cortex (fields A1 and R), two monkeys were trained on a go/no-go discrimination task in which they learned to respond selectively to a four-note target (S+) melody and withhold response to a variety of other nontarget (S−) sounds. We analyzed evoked activity from 683 units in A1/R of the trained monkeys during task performance and from 125 units in A1/R of two naive monkeys. We characterized two broad classes of neural activity that were modulated by task performance. Class I consisted of tone-sequence–sensitive enhancement and suppression responses. Enhanced or suppressed responses to specific tonal components of the S+ melody were frequently observed in trained monkeys, but enhanced responses were rarely seen in naive monkeys. Both facilitatory and suppressive responses in the trained monkeys showed a temporal pattern different from that observed in naive monkeys. Class II consisted of nonacoustic activity, characterized by a task-related component that correlated with bar release, the behavioral response leading to reward. We observed a significantly higher percentage of both Class I and Class II neurons in field R than in A1. Class I responses may help encode a long-term representation of the behaviorally salient target melody. Class II activity may reflect a variety of nonacoustic influences, such as attention, reward expectancy, somatosensory inputs, and/or motor set and may help link auditory perception and behavioral response. Both types of neuronal activity are likely to contribute to the performance of the auditory task. PMID:18842950

Melioration as rational choice: sequential decision making in uncertain environments.

PubMed

Sims, Chris R; Neth, Hansjörg; Jacobs, Robert A; Gray, Wayne D

2013-01-01

Melioration-defined as choosing a lesser, local gain over a greater longer term gain-is a behavioral tendency that people and pigeons share. As such, the empirical occurrence of meliorating behavior has frequently been interpreted as evidence that the mechanisms of human choice violate the norms of economic rationality. In some environments, the relationship between actions and outcomes is known. In this case, the rationality of choice behavior can be evaluated in terms of how successfully it maximizes utility given knowledge of the environmental contingencies. In most complex environments, however, the relationship between actions and future outcomes is uncertain and must be learned from experience. When the difficulty of this learning challenge is taken into account, it is not evident that melioration represents suboptimal choice behavior. In the present article, we examine human performance in a sequential decision-making experiment that is known to induce meliorating behavior. In keeping with previous results using this paradigm, we find that the majority of participants in the experiment fail to adopt the optimal decision strategy and instead demonstrate a significant bias toward melioration. To explore the origins of this behavior, we develop a rational analysis (Anderson, 1990) of the learning problem facing individuals in uncertain decision environments. Our analysis demonstrates that an unbiased learner would adopt melioration as the optimal response strategy for maximizing long-term gain. We suggest that many documented cases of melioration can be reinterpreted not as irrational choice but rather as globally optimal choice under uncertainty.

Prenatal Hypoxia Ischemia Increases Male Rat Sexual Behavior.

PubMed

Ferraz, Marcia M D; Sab, Ive M; Silva, Monique A; Santos, Denyse A S; Ferraz, Marcos R

2015-10-01

Research consistently indicates an association between prenatal hypoxia-ischemia (HI) and mortality and chronic neurological diseases in newborns. HI can cause permanent effects, including mental retardation, motor impairment, learning disabilities, epilepsy, and cerebral palsy. Moreover, little is known about the relationship between HI and sexual behavior. The aims of this study are to examine whether HI is associated with changes in sexual behavior. HI was induced by clamping the uterine arteries of pregnant rats. The arteries were clamped for 45 minutes on the 18th day of gestation (HI group). Shams received laparotomy and anesthesia only. Pups were born at term. At 90 days of age, sexual behavior was evaluated. Statistical analysis was performed using two-way analysis of variance and post hoc Bonferonni correction. The main outcome measures of sexual response were standard sexual behavior, homosexual behavior, and sexual attempt on nonreceptive females. The stimulatory effect of HI on male rat sexual behavior has been shown in various experimental models; these animals showed reduced mount, intromission and ejaculation latencies; increased copulatory efficiency; and homosexual mounting. Additionally, there was an increase in fighting in trying to mount an unreceptive female. Our results indicate that HI had a long-term effect on sexual behavior despite exhibiting motor skill impairment. Accordingly, injuries during the fetal period may cause behavioral problems in adulthood. © 2015 International Society for Sexual Medicine.

Investigations into the mechanical and physical behavior of thermoplastic elastomers

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wright, Kathryn Janelle

This thesis describes investigations into the physical and mechanical characteristics of two commercial thermoplastic elastomer (TPE) systems. Both systems studied exhibit elastomeric behavior similar to more traditional crosslinked elastomers; however, in these TPEs non-conventional polymer architectures and morphologies are used to produce their elastomeric behavior. The two TPEs of interest are ethylene-propylene random copolymers and dynamically vulcanized blends of ethylene-propylene-diene monomer (EPDM) and isotactic polypropylene (iPP). Very few studies have examined the mechanical behavior of these materials in terms of their composition and morphology. As such, the primary goal of this research is to both qualitatively and quantitatively understand the influence of composition and morphology on mechanical behavior. In additional very little information is available that compares their performance with that of crosslinked elastomers. As a result, the secondary goal is to qualitatively compare the mechanical responses of these TPEs with that of their more traditional counterparts. The ethylene-propylene copolymers studied have very high comonomer contents and exhibit slow crystallization kinetics. Their morphology consists of nanoscale crystallites embedded in an amorphous rubbery matrix. These crystallites act as physical crosslinks that allow for elasticity. Slow crystallization causes subsequent changes in mechanical behavior that take place over days and even weeks. Physical responses (e.g., density, crystallization kinetics, and crystal structure) of five copolymer compositions are investigated. Mechanical responses (e.g., stiffness, ductility, yielding, and reversibility) are also examined. Finally, the influence of morphology on deformation is studied using in situ analytical techniques. The EPDM/iPP blends are dynamically vulcanized which produces a complex morphology consisting of chemically crosslinked EPDM domains embedded within a semicrystalline iPP matrix. Six compositions are investigated as a function of three parameters: major volume fraction, iPP molecular weight, and EPDM cure state. The influence of these parameters on morphology and resulting mechanical behavior is examined. This work culminates in the development of a morphological model to describe the steady-state reversibility of these EPDM/iPP blends. The model is then evaluated in terms of composition and cure state.

Homeodomain protein Otp affects developmental neuropeptide switching in oxytocin neurons associated with a long-term effect on social behavior

PubMed Central

Wircer, Einav; Blechman, Janna; Borodovsky, Nataliya; Tsoory, Michael; Nunes, Ana Rita; Oliveira, Rui F; Levkowitz, Gil

2017-01-01

Proper response to stress and social stimuli depends on orchestrated development of hypothalamic neuronal circuits. Here we address the effects of the developmental transcription factor orthopedia (Otp) on hypothalamic development and function. We show that developmental mutations in the zebrafish paralogous gene otpa but not otpb affect both stress response and social preference. These behavioral phenotypes were associated with developmental alterations in oxytocinergic (OXT) neurons. Thus, otpa and otpb differentially regulate neuropeptide switching in a newly identified subset of OXT neurons that co-express the corticotropin-releasing hormone (CRH). Single-cell analysis revealed that these neurons project mostly to the hindbrain and spinal cord. Ablation of this neuronal subset specifically reduced adult social preference without affecting stress behavior, thereby uncoupling the contribution of a specific OXT cluster to social behavior from the general otpa−/− deficits. Our findings reveal a new role for Otp in controlling developmental neuropeptide balance in a discrete OXT circuit whose disrupted development affects social behavior. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.22170.001 PMID:28094761

Pedophilia.

PubMed

Fagan, Peter J; Wise, Thomas N; Schmidt, Chester W; Berlin, Fred S

2002-11-20

This article addresses the risk factors associated with the psychiatric disorder pedophilia, its treatment, and treatment outcomes. It addresses physician responsibilities associated with case identification of victims and possible roles in the medical management of pedophilia. The essential feature of pedophilia is that an individual is sexually attracted exclusively or in part to prepubescent children. While pedophilia may be limited to fantasies and impulses, pedophilic behaviors are the primary concern of both the mental health and criminal justice systems. Remote risk factors for development of pedophilia often include the individual having been sexually abused as a child. Proximate risk factors for its behavioral expression are prevalence of comorbid psychiatric disorders and substance abuse disorders. Current treatment goals focus on stopping the behavior and achieving long-term behavioral control in the community. Common treatment methods are cognitive-behavioral, group therapy, and, when appropriate, medications such as androgen-lowering agents that can act as sexual appetite suppressants. Meta-analyses have established that treatment is more effective than nontreatment in preventing recidivism of sexual offenders in general, a finding that has a high probability of application to individuals with pedophilia. Pedophilia is a chronic psychiatric disorder, but it is treatable in terms of developing strategies for preventing behavioral expression. Ultimately, reducing the prevalence of pedophilic behavior requires further collaboration between the criminal justice system and the health care communities.

Avian brood parasitism: information use and variation in egg-rejection behavior.

PubMed

Svennungsen, Thomas Owens; Holen, Øistein Haugsten

2010-05-01

Hosts of avian brood parasites often vary in their response to parasitized clutches: they may eject one or several eggs, desert the nest, or accept all the eggs. Focusing on hosts exposed to single-egg parasitism by an evicting brood parasite, we construct an optimality model that includes all these behavioral options and use it to explore variation in rejection behavior. We particularly consider the influence of egg mimicry and external cues (observations of adult parasites near the nest) on optimal choice of rejection behavior. We find that several rejection responses will be present in a host population under a wide range of conditions. Ejection of multiple eggs tends to be adaptive when egg mimicry is fairly accurate, external cues provide reliable information of the risk of parasitism, and the expected success of renesting is low. If the perceived risk of parasitism is high, ejection of one or a few eggs may be the optimal rejection response even in cases in which hosts cannot discriminate between eggs. This may have consequences for the long-term outcome of the coevolutionary chase between hosts and parasites. We propose an alternative evolutionary pathway by which egg ejection may first arise as a defense against brood parasitism.

Social Influences on Neurobiology and Behavior: Epigenetic Effects During Development

PubMed Central

Curley, JP; Jensen, CL; Mashoodh, R; Champagne, FA

2010-01-01

The quality of the social environment can have profound influences on the development and activity of neural systems with implications for numerous behavioral and physiological responses, including the expression of emotionality. Though social experiences occurring early in development may be particularly influential on the developing brain, there is continued plasticity within these neural circuits amongst juveniles and into early adulthood. In this review, we explore the evidence derived from studies in rodents which illustrates the social modulation during development of neural systems, with a particular emphasis on those systems in which a long-term effect is observed. One possible explanation for the persistence of dynamic changes in these systems in response to the environment is the involvement of epigenetic mechanisms, and here we discuss recent studies which support the role of these mechanisms in mediating the link between social experiences, gene expression, neurobiological changes, and behavioral variation. This literature raises critical questions about the interaction between neural systems, the concordance between neural and behavioral changes, sexual dimorphism in effects, the importance of considering individual differences in response to the social environment, and the potential of an epigenetic perspective in advancing our understanding of the pathways leading to variations in mental health. PMID:20650569

Differentiating early-onset chronic depression from episodic depression in terms of cognitive-behavioral and emotional avoidance.

PubMed

Brockmeyer, Timo; Kulessa, Dominika; Hautzinger, Martin; Bents, Hinrich; Backenstrass, Matthias

2015-04-01

Although chronic depression is associated with lower global functioning and poorer treatment response than episodic depression, little is known about the differences between these two forms of depression in terms of psychological factors. Thus, the present study aimed at differentiating chronic and episodic depression regarding cognitive-behavioral and emotional avoidance that have been proposed as important risk factors for depression and promising targets for the treatment of depression. Thirty patients with early onset chronic depression were compared with 30 patients with episodic depression and 30 healthy, never-depressed controls in terms of self-reported cognitive-behavioral (social and non-social) and emotional avoidance. Chronically depressed patients reported more avoidance than healthy controls in each of the measures. Moreover, they reported more cognitive-nonsocial and behavioral-nonsocial as well as behavioral-social and emotional avoidance (in the form of restricted emotional expression to others) than patients with episodic depression. This kind of emotional avoidance also separated best between chronically and episodically depressed patients. Furthermore, general emotion avoidance and behavioral-social avoidance were positively correlated with levels of depression in chronically depressed patients. The results are based on self-report data and should thus be interpreted with caution. Additionally, the cross-sectional design limits any causal conclusions. The findings underscore the relevance of cognitive-behavioral and emotional avoidance in differentiating chronic from episodic depression and healthy controls and advocate a stronger focus on maladaptive avoidance processes in the treatment of chronic depression. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Evidence for the Stepwise Stress Model: Gambusia holbrooki and Daphnia magna under acid mine drainage and acidified reference water stress.

PubMed

Gerhardt, Almut; Janssens de Bisthoven, Luc; Soares, Amadeu M V

2005-06-01

The Stepwise Stress Model (SSM) states that a cascade of regulative behavioral responses with different intrinsic sensitivities and threshold values offers increased behavioral plasticity and thus a wider range of tolerance for environmental changes or pollutant exposures. We tested the SSM with a widely introduced fish Gambusia holbrooki (Girard) (Pisces, Poeciliidae) and the standard laboratory test species Daphnia magna Straus (Crustacea, Daphniidae). The stress was simulated by short-term exposure to acid mine drainage (AMD) and to acidified reference water (ACID). Recording of behavioral responses with the multispecies freshwater biomonitor (MFB) generated continuous time-dependent dose-response data that were modeled in three-dimensional (3D) surface plots. Both the pH-dependent mortalities and the strong linear correlations between pH and aqueous metals confirmed the toxicity of the AMD and ACID gradients, respectively, for fish and Daphnia, the latter being more sensitive. AMD stress at pH < or = 5.5 amplified circadian rhythmicity in both species, while ACID stress did so only in G. holbrooki. A behavioral stepwise stress response was found in both species: D. magna decreased locomotion and ventilation (first step) (AMD, ACID), followed by increased ventilation (second step) (AMD). G. holbrooki decreased locomotion (first step) (AMD, ACID) and increased ventilation at intermediate pH levels (second step) (AMD). Both species, although from different taxonomic groups and feeding habits, followed the SSM, which might be expanded to a general concept for describing the behavioral responses of aquatic organims to pollution. Stepwise stress responses might be applied in online biomonitors to provide more sensitive and graduated alarm settings, hence optimizing the "early warning" detection of pollution waves.

Long-term memory deficits in Pavlovian fear conditioning in Ca2+/calmodulin kinase kinase alpha-deficient mice.

PubMed

Blaeser, Frank; Sanders, Matthew J; Truong, Nga; Ko, Shanelle; Wu, Long Jun; Wozniak, David F; Fanselow, Michael S; Zhuo, Min; Chatila, Talal A

2006-12-01

Signaling by the Ca(2+)/calmodulin kinase (CaMK) cascade has been implicated in neuronal gene transcription, synaptic plasticity, and long-term memory consolidation. The CaM kinase kinase alpha (CaMKKalpha) isoform is an upstream component of the CaMK cascade whose function in different behavioral and learning and memory paradigms was analyzed by targeted gene disruption in mice. CaMKKalpha mutants exhibited normal long-term spatial memory formation and cued fear conditioning but showed deficits in context fear during both conditioning and long-term follow-up testing. They also exhibited impaired activation of the downstream kinase CaMKIV/Gr and its substrate, the transcription factor cyclic AMP-responsive element binding protein (CREB) upon fear conditioning. Unlike CaMKIV/Gr-deficient mice, the CaMKKalpha mutants exhibited normal long-term potentiation and normal levels of anxiety-like behavior. These results demonstrate a selective role for CaMKKalpha in contextual fear memory and suggest that different combinations of upstream and downstream components of the CaMK cascade may serve distinct physiological functions.

DNA methylation regulates neurophysiological spatial representation in memory formation

PubMed Central

Roth, Eric D.; Roth, Tania L.; Money, Kelli M.; SenGupta, Sonda; Eason, Dawn E.; Sweatt, J. David

2015-01-01

Epigenetic mechanisms including altered DNA methylation are critical for altered gene transcription subserving synaptic plasticity and the retention of learned behavior. Here we tested the idea that one role for activity-dependent altered DNA methylation is stabilization of cognition-associated hippocampal place cell firing in response to novel place learning. We observed that a behavioral protocol (spatial exploration of a novel environment) known to induce hippocampal place cell remapping resulted in alterations of hippocampal Bdnf DNA methylation. Further studies using neurophysiological in vivo single unit recordings revealed that pharmacological manipulations of DNA methylation decreased long-term but not short-term place field stability. Together our data highlight a role for DNA methylation in regulating neurophysiological spatial representation and memory formation. PMID:25960947

Neurophysiological and Behavioral Responses of Mandarin Lexical Tone Processing

PubMed Central

Yu, Yan H.; Shafer, Valerie L.; Sussman, Elyse S.

2017-01-01

Language experience enhances discrimination of speech contrasts at a behavioral- perceptual level, as well as at a pre-attentive level, as indexed by event-related potential (ERP) mismatch negativity (MMN) responses. The enhanced sensitivity could be the result of changes in acoustic resolution and/or long-term memory representations of the relevant information in the auditory cortex. To examine these possibilities, we used a short (ca. 600 ms) vs. long (ca. 2,600 ms) interstimulus interval (ISI) in a passive, oddball discrimination task while obtaining ERPs. These ISI differences were used to test whether cross-linguistic differences in processing Mandarin lexical tone are a function of differences in acoustic resolution and/or differences in long-term memory representations. Bisyllabic nonword tokens that differed in lexical tone categories were presented using a passive listening multiple oddball paradigm. Behavioral discrimination and identification data were also collected. The ERP results revealed robust MMNs to both easy and difficult lexical tone differences for both groups at short ISIs. At long ISIs, there was either no change or an enhanced MMN amplitude for the Mandarin group, but reduced MMN amplitude for the English group. In addition, the Mandarin listeners showed a larger late negativity (LN) discriminative response than the English listeners for lexical tone contrasts in the long ISI condition. Mandarin speakers outperformed English speakers in the behavioral tasks, especially under the long ISI conditions with the more similar lexical tone pair. These results suggest that the acoustic correlates of lexical tone are fairly robust and easily discriminated at short ISIs, when the auditory sensory memory trace is strong. At longer ISIs beyond 2.5 s language-specific experience is necessary for robust discrimination. PMID:28321179

The Fairytale Project in a Context of Modern Criticism. Fairytale: An Interdisciplinary Turco-Danish Study of the Collective v. the Individual Nature of the Response to Literature. Report No. 4.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sevgen, Cevza

To put the interdisciplinary Turko-Danish Fairytale Project, which is concerned with the dynamics of reader response to literature, into a theoretical framework, this paper first describes how modern aesthetics take an interdisciplinary approach and investigate--by cross cultural approaches and in human behavior terms--the phenomenon of art and…

Thermoregulation: long-term microwave effects. Final report 1 Feb 83-31 Jan 84

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Adair, E.R.

1984-04-17

A pilot study investigated the consequences of chronic exposure to 2450-MHz CW microwaves, or sham exposure, in a cold (18 degC) environment on the thermoregulatory responses, both behavioral and physiological, of squirrel monkeys. Two animals exposed to microwaves exhibited responses that were little different from those measured in animals residing in thermoneutral environments while two sham-exposed animals sustained thermoregulatory deficits. These tentative findings require replication.

New perspectives on central and peripheral immune responses to acute traumatic brain injury

PubMed Central

2012-01-01

Traumatic injury to the brain (TBI) results in a complex set of responses involving various symptoms and long-term consequences. TBI of any form can cause cognitive, behavioral and immunologic changes in later life, which underscores the problem of underdiagnosis of mild TBI that can cause long-term neurological deficits. TBI disrupts the blood–brain barrier (BBB) leading to infiltration of immune cells into the brain and subsequent inflammation and neurodegeneration. TBI-induced peripheral immune responses can also result in multiorgan damage. Despite worldwide research efforts, the methods of diagnosis, monitoring and treatment for TBI are still relatively ineffective. In this review, we delve into the mechanism of how TBI-induced central and peripheral immune responses affect the disease outcome and discuss recent developments in the continuing effort to combat the consequences of TBI and new ways to enhance repair of the damaged brain. PMID:23061919

Adolescents' perspectives and food choice behaviors in terms of the environmental impacts of food production practices: application of a psychosocial model.

PubMed

Bissonnette, M M; Contento, I R

2001-01-01

The objective of this study was to investigate adolescents' perspectives about the environmental impacts of food production practices and whether these perspectives are related to their food choice. Food choice was operationalized as consumption and purchase of organic foods and locally grown foods. A survey questionnaire was administered to a convenience sample of adolescents and analyzed for descriptive information and relationships among variables. Subjects were 651 ethnically diverse, urban and suburban high school senior students in a major metropolitan area. Variables of an Expanded Theory of Planned Behavior were measured including beliefs, attitudes, perceived social influences, motivation to comply, perceived behavioral control, self-identity, perceived responsibility, behavioral intention, and behavior. Descriptive statistics, Pearson correlation coefficients, and stepwise multiple regression analyses were used. Surveyed adolescents did not have strong or consistent beliefs or attitudes about the environmental impact of food production practices. Cognitive-motivational processes were at work, however, since their perspectives were significantly correlated with behavioral intentions and food choice behaviors. Behavioral intention was best accounted for by attitudes and perceived social influences (and perceived responsibility for organic food), and behavior was best accounted for by behavioral intentions, beliefs, and perceived social influences (and self-identity for local food). There is a need to make salient to adolescents the environmental impact of food production practices through both cognitive and experiential approaches.

Time Dependent Behavior of Light Emitting Polymers for Potential Individual Identify Friend or Foe (IIFF) Applications

DTIC Science & Technology

2007-12-01

efficiently it combines electrons and holes, so by testing several different LEP types the one device that provides optimum intensity for the longest period...least voltage for turn on can be determined. The goal of this work was to explore the various relationships between driving current, response voltage...and intensity over the multiple timescales of interest (days, hours and seconds). The relationship between short term activations and long term

Short-term memory and critical clusterization in brain neurons spike series

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bershadskii, A.; Dremencov, E.; Yadid, G.

2003-06-01

A new phenomenon: critical clusterization, is observed in the neuron firing of a genetically defined rat model of depression. The critical clusterization is studied using a multiscaling analysis of the data obtained from the neurons belonging to the Red Nucleus area of the depressive brains. It is suggested that this critical phenomenon can be partially responsible for the observed ill behavior of the depressive brains: loss of short-term motor memory and slow motor reaction.

Effect of GDNF on depressive-like behavior, spatial learning and key genes of the brain dopamine system in genetically predisposed to behavioral disorders mouse strains.

PubMed

Naumenko, Vladimir S; Kondaurova, Elena M; Bazovkina, Daria V; Tsybko, Anton S; Ilchibaeva, Tatyana V; Khotskin, Nikita V; Semenova, Alina A; Popova, Nina K

2014-11-01

The effect of glial cell line-derived neurotrophic factor (GDNF) on behavior and brain dopamine system in predisposed to depressive-like behavior ASC (Antidepressant Sensitive Cataleptics) mice in comparison with the parental "nondepressive" CBA mice was studied. In 7days after administration (800ng, i.c.v.) GDNF decreased escape latency time and the path traveled to reach hidden platform in Morris water maze in ASC mice. GDNF enhanced depressive-like behavioral traits in both "nondepressive" CBA and "depressive" ASC mice. In CBA mice, GDNF decreased functional response to agonists of D1 (chloro-APB hydrobromide) and D2 (sumanirole maleate) receptors in tail suspension test, reduced D2 receptor gene expression in the substantia nigra and increased monoamine oxydase A (MAO A) gene expression in the striatum. GDNF increased D1 and D2 receptor genes expression in the nucleus accumbens of ASC mice but failed to alter expression of catechol-O-methyltransferase, dopamine transporter, MAO B and tyrosine hydroxylase genes in both investigated mouse strains. Thus, GDNF produced long-term genotype-dependent effect on behavior and the brain dopamine system. GDNF pretreatment (1) reduced D1 and D2 receptors functional responses and D2 receptor gene expression in s. nigra of CBA mice; (2) increased D1 and D2 receptor genes expression in n. accumbens of ASC mice and (3) improved spatial learning in ASC mice. GDNF enhanced depressive-like behavior both in CBA and ASC mice. The data suggest that genetically defined variance in the cross-talk between GDNF and brain dopamine system contributes to the variability of GDNF-induced responses and might be responsible for controversial GDNF effects. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

The impact of caregiver-mediated JASPER on child restricted and repetitive behaviors and caregiver responses.

PubMed

Harrop, Clare; Gulsrud, Amanda; Shih, Wendy; Hovsepyan, Lilit; Kasari, Connie

2017-05-01

Restricted and repetitive behaviors (RRBs) are a core feature of autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Compared to the social-communication impairments, we know considerably less about why children engage in RRBs and if and how to intervene with these behaviors. As a result, early intervention has typically focused on social-communication. In this study, we were interested in understanding how child RRBs changed following an intervention targeting social-communication behaviors and if caregiver training changed how they responded to their child's RRBs. Eighty-six toddlers with ASD and their caregivers received one of two interventions: caregivers were either actively coached while playing with their child (JASPER) or attended information sessions about ASD. On three different occasions (when they entered the study, following 10 weeks of intervention and 6-months after) caregivers were filmed playing with their child. From these recordings, we coded child RRBs and caregiver responses to these behaviors. Child RRBs remained relatively stable following intervention in both groups, but increased when the children returned at 6-months. Caregivers who received one-on-one coaching (JASPER) responded to a greater number of their child's RRBs and their responses were rated as more successful. Our study showed that a short-term social-communication intervention delivered through caregivers had "spillover effects" on how they also responded to their child's RRBs. Interventions targeting social-communication behaviors should also examine how these treatments affect child RRBs and how caregiver responses to these behaviors may change following training. Autism Res 2017, 10: 983-992. © 2016 International Society for Autism Research, Wiley Periodicals, Inc. © 2017 International Society for Autism Research, Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Developmental lead exposure causes startle response deficits in zebrafish.

PubMed

Rice, Clinton; Ghorai, Jugal K; Zalewski, Kathryn; Weber, Daniel N

2011-10-01

Lead (Pb(2+)) exposure continues to be an important concern for fish populations. Research is required to assess the long-term behavioral effects of low-level concentrations of Pb(2+) and the physiological mechanisms that control those behaviors. Newly fertilized zebrafish embryos (<2h post fertilization; hpf) were exposed to one of three concentrations of lead (as PbCl(2)): 0, 10, or 30 nM until 24 hpf. (1) Response to a mechanosensory stimulus: Individual larvae (168 hpf) were tested for response to a directional, mechanical stimulus. The tap frequency was adjusted to either 1 or 4 taps/s. Startle response was recorded at 1000 fps. Larvae responded in a concentration-dependent pattern for latency to reaction, maximum turn velocity, time to reach V(max) and escape time. With increasing exposure concentrations, a larger number of larvae failed to respond to even the initial tap and, for those that did respond, ceased responding earlier than control larvae. These differences were more pronounced at a frequency of 4 taps/s. (2) Response to a visual stimulus: Fish, exposed as embryos (2-24 hpf) to Pb(2+) (0-10 μM) were tested as adults under low light conditions (≈ 60 μW/m(2)) for visual responses to a rotating black bar. Visual responses were significantly degraded at Pb(2+) concentrations of 30 nM. These data suggest that zebrafish are viable models for short- and long-term sensorimotor deficits induced by acute, low-level developmental Pb(2+) exposures. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Compassion meditators show less anger, less punishment, and more compensation of victims in response to fairness violations

PubMed Central

McCall, Cade; Steinbeis, Nikolaus; Ricard, Matthieu; Singer, Tania

2014-01-01

Fairness violations elicit powerful behavioral and affective responses. Indeed, people are willing to incur costs to sanction unfair behavior. Here we study the possible impact of long-term mental training in socio-affective capacities such as compassion on altruistic punishment and compensatory behavior in economic games. To this end we recruited a group of long-term meditation practitioners (LTPs) who had engaged in an average of 40 K h of mental training exercises including compassion-related meditation, along with a group of meditation-naïve controls. Participants played several adaptations of the dictator game in which they had the opportunity to punish the dictator both when they were the recipients of the dictator's offer and when they were third-party witnesses to the dictator's treatment of an anonymous second player. Compared to controls, LTPs were less likely to punish when they were the victims of fairness violations. However, both groups punished equivalently when they witnessed others receiving unfair treatment. In post-task questionnaires, controls reported significantly more anger in response to unfair offers than LTPs, although fairness judgments did not differ between groups. These data suggest that because the LTPs were less angered by unfair treatment of themselves, they punished that behavior less. However, when they witnessed the unfair treatment of others, they engaged in norm-reinforcing punishment. Finally, when participants played an additional game which included the opportunity to recompense victims, LTPs were more likely to do so. Together these data point to differential approaches to justice whereby LTPs engaged less in vengeful, retributive justice and focused more on norm reinforcement and the restoration of equity. These differences suggest that social preferences are plastic and that altruistic responses to unfairness may be shaped by the prolonged cultivation of prosocial motivation, altruism, and compassion. PMID:25538589

Morphine sensitization as a model of mania: comparative study of the effects of repeated lithium or carbamazepine administration.

PubMed

Grappi, Silvia; Marchese, Giovanna; Secci, Maria Elena; De Montis, Maria Graziella; Gambarana, Carla; Scheggi, Simona

2011-10-01

Repeated unavoidable stress induces in rats decreased reactivity to avoidable stressors and an anhedonia-like condition that are reverted by long-term antidepressant treatments and regarded as models of core symptoms of depression. Morphine-sensitized rats present resilience to stress-induced behavioral deficits and, if hyporeactivity to stress models a depressive symptom, stress resistance can be regarded as a manic symptom. This hypothesis is supported by the observation that long-term lithium administration reinstates sensitivity to stress in sensitized rats. The first aim of the study was to examine the effects of carbamazepine, a standard antimanic treatment, on the stress resilience of sensitized rats, to further characterize morphine sensitization as a model of manic symptom. Carbamazepine administration abolished stress resilience but did not interfere with the expression of sensitization. The second aim of the study was to assess whether repeated carbamazepine treatment affected the dopaminergic and behavioral responses to a natural reward, a palatable food (vanilla sugar, VS), in non food-deprived sensitized and control rats and compare these possible effects with those of repeated lithium administration. Control and sensitized rats showed increased extraneuronal dopamine levels in the nucleus accumbens shell after VS consumption and competence to acquire an instrumental VS-sustained appetitive behavior (VAB). Repeated carbamazepine treatment abolished the dopaminergic response to VS consumption and disrupted the competence to acquire VAB in control rats. Lithium-treated rats showed a dopaminergic response to VS and easily acquired the appetitive behavior. In sensitized rats, neither carbamazepine nor lithium administration interfered with the dopaminergic response to VS and the acquisition of VAB. In summary, the effect of carbamazepine on the stress resilience of sensitized rats further supported the hypothesis that morphine sensitization might model some symptoms of mania. Moreover, in control rats carbamazepine treatment elicited an anhedonia-like condition that clearly distinguished the effects of this drug from those of lithium. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

The Circle of Courage: Critical Indicators of Successful Life Outcomes

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Brendtro, Larry K.; Mitchell, Martin L.; Jackson, William C.

2014-01-01

In the behavioral science literature, successful childhood socialization is termed Positive Youth Development (PYD). Young people themselves are active agents in charting their own life course (Jackson, in press). However, the responsibility for socialization begins with families and is shared by neighbors, faith communities, educators, youth…

Two Dimensions of Parental Warmth.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Burton, Roger V.

A series of three studies investigating affective warmth was conducted. For the purpose of investigation, this quality was conceived as (1) a long term pattern of parental attention and responsiveness with positive affective tone (i.e., love), and (2) a reinforcer manipulated to shape behavior in the present. Each of the first two experiments…

Iron Status in Toddlerhood Predicts Sensitivity to Psychostimulants in Children

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Turner, Catharyn A.; Xie, Diqiong; Zimmerman, Bridget M.; Calarge, Chadi A.

2012-01-01

Objective: Iron deficiency is associated with impaired dopaminergic signaling and externalizing behavior. The authors examine, whether iron stores in toddlerhood influence later response to psychostimulants. Method: Youth participating in a study monitoring the long-term safety of risperidone were included in this analysis if they had received…

Social Skills Training for Young Adolescents: Symbolic and Behavioral Components.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Thompson, Kathryn L.; And Others

1995-01-01

Expanded the curriculum of an assertiveness training program. Found that boys and girls benefited similarly in the cognitive acquisition of assertiveness information from this program. Discusses results in terms of the difference between having stored symbolic information regarding assertive responses and in recognizing appropriate contexts for…

Creation and Validation of the Cognitive and Behavioral Response to Stress Scale in a Depression Trial

PubMed Central

Miner, Adam S.; Schueller, Stephen M.; Lattie, Emily G.; Mohr, David C.

2015-01-01

The Cognitive and Behavioral Response to Stress Scale (CB-RSS) is a self-report measure of the use and helpfulness of several cognitive and behavioral skills. Unlike other measures that focus on language specific to terms used in therapy, the CB-RSS was intended to tap the strategies in ways that might be understandable to those who had not undergone therapy. The measure was included in a clinical trial of cognitive-behavioral therapy for depression and completed by 325 participants at baseline and end of treatment (18 weeks). Psychometric properties of the scale were assessed through iterative exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses. These analyses identified two subscales, cognitive and behavioral skills, each with high reliability. Validity was addressed by investigating relationships with depression symptoms, positive affect, perceived stress, and coping self-efficacy. End of treatment scores predicted changes in all outcomes, with the largest relationships between baseline CB-RSS scales and coping self-efficacy. These findings suggest that the CB-RSS is a useful tool to measure cognitive and behavioral skills both at baseline (prior to treatment) as well as during the course of treatment. Keywords: Development, Validation, Telehealth PMID:26553147

Flexural behavior of the fibrous cementitious composites (FCC) containing hybrid fibres

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ramli, Mahyuddin; Ban, Cheah Chee; Samsudin, Muhamad Fadli

2018-02-01

In this study, the flexural behavior of the fibrous cementitious composites containing hybrid fibers was investigated. Waste materials or by product materials such as pulverized fuel ash (PFA) and ground granulated blast-furnace slag (GGBS) was used as supplementary cement replacement. In addition, barchip and kenaf fiber will be used as additional materials for enhance the flexural behavior of cementitious composites. A seven mix design of fibrous cementitious composites containing hybrid fiber mortar were fabricated with PFA-GGBS as cement replacement at 50% with hybridization of barchip and kenaf fiber between 0.5% and 2.0% by total volume weight. The FCC with hybrid fibers mortar will be fabricated by using 50 × 50 × 50 mm, 40 × 40 × 160 mm and 350 × 125 × 30 mm steel mold for assessment of mechanical performances and flexural behavior characteristics. The flexural behavior and mechanical performance of the PFA-GGBS with hybrid fiber mortar block was assessed in terms of load deflection response, stress-strain response, crack development, compressive and flexural strength after water curing for 28 days. Moreover, the specimen HBK 1 and HBK 2 was observed equivalent or better in mechanical performance and flexural behavior as compared to control mortar.

Creation and validation of the Cognitive and Behavioral Response to Stress Scale in a depression trial.

PubMed

Miner, Adam S; Schueller, Stephen M; Lattie, Emily G; Mohr, David C

2015-12-30

The Cognitive and Behavioral Response to Stress Scale (CB-RSS) is a self-report measure of the use and helpfulness of several cognitive and behavioral skills. Unlike other measures that focus on language specific to terms used in therapy, the CB-RSS was intended to tap the strategies in ways that might be understandable to those who had not undergone therapy. The measure was included in a clinical trial of cognitive-behavioral therapy for depression and completed by 325 participants at baseline and end of treatment (18 weeks). Psychometric properties of the scale were assessed through iterative exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses. These analyses identified two subscales, cognitive and behavioral skills, each with high reliability. Validity was addressed by investigating relationships with depression symptoms, positive affect, perceived stress, and coping self-efficacy. End of treatment scores predicted changes in all outcomes, with the largest relationships between baseline CB-RSS scales and coping self-efficacy. These findings suggest that the CB-RSS is a useful tool to measure cognitive and behavioral skills both at baseline (prior to treatment) as well as during the course of treatment. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

Climate warming may increase aphids' dropping probabilities in response to high temperatures.

PubMed

Ma, Gang; Ma, Chun-Sen

2012-11-01

Dropping off is considered an anti-predator behavior for aphids since previous studies have shown that it reduces the risk of predation. However, little attention is paid to dropping behavior triggered by other external stresses such as daytime high temperatures which are predicted to become more frequent in the context of climate warming. Here we defined a new parameter, drop-off temperature (DOT), to describe the critical temperature at which an aphid drops off its host plant when the ambient temperature increases gradually and slowly. Detailed studies were conducted to reveal effects of short-term acclimation (temperature, exposure time at high-temperature and starvation) on DOT of an aphid species, Sitobion avenae. Our objectives were to test if the aphids dropped off host plant to avoid high temperatures and how short-term acclimation affected the aphids' dropping behavior in response to heat stress. We suggest that dropping is a behavioral thermoregulation to avoid heat stress, since aphids started to move before they dropped off and the dropped aphids were still able to control their muscles prior to knockdown. The adults starved for 12 h had higher DOT values than those that were unstarved or starved for 6 h, and there was a trade-off between behavioral thermoregulation and energy acquisition. Higher temperatures and longer exposure times at high temperatures significantly lowered the aphids' DOT, suggested that the aphids avoid heat stress by dropping when exposed to high temperatures. Climate warming may therefore increase the aphids' dropping probabilities and consequently affect the aphids' individual development and population growth. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Plasmonic Properties of Silicon Nanocrystals Doped with Boron and Phosphorus.

PubMed

Kramer, Nicolaas J; Schramke, Katelyn S; Kortshagen, Uwe R

2015-08-12

Degenerately doped silicon nanocrystals are appealing plasmonic materials due to silicon's low cost and low toxicity. While surface plasmonic resonances of boron-doped and phosphorus-doped silicon nanocrystals were recently observed, there currently is poor understanding of the effect of surface conditions on their plasmonic behavior. Here, we demonstrate that phosphorus-doped silicon nanocrystals exhibit a plasmon resonance immediately after their synthesis but may lose their plasmonic response with oxidation. In contrast, boron-doped nanocrystals initially do not exhibit plasmonic response but become plasmonically active through postsynthesis oxidation or annealing. We interpret these results in terms of substitutional doping being the dominant doping mechanism for phosphorus-doped silicon nanocrystals, with oxidation-induced defects trapping free electrons. The behavior of boron-doped silicon nanocrystals is more consistent with a strong contribution of surface doping. Importantly, boron-doped silicon nanocrystals exhibit air-stable plasmonic behavior over periods of more than a year.

Mechanical responses of a-axis GaN nanowires under axial loads

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wang, R. J.; Wang, C. Y.; Feng, Y. T.; Tang, Chun

2018-03-01

Gallium nitride (GaN) nanowires (NWs) hold technological significance as functional components in emergent nano-piezotronics. However, the examination of their mechanical responses, especially the mechanistic understanding of behavior beyond elasticity (at failure) remains limited due to the constraints of in situ experimentation. We therefore performed simulations of the molecular dynamics (MD) of the mechanical behavior of [1\\bar{2}10]-oriented GaN NWs subjected to tension or compression loading until failure. The mechanical properties and critical deformation processes are characterized in relation to NW sizes and loading conditions. Detailed examinations revealed that the failure mechanisms are size-dependent and controlled by the dislocation mobility on shuffle-set pyramidal planes. The size dependence of the elastic behavior is also examined in terms of the surface structure determined modification of Young’s modulus. In addition, a comparison with c-axis NWs is made to show how size-effect trends vary with the growth orientation of NWs.

Pyrrhic victories: the need for social status drives costly competitive behavior.

PubMed

van den Bos, Wouter; Golka, Philipp J M; Effelsberg, David; McClure, Samuel M

2013-01-01

Competitive behavior is commonly defined as the decision to maximize one's payoffs relative to others. We argue instead that competitive drive derives from a desire for social status. We make use of a multi-player auction task in which subjects knowingly incur financial losses for the sake of winning auctions. First, we show that overbidding is increased when the task includes members of a rival out-group, suggesting that social identity is an important mediator of competitiveness. In addition, we show that the extent that individuals are willing to incur losses is related to affective responses to social comparisons but not to monetary outcomes. Second, we show that basal levels of testosterone predict overbidding, and that this effect of testosterone is mediated by affective responses to social comparisons. Based on these findings, we argue that competitive behavior should be conceptualized in terms of social motivations as opposed to just relative monetary payoffs.

Pyrrhic victories: the need for social status drives costly competitive behavior

PubMed Central

van den Bos, Wouter; Golka, Philipp J. M.; Effelsberg, David; McClure, Samuel M.

2013-01-01

Competitive behavior is commonly defined as the decision to maximize one's payoffs relative to others. We argue instead that competitive drive derives from a desire for social status. We make use of a multi-player auction task in which subjects knowingly incur financial losses for the sake of winning auctions. First, we show that overbidding is increased when the task includes members of a rival out-group, suggesting that social identity is an important mediator of competitiveness. In addition, we show that the extent that individuals are willing to incur losses is related to affective responses to social comparisons but not to monetary outcomes. Second, we show that basal levels of testosterone predict overbidding, and that this effect of testosterone is mediated by affective responses to social comparisons. Based on these findings, we argue that competitive behavior should be conceptualized in terms of social motivations as opposed to just relative monetary payoffs. PMID:24167468

Antidepressant-like effects of long-term sarcosine treatment in rats with or without chronic unpredictable stress.

PubMed

Chen, Kuang-Ti; Wu, Ching-Hsiang; Tsai, Mang-Hung; Wu, Ya-Chieh; Jou, Ming-Jia; Huang, Chih-Chia; Wei, I-Hua

2017-01-01

Sarcosine, an N-methyl-d-aspartate receptor enhancer, can improve depression-like behavior in rodent models and depression in humans. We found that a single dose of sarcosine exerted antidepressant-like effects with rapid concomitant increases in the mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) signaling pathway activation and enhancement of α-amino-3-hydroxy-5-methylisoxazole-4-propionate receptor (AMPAR) membrane insertion. Sarcosine may play a crucial role in developing novel therapy for depression. For a detailed understanding of sarcosine, this study examined the effects of long-term sarcosine treatment on the forced swim test (FST), mTOR signaling, and AMPAR membrane insertion in rats. The effects of long-term sarcosine treatment were examined in naive rats and rats exposed to chronic unpredictable stress (CUS). Long-term sarcosine treatment (560mg/kg/d for 21 d) significantly ameliorated the increased immobility induced by CUS in the FST, reaffirming the potential role of sarcosine as an antidepressant for depressed patients. The same long-term treatment exhibited no such effect in naive rats despite increased mTOR activation and AMPAR membrane insertion in both groups. Our findings clearly show CUS-exposed rats are sensitive to long-term sarcosine treatment in FST and the response at the same dose is absent in naïve rats. Nevertheless, the distinct sensitivity to long-term sarcosine treatment in rats with or without CUS is not associated with the activated mTOR signaling pathway or increased AMPAR membrane insertion. Additionally, understanding the behavioral and molecular basis of distinct responses is vital important for developing personalized treatment programs to increase the probability of success when treating depression. Copyright © 2016. Published by Elsevier B.V.

Neurobiology of addictive behaviors and its relationship to methadone maintenance.

PubMed

Stimmel, B; Kreek, M J

2000-01-01

Scientific information about the neurobiology of addictive behaviors provides an increasingly important rationale to support opioid agonist pharmacotherapy, primarily methadone maintenance treatment, for long-term heroin addiction. In late 1963 and 1964, the first research was performed at The Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research by Dole, Nyswander, and Kreek in an attempt to develop a new pharmacotherapy for opiate addiction. The hypothesis underlying that research was that heroin addiction was a disease. However, the evidence for heroin addiction being a disease was based primarily on clinical anecdotes and the natural history of opiate addiction. Until then chronic addiction was managed primarily using abstinence-based, medication-free behavioral approaches. Such approaches were uniformly successful in only a small percent of long-term heroin addicts. Subsequent research, both clinical research as well as laboratory-based research, using a variety of appropriate animal models as well as in vitro techniques, has shown that drugs of abuse in general, and specifically the short-acting opiates, such as heroin, may profoundly alter molecular and neurochemical indices, and thus physiologic functions. Also, research has shown that after chronic exposure to a short-acting opiate,these alterations may be persistent, or even permanent, and may contribute directly to the perpetuation of self-administration of opiates, and even the return to opiate use after achieving a drug-free and medication-free state. There is ample evidence now that disruption of several components of the endogenous opioid system, ranging from changes in gene expression to changes in behavior, may occur during cycles of short-acting opiate abuse. Also, there are very convincing studies that suggest that stress responsivity is profoundly altered by chronic abuse of short-acting opiates including: documentation of atypical hypo-responsivity to stressors during cycles of heroin addiction; evidence of sustained hyper-responsivity to stressors in the medication-free, illicit-opiate-free state; and in contrast, normalization of stress responsivity, as reflected by the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis function in long-term, methadone-maintained patients. Thus, both laboratory and clinical research studies provide firm documentation that the disruption of physiologic, as well as behavioral, functions occurs during chronic administration of short-acting opiates. Also, there is research evidence of an epidemiologic, and more recently of a molecular genetics type, that a genetic vulnerability to develop addictions in general, and opiate addiction specifically, may exist, and that early environmental factors may alter physiology to enhance vulnerability to develop opiate addiction when self-exposed.

Experimental determination of the dynamics of an acoustically levitated sphere

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Pérez, Nicolás, E-mail: nico@fisica.edu.uy; Andrade, Marco A. B.; Canetti, Rafael

2014-11-14

Levitation of solids and liquids by ultrasonic standing waves is a promising technique to manipulate materials without contact. When a small particle is introduced in certain areas of a standing wave field, the acoustic radiation force pushes the particle to the pressure node. This movement is followed by oscillations of the levitated particle. Aiming to investigate the particle oscillations in acoustic levitation, this paper presents the experimental and numerical characterization of the dynamic behavior of a levitated sphere. To obtain the experimental response, a small sphere is lifted by the acoustic radiation force. After the sphere lift, it presents amore » damped oscillatory behavior, which is recorded by a high speed camera. To model this behavior, a mass-spring-damper system is proposed. In this model, the acoustic radiation force that acts on the sphere is theoretically predicted by the Gor'kov theory and the viscous forces are modeled by two damping terms, one term proportional to the square of the velocity and another term proportional to the particle velocity. The proposed model was experimentally verified by using different values of sound pressure amplitude. The comparison between numerical and experimental results shows that the model can accurately describe the oscillatory behavior of the sphere in an acoustic levitator.« less

Measuring infant attachment security in rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta): adaptation of the attachment Q-set.

PubMed

Warfield, James J; Kondo-Ikemura, Kiyomi; Waters, Everett

2011-02-01

John Bowlby defined offspring-parent attachment as a relationship in which an infant or child uses one or a few preferred adults as a secure base from which to explore and as a haven of safety. He defined attachment security in terms of confidence in the adult's availability and responsiveness and the smooth organization of exploration and proximity seeking. Developmental psychologists have found this perspective productive in both observational and laboratory research. At the same time, they emphasize that such a construct cannot be operationalized in terms of one or a few behaviors. Instead, naturalistic observations of human infant attachment typically employ the Q-sort method to develop the Attachment q-set (AQS), 90 behaviorally descriptive items sorted in terms of how characteristic each item is of the infant's typical behavior. Meta-analyses of research using the AQS attest to its reliability and validity. This article reports an adaptation of the AQS to the task of assessing infant attachment security in nonhuman primates and illustrates its use. The availability of comparable measures of attachment security will contribute to an expanded understanding of patterns of attachment behavior in nonhuman primate societies and will facilitate interaction between comparative and developmental psychologists. © 2010 Wiley-Liss, Inc.

Experimental determination of the dynamics of an acoustically levitated sphere

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Pérez, Nicolás; Andrade, Marco A. B.; Canetti, Rafael; Adamowski, Julio C.

2014-11-01

Levitation of solids and liquids by ultrasonic standing waves is a promising technique to manipulate materials without contact. When a small particle is introduced in certain areas of a standing wave field, the acoustic radiation force pushes the particle to the pressure node. This movement is followed by oscillations of the levitated particle. Aiming to investigate the particle oscillations in acoustic levitation, this paper presents the experimental and numerical characterization of the dynamic behavior of a levitated sphere. To obtain the experimental response, a small sphere is lifted by the acoustic radiation force. After the sphere lift, it presents a damped oscillatory behavior, which is recorded by a high speed camera. To model this behavior, a mass-spring-damper system is proposed. In this model, the acoustic radiation force that acts on the sphere is theoretically predicted by the Gor'kov theory and the viscous forces are modeled by two damping terms, one term proportional to the square of the velocity and another term proportional to the particle velocity. The proposed model was experimentally verified by using different values of sound pressure amplitude. The comparison between numerical and experimental results shows that the model can accurately describe the oscillatory behavior of the sphere in an acoustic levitator.

Predicting beneficial effects of atomoxetine and citalopram on response inhibition in Parkinson's disease with clinical and neuroimaging measures

PubMed Central

Ye, Zheng; Rae, Charlotte L.; Nombela, Cristina; Ham, Timothy; Rittman, Timothy; Jones, Peter Simon; Rodríguez, Patricia Vázquez; Coyle‐Gilchrist, Ian; Regenthal, Ralf; Altena, Ellemarije; Housden, Charlotte R.; Maxwell, Helen; Sahakian, Barbara J.; Barker, Roger A.; Robbins, Trevor W.

2016-01-01

Abstract Recent studies indicate that selective noradrenergic (atomoxetine) and serotonergic (citalopram) reuptake inhibitors may improve response inhibition in selected patients with Parkinson's disease, restoring behavioral performance and brain activity. We reassessed the behavioral efficacy of these drugs in a larger cohort and developed predictive models to identify patient responders. We used a double‐blind randomized three‐way crossover design to investigate stopping efficiency in 34 patients with idiopathic Parkinson's disease after 40 mg atomoxetine, 30 mg citalopram, or placebo. Diffusion‐weighted and functional imaging measured microstructural properties and regional brain activations, respectively. We confirmed that Parkinson's disease impairs response inhibition. Overall, drug effects on response inhibition varied substantially across patients at both behavioral and brain activity levels. We therefore built binary classifiers with leave‐one‐out cross‐validation (LOOCV) to predict patients’ responses in terms of improved stopping efficiency. We identified two optimal models: (1) a “clinical” model that predicted the response of an individual patient with 77–79% accuracy for atomoxetine and citalopram, using clinically available information including age, cognitive status, and levodopa equivalent dose, and a simple diffusion‐weighted imaging scan; and (2) a “mechanistic” model that explained the behavioral response with 85% accuracy for each drug, using drug‐induced changes of brain activations in the striatum and presupplementary motor area from functional imaging. These data support growing evidence for the role of noradrenaline and serotonin in inhibitory control. Although noradrenergic and serotonergic drugs have highly variable effects in patients with Parkinson's disease, the individual patient's response to each drug can be predicted using a pattern of clinical and neuroimaging features. Hum Brain Mapp 37:1026–1037, 2016. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. PMID:26757216

Describing complex cells in primary visual cortex: a comparison of context and multi-filter LN models.

PubMed

Westö, Johan; May, Patrick J C

2018-05-02

Receptive field (RF) models are an important tool for deciphering neural responses to sensory stimuli. The two currently popular RF models are multi-filter linear-nonlinear (LN) models and context models. Models are, however, never correct and they rely on assumptions to keep them simple enough to be interpretable. As a consequence, different models describe different stimulus-response mappings, which may or may not be good approximations of real neural behavior. In the current study, we take up two tasks: First, we introduce new ways to estimate context models with realistic nonlinearities, that is, with logistic and exponential functions. Second, we evaluate context models and multi-filter LN models in terms of how well they describe recorded data from complex cells in cat primary visual cortex. Our results, based on single-spike information and correlation coefficients, indicate that context models outperform corresponding multi-filter LN models of equal complexity (measured in terms of number of parameters), with the best increase in performance being achieved by the novel context models. Consequently, our results suggest that the multi-filter LN-model framework is suboptimal for describing the behavior of complex cells: the context-model framework is clearly superior while still providing interpretable quantizations of neural behavior.

The knowledge, attitude and behavior about public health emergencies and the response capacity of primary care medical staffs of Guangdong Province, China.

PubMed

Zhiheng, Zhou; Caixia, Wang; Jiaji, Wang; Huajie, Yang; Chao, Wang; Wannian, Liang

2012-09-25

Primary care medical staffs' knowledge, attitude and behavior about health emergency and the response capacity are directly related to the control and prevention of public health emergencies. Therefore, it is of great significance for improving primary care to gain in-depth knowledge about knowledge, attitude and behavior and the response capacity of primary care medical staffs. The main objective of this study is to explore knowledge, attitude and behavior, and the response capacity of primary care medical staffs of Guangdong Province, China. Stratified clustered sample method was used in the anonymous questionnaire investigation about knowledge, attitude and behavior, and the response capacity of 3410 primary care medical staffs in 15 cities of Guangdong Province, China from July, 2010 to October 2010. The emergency response capacity was evaluated by 33 questions. The highest score of the response capacity was 100 points (full score), score of 70 was a standard. 62.4% primary care medical staffs believed that public health emergencies would happen. Influenza (3.86 ± 0.88), food poisoning (3.35 ± 0.75), and environmental pollution events (3.23 ± 0.80) (the total score was 5) were considered most likely to occur. Among the 7 public health emergency skills, the highest self-assessment score is "public health emergency prevention skills" (2.90 ± 0.68), the lowest is "public health emergency risk management (the total score was 5)" (1.81 ± 0.40). Attitude evaluation showed 66.1% of the medical staffs believed that the community awareness of risk management were ordinary. Evaluation of response capacity of health emergency showed that the score of primary care medical staffs was 67.23 ± 10.61, and the response capacity of senior physicians, public health physicians and physicians with relatively long-term practice were significantly better (P <0.05). Multiple linear stepwise regression analysis showed gender, title, position, type of work, work experience and whether to participate relative training were the main factors affecting the health emergency response capacity. The knowledge, attitude and behavior about public health emergencies and the response capacity of primary care medical staffs of Guangdong Province (China) were poor. Health administrative departments should strengthen the training of health emergency knowledge and skills of the primary care medical staffs to enhance their health emergency response capabilities.

Visualizing phase transition behavior of dilute stimuli responsive polymer solutions via Mueller matrix polarimetry.

PubMed

Narayanan, Amal; Chandel, Shubham; Ghosh, Nirmalya; De, Priyadarsi

2015-09-15

Probing volume phase transition behavior of superdiluted polymer solutions both micro- and macroscopically still persists as an outstanding challenge. In this regard, we have explored 4 × 4 spectral Mueller matrix measurement and its inverse analysis for excavating the microarchitectural facts about stimuli responsiveness of "smart" polymers. Phase separation behavior of thermoresponsive poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) (PNIPAM) and pH responsive poly(N,N-(dimethylamino)ethyl methacrylate) (PDMAEMA) and their copolymers were analyzed in terms of Mueller matrix derived polarization parameters, namely, depolarization (Δ), diattenuation (d), and linear retardance (δ). The Δ, d, and δ parameters provided useful information on both macro- and microstructural alterations during the phase separation. Additionally, the two step action ((i) breakage of polymer-water hydrogen bonding and (ii) polymer-polymer aggregation) at the molecular microenvironment during the cloud point generation was successfully probed via these parameters. It is demonstrated that, in comparison to the present techniques available for assessing the hydrophobic-hydrophilic switch over of simple stimuli-responsive polymers, Mueller matrix polarimetry offers an important advantage requiring a few hundred times dilute polymer solution (0.01 mg/mL, 1.1-1.4 μM) at a low-volume format.

The dorsal raphe modulates sensory responsiveness during arousal in zebrafish

PubMed Central

Yokogawa, Tohei; Hannan, Markus C.; Burgess, Harold A.

2012-01-01

During waking behavior animals adapt their state of arousal in response to environmental pressures. Sensory processing is regulated in aroused states and several lines of evidence imply that this is mediated at least partly by the serotonergic system. However there is little information directly showing that serotonergic function is required for state-dependent modulation of sensory processing. Here we find that zebrafish larvae can maintain a short-term state of arousal during which neurons in the dorsal raphe modulate sensory responsiveness to behaviorally relevant visual cues. Following a brief exposure to water flow, larvae show elevated activity and heightened sensitivity to perceived motion. Calcium imaging of neuronal activity after flow revealed increased activity in serotonergic neurons of the dorsal raphe. Genetic ablation of these neurons abolished the increase in visual sensitivity during arousal without affecting baseline visual function or locomotor activity. We traced projections from the dorsal raphe to a major visual area, the optic tectum. Laser ablation of the tectum demonstrated that this structure, like the dorsal raphe, is required for improved visual sensitivity during arousal. These findings reveal that serotonergic neurons of the dorsal raphe have a state-dependent role in matching sensory responsiveness to behavioral context. PMID:23100441

Circadian modulation of short-term memory in Drosophila.

PubMed

Lyons, Lisa C; Roman, Gregg

2009-01-01

Endogenous biological clocks are widespread regulators of behavior and physiology, allowing for a more efficient allocation of efforts and resources over the course of a day. The extent that different processes are regulated by circadian oscillators, however, is not fully understood. We investigated the role of the circadian clock on short-term associative memory formation using a negatively reinforced olfactory-learning paradigm in Drosophila melanogaster. We found that memory formation was regulated in a circadian manner. The peak performance in short-term memory (STM) occurred during the early subjective night with a twofold performance amplitude after a single pairing of conditioned and unconditioned stimuli. This rhythm in memory is eliminated in both timeless and period mutants and is absent during constant light conditions. Circadian gating of sensory perception does not appear to underlie the rhythm in short-term memory as evidenced by the nonrhythmic shock avoidance and olfactory avoidance behaviors. Moreover, central brain oscillators appear to be responsible for the modulation as cryptochrome mutants, in which the antennal circadian oscillators are nonfunctional, demonstrate robust circadian rhythms in short-term memory. Together these data suggest that central, rather than peripheral, circadian oscillators modulate the formation of short-term associative memory and not the perception of the stimuli.

TLR4 response mediates ethanol-induced neurodevelopment alterations in a model of fetal alcohol spectrum disorders.

PubMed

Pascual, María; Montesinos, Jorge; Montagud-Romero, Sandra; Forteza, Jerónimo; Rodríguez-Arias, Marta; Miñarro, José; Guerri, Consuelo

2017-07-24

Inflammation during brain development participates in the pathogenesis of early brain injury and cognitive dysfunctions. Prenatal ethanol exposure affects the developing brain and causes neural impairment, cognitive and behavioral effects, collectively known as fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASD). Our previous studies demonstrate that ethanol activates the innate immune response and TLR4 receptor and causes neuroinflammation, brain damage, and cognitive defects in the developmental brain stage of adolescents. We hypothesize that by activating the TLR4 response, maternal alcohol consumption during pregnancy triggers the release of cytokines and chemokines in both the maternal sera and brains of fetuses/offspring, which impairs brain ontogeny and causes cognitive dysfunction. WT and TLR4-KO female mice treated with or without 10% ethanol in the drinking water during gestation and lactation were used. Cytokine/chemokine levels were determined by ELISA in the amniotic fluid, maternal serum, and cerebral cortex, as well as in the offspring cerebral cortex. Microglial and neuronal markers (evaluated by western blotting), myelin proteins (immunohistochemical and western blotting) and synaptic parameters (western blotting and electron microscopy) were assessed in the cortices of the WT and TLR4-KO pups on PND 0, 20, and 66. Behavioral tests (elevated plus maze and passive avoidance) were performed in the WT and TLR4-KO mice on PND 66 exposed or not to ethanol. We show that alcohol intake during gestation and lactation increases the levels of several cytokines/chemokines (IL-1β, IL-17, MIP-1α, and fractalkine) in the maternal sera, amniotic fluid, and brains of fetuses and offspring. The upregulation of cytokines/chemokines is associated with an increase in activated microglia markers (CD11b and MHC-II), and with a reduction in some synaptic (synaptotagmin, synapsin IIa) and myelin (MBP, PLP) proteins in the brains of offspring on days 0, 20, and 66 (long-term effects). These changes are associated with long-term behavioral impairments, in the 66-day-old alcohol-exposed pups. TLR4-deficient mice are protected against ethanol-induced cytokine/chemokine production in alcohol-treated dams and offspring, along with synaptic and myelin alterations, and the log-term behavioral dysfunction induced by ethanol in offspring. These results suggest that the immune system activation, through the TLR4 response, might play an important role in the neurodevelopmental defects in FASD.

Neurobehavioral perspectives on the distinction between fear and anxiety.

PubMed

Perusini, Jennifer N; Fanselow, Michael S

2015-09-01

In this review, we discuss the usefulness of the distinction between fear and anxiety. The clinical use of the labels is ambiguous, often defining one in terms of the other. We first consider what a useful, objective, and scientifically valid definition would entail and then evaluate several fear/anxiety distinctions that have been made in the neurobiological literature. A strong distinction should specify the difference in conditions that lead to fear versus anxiety. Additionally, fear and anxiety should generate distinct sets of behaviors. Ideally, the two states should be supported by distinguishable neuroanatomical circuits. Such a conceptualization would be consistent with the National Institute of Mental Health's Research Domain Criteria (RDoc). The majority of neurobiological approaches to the fear versus anxiety distinction fail to differentiate the two states in terms of behavior, often using the exact same behavioral measures as indicators. Of the two that do, only Predatory Imminence Theory provides a distinction both in terms of cause and effect. Indeed, that approach provides a ready distinction of anxiety, fear, and panic in terms of both antecedent conditions and response selection rules. Additionally, it appeals to distinct neural circuits to generate these modes of action. © 2015 Perusini and Fanselow; Published by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press.

Behavioral economics

PubMed Central

Hursh, Steven R.

1984-01-01

Economics, like behavioral psychology, is a science of behavior, albeit highly organized human behavior. The value of economic concepts for behavioral psychology rests on (1) their empirical validity when tested in the laboratory with individual subjects and (2) their uniqueness when compared to established behavioral concepts. Several fundamental concepts are introduced and illustrated by reference to experimental data: open and closed economies, elastic and inelastic demand, and substitution versus complementarity. Changes in absolute response rate are analyzed in relation to elasticity and intensity of demand. The economic concepts of substitution and complementarity are related to traditional behavioral studies of choice and to the matching relation. The economic approach has many implications for the future of behavioral research and theory. In general, economic concepts are grounded on a dynamic view of reinforcement. The closed-economy methodology extends the generality of behavioral principles to situations in which response rate and obtained rate of reinforcement are interdependent. Analysis of results in terms of elasticity and intensity of demand promises to provide a more direct method for characterizing the effects of “motivational” variables. Future studies of choice should arrange heterogeneous reinforcers with varying elasticities, use closed economies, and modulate scarcity or income. The economic analysis can be extended to the study of performances that involve subtle discriminations or skilled movements that vary in accuracy or quality as opposed to rate or quantity, and thus permit examination of time/accuracy trade-offs. PMID:16812401

Impairment of social and moral behavior related to early damage in human prefrontal cortex.

PubMed

Anderson, S W; Bechara, A; Damasio, H; Tranel, D; Damasio, A R

1999-11-01

The long-term consequences of early prefrontal cortex lesions occurring before 16 months were investigated in two adults. As is the case when such damage occurs in adulthood, the two early-onset patients had severely impaired social behavior despite normal basic cognitive abilities, and showed insensitivity to future consequences of decisions, defective autonomic responses to punishment contingencies and failure to respond to behavioral interventions. Unlike adult-onset patients, however, the two patients had defective social and moral reasoning, suggesting that the acquisition of complex social conventions and moral rules had been impaired. Thus early-onset prefrontal damage resulted in a syndrome resembling psychopathy.

The relationship of extraversion and neuroticism to two measures of assertive behavior.

PubMed

Vestewig, R E; Moss, M K

1976-05-01

One hundred forty-four college students completed the Eysenck Personality Inventory and the Rathus Assertiveness Schedule (RAS) and wrote their behavioral reactions to five scenarios in which an assertive behavior was an appropriate response. Extraversion showed a significant positive correlation with the RAS in both males and females. Neuroticism was negatively correlated with RAS in both sexes. Extraversion and RAS correlated significantly with rated Assertiveness in the scenarios only in the male sample. The RAS predicted variance in Assertiveness beyond that predicted by Extraversion. Overall low correlations of the measures with rated Assertiveness were discussed in terms of the low internal consistency reliability of that scale.

Brain-derived neurotrophic factor and addiction: Pathological versus therapeutic effects on drug seeking

PubMed Central

Barker, Jacqueline M.; Taylor, Jane R.; De Vries, Taco J.; Peters, Jamie

2015-01-01

Many abused drugs lead to changes in endogenous brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) expression in neural circuits responsible for addictive behaviors. BDNF is a known molecular mediator of memory consolidation processes, evident at both behavioral and neurophysiological levels. Specific neural circuits are responsible for storing and executing drug-procuring motor programs, whereas other neural circuits are responsible for the active suppression of these “seeking” systems. These seeking-circuits are established as associations are formed between drug-associated cues and the conditioned responses they elicit. Such conditioned responses (e.g. drug seeking) can be diminished either through a passive weakening of seeking-circuits or an active suppression of those circuits through extinction. Extinction learning occurs when the association between cues and drug are violated, for example, by cue exposure without the drug present. Cue exposure therapy has been proposed as a therapeutic avenue for the treatment of addictions. Here we explore the role of BDNF in extinction circuits, compared to seeking-circuits that “incubate” over prolonged withdrawal periods. We begin by discussing the role of BDNF in extinction memory for fear and cocaine-seeking behaviors, where extinction circuits overlap in infralimbic prefrontal cortex (PFC). We highlight the ability of estrogen to promote BDNF-like effects in hippocampal–prefrontal circuits and consider the role of sex differences in extinction and incubation of drug-seeking behaviors. Finally, we examine how opiates and alcohol “break the mold” in terms of BDNF function in extinction circuits. PMID:25451116

A fundamental role for context in instrumental learning and extinction.

PubMed

Bouton, Mark E; Todd, Travis P

2014-05-01

The purpose of this article is to review recent research that has investigated the effects of context change on instrumental (operant) learning. The first part of the article discusses instrumental extinction, in which the strength of a reinforced instrumental behavior declines when reinforcers are withdrawn. The results suggest that extinction of either simple or discriminated operant behavior is relatively specific to the context in which it is learned: As in prior studies of Pavlovian extinction, ABA, ABC, and AAB renewal effects can all be observed. Further analysis supports the idea that the organism learns to refrain from making a specific response in a specific context, or in more formal terms, an inhibitory context-response association. The second part of the article then discusses research suggesting that the context also controls instrumental behavior before it is extinguished. Several experiments demonstrate that a context switch after either simple or discriminated operant training causes a decrement in the strength of the response. Over a range of conditions, the animal appears to learn a direct association between the context and the response. Under some conditions, it can also learn a hierarchical representation of context and the response-reinforcer relation. Extinction is still more context-specific than conditioning, as indicated by ABC and AAB renewal. Overall, the results establish that the context can play a significant role in both the acquisition and extinction of operant behavior. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Long-term behavioral outcomes after attendance at a secondary prevention clinic for cardiac patients.

PubMed

Worcester, Marian Una Christine; Stojcevski, Zlatko; Murphy, Barbara; Goble, Alan James

2003-01-01

Secondary prevention interventions, including hospital clinics, can help patients improve their risk factors and lifestyles after an acute cardiac event. This study aimed to investigate the long-term behavioral outcomes of attending and nonattending patients consecutively enrolled in a trial of a family-based clinic providing screening, advice, and support 3 months after hospital admission. The study also aimed to identify predictors of long-term smoking status, dietary habit, and physical activity. Semistructured interviews were conducted an average of 30 months after the acute cardiac event with 83 of the 103 nonattending patients and a random sample of 96 patients who had attended the clinic. Behavioral outcomes were investigated, and self-reported risk factors at the time of the acute illness were documented. The patients who had attended the clinic were significantly more likely than nonattenders to report positive dietary changes and, among former smokers, successful cessation of smoking. Furthermore, they reported being more physically active than nonattenders. Using logistic regression, clinic attendance was identified as a significant and independent predictor of all three outcomes. The results of this observational study suggest that attendance at a secondary prevention clinic facilitates maintenance of improved long-term health behaviors, although this finding is based on self-report. Factors possibly responsible for favorable outcomes include strong physician advice and support from a multidisciplinary team of health professionals. Furthermore, the timing of the intervention may have been appropriate for enrollment in a secondary prevention clinic.

Anxiolytic Treatment Impairs Helping Behavior in Rats

PubMed Central

Ben-Ami Bartal, Inbal; Shan, Haozhe; Molasky, Nora M. R.; Murray, Teresa M.; Williams, Jasper Z.; Decety, Jean; Mason, Peggy

2016-01-01

Despite decades of research with humans, the biological mechanisms that motivate an individual to help others remain poorly understood. In order to investigate the roots of pro-sociality in mammals, we established the helping behavior test, a paradigm in which rats are faced with a conspecific trapped in a restrainer that can only be opened from the outside. Over the course of repeated test sessions, rats exposed to a trapped cagemate learn to open the door to the restrainer, thereby helping the trapped rat to escape (Ben-Ami Bartal et al., 2011). The discovery of this natural behavior provides a unique opportunity to probe the motivation of rodent helping behavior, leading to a deeper understanding of biological influences on human pro-sociality. To determine if an affective response motivates door-opening, rats receiving midazolam, a benzodiazepine anxiolytic, were tested in the helping behavior test. Midazolam-treated rats showed less helping behavior than saline-treated rats or rats receiving no injection. Yet, midazolam-treated rats opened a restrainer containing chocolate, highlighting the socially specific effects of the anxiolytic. To determine if midazolam interferes with helping through a sympatholytic effect, the peripherally restricted beta-adrenergic receptor antagonist nadolol was administered; nadolol did not interfere with helping. The corticosterone response of rats exposed to a trapped cagemate was measured and compared to the rats’ subsequent helping behavior. Rats with the greatest corticosterone responses showed the least helping behavior and those with the smallest responses showed the most consistent helping at the shortest latency. These results are discussed in terms of their implications for the interaction between stress and pro-social behavior. Finally, we observed that door-opening appeared to be reinforcing. A novel analytical tool was designed to interrogate the pattern of door-opening for signs that a rat’s behavior on one session influenced his behavior on the next session. Results suggest that helping a trapped rat has a greater motivational value than does chocolate. In sum, this series of experiments clearly demonstrates the fundamental role of affect in motivating pro-social behavior in rodents and the need for a helper to resonate with the affect of a victim. PMID:27375528

Behavior of complex mixtures in aquatic environments: a synthesis of PNL ecological research

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Fickeisen, D.H.; Vaughan, B.E.

1984-06-01

The term complex mixture has been recently applied to energy-related process streams, products and wastes that typically contain hundreds or thousands of individual organic compounds, like petroleum or synthetic fuel oils; but it is more generally applicable. A six-year program of ecological research has focused on four areas important to understanding the environmental behavior of complex mixtures: physicochemical variables, individual organism responses, ecosystems-level determinations, and metabolism. Of these areas, physicochemical variables and organism responses were intensively studied; system-level determinations and metabolism represent more recent directions. Chemical characterization was integrated throughout all areas of the program, and state-of-the-art methods were applied.more » 155 references, 35 figures, 4 tables.« less

Investigation of dental alginate and agar impression materials as a brain simulant for ballistic testing.

PubMed

Falland-Cheung, Lisa; Piccione, Neil; Zhao, Tianqi; Lazarjan, Milad Soltanipour; Hanlin, Suzanne; Jermy, Mark; Waddell, J Neil

2016-06-01

Routine forensic research into in vitro skin/skull/brain ballistic blood backspatter behavior has traditionally used gelatin at a 1:10 Water:Powder (W:P) ratio by volume as a brain simulant. A limitation of gelatin is its high elasticity compared to brain tissue. Therefore this study investigated the use of dental alginate and agar impression materials as a brain simulant for ballistic testing. Fresh deer brain, alginate (W:P ratio 91.5:8.5) and agar (W:P ratio 81:19) specimens (n=10) (11×22×33mm) were placed in transparent Perspex boxes of the same internal dimensions prior to shooting with a 0.22inch caliber high velocity air gun. Quantitative analysis to establish kinetic energy loss, vertical displacement elastic behavior and qualitative analysis to establish elasticity behavior was done via high-speed camera footage (SA5, Photron, Japan) using Photron Fastcam Viewer software (Version 3.5.1, Photron, Japan) and visual observation. Damage mechanisms and behavior were qualitatively established by observation of the materials during and after shooting. The qualitative analysis found that of the two simulant materials tested, agar behaved more like brain in terms of damage and showed similar mechanical response to brain during the passage of the projectile, in terms of energy absorption and vertical velocity displacement. In conclusion agar showed a mechanical and subsequent damage response that was similar to brain compared to alginate. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

The impact of therapists' words on the adolescent brain: In the context of addiction treatment.

PubMed

Feldstein Ewing, Sarah W; Houck, Jon M; Yezhuvath, Uma; Shokri-Kojori, Ehsan; Truitt, Dustin; Filbey, Francesca M

2016-01-15

At this time, we still do not know how therapist behaviors influence adolescent brain response and related treatment outcomes. Therefore, we examined this question with 17 binge drinking youth (mean age=16.62 years; 64.3% female; 42.9% Hispanic; 28.6% bi-/multi-racial). In this within-subjects design, all youth completed a baseline assessment, two therapy sessions, an fMRI scan, and were re-evaluated for behavior change at one-month post-treatment. During the fMRI session, youth were presented with two types of responses from their treating therapist: higher-skill statements prescribed in an empirically-supported addiction treatment (complex reflections) vs. language standard within addiction treatment more broadly (closed questions). In terms of behavior change, at the one-month follow-up, youth showed significant reductions in number of drinking days and binge drinking days. Further, we found main effects for complex reflections and closed questions across the superior middle temporal gyrus and middle temporal gyrus (FWE-corrected, p<.05). Greater brain response was observed for complex reflections versus closed questions within the bilateral anterior cingulate gyrus. Greater BOLD response in the parietal lobe during closed questions was significantly associated with less post-treatment drinking. Lower BOLD response during complex reflections and closed questions in the precuneus were associated with greater post-treatment ratings of importance of changing. This study represents a first step in understanding how therapist behaviors influence the developing adolescent brain and how that neural response may be associated with youth treatment outcomes. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Response inhibition difficulties in preterm children aged 9-12 years: Relations with emotion and behavior.

PubMed

Réveillon, Morgane; Borradori Tolsa, Cristina; Monnier, Maryline; Hüppi, Petra S; Barisnikov, Koviljka

2016-01-01

Previous studies with children have demonstrated inhibition difficulties associated with prematurity, but the question of potentially catching up with a delay in inhibition processes before adolescence still remains. Moreover, preterm adolescents are more at risk than their term-born peers for presenting behavioral problems such as emotional difficulties and attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder. In addition to examining response inhibition, this study addressed, for the first time, the impact of an emotional context on response inhibition abilities and its relation to behavioral problems in late school-aged preterm children. Fifty-eight preterm children aged 9-12 years were compared with 61 controls on two versions of a stop-signal task, the Delay Frustration Task, and the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire. Results showed general difficulties in inhibiting a response, rather than a specific impact of emotional context in preterm children. Compared with controls, these children exhibited more and longer button presses in a delay situation, as well as faster go reaction times associated with lower probability of inhibition in the stop-signal tasks. These difficulties reflected impulsivity and were associated with higher hyperactivity/inattention and conduct problems. Additionally, intrauterine growth restriction was found to be an additional perinatal risk factor for hyperactivity/inattention symptoms. These findings suggest that remaining inhibition difficulties in the preterm population at preadolescence could reveal increasing behavioral issues.

Modeling Composite Laminate Crushing for Crash Analysis

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Fleming, David C.; Jones, Lisa (Technical Monitor)

2002-01-01

Crash modeling of composite structures remains limited in application and has not been effectively demonstrated as a predictive tool. While the global response of composite structures may be well modeled, when composite structures act as energy-absorbing members through direct laminate crushing the modeling accuracy is greatly reduced. The most efficient composite energy absorbing structures, in terms of energy absorbed per unit mass, are those that absorb energy through a complex progressive crushing response in which fiber and matrix fractures on a small scale dominate the behavior. Such failure modes simultaneously include delamination of plies, failure of the matrix to produce fiber bundles, and subsequent failure of fiber bundles either in bending or in shear. In addition, the response may include the significant action of friction, both internally (between delaminated plies or fiber bundles) or externally (between the laminate and the crushing surface). A figure shows the crushing damage observed in a fiberglass composite tube specimen, illustrating the complexity of the response. To achieve a finite element model of such complex behavior is an extremely challenging problem. A practical crushing model based on detailed modeling of the physical mechanisms of crushing behavior is not expected in the foreseeable future. The present research describes attempts to model composite crushing behavior using a novel hybrid modeling procedure. Experimental testing is done is support of the modeling efforts, and a test specimen is developed to provide data for validating laminate crushing models.

Assessing ecotoxicity of biomining effluents in stream ecosystems by in situ invertebrate bioassays: A case study in Talvivaara, Finland.

PubMed

Salmelin, Johanna; Leppänen, Matti T; Karjalainen, Anna K; Vuori, Kari-Matti; Gerhardt, Almut; Hämäläinen, Heikki

2017-01-01

Mining of sulfide-rich pyritic ores produces acid mine drainage waters and has induced major ecological problems in aquatic ecosystems worldwide. Biomining utilizes microbes to extract metals from the ore, and it has been suggested as a new sustainable way to produce metals. However, little is known of the potential ecotoxicological effects of biomining. In the present study, biomining impacts were assessed using survival and behavioral responses of aquatic macroinvertebrates at in situ exposures in streams. The authors used an impedance conversion technique to measure quantitatively in situ behavioral responses of larvae of the regionally common mayfly, Heptagenia dalecarlica, to discharges from the Talvivaara mine (Sotkamo, Northern Finland), which uses a biomining technique. Behavioral responses measured in 3 mine-impacted streams were compared with those measured in 3 reference streams. In addition, 3-d survival of the mayfly larvae and the oligochaete Lumbriculus variegatus was measured in the study sites. Biomining impacts on stream water quality included increased concentrations of sulfur, sulfate, and metals, especially manganese, cadmium, zinc, sodium, and calcium. Survival of the invertebrates in the short term was not affected by the mine effluents. In contrast, apparent behavioral changes in mayfly larvae were detected, but these responses were not consistent among sites, which may reflect differing natural water chemistry of the study sites. Environ Toxicol Chem 2017;36:147-155. © 2016 SETAC. © 2016 SETAC.

Contrasting motivational orientation and evaluative coding accounts: on the need to differentiate the effectors of approach/avoidance responses.

PubMed

Kozlik, Julia; Neumann, Roland; Lozo, Ljubica

2015-01-01

Several emotion theorists suggest that valenced stimuli automatically trigger motivational orientations and thereby facilitate corresponding behavior. Positive stimuli were thought to activate approach motivational circuits which in turn primed approach-related behavioral tendencies whereas negative stimuli were supposed to activate avoidance motivational circuits so that avoidance-related behavioral tendencies were primed (motivational orientation account). However, recent research suggests that typically observed affective stimulus-response compatibility phenomena might be entirely explained in terms of theories accounting for mechanisms of general action control instead of assuming motivational orientations to mediate the effects (evaluative coding account). In what follows, we explore to what extent this notion is applicable. We present literature suggesting that evaluative coding mechanisms indeed influence a wide variety of affective stimulus-response compatibility phenomena. However, the evaluative coding account does not seem to be sufficient to explain affective S-R compatibility effects. Instead, several studies provide clear evidence in favor of the motivational orientation account that seems to operate independently of evaluative coding mechanisms. Implications for theoretical developments and future research designs are discussed.

Contrasting motivational orientation and evaluative coding accounts: on the need to differentiate the effectors of approach/avoidance responses

PubMed Central

Kozlik, Julia; Neumann, Roland; Lozo, Ljubica

2015-01-01

Several emotion theorists suggest that valenced stimuli automatically trigger motivational orientations and thereby facilitate corresponding behavior. Positive stimuli were thought to activate approach motivational circuits which in turn primed approach-related behavioral tendencies whereas negative stimuli were supposed to activate avoidance motivational circuits so that avoidance-related behavioral tendencies were primed (motivational orientation account). However, recent research suggests that typically observed affective stimulus–response compatibility phenomena might be entirely explained in terms of theories accounting for mechanisms of general action control instead of assuming motivational orientations to mediate the effects (evaluative coding account). In what follows, we explore to what extent this notion is applicable. We present literature suggesting that evaluative coding mechanisms indeed influence a wide variety of affective stimulus–response compatibility phenomena. However, the evaluative coding account does not seem to be sufficient to explain affective S–R compatibility effects. Instead, several studies provide clear evidence in favor of the motivational orientation account that seems to operate independently of evaluative coding mechanisms. Implications for theoretical developments and future research designs are discussed. PMID:25983718

Exposure to a fearful context during periods of memory plasticity impairs extinction via hyperactivation of frontal-amygdalar circuits

PubMed Central

Stafford, James M.; Maughan, DeeAnna K.; Ilioi, Elena C.; Lattal, K. Matthew

2013-01-01

An issue of increasing theoretical and translational importance is to understand the conditions under which learned fear can be suppressed, or even eliminated. Basic research has pointed to extinction, in which an organism is exposed to a fearful stimulus (such as a context) in the absence of an expected aversive outcome (such as a shock). This extinction process results in the suppression of fear responses, but is generally thought to leave the original fearful memory intact. Here, we investigate the effects of extinction during periods of memory lability on behavioral responses and on expression of the immediate–early gene c-Fos within fear conditioning and extinction circuits. Our results show that long-term extinction is impaired when it occurs during time periods during which the memory should be most vulnerable to disruption (soon after conditioning or retrieval). These behavioral effects are correlated with hyperactivation of medial prefrontal cortex and amygdala subregions associated with fear expression rather than fear extinction. These findings demonstrate that behavioral experiences during periods of heightened fear prevent extinction and prolong the conditioned fear response. PMID:23422280

Joint action syntax in Japanese martial arts.

PubMed

Yamamoto, Yuji; Yokoyama, Keiko; Okumura, Motoki; Kijima, Akifumi; Kadota, Koji; Gohara, Kazutoshi

2013-01-01

Participation in interpersonal competitions, such as fencing or Japanese martial arts, requires players to make instantaneous decisions and execute appropriate motor behaviors in response to various situations. Such actions can be understood as complex phenomena emerging from simple principles. We examined the intentional switching dynamics associated with continuous movement during interpersonal competition in terms of their emergence from a simple syntax. Linear functions on return maps identified two attractors as well as the transitions between them. The effects of skill differences were evident in the second- and third-order state-transition diagrams for these two attractors. Our results suggest that abrupt switching between attractors is related to the diverse continuous movements resulting from quick responses to sudden changes in the environment. This abrupt-switching-quick-response behavior is characterized by a joint action syntax. The resulting hybrid dynamical system is composed of a higher module with discrete dynamics and a lower module with continuous dynamics. Our results suggest that intelligent human behavior and robust autonomy in real-life scenarios are based on this hybrid dynamical system, which connects interpersonal coordination and competition.

Neural Reward and Punishment Sensitivity in Cigarette Smokers

PubMed Central

Potts, Geoffrey F.; Bloom, Erika; Evans, David E.; Drobes, David J.

2014-01-01

Background Nicotine addiction remains a major public health problem but the neural substrates of addictive behavior remain unknown. One characteristic of smoking behavior is impulsive choice, selecting the immediate reward of smoking despite the potential long-term negative consequences. This suggests that drug users, including cigarette smokers, may be more sensitive to rewards and less sensitive to punishment. Methods We used event-related potentials (ERPs) to test the hypothesis that smokers are more responsive to reward signals and less responsive to punishment, potentially predisposing them to risky behavior. We conducted two experiments, one using a reward prediction design to elicit a Medial Frontal Negativity (MFN) and one using a reward- and punishment-motivated flanker task to elicit an Error Related Negativity (ERN), ERP components thought to index activity in the cortical projection of the dopaminergic reward system. Results and Conclusions The smokers had a greater MFN response to unpredicted rewards, and non-smokers, but not smokers, had a larger ERN on punishment motivated trials indicating that smokers are more reward sensitive and less punishment sensitive than nonsmokers, overestimating the appetitive value and underestimating aversive outcomes of stimuli and actions. PMID:25292454

Developmental exposure to low concentrations of two brominated flame retardants, BDE-47 and BDE-99, causes life-long behavioral alterations in zebrafish.

PubMed

Glazer, Lilah; Wells, Corinne N; Drastal, Meghan; Odamah, Kathryn-Ann; Galat, Richard E; Behl, Mamta; Levin, Edward D

2018-05-01

Polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) were widely used as flame retardants until the early 2000s, mainly in home furnishings and electronics. The persistence of PBDEs in the environment leads to continued ubiquitous exposure to low levels, with infants and children experiencing higher exposures than adults. Accumulating evidence suggest that low-level exposures during early life stages can affect brain development and lead to long-term behavioral impairments. We investigated the effects of zebrafish exposure to low doses of the two prominent PBDEs; 2,2',4,4',5,-Pentabromodiphenyl ether (BDE-99) and 2,2',4,4',-Tetrabromodiphenyl ether (BDE-47), during embryo-development on short- and long-term behavioral endpoints. We included the organophosphate pesticide chlorpyrifos (CPF) due to its well documented neurotoxicity across species from zebrafish to humans. Zebrafish embryos were exposed to the following individual treatments; 0.1% DMSO (vehicle control); 0.3μM CPF; 0.01, 0.03, 0.1, 0.3μM BDE-47; 0.003, 0.03, 0.3, 1, 3, 10, 20μM BDE-99 from 5 until 120h post fertilization (hpf). Low exposure levels were determined as those not causing immediate overt toxicity, and behavior assays were conducted in the low-level range. At 144 hpf the larvae were tested for locomotor activity. At approximately 6 months of age adult zebrafish were tested in a behavioral battery including assays for anxiety-related behavior, sensorimotor response and habituation, social interaction, and predator avoidance. In the short-term, larval locomotor activity was reduced in larvae treated with 0.3μM CPF and 0.1μM BDE-47. BDE-99 treatment caused non-monotonic dose effects, with 0.3μM causing hyperactivity and 1μM or higher causing hypoactivity. In the long-term, adult anxiety-related behavior was reduced in all treatments as measured in both the novel tank dive test and tap test. We show that exposure of zebrafish embryos to low concentrations of the brominated flame retardants BDE-47 and BDE-99, and the organophosphate pesticide CPF, caused both short- and long-term behavioral impairments. Interestingly, we also found that at very low exposure concentrations, where there were no visible effects on larval activity, adult behavior was still strongly affected. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Mixing of Honeybees with Different Genotypes Affects Individual Worker Behavior and Transcription of Genes in the Neuronal Substrate

PubMed Central

Bienefeld, Kaspar; Beye, Martin

2012-01-01

Division of labor in social insects has made the evolution of collective traits possible that cannot be achieved by individuals alone. Differences in behavioral responses produce variation in engagement in behavioral tasks, which as a consequence, generates a division of labor. We still have little understanding of the genetic components influencing these behaviors, although several candidate genomic regions and genes influencing individual behavior have been identified. Here, we report that mixing of worker honeybees with different genotypes influences the expression of individual worker behaviors and the transcription of genes in the neuronal substrate. These indirect genetic effects arise in a colony because numerous interactions between workers produce interacting phenotypes and genotypes across organisms. We studied hygienic behavior of honeybee workers, which involves the cleaning of diseased brood cells in the colony. We mixed ∼500 newly emerged honeybee workers with genotypes of preferred Low (L) and High (H) hygienic behaviors. The L/H genotypic mixing affected the behavioral engagement of L worker bees in a hygienic task, the cooperation among workers in uncapping single brood cells, and switching between hygienic tasks. We found no evidence that recruiting and task-related stimuli are the primary source of the indirect genetic effects on behavior. We suggested that behavioral responsiveness of L bees was affected by genotypic mixing and found evidence for changes in the brain in terms of 943 differently expressed genes. The functional categories of cell adhesion, cellular component organization, anatomical structure development, protein localization, developmental growth and cell morphogenesis were overrepresented in this set of 943 genes, suggesting that indirect genetic effects can play a role in modulating and modifying the neuronal substrate. Our results suggest that genotypes of social partners affect the behavioral responsiveness and the neuronal substrate of individual workers, indicating a complex genetic architecture underlying the expression of behavior. PMID:22348118

Statement of the American Psychological Association in response to the "joint principles: integrating behavioral health care into the patient-centered medical home".

PubMed

Anderson, Norman B; Belar, Cynthia D; Cubic, Barbara A; Garrison, Ellen G; Johnson, Suzanne Bennett; Kaslow, Nadine J

2014-06-01

Comments on the article "Joint principles: Integrating behavioral health care into the patient-centered medical home" (see record 2014-24217-011), presented by the Working Party Group on Integrated Behavioral Healthcare. The American Psychological Association (APA) shares concerns about the lack of reference to behavioral health care in the original 2007 Joint Principles of the Patient-Centered Medical Home for which this new document is intended to supplement but not replace. The decision to support the supplemental Joint Principles was not an easy one for APA, as there is one area of significant concern. That concern is related to the use of the term "physician-directed medical practice"

The role of increased exposure to transfer-of-stimulus-control procedures on the acquisition of intraverbal behavior.

PubMed

Coon, Jared T; Miguel, Caio F

2012-01-01

Studies that have compared the effectiveness of differing prompt types to teach intraverbal responses have yielded mixed results, suggesting that individuals' reinforcement histories with prompt types may influence which prompt will be most effective. The purpose of this study was to test whether programmed increases in exposure to specific prompt types would produce concomitant increases in the acquisition rate of intraverbal responding. We compared acquisition rates among 4 typically developing preschool-aged children when taught via either echoic or tact prompts following exposure training with 1 prompt type. For all participants, the prompt method most recently used to teach intraverbal responses required fewer trials to teach new intraverbal responses compared to a prompt method that had not been used recently. The results are discussed in terms of the effects of reinforcement history on the acquisition of verbal behavior.

Mental disorder and legal responsibility: the relevance of stages of decision making.

PubMed

Kalis, Annemarie; Meynen, Gerben

2014-01-01

The paper discusses the relevance of decision-making models for evaluating the impact of mental disorder on legal responsibility. A three-stage model is presented that analyzes decision making in terms of behavioral control. We argue that understanding dysfunctions in each of the three stages of decision making could provide important insights in the relation between mental disorder and legal responsibility. In particular, it is argued that generating options for action constitutes an important but largely ignored stage of the decision-making process, and that dysfunctions in this early stage might undermine the whole process of making decisions (and thus behavioral control) more strongly than dysfunctions in later stages. Lastly, we show how the presented framework could be relevant to the actual psychiatric assessment of a defendant's decision making within the context of an insanity defense. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

THE ROLE OF INCREASED EXPOSURE TO TRANSFER-OF-STIMULUS-CONTROL PROCEDURES ON THE ACQUISITION OF INTRAVERBAL BEHAVIOR

PubMed Central

Coon, Jared T.; Miguel, Caio F.

2012-01-01

Studies that have compared the effectiveness of differing prompt types to teach intraverbal responses have yielded mixed results, suggesting that individuals' reinforcement histories with prompt types may influence which prompt will be most effective. The purpose of this study was to test whether programmed increases in exposure to specific prompt types would produce concomitant increases in the acquisition rate of intraverbal responding. We compared acquisition rates among 4 typically developing preschool-aged children when taught via either echoic or tact prompts following exposure training with 1 prompt type. For all participants, the prompt method most recently used to teach intraverbal responses required fewer trials to teach new intraverbal responses compared to a prompt method that had not been used recently. The results are discussed in terms of the effects of reinforcement history on the acquisition of verbal behavior. PMID:23322924

Rheological effects on friction in elastohydrodynamic lubrication

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Trachman, E. G.; Cheng, H. S.

1973-01-01

An analytical and experimental investigation is presented of the friction in a rolling and sliding elastohydrodynamic lubricated contact. The rheological behavior of the lubricant is described in terms of two viscoelastic models. These models represent the separate effects of non-Newtonian behavior and the transient response of the fluid. A unified description of the non-Newtonian shear rate dependence of the viscosity is presented as a new hyperbolic liquid model. The transient response of viscosity, following the rapid pressure rise encountered in the contact, is described by a compressional viscoelastic model of the volume response of a liquid to an applied pressure step. The resulting momentum and energy equations are solved by an iterative numerical technique, and a friction coefficient is calculated. The experimental study was performed, with two synthetic paraffinic lubricants, to verify the friction predictions of the analysis. The values of friction coefficient from theory and experiment are in close agreement.

Corticosteroid therapy in regressive autism: a retrospective study of effects on the Frequency Modulated Auditory Evoked Response (FMAER), language, and behavior

PubMed Central

2014-01-01

Background Up to a third of children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) manifest regressive autism (R-ASD).They show normal early development followed by loss of language and social skills. Absent evidence-based therapies, anecdotal evidence suggests improvement following use of corticosteroids. This study examined the effects of corticosteroids for R-ASD children upon the 4 Hz frequency modulated evoked response (FMAER) arising from language cortex of the superior temporal gyrus (STG) and upon EEG background activity, language, and behavior. An untreated clinical convenience sample of ASD children served as control sample. Methods Twenty steroid-treated R-ASD (STAR) and 24 not-treated ASD patients (NSA), aged 3 - 5 years, were retrospectively identified from a large database. All study participants had two sequential FMAER and EEG studies;Landau-Kleffner syndrome diagnosis was excluded. All subjects’ records contained clinical receptive and expressive language ratings based upon a priori developed metrics. The STAR group additionally was scored behaviorally regarding symptom severity as based on the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual IV (DSM-IV) ASD criteria list. EEGs were visually scored for abnormalities. FMAER responses were assessed quantitatively by spectral analysis. Treated and untreated group means and standard deviations for the FMAER, EEG, language, and behavior, were compared by paired t-test and Fisher’s exact tests. Results The STAR group showed a significant increase in the 4 Hz FMAER spectral response and a significant reduction in response distortion compared to the NSA group. Star group subjects’ language ratings were significantly improved and more STAR than NSA group subjects showed significant language improvement. Most STAR group children showed significant behavioral improvement after treatment. STAR group language and behavior improvement was retained one year after treatment. Groups did not differ in terms of minor EEG abnormalities. Steroid treatment produced no lasting morbidity. Conclusions Steroid treatment was associated with a significantly increased FMAER response magnitude, reduction of FMAER response distortion, and improvement in language and behavior scores. This was not observed in the non-treated group. These pilot findings warrant a prospective randomized validation trial of steroid treatment for R-ASD utilizing FMAER, EEG, and standardized ASD, language and behavior measures, and a longer follow-up period. Please see related article http://www.biomedcentral.com/1741-7015/12/79 PMID:24885033

Stress responses of adolescent male and female rats exposed repeatedly to cat odor stimuli, and long-term enhancement of adult defensive behaviors.

PubMed

Wright, Lisa D; Muir, Katherine E; Perrot, Tara S

2013-07-01

In order to characterize the short- and long-term effects of repeated stressor exposure during adolescence, and to compare the effects of using two sources of cat odor as stressor stimuli, male and female adolescent rats (postnatal day (PND) ∼ 38-46) were exposed on five occasions to either a control stimulus, a cloth stimulus containing cat hair/dander, or a section of cat collar previously worn by a cat. Relative to control stimulus exposure, activity was suppressed and defensive behavior enhanced during exposure to either cat odor stimulus (most pervasively in rats exposed to the collar). Only cloth-exposed rats showed elevated levels of corticosterone (CORT), and only after repeated stressor exposure, but interestingly, rats exposed to the collar stimulus during adolescence continued to show increased behavioral indices of anxiety in adulthood. In this group, the time an individual spent in physical contact with a cagemate during the final adolescent exposure was negatively related to stress-induced CORT output in adulthood, which suggests that greater use of social support during adolescent stress may facilitate adult behavioral coping, without necessitating increased CORT release. These findings demonstrate that adolescent male and female rats respond defensively to cat odor stimuli across repeated exposures and that exposure to such stressors during adolescence can augment adult anxiety-like behavior in similar stressful conditions. These findings also suggest a potential role for social behavior during adolescent stressor exposure in mediating long-term outcomes. Copyright © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Triggering Avoidance: Dissociable Influences of Aversive Pavlovian Conditioned Stimuli on Human Instrumental Behavior.

PubMed

Garofalo, Sara; Robbins, Trevor W

2017-01-01

The present study investigates human aversive Pavlovian-to-Instrumental Transfer (PIT) and possible influences of outcome devaluation and instrumental overtraining on this effect. PIT measures the extent to which a Pavlovian conditioned stimulus (CS) can increase instrumental responses independently paired with the same (outcome-specific transfer) or a different (general transfer) reinforcer. Two measures of PIT were obtained: the percentage of instrumental responses and the vigor of such responses. Thirty-eight volunteers performed a standard PIT task sequence. Results showed a double dissociation between outcome-specific and general transfer: the first selectively expressed in the amount of responses, the second in the vigor measure solely. Furthermore, outcome-specific transfer was enhanced by overtraining, but not affected by devaluation. General transfer, on the other hand, was affected by neither overtraining, nor devaluation. A positive correlation between general transfer and sensitivity to punishments was found. Findings are discussed in terms of hypothetically different underlying neurobehavioral mechanisms and their relations to habits and goal-directed behavior.

Specificity of Mechanisms of Memory Reconsolidation in Snails Trained for Rejection of Two Types of Food.

PubMed

Nikitin, V P; Kozyrev, S A; Solntseva, S V

2017-01-01

Specificity of behavioral and neuronal mechanisms of impairment of long-term memory reconsolidation was studied in edible snails trained for associative skill of rejection of two types of food: raw carrots (conditioned stimulus 1) and apple (conditioned stimulus 2). In 2 days after training, the snails received protein synthesis inhibitor cycloheximide and a reminder (conditioned stimulus 1 or 2). In 3 and 14 days after cycloheximide/reminder, we observed the absence of aversive responses to the conditioned stimulus used as the reminder and preserved responses to the conditioned stimulus not used as the reminder. Moreover, we observed specific suppression of synaptic responses of command neurons of snail defensive behavior induced by the conditioned stimulus used as the reminder after cycloheximide injection and preserved synaptic responses of neurons to the other conditioned stimulus. It was hypothesized that protein synthesis-dependent synapse-specific plasticity of command neurons can be a mechanism of selective preservation of conditioned food aversion memory in snails.

Social Ecology and Group Cohesion in Pilot Whales and Their Responses to Playback of Anthropogenic and Natural Sounds

DTIC Science & Technology

2015-09-30

Minvielle-Sebastia, L. and Guinet, C. (2008). Long-term social structure of long-finned pilot whales (Globicephala melas ) in the Strait of Gibraltar. Acta...Severity of Behavioral Changes Observed During Experimental Exposures of Killer (Orcinus orca), Long-Finned Pilot (Globicephala melas ), and Sperm

Long-Term Aftereffects of Response Inhibition: Memory Retrieval, Task Goals, and Cognitive Control

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Verbruggen, Frederick; Logan, Gordon D.

2008-01-01

Cognitive control theories attribute control to executive processes that adjust and control behavior online. Theories of automaticity attribute control to memory retrieval. In the present study, online adjustments and memory retrieval were examined, and their roles in controlling performance in the stop-signal paradigm were elucidated. There was…

Effect of fiber-matrix adhesion on the creep behavior of CF/PPS composites: temperature and physical aging characterization

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Motta Dias, M. H.; Jansen, K. M. B.; Luinge, J. W.; Bersee, H. E. N.; Benedictus, R.

2016-06-01

The influence of fiber-matrix adhesion on the linear viscoelastic creep behavior of `as received' and `surface modified' carbon fibers (AR-CF and SM-CF, respectively) reinforced polyphenylene sulfide (PPS) composite materials was investigated. Short-term tensile creep tests were performed on ±45° specimens under six different isothermal conditions, 40, 50, 60, 65, 70 and 75 °C. Physical aging effects were evaluated on both systems using the short-term test method established by Struik. The results showed that the shapes of the curves were affected neither by physical aging nor by the test temperature, allowing then superposition to be made. A unified model was proposed with a single physical aging and temperature-dependent shift factor, a_{T,te}. It was suggested that the surface treatment carried out in SM-CF/PPS had two major effects on the creep response of CF/PPS composites at a reference temperature of 40 °C: a lowering of the initial compliance of about 25 % and a slowing down of the creep response of about 1.1 decade.

Vertically, interconnected carbon nanowalls as biocompatible scaffolds for osteoblast cells

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ion, Raluca; Vizireanu, Sorin; Luculescu, Catalin; Cimpean, Anisoara; Dinescu, Gheorghe

2016-07-01

The response of MC3T3-E1 pre-osteoblasts to vertically aligned, interconnected carbon nanowalls prepared by plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition on silicon substrate has been evaluated in terms of cell adhesion, viability and cell proliferation. The behavior of osteoblasts seeded on carbon nanowalls was analyzed in parallel and compared with the behavior of the cells maintained in contact with tissue culture polystyrene (TCPS). The results demonstrate that osteoblasts adhere and remain viable in the long term on carbon nanowalls. Moreover, on the investigated scaffold cell proliferation was significantly promoted, although to a lower extent than on TCPS. Overall, the successful culture of osteoblasts on carbon nanowalls coated substrate confirms the biocompatibility of this scaffold, which could have potential applications in the development of orthopedic biomaterials.

Cognitive-behavioral therapy for obsessive–compulsive disorder: access to treatment, prediction of long-term outcome with neuroimaging

PubMed Central

O’Neill, Joseph; Feusner, Jamie D

2015-01-01

This article reviews issues related to a major challenge to the field for obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD): improving access to cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT). Patient-related barriers to access include the stigma of OCD and reluctance to take on the demands of CBT. Patient-external factors include the shortage of trained CBT therapists and the high costs of CBT. The second half of the review focuses on one partial, yet plausible aid to improve access – prediction of long-term response to CBT, particularly using neuroimaging methods. Recent pilot data are presented revealing a potential for pretreatment resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging and magnetic resonance spectroscopy of the brain to forecast OCD symptom severity up to 1 year after completing CBT. PMID:26229514

Challenges Associated With Managing Suicide Risk in Long-Term Care Facilities.

PubMed

O'Riley, Alisa; Nadorff, Michael R; Conwell, Yeates; Edelstein, Barry

2013-06-01

Little information about suicidal ideation and behavior in long-term care (LTC) facilities is available. Nonetheless, the implementation of the Minimum Data Set 3.0 requires that LTC facilities screen their residents for suicide risk and have protocols in place to effectively manage residents' responses. In this article, the authors briefly discuss the risk factors of suicide in the elderly and the problems that suicidal ideation and behavior pose in the LTC environment. The authors explain issues that arise when trying to manage suicide risk in the elderly LTC population with general, traditional approaches. These inherent issues make it difficult to develop an effective protocol for managing suicide risk in LTC facilities, leading the authors to propose their own framework for assessing and managing suicide risk in the LTC setting.

Twelve-month follow-up of cognitive behavioral therapy for children with functional abdominal pain.

PubMed

Levy, Rona L; Langer, Shelby L; Walker, Lynn S; Romano, Joan M; Christie, Dennis L; Youssef, Nader; DuPen, Melissa M; Ballard, Sheri A; Labus, Jennifer; Welsh, Ericka; Feld, Lauren D; Whitehead, William E

2013-02-01

To determine whether a brief intervention for children with functional abdominal pain and their parents' responses to their child's pain resulted in improved coping 12 months later. Prospective, randomized, longitudinal study. Families were recruited during a 4-year period in Seattle, Washington, and Morristown, New Jersey. Two hundred children with persistent functional abdominal pain and their parents. A 3-session social learning and cognitive behavioral therapy intervention or an education and support intervention. Child symptoms and pain-coping responses were monitored using standard instruments, as was parental response to child pain behavior. Data were collected at baseline and after treatment (1 week and 3, 6, and 12 months after treatment). This article reports the 12-month data. Relative to children in the education and support group, children in the social learning and cognitive behavioral therapy group reported greater baseline to 12-month follow-up decreases in gastrointestinal symptom severity (estimated mean difference, -0.36; 95% CI, -0.63 to -0.01) and greater improvements in pain-coping responses (estimated mean difference, 0.61; 95% CI, 0.26 to 1.02). Relative to parents in the education and support group, parents in the social learning and cognitive behavioral therapy group reported greater baseline to 12-month decreases in solicitous responses to their child's symptoms (estimated mean difference, -0.22; 95% CI, -0.42 to -0.03) and greater decreases in maladaptive beliefs regarding their child's pain (estimated mean difference, -0.36; 95% CI, -0.59 to -0.13). Results suggest long-term efficacy of a brief intervention to reduce parental solicitousness and increase coping skills. This strategy may be a viable alternative for children with functional abdominal pain. clinicaltrials.gov Identifier: NCT00494260.

[The effects of multimedia-assisted instruction on the skin care learning of nurse aides in long-term care facilities].

PubMed

Wu, Yu-Ling; Kao, Yu-Hsiu

2014-08-01

Skin care is an important responsibility of nurse aides in long-term care facilities, and the nursing knowledge, attitudes, and skills of these aides significantly affects quality of care. However, the work schedule of nurse aides often limits their ability to obtain further education and training. Therefore, developing appropriate and effective training programs for nurse aides is critical to maintaining and improving quality of care in long-term care facilities. This study investigates the effects of multimedia assisted instruction on the skin care learning of nurse aides working in long-term care facilities. A quasi-experimental design and convenient sampling were adopted in this study. Participants included 96 nurse aides recruited from 5 long-term care facilities in Taoyuan County, Taiwan. The experimental group received 3 weeks of multimedia assisted instruction. The control group did not receive this instruction. The Skin Care Questionnaire for Nurse Aides in Long-term Care Facilities and the Skin Care Behavior Checklist were used for assessment before and after the intervention. (1) Posttest scores for skin care knowledge, attitudes, behavior, and the skin care checklist were significantly higher than pretest scores for the intervention group. There was no significant difference between pretest and posttest scores for the control group. (2) A covariance analysis of pretest scores for the two groups showed that the experimental group earned significantly higher average scores than their control group peers for skin care knowledge, attitudes, behavior, and the skin care checklist. The multimedia assisted instruction demonstrated significant and positive effects on the skin care leaning of nurse aides in long-term care facilities. This finding supports the use of multimedia assisted instruction in the education and training of nurse aides in long-term care facilities in the future.

Quality of caregiver-child play interactions with toddlers born preterm and full term: Antecedents and language outcome.

PubMed

Loi, Elizabeth C; Vaca, Kelsey E C; Ashland, Melanie D; Marchman, Virginia A; Fernald, Anne; Feldman, Heidi M

2017-12-01

Preterm birth may leave long-term effects on the interactions between caregivers and children. Language skills are sensitive to the quality of caregiver-child interactions. Compare the quality of caregiver-child play interactions in toddlers born preterm (PT) and full term (FT) at age 22months (corrected for degree of prematurity) and evaluate the degree of association between caregiver-child interactions, antecedent demographic and language factors, and subsequent language skill. A longitudinal descriptive cohort study. 39 PT and 39 FT toddlers individually matched on sex and socioeconomic status (SES). The outcome measures were dimensions of caregiver-child interactions, rated from a videotaped play session at age 22months in relation to receptive language assessments at ages 18 and 36months. Caregiver intrusiveness was greater in the PT than FT group. A composite score of child interactional behaviors was associated with a composite score of caregiver interactional behaviors. The caregiver composite measure was associated with later receptive vocabulary at 36months. PT-FT group membership did not moderate the association between caregiver interactional behavior and later receptive vocabulary. The quality of caregiver interactional behavior had similar associations with concurrent child interactional behavior and subsequent language outcome in the PT and FT groups. Greater caregiver sensitivity/responsiveness, verbal elaboration, and less intrusiveness support receptive language development in typically developing toddlers and toddlers at risk for language difficulty. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

A typology of time-scale mismatches and behavioral interventions to diagnose and solve conservation problems

USGS Publications Warehouse

Wilson, Robyn S.; Hardisty, David J.; Epanchin-Niell, Rebecca S.; Runge, Michael C.; Cottingham, Kathryn L.; Urban, Dean L.; Maguire, Lynn A.; Hastings, Alan; Mumby, Peter J.; Peters, Debra P.C.

2016-01-01

Ecological systems often operate on time scales significantly longer or shorter than the time scales typical of human decision making, which causes substantial difficulty for conservation and management in socioecological systems. For example, invasive species may move faster than humans can diagnose problems and initiate solutions, and climate systems may exhibit long-term inertia and short-term fluctuations that obscure learning about the efficacy of management efforts in many ecological systems. We adopted a management-decision framework that distinguishes decision makers within public institutions from individual actors within the social system, calls attention to the ways socioecological systems respond to decision makers’ actions, and notes institutional learning that accrues from observing these responses. We used this framework, along with insights from bedeviling conservation problems, to create a typology that identifies problematic time-scale mismatches occurring between individual decision makers in public institutions and between individual actors in the social or ecological system. We also considered solutions that involve modifying human perception and behavior at the individual level as a means of resolving these problematic mismatches. The potential solutions are derived from the behavioral economics and psychology literature on temporal challenges in decision making, such as the human tendency to discount future outcomes at irrationally high rates. These solutions range from framing environmental decisions to enhance the salience of long-term consequences, to using structured decision processes that make time scales of actions and consequences more explicit, to structural solutions aimed at altering the consequences of short-sighted behavior to make it less appealing. Additional application of these tools and long-term evaluation measures that assess not just behavioral changes but also associated changes in ecological systems are needed.

Nandrolone-induced aggressive behavior is associated with alterations in extracellular glutamate homeostasis in mice.

PubMed

Kalinine, Eduardo; Zimmer, Eduardo Rigon; Zenki, Kamila Cagliari; Kalinine, Iouri; Kazlauckas, Vanessa; Haas, Clarissa Branco; Hansel, Gisele; Zimmer, Aline Rigon; Souza, Diogo Onofre; Müller, Alexandre Pastoris; Portela, Luis Valmor

2014-07-01

Nandrolone decanoate (ND), an anabolic androgenic steroid (AAS), induces an aggressive phenotype by mechanisms involving glutamate-induced N-methyl-d-aspartate receptor (NMDAr) hyperexcitability. The astrocytic glutamate transporters remove excessive glutamate surrounding the synapse. However, the impact of supraphysiological doses of ND on glutamate transporters activity remains elusive. We investigated whether ND-induced aggressive behavior is interconnected with GLT-1 activity, glutamate levels and abnormal NMDAr responses. Two-month-old untreated male mice (CF1, n=20) were tested for baseline aggressive behavior in the resident-intruder test. Another group of mice (n=188) was injected with ND (15mg/kg) or vehicle for 4, 11 and 19days (short-, mid- and long-term endpoints, respectively) and was evaluated in the resident-intruder test. Each endpoint was assessed for GLT-1 expression and glutamate uptake activity in the frontoparietal cortex and hippocampal tissues. Only the long-term ND endpoint significantly decreased the latency to first attack and increased the number of attacks, which was associated with decreased GLT-1 expression and glutamate uptake activity in both brain areas. These alterations may affect extracellular glutamate levels and receptor excitability. Resident males were assessed for hippocampal glutamate levels via microdialysis both prior to, and following, the introduction of intruders. Long-term ND mice displayed significant increases in the microdialysate glutamate levels only after exposure to intruders. A single intraperitoneal dose of the NMDAr antagonists, memantine or MK-801, shortly before the intruder test decreased aggressive behavior. In summary, long-term ND-induced aggressive behavior is associated with decreased extracellular glutamate clearance and NMDAr hyperexcitability, emphasizing the role of this receptor in mediating aggression mechanisms. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Antidepressants Rescue Stress-Induced Disruption of Synaptic Plasticity via Serotonin Transporter-Independent Inhibition of L-Type Calcium Channels.

PubMed

Normann, Claus; Frase, Sibylle; Haug, Verena; von Wolff, Gregor; Clark, Kristin; Münzer, Patrick; Dorner, Alexandra; Scholliers, Jonas; Horn, Max; Vo Van, Tanja; Seifert, Gabriel; Serchov, Tsvetan; Biber, Knut; Nissen, Christoph; Klugbauer, Norbert; Bischofberger, Josef

2017-10-19

Long-term synaptic plasticity is a basic ability of the brain to dynamically adapt to external stimuli and regulate synaptic strength and ultimately network function. It is dysregulated by behavioral stress in animal models of depression and in humans with major depressive disorder. Antidepressants have been shown to restore disrupted synaptic plasticity in both animal models and humans; however, the underlying mechanism is unclear. We examined modulation of synaptic plasticity by selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) in hippocampal brain slices from wild-type rats and serotonin transporter (SERT) knockout mice. Recombinant voltage-gated calcium (Ca 2+ ) channels in heterologous expression systems were used to determine the modulation of Ca 2+ channels by SSRIs. We tested the behavioral effects of SSRIs in the chronic behavioral despair model of depression both in the presence and in the absence of SERT. SSRIs selectively inhibited hippocampal long-term depression. The inhibition of long-term depression by SSRIs was mediated by a direct block of voltage-activated L-type Ca 2+ channels and was independent of SERT. Furthermore, SSRIs protected both wild-type and SERT knockout mice from behavioral despair induced by chronic stress. Finally, long-term depression was facilitated in animals subjected to the behavioral despair model, which was prevented by SSRI treatment. These results showed that antidepressants protected synaptic plasticity and neuronal circuitry from the effects of stress via a modulation of Ca 2+ channels and synaptic plasticity independent of SERT. Thus, L-type Ca 2+ channels might constitute an important signaling hub for stress response and for pathophysiology and treatment of depression. Copyright © 2017 Society of Biological Psychiatry. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

A typology of time-scale mismatches and behavioral interventions to diagnose and solve conservation problems.

PubMed

Wilson, Robyn S; Hardisty, David J; Epanchin-Niell, Rebecca S; Runge, Michael C; Cottingham, Kathryn L; Urban, Dean L; Maguire, Lynn A; Hastings, Alan; Mumby, Peter J; Peters, Debra P C

2016-02-01

Ecological systems often operate on time scales significantly longer or shorter than the time scales typical of human decision making, which causes substantial difficulty for conservation and management in socioecological systems. For example, invasive species may move faster than humans can diagnose problems and initiate solutions, and climate systems may exhibit long-term inertia and short-term fluctuations that obscure learning about the efficacy of management efforts in many ecological systems. We adopted a management-decision framework that distinguishes decision makers within public institutions from individual actors within the social system, calls attention to the ways socioecological systems respond to decision makers' actions, and notes institutional learning that accrues from observing these responses. We used this framework, along with insights from bedeviling conservation problems, to create a typology that identifies problematic time-scale mismatches occurring between individual decision makers in public institutions and between individual actors in the social or ecological system. We also considered solutions that involve modifying human perception and behavior at the individual level as a means of resolving these problematic mismatches. The potential solutions are derived from the behavioral economics and psychology literature on temporal challenges in decision making, such as the human tendency to discount future outcomes at irrationally high rates. These solutions range from framing environmental decisions to enhance the salience of long-term consequences, to using structured decision processes that make time scales of actions and consequences more explicit, to structural solutions aimed at altering the consequences of short-sighted behavior to make it less appealing. Additional application of these tools and long-term evaluation measures that assess not just behavioral changes but also associated changes in ecological systems are needed. © 2015 Society for Conservation Biology.

Food Intake and Eating Behavior After Bariatric Surgery.

PubMed

Al-Najim, Werd; Docherty, Neil G; le Roux, Carel W

2018-07-01

Obesity is an escalating global chronic disease. Bariatric surgery is a very efficacious treatment for obesity and its comorbidities. Alterations to gastrointestinal anatomy during bariatric surgery result in neurological and physiological changes affecting hypothalamic signaling, gut hormones, bile acids, and gut microbiota, which coalesce to exert a profound influence on eating behavior. A thorough understanding of the mechanisms underlying eating behavior is essential in the management of patients after bariatric surgery. Studies investigating candidate mechanisms have expanded dramatically in the last decade. Herein we review the proposed mechanisms governing changes in eating behavior, food intake, and body weight after bariatric surgery. Additive or synergistic effects of both conditioned and unconditioned factors likely account for the complete picture of changes in eating behavior. Considered application of strategies designed to support the underlying principles governing changes in eating behavior holds promise as a means of optimizing responses to surgery and long-term outcomes.

A network approach to discerning the identities of C. elegans in a free moving population

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Winter, Peter B.; Brielmann, Renee M.; Timkovich, Nicholas P.; Navarro, Helio T.; Teixeira-Castro, Andreia; Morimoto, Richard I.; Amaral, Luis A. N.

2016-10-01

The study of C. elegans has led to ground-breaking discoveries in gene-function, neuronal circuits, and physiological responses. Subtle behavioral phenotypes, however, are often difficult to measure reproducibly. We have developed an experimental and computational infrastructure to simultaneously record and analyze the physical characteristics, movement, and social behaviors of dozens of interacting free-moving nematodes. Our algorithm implements a directed acyclic network that reconstructs the complex behavioral trajectories generated by individual C. elegans in a free moving population by chaining hundreds to thousands of short tracks into long contiguous trails. This technique allows for the high-throughput quantification of behavioral characteristics that require long-term observation of individual animals. The graphical interface we developed will enable researchers to uncover, in a reproducible manner, subtle time-dependent behavioral phenotypes that will allow dissection of the molecular mechanisms that give rise to organism-level behavior.

Structural Similitude and Scaling Laws for Plates and Shells: A Review

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Simitses, G. J.; Starnes, J. H., Jr.; Rezaeepazhand, J.

2000-01-01

This paper deals with the development and use of scaled-down models in order to predict the structural behavior of large prototypes. The concept is fully described and examples are presented which demonstrate its applicability to beam-plates, plates and cylindrical shells of laminated construction. The concept is based on the use of field equations, which govern the response behavior of both the small model as well as the large prototype. The conditions under which the experimental data of a small model can be used to predict the behavior of a large prototype are called scaling laws or similarity conditions and the term that best describes the process is structural similitude. Moreover, since the term scaling is used to describe the effect of size on strength characteristics of materials, a discussion is included which should clarify the difference between "scaling law" and "size effect". Finally, a historical review of all published work in the broad area of structural similitude is presented for completeness.

Analysis of multidimensional difference-of-Gaussians filters in terms of directly observable parameters.

PubMed

Cope, Davis; Blakeslee, Barbara; McCourt, Mark E

2013-05-01

The difference-of-Gaussians (DOG) filter is a widely used model for the receptive field of neurons in the retina and lateral geniculate nucleus (LGN) and is a potential model in general for responses modulated by an excitatory center with an inhibitory surrounding region. A DOG filter is defined by three standard parameters: the center and surround sigmas (which define the variance of the radially symmetric Gaussians) and the balance (which defines the linear combination of the two Gaussians). These parameters are not directly observable and are typically determined by nonlinear parameter estimation methods applied to the frequency response function. DOG filters show both low-pass (optimal response at zero frequency) and bandpass (optimal response at a nonzero frequency) behavior. This paper reformulates the DOG filter in terms of a directly observable parameter, the zero-crossing radius, and two new (but not directly observable) parameters. In the two-dimensional parameter space, the exact region corresponding to bandpass behavior is determined. A detailed description of the frequency response characteristics of the DOG filter is obtained. It is also found that the directly observable optimal frequency and optimal gain (the ratio of the response at optimal frequency to the response at zero frequency) provide an alternate coordinate system for the bandpass region. Altogether, the DOG filter and its three standard implicit parameters can be determined by three directly observable values. The two-dimensional bandpass region is a potential tool for the analysis of populations of DOG filters (for example, populations of neurons in the retina or LGN), because the clustering of points in this parameter space may indicate an underlying organizational principle. This paper concentrates on circular Gaussians, but the results generalize to multidimensional radially symmetric Gaussians and are given as an appendix.

Long-Term Effects of Prenatal Exposure to Undernutrition on Cannabinoid Receptor-Related Behaviors: Sex and Tissue-Specific Alterations in the mRNA Expression of Cannabinoid Receptors and Lipid Metabolic Regulators.

PubMed

Ramírez-López, María T; Arco, Rocío; Decara, Juan; Vázquez, Mariam; Rivera, Patricia; Blanco, Rosario Noemi; Alén, Francisco; Gómez de Heras, Raquel; Suárez, Juan; Rodríguez de Fonseca, Fernando

2016-01-01

Maternal malnutrition causes long-lasting alterations in feeding behavior and energy homeostasis in offspring. It is still unknown whether both, the endocannabinoid (eCB) machinery and the lipid metabolism are implicated in long-term adaptive responses to fetal reprogramming caused by maternal undernutrition. We investigated the long-term effects of maternal exposure to a 20% standard diet restriction during preconceptional and gestational periods on the metabolically-relevant tissues hypothalamus, liver, and perirenal fat (PAT) of male and female offspring at adulthood. The adult male offspring from calorie-restricted dams (RC males) exhibited a differential response to the CB1 antagonist AM251 in a chocolate preference test as well as increased body weight, perirenal adiposity, and plasma levels of triglycerides, LDL, VLDL, bilirubin, and leptin. The gene expression of the cannabinoid receptors Cnr1 and Cnr2 was increased in RC male hypothalamus, but a down-expression of most eCBs-metabolizing enzymes ( Faah, Dagl α , Dagl β , Mgll ) and several key regulators of fatty-acid β-oxidation ( Cpt1b, Acox1 ), mitochondrial respiration ( Cox4i1 ), and lipid flux ( Ppar γ) was found in their PAT. The female offspring from calorie-restricted dams exhibited higher plasma levels of LDL and glucose as well as a reduction in chocolate and caloric intake at post-weaning periods in the feeding tests. Their liver showed a decreased gene expression of Cnr1, Ppar α, Ppar γ, the eCBs-degrading enzymes Faah and Mgll , the de novo lipogenic enzymes Acaca and Fasn , and the liver-specific cholesterol biosynthesis regulators Insig1 and Hmgcr . Our results suggest that the long-lasting adaptive responses to maternal caloric restriction affected cannabinoid-regulated mechanisms involved in feeding behavior, adipose β-oxidation, and hepatic lipid and cholesterol biosynthesis in a sex-dependent manner.

Long-Term Effects of Prenatal Exposure to Undernutrition on Cannabinoid Receptor-Related Behaviors: Sex and Tissue-Specific Alterations in the mRNA Expression of Cannabinoid Receptors and Lipid Metabolic Regulators

PubMed Central

Ramírez-López, María T.; Arco, Rocío; Decara, Juan; Vázquez, Mariam; Rivera, Patricia; Blanco, Rosario Noemi; Alén, Francisco; Gómez de Heras, Raquel; Suárez, Juan; Rodríguez de Fonseca, Fernando

2016-01-01

Maternal malnutrition causes long-lasting alterations in feeding behavior and energy homeostasis in offspring. It is still unknown whether both, the endocannabinoid (eCB) machinery and the lipid metabolism are implicated in long-term adaptive responses to fetal reprogramming caused by maternal undernutrition. We investigated the long-term effects of maternal exposure to a 20% standard diet restriction during preconceptional and gestational periods on the metabolically-relevant tissues hypothalamus, liver, and perirenal fat (PAT) of male and female offspring at adulthood. The adult male offspring from calorie-restricted dams (RC males) exhibited a differential response to the CB1 antagonist AM251 in a chocolate preference test as well as increased body weight, perirenal adiposity, and plasma levels of triglycerides, LDL, VLDL, bilirubin, and leptin. The gene expression of the cannabinoid receptors Cnr1 and Cnr2 was increased in RC male hypothalamus, but a down-expression of most eCBs-metabolizing enzymes (Faah, Daglα, Daglβ, Mgll) and several key regulators of fatty-acid β-oxidation (Cpt1b, Acox1), mitochondrial respiration (Cox4i1), and lipid flux (Pparγ) was found in their PAT. The female offspring from calorie-restricted dams exhibited higher plasma levels of LDL and glucose as well as a reduction in chocolate and caloric intake at post-weaning periods in the feeding tests. Their liver showed a decreased gene expression of Cnr1, Pparα, Pparγ, the eCBs-degrading enzymes Faah and Mgll, the de novo lipogenic enzymes Acaca and Fasn, and the liver-specific cholesterol biosynthesis regulators Insig1 and Hmgcr. Our results suggest that the long-lasting adaptive responses to maternal caloric restriction affected cannabinoid-regulated mechanisms involved in feeding behavior, adipose β-oxidation, and hepatic lipid and cholesterol biosynthesis in a sex-dependent manner. PMID:28082878

Children's influence in the marital relationship.

PubMed

Schermerhorn, Alice C; Cummings, E Mark; DeCarlo, Catherine A; Davies, Patrick T

2007-06-01

In a 3-wave longitudinal study, the authors tested hypotheses regarding children's influence on the marital relationship, examining relations between interparental discord and children's negative emotional reactivity, agentic behavior, dysregulated behavior, and psychosocial adjustment. Participants were 232 cohabiting mothers and fathers who completed questionnaires and a marital conflict resolution task. Consistent with theory, interparental discord related to children's negative emotional reactivity, which in turn related to children's agentic and dysregulated behavior. Agentic behavior related to decreases in interparental discord, whereas dysregulated behavior related to increases in discord and elevations in children's adjustment problems. Person-oriented analyses of agentic and dysregulated responses indicated distinct clusters of children linked with meaningful individual differences in marital and psychosocial functioning. Results are discussed in terms of possible mechanisms of child effects, such as increased parental awareness of children's distress potentially leading to reduced marital conflict.

A day of great illumination: B. F. Skinner's discovery of shaping.

PubMed Central

Peterson, Gail B

2004-01-01

Despite the seminal studies of response differentiation by the method of successive approximation detailed in chapter 8 of The Behavior of Organisms (1938), B. F. Skinner never actually shaped an operant response by hand until a memorable incident of startling serendipity on the top floor of a flour mill in Minneapolis in 1943. That occasion appears to have been a genuine eureka experience for Skinner, causing him to appreciate as never before the significance of reinforcement mediated by biological connections with the animate social environment, as opposed to purely mechanical connections with the inanimate physical environment. This insight stimulated him to coin a new term (shaping), and also led directly to a shift in his perspective on verbal behavior from an emphasis on antecedents and molecular topographical details to an emphasis on consequences and more molar, functional properties in which the social dyad inherent to the shaping process became the definitive property of verbal behavior. Moreover, the insight seems to have emboldened Skinner to explore the greater implications of his behaviorism for human behavior writ large, an enterprise that characterized the bulk of his post-World War II scholarship. PMID:15693526

Memantine reduces stealing behavior and impulsivity in kleptomania: a pilot study.

PubMed

Grant, Jon E; Odlaug, Brian L; Schreiber, Liana R N; Chamberlain, Samuel R; Won Kim, Suck

2013-03-01

Kleptomania is characterized by repetitive stealing behavior and has been associated with deleterious unwanted outcomes including forensic contact and increased rates of suicidal behavior. Very few trials have been conducted to investigate pharmacological treatment options for this neglected condition. Memantine is an NMDA-receptor antagonist that has shown promising results in the treatment of other behavioral addictions and substance addictions. Twelve individuals with kleptomania received memantine (10 mg/day, titrated to 30 mg/day maximum depending on clinical response and tolerability) over the course of 8 weeks, in an open-label trial. The effects of treatment were quantified using well-validated measures and select neurocognitive tests (last observation carried forward analyses). Kleptomania disease severity scores decreased across all measures considered, and 11 (91.7%) of the participants met the responder criteria (35% improvement on the primary effectiveness measure plus CGI improved/very much improved; significant improvements were also observed in terms of mood, anxiety, and disability scores along with a significant improvement in stop-signal response inhibition. Memantine was generally well tolerated. This study shows the effectiveness of memantine in reducing urges to shoplift and shoplifting behavior along with improving impulsivity, mood, anxiety, and psychosocial functioning.

Who deserves health care? The effects of causal attributions and group cues on public attitudes about responsibility for health care costs.

PubMed

Gollust, Sarah E; Lynch, Julia

2011-12-01

This research investigates the impact of cues about ascriptive group characteristics (race, class, gender) and the causes of ill health (health behaviors, inborn biological traits, social systemic factors) on beliefs about who deserves society's help in paying for the costs of medical treatment. Drawing on data from three original vignette experiments embedded in a nationally representative survey of American adults, we find that respondents are reluctant to blame or deny societal support in response to explicit cues about racial attributes--but equally explicit cues about the causal impact of individual behaviors on health have large effects on expressed attitudes. Across all three experiments, a focus on individual behavioral causes of illness is associated with increased support for individual responsibility for health care costs and lower support for government-financed health insurance. Beliefs about social groups and causal attributions are, however, tightly intertwined. We find that when groups suffering ill health are defined in racial, class, or gender terms, Americans differ in their attribution of health disparities to individual behaviors versus biological or systemic factors. Because causal attributions also affect health policy opinions, varying patterns of causal attribution may reinforce group stereotypes and undermine support for universal access to health care.

Thermo-electric transport in gauge/gravity models with momentum dissipation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Amoretti, Andrea; Braggio, Alessandro; Maggiore, Nicola; Magnoli, Nicodemo; Musso, Daniele

2014-09-01

We present a systematic definition and analysis of the thermo-electric linear response in gauge/gravity systems focusing especially on models with massive gravity in the bulk and therefore momentum dissipation in the dual field theory. A precise treatment of finite counter-terms proves to be essential to yield a consistent physical picture whose hydrodynamic and beyond-hydrodynamics behaviors noticeably match with field theoretical expectations. The model furnishes a possible gauge/gravity description of the crossover from the quantum-critical to the disorder-dominated Fermi-liquid behaviors, as expected in graphene.

[Methylphenidate and short-term memory in young females with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. A study using functional magnetic resonance imaging].

PubMed

Gonzalez-Garrido, A A; Barrios, F A; de la Serna-Tuya, J M; Cocula-León, H; Gómez-Velázquez, F R

Attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a common behavioral disorder found mainly in males, thus current knowledge on its clinical expression in female adults is extremely limited. AIM. To evaluate the behavioral and neural substrates associated with the performance of a short-term memory task in female ADHD adults, with and without methylphenidate exposure, with respect to a control group. Two groups of eight young right-handed, female, university students with ADHD and healthy controls matched by age, gender, handedness and academic level, voluntarily participated. All subjects performed twice an easy auditory short-term memory task (ADHD group without, and 90 minutes post-intake of methylphenidate 0.4 mg/kg in a counterbalanced order). The BOLD-fMRI response was used as a measure of neural activity during task performance. ADHD subjects showed a tendency to improve their performances under medication, showing an increased widespread functional activation, especially relevant over left frontal and cerebellar areas, in comparison with control subjects. Methylphenidate slightly improves short-term memory task performance in adult female ADHD subjects by modifying underlying neural functioning patterns.

Simultaneous assessment of autonomic function and anxiety-related behavior in BALB/c and C57BL/6 mice.

PubMed

Depino, Amaicha Mara; Gross, Cornelius

2007-02-27

In humans, anxiety is accompanied by changes in autonomic nervous system function, including increased heart rate, body temperature, and blood pressure, and decreased heart rate variability. In rodents, anxiety is inferred by examining anxiety-related behavioral responses such as avoidance and freezing, and more infrequently by assessing autonomic responses to anxiogenic stimuli. However, few studies have simultaneously measured behavioral and autonomic responses to aversive stimuli in rodents and it remains unclear whether autonomic measures are reliable correlates of anxiety-related behavior in these animal models. Here we recorded for the first time heart rate and body temperature in freely moving BALB/c and C57BL/6 mice during exposure to an unfamiliar environment. Our data show that upon exposure to a novel open field, BALB/c mice showed increased anxiety-related behavior, reduced heart rate and higher heart rate variability (HRV) when compared with C57BL/6 mice. Regression analysis revealed a significant correlation between both heart rate and long-term HRV measures and locomotor activity and time spent in the center of the open field, but no correlation between body temperature and any behavioral variables. In the free exploration test, in which animals were allowed direct access to a novel environment from a familiar environment without experimenter handling, significant correlations were found only between heart rate and total locomotor activity, but not time spent in the unfamiliar chamber despite increased anxiety-related behavior in BALB/c mice. These findings demonstrate that increased anxiety-related behavior in BALB/c mice is not associated with specific changes in heart rate, HRV, or body temperature.

STIMULATION OF NICOTINE REWARD AND CENTRAL CHOLINERGIC ACTIVITY IN SPRAGUE-DAWLEY RATS EXPOSED PERINATALLY TO A FAT-RICH DIET

PubMed Central

Morganstern, Irene; Lukatskaya, Olga; Moon, Sang-Ho; Guo, Wei-Ran; Shaji, Jane; Karatayev, Olga; Leibowitz, Sarah F.

2014-01-01

Rationale While clinical studies show maternal consumption of palatable fat-rich diets during pregnancy to negatively impact the children’s behaviors and increase their vulnerability to drug abuse, the precise behavioral and neurochemical mechanisms mediating these phenomena have yet to be examined. Objective The study examined in rats whether gestational exposure to a high-fat diet (HFD) can increase the offspring’s propensity to use nicotine and whether disturbances in central nicotinic cholinergic signaling accompany this behavioral effect. Methods Rat offspring exposed perinatally to a HFD or Chow diet were characterized in terms of their nicotine self-administration behavior in a series of operant response experiments and the activity of acetylcholinesterase (AChE) and density of nicotinic ACh receptors (nAChRs) in different brain areas. Result Perinatal HFD compared to Chow exposure increased nicotine-self administration behavior during fixed-ratio and dose-response testing and caused an increase in breakpoint using progressive ratio testing, while nicotine-seeking in response to nicotine prime-induced reinstatement was reduced. This behavioral change induced by the HFD was associated with a significant reduction in activity of AChE in the midbrain, hypothalamus and striatum and increased density of β2-nAChRs in the ventral tegmental area and substantia nigra and of α7-nAChRs in the lateral and ventromedial hypothalamus. Conclusions Perinatal exposure to a HFD increases the vulnerability of the offspring to excessive nicotine use by enhancing its reward potential, and these behavioral changes are accompanied by a stimulation of nicotinic cholinergic signaling in mesostriatal and hypothalamic brain areas important for reinforcement and consummatory behavior. PMID:23836027

A model of excitation and adaptation in bacterial chemotaxis.

PubMed Central

Hauri, D C; Ross, J

1995-01-01

We present a model of the chemotactic mechanism of Escherichia coli that exhibits both initial excitation and eventual complete adaptation to any and all levels of stimulus ("exact" adaptation). In setting up the reaction network, we use only known interactions and experimentally determined cytosolic concentrations. Whenever possible, rate coefficients are first assigned experimentally measured values; second, we permit some variation in these rate coefficients by using a multiple-well optimization technique and incremental adjustment to obtain values that are sufficient to engender initial response to stimuli (excitation) and an eventual return of behavior to baseline (adaptation). The predictions of the model are similar to the observed behavior of wild-type bacteria in regard to the time scale of excitation in the presence of both attractant and repellent. The model predicts a weaker response to attractant than that observed experimentally, and the time scale of adaptation does not depend as strongly upon stimulant concentration as does that for wild-type bacteria. The mechanism responsible for long-term adaptation is local rather than global: on addition of a repellent or attractant, the receptor types not sensitive to that attractant or repellent do not change their average methylation level in the long term, although transient changes do occur. By carrying out a phenomenological simulation of bacterial chemotaxis, we find that the model is insufficiently sensitive to effect taxis in a gradient of attractant. However, by arbitrarily increasing the sensitivity of the motor to the tumble effector (phosphorylated CheY), we can obtain chemotactic behavior. Images FIGURE 6 FIGURE 7 PMID:7696522

Connexin31.1 deficiency in the mouse impairs object memory and modulates open-field exploration, acetylcholine esterase levels in the striatum, and cAMP response element-binding protein levels in the striatum and piriform cortex.

PubMed

Dere, E; Zheng-Fischhöfer, Q; Viggiano, D; Gironi Carnevale, U A; Ruocco, L A; Zlomuzica, A; Schnichels, M; Willecke, K; Huston, J P; Sadile, A G

2008-05-02

Neuronal gap junctions in the brain, providing intercellular electrotonic signal transfer, have been implicated in physiological and behavioral correlates of learning and memory. In connexin31.1 (Cx31.1) knockout (KO) mice the coding region of the Cx31.1 gene was replaced by a LacZ reporter gene. We investigated the impact of Cx31.1 deficiency on open-field exploration, the behavioral response to an odor, non-selective attention, learning and memory performance, and the levels of memory-related proteins in the hippocampus, striatum and the piriform cortex. In terms of behavior, the deletion of the Cx31.1 coding DNA in the mouse led to increased exploratory behaviors in a novel environment, and impaired one-trial object recognition at all delays tested. Despite strong Cx31.1 expression in the peripheral and central olfactory system, Cx31.1 KO mice exhibited normal behavioral responses to an odor. We found increased levels of acetylcholine esterase (AChE) and cAMP response element-binding protein (CREB) in the striatum of Cx31.1 KO mice. In the piriform cortex the Cx31.1 KO mice had an increased heterogeneity of CREB expression among neurons. In conclusion, gap-junctions featuring the Cx31.1 protein might be involved in open-field exploration as well as object memory and modulate levels of AChE and CREB in the striatum and piriform cortex.

Movement ecology: size-specific behavioral response of an invasive snail to food availability.

PubMed

Snider, Sunny B; Gilliam, James F

2008-07-01

Immigration, emigration, migration, and redistribution describe processes that involve movement of individuals. These movements are an essential part of contemporary ecological models, and understanding how movement is affected by biotic and abiotic factors is important for effectively modeling ecological processes that depend on movement. We asked how phenotypic heterogeneity (body size) and environmental heterogeneity (food resource level) affect the movement behavior of an aquatic snail (Tarebia granifera), and whether including these phenotypic and environmental effects improves advection-diffusion models of movement. We postulated various elaborations of the basic advection diffusion model as a priori working hypotheses. To test our hypotheses we measured individual snail movements in experimental streams at high- and low-food resource treatments. Using these experimental movement data, we examined the dependency of model selection on resource level and body size using Akaike's Information Criterion (AIC). At low resources, large individuals moved faster than small individuals, producing a platykurtic movement distribution; including size dependency in the model improved model performance. In stark contrast, at high resources, individuals moved upstream together as a wave, and body size differences largely disappeared. The model selection exercise indicated that population heterogeneity is best described by the advection component of movement for this species, because the top-ranked model included size dependency in advection, but not diffusion. Also, all probable models included resource dependency. Thus population and environmental heterogeneities both influence individual movement behaviors and the population-level distribution kernels, and their interaction may drive variation in movement behaviors in terms of both advection rates and diffusion rates. A behaviorally informed modeling framework will integrate the sentient response of individuals in terms of movement and enhance our ability to accurately model ecological processes that depend on animal movement.

Neural mechanisms of reproduction in females as a predisposing factor for drug addiction.

PubMed

Hedges, Valerie L; Staffend, Nancy A; Meisel, Robert L

2010-04-01

There is an increasing awareness that adolescent females differ from males in their response to drugs of abuse and consequently in their vulnerability to addiction. One possible component of this vulnerability to drug addiction is the neurobiological impact that reproductive physiology and behaviors have on the mesolimbic dopamine system, a key neural pathway mediating drug addiction. In this review, we examine animal models that address the impact of ovarian cyclicity, sexual affiliation, sexual behavior, and maternal care on the long-term plasticity of the mesolimbic dopamine system. The thesis is that this plasticity in synaptic neurotransmission stemming from an individual's normal life history contributes to the pathological impact of drugs of abuse on the neurobiology of this system. Hormones released during reproductive cycles have only transient effects on these dopamine systems, whereas reproductive behaviors produce a persistent sensitization of dopamine release and post-synaptic neuronal responsiveness. Puberty itself may not represent a neurobiological risk factor for drug abuse, but attendant behavioral experiences may have a negative impact on females engaging in drug use.

Neural Mechanisms of Reproduction in Females as a Predisposing Factor for Drug Addiction

PubMed Central

Hedges, Valerie L.; Staffend, Nancy A.; Meisel, Robert L.

2010-01-01

There is an increasing awareness that adolescent females differ from males in their response to drugs of abuse and consequently in their vulnerability to addiction. One possible component of this vulnerability to drug addiction is the neurobiological impact that reproductive physiology and behaviors have on the mesolimbic dopamine system, a key neural pathway mediating drug addiction. In this review, we examine animal models that address the impact of ovarian cyclicity, sexual affiliation, sexual behavior, and maternal care on the long-term plasticity of the mesolimbic dopamine system. The thesis is that this plasticity in synaptic neurotransmission stemming from an individual’s normal life history contributes to the pathological impact of drugs of abuse on the neurobiology of this system. Hormones released during reproductive cycles have only transient effects on these dopamine systems, whereas reproductive behaviors produce a persistent sensitization of dopamine release and postsynaptic neuronal responsiveness. Puberty itself may not represent a neurobiological risk factor for drug abuse, but attendant behavioral experiences may have a negative impact on females engaging in drug use. PMID:20176045

Cyclic Fiber Push-In Test Monitors Evolution of Interfacial Behavior in Ceramic Matrix Composites

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Eldridge, Jeffrey I.

1998-01-01

SiC fiber-reinforced ceramic matrix composites are being developed for high-temperature advanced jet engine applications. Obtaining a strong, tough composite material depends critically on optimizing the mechanical coupling between the reinforcing fibers and the surrounding matrix material. This has usually been accomplished by applying a thin C or BN coating onto the surface of the reinforcing fibers. The performance of these fiber coatings, however, may degrade under cyclic loading conditions or exposure to different environments. Degradation of the coating-controlled interfacial behavior will strongly affect the useful service lifetime of the composite material. Cyclic fiber push-in testing was applied to monitor the evolution of fiber sliding behavior in both C- and BN-coated small-diameter (15-mm) SiC-fiber-reinforced ceramic matrix composites. The cyclic fiber push-in tests were performed using a desktop fiber push-out apparatus. At the beginning of each test, the fiber to be tested was aligned underneath a 10- mm-diameter diamond punch; then, the applied load was cycled between selected maximum and minimum loads. From the measured response, the fiber sliding distance and frictional sliding stresses were determined for each cycle. Tests were performed in both room air and nitrogen. Cyclic fiber push-in tests of C-coated, SiC-fiber-reinforced SiC showed progressive increases in fiber sliding distances along with decreases in frictional sliding stresses for continued cycling in room air. This rapid degradation in interfacial response was not observed for cycling in nitrogen, indicating that moisture exposure had a large effect in immediately lowering the frictional sliding stresses of C-coated fibers. These results indicate that matrix cracks bridged by C-coated fibers will not be stable, but will rapidly grow in moisture-containing environments. In contrast, cyclic fiber push-in tests of both BN-coated, SiC-fiber-reinforced SiC and BNcoated, SiC-fiber-reinforced barium strontium aluminosilicate showed no significant changes in fiber sliding behavior with continued short-term cycling in either room air or nitrogen. Although the composites with BN-coated fibers showed stable short-term cycling behavior in both environments, long-term (several-week) exposure of debonded fibers to room air resulted in dramatically increased fiber sliding distances and decreased frictional sliding stresses. These results indicate that although matrix cracks bridged by BNcoated fibers will show short-term stability, such cracks will show substantial growth with long-term exposure to moisture-containing environments. Newly formulated BN coatings, with higher moisture resistance, will be tested in the near future.

Quantum critical charge response from higher derivatives in holography

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Witczak-Krempa, William

2014-04-01

We extend the range of possibilities for the charge response in the quantum critical regime in 2 + 1D using holography, and compare them with field theory and recent quantum Monte Carlo results. We show that a family of (infinitely many) higher derivative terms in the gravitational bulk leads to behavior far richer than what was previously obtained. For example, we prove that the conductivity becomes unbounded, undermining previously obtained constraints. We further find a nontrivial and infinite set of theories that have a self-dual conductivity. Particle-vortex or S duality plays a key role; notably, it maps theories with a finite number of bulk terms to ones with an infinite number. Many properties, such as sum rules and stability conditions, are proven.

College students' perceptions of individuals with anorexia nervosa: irritation and admiration.

PubMed

Geerling, Danielle M; Saunders, Stephen M

2015-04-01

Stigmatizing attitudes against anorexia nervosa (AN) may act as barriers to treatment. Evaluated college students' perceptions of AN as compared to major depressive disorder (MDD). One-hundred two female undergraduates read vignettes describing targets with mild or severe MDD or AN, then rated biological, vanity, and self-responsibility attributions; feelings of admiration, sympathy, and anger; and behavioral dispositions toward coercion into treatment, imitation, and social distance. AN was perceived more negatively than MDD in terms of vanity attributions, self-responsibility attributions, and feelings of anger, but more positively in terms of admiration and imitation. This research demonstrates stigma-related mixed messages received by individuals with AN, which might be useful in improving eating disorders mental health literacy.

Contingency Learning and Reactivity in Preterm and Full-Term Infants at 3 Months

PubMed Central

Haley, David W.; Grunau, Ruth E.; Oberlander, Tim F.; Weinberg, Joanne

2010-01-01

Learning difficulties in preterm infants are thought to reflect impairment in arousal regulation. We examined relationships among gestational age, learning speed, and behavioral and physiological reactivity in 55 preterm and 49 full-term infants during baseline, contingency, and nonreinforcement phases of a conjugate mobile paradigm at 3 months corrected age. For all infants, negative affect, looking duration, and heart rate levels increased during contingency and nonreinforcement phases, whereas respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA, an index of parasympathetic activity) decreased and cortisol did not change. Learners showed greater RSA suppression and less negative affect than nonlearners. This pattern was particularly evident in the preterm group. Overall, preterm infants showed less learning, spent less time looking at the mobile, and had lower cortisol levels than full-term infants. Preterm infants also showed greater heart rate responses to contingency and dampened heart rate responses to nonreinforcement compared to full-term infants. Findings underscore differences in basal and reactivity measures in preterm compared to full-term infants and suggest that the capacity to regulate parasympathetic activity during a challenge enhances learning in preterm infants. PMID:20717491

Minimizing the cost of translocation failure with decision-tree models that predict species' behavioral response in translocation sites.

PubMed

Ebrahimi, Mehregan; Ebrahimie, Esmaeil; Bull, C Michael

2015-08-01

The high number of failures is one reason why translocation is often not recommended. Considering how behavior changes during translocations may improve translocation success. To derive decision-tree models for species' translocation, we used data on the short-term responses of an endangered Australian skink in 5 simulated translocations with different release conditions. We used 4 different decision-tree algorithms (decision tree, decision-tree parallel, decision stump, and random forest) with 4 different criteria (gain ratio, information gain, gini index, and accuracy) to investigate how environmental and behavioral parameters may affect the success of a translocation. We assumed behavioral changes that increased dispersal away from a release site would reduce translocation success. The trees became more complex when we included all behavioral parameters as attributes, but these trees yielded more detailed information about why and how dispersal occurred. According to these complex trees, there were positive associations between some behavioral parameters, such as fight and dispersal, that showed there was a higher chance, for example, of dispersal among lizards that fought than among those that did not fight. Decision trees based on parameters related to release conditions were easier to understand and could be used by managers to make translocation decisions under different circumstances. © 2015 Society for Conservation Biology.

Passion and Pacing in Endurance Performance

PubMed Central

Schiphof-Godart, Lieke; Hettinga, Florentina J.

2017-01-01

Endurance sports are booming, with sports passionates of varying skills and expertise battering city streets and back roads on their weekly or daily exercise rounds. The investments required for performing in endurance exercise are nevertheless considerable, and passion for their sport might explain the efforts endurance athletes are willing to make. Passion may be defined as a strong motivational force and as such might be related to the neurophysiological basis underlying the drive to exercise. A complex relationship between the brain and other systems is responsible for athletes' exercise behavior and thus performance in sports. We anticipate important consequences of athletes' short term choices, for example concerning risk taking actions, on long term outcomes, such as injuries, overtraining and burnout. We propose to consider athletes' type of passion, in combination with neurophysiological parameters, as an explanatory factor inunderstanding the apparent disparity in the regulation of exercise intensity during endurance sports. Previous research has demonstrated that athletes can be passionate toward their sport in either a harmonious or an obsessive way. Although both lead to considerable investments and therefore often to successful performances, obsessive passion may affect athlete well-being and performance on the long run, due to the corresponding inflexible exercise behavior. In this perspective we will thus examine the influence of passion in sport on athletes' short term and long term decision-making and exercise behavior, in particular related to the regulation of exercise intensity, and discuss the expected long term effects of both types of passion for sport. PMID:28265245

Passion and Pacing in Endurance Performance.

PubMed

Schiphof-Godart, Lieke; Hettinga, Florentina J

2017-01-01

Endurance sports are booming, with sports passionates of varying skills and expertise battering city streets and back roads on their weekly or daily exercise rounds. The investments required for performing in endurance exercise are nevertheless considerable, and passion for their sport might explain the efforts endurance athletes are willing to make. Passion may be defined as a strong motivational force and as such might be related to the neurophysiological basis underlying the drive to exercise. A complex relationship between the brain and other systems is responsible for athletes' exercise behavior and thus performance in sports. We anticipate important consequences of athletes' short term choices, for example concerning risk taking actions, on long term outcomes, such as injuries, overtraining and burnout. We propose to consider athletes' type of passion, in combination with neurophysiological parameters, as an explanatory factor inunderstanding the apparent disparity in the regulation of exercise intensity during endurance sports. Previous research has demonstrated that athletes can be passionate toward their sport in either a harmonious or an obsessive way. Although both lead to considerable investments and therefore often to successful performances, obsessive passion may affect athlete well-being and performance on the long run, due to the corresponding inflexible exercise behavior. In this perspective we will thus examine the influence of passion in sport on athletes' short term and long term decision-making and exercise behavior, in particular related to the regulation of exercise intensity, and discuss the expected long term effects of both types of passion for sport.

Reversible and Irreversible Time-Dependent Behavior of GRCop-84

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Lerch, Bradley A.; Arnold, Steven M.; Ellis, David L.

2017-01-01

A series of mechanical tests were conducted on a high-conductivity copper alloy, GRCop-84, in order to understand the time dependent response of this material. Tensile, creep, and stress relaxation tests were performed over a wide range of temperatures, strain rates, and stress levels to excite various amounts of time-dependent behavior. At low applied stresses the deformation behavior was found to be fully reversible. Above a certain stress, termed the viscoelastic threshold, irreversible deformation was observed. At these higher stresses the deformation was observed to be viscoplastic. Both reversible and irreversible regions contained time dependent deformation. These experimental data are documented to enable characterization of constitutive models to aid in design of high temperature components.

Computer simulation analysis of the behavior of renal-regulating hormones during hypogravic stress

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Leonard, J. I.

1982-01-01

A computer simulation of a mathematical circulation model is used to study the alterations of body fluids and their electrolyte composition that occur in weightlessness. The behavior of the renal-regulating hormones which control these alterations is compared in simulations of several one-g analogs of weightlessness and space flight. It is shown that the renal-regulating hormones represent a tightly coupled system that responds acutely to volume disturbances and chronically to electrolyte disturbances. During hypogravic conditions these responses lead to an initial suppression of hormone levels and a long-term effect which varies depending on metabolic factors that can alter the plasma electrolytes. In addition, it is found that if pressure effects normalize rapidly, a transition phase may exist which leads to a dynamic multiphasic endocrine response.

Role of Partner Novelty in Sexual Functioning: A Review.

PubMed

Morton, Heather; Gorzalka, Boris B

2015-01-01

This review investigates whether sexual desire and arousal decline in response to partner familiarity, increase in response to partner novelty, and show differential responding in men and women. These questions were considered through the perspective of two leading evolutionary theories regarding human mating strategies: sexual strategies theory and attachment fertility theory. The hypotheses emerging from these theories were evaluated through a critical analysis of several areas of research including habituation of arousal to erotic stimuli, preferences regarding number of sexual partners, the effect of long-term monogamous relationships on sexual arousal and desire, and prevalence and risk factors associated with extradyadic behavior. The current literature best supports the predictions made by sexual strategies theory in that sexual functioning has evolved to promote short-term mating. Sexual arousal and desire appear to decrease in response to partner familiarity and increase in response to partner novelty in men and women. Evidence to date suggests this effect may be greater in men.

A model of microsaccade-related neural responses induced by short-term depression in thalamocortical synapses

PubMed Central

Yuan, Wu-Jie; Dimigen, Olaf; Sommer, Werner; Zhou, Changsong

2013-01-01

Microsaccades during fixation have been suggested to counteract visual fading. Recent experiments have also observed microsaccade-related neural responses from cellular record, scalp electroencephalogram (EEG), and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). The underlying mechanism, however, is not yet understood and highly debated. It has been proposed that the neural activity of primary visual cortex (V1) is a crucial component for counteracting visual adaptation. In this paper, we use computational modeling to investigate how short-term depression (STD) in thalamocortical synapses might affect the neural responses of V1 in the presence of microsaccades. Our model not only gives a possible synaptic explanation for microsaccades in counteracting visual fading, but also reproduces several features in experimental findings. These modeling results suggest that STD in thalamocortical synapses plays an important role in microsaccade-related neural responses and the model may be useful for further investigation of behavioral properties and functional roles of microsaccades. PMID:23630494

The acquisition of conditioned responding.

PubMed

Harris, Justin A

2011-04-01

This report analyzes the acquisition of conditioned responses in rats trained in a magazine approach paradigm. Following the suggestion by Gallistel, Fairhurst, and Balsam (2004), Weibull functions were fitted to the trial-by-trial response rates of individual rats. These showed that the emergence of responding was often delayed, after which the response rate would increase relatively gradually across trials. The fit of the Weibull function to the behavioral data of each rat was equaled by that of a cumulative exponential function incorporating a response threshold. Thus, the growth in conditioning strength on each trial can be modeled by the derivative of the exponential--a difference term of the form used in many models of associative learning (e.g., Rescorla & Wagner, 1972). Further analyses, comparing the acquisition of responding with a continuously reinforced stimulus (CRf) and a partially reinforced stimulus (PRf), provided further evidence in support of the difference term. In conclusion, the results are consistent with conventional models that describe learning as the growth of associative strength, incremented on each trial by an error-correction process.

The impact of therapists’ words on the adolescent brain: In the context of addiction treatment

PubMed Central

Feldstein Ewing, Sarah W.; Houck, Jon M.; Yezhuvath, Uma; Kojori, Ehsan Shokri; Truitt, Dustin; Filbey, Francesca M.

2015-01-01

Despite foundational work, we still do not know how therapist behaviors influence brain response and related treatment outcomes for alcohol-using adolescents. Therefore, we examined this question with 17 binge drinking youth (mean age = 16.62 years; 64.3% female; 42.9% Hispanic; 28.6% bi-/multi-racial). In this within-subjects design, all youth completed a baseline assessment, two therapy sessions, an fMRI scan, and were re-evaluated for behavior change at one-month post-treatment. During the fMRI session, youth were presented with two types of therapist responses from their treating therapist: higher-skill therapeutic statements prescribed in an empirically-supported addiction treatment (complex reflections) versus language standard within addiction treatment more broadly (closed questions). In terms of behavior change, at the one-month follow-up, youth showed significant reductions in their number of drinking days and binge drinking days post-treatment. Further, we found main effects for complex reflections and closed questions across the superior middle temporal gyrus and middle temporal gyrus (FWE-corrected, p<.05). Complex questions showed a relatively stronger response than closed questions within the bilateral anterior cingulate gyrus. Additionally, greater BOLD response in the parietal lobe during closed questions was significantly associated with less post-treatment drinking. Finally, lower BOLD responses during both complex reflections and closed questions in the precuneus were associated with greater post-treatment ratings of importance of changing drinking. This study represents a first step in understanding how certain therapist behaviors influence the developing adolescent brain and how that neural response may be associated with youth treatment outcomes in the context of addiction treatment. PMID:26455873

An efficient and inexpensive method for measuring long-term thermoregulatory behavior

PubMed Central

Sperry, Jinelle H.; Rohr, Jason R.

2016-01-01

Thermoregulatory ability and behavior influence organismal responses to their environment. By measuring thermal preferences, researchers can better understand the effects that temperature tolerances have on ecological and physiological responses to both biotic and abiotic stressors. However, because of funding limitations and confounders, measuring thermoregulation can often be difficult. Here, we provide an effective, affordable (∼$50 USD per unit), easy to construct, and validated apparatus for measuring the long-term thermal preferences of animals. In tests, the apparatus spanned temperatures from 9.29 to 33.94 °C, and we provide methods to further increase this range. Additionally, we provide simple methods to non-invasively measure animal and substrate temperatures and to prevent temperature preferences of the focal organisms from being confounded with temperature preferences of its prey and its humidity preferences. To validate the apparatus, we show that it was capable of detecting individual-level consistency and among individual-level variation in the preferred body temperatures of Southern toads (Anaxyrus terrestris) and Cuban tree frogs (Osteopilus septentrionalis) over three-weeks. Nearly every aspect of our design is adaptable to meet the needs of a multitude of study systems, including various terrestrial amphibious, and aquatic organisms. The apparatus and methods described here can be used to quantify behavioral thermal preferences, which can be critical for determining temperature tolerances across species and thus the resiliency of species to current and impending climate change. PMID:27503737

Neonatal pain

PubMed Central

Walker, Suellen M

2014-01-01

Effective management of procedural and postoperative pain in neonates is required to minimize acute physiological and behavioral distress and may also improve acute and long-term outcomes. Painful stimuli activate nociceptive pathways, from the periphery to the cortex, in neonates and behavioral responses form the basis for validated pain assessment tools. However, there is an increasing awareness of the need to not only reduce acute behavioral responses to pain in neonates, but also to protect the developing nervous system from persistent sensitization of pain pathways and potential damaging effects of altered neural activity on central nervous system development. Analgesic requirements are influenced by age-related changes in both pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic response, and increasing data are available to guide safe and effective dosing with opioids and paracetamol. Regional analgesic techniques provide effective perioperative analgesia, but higher complication rates in neonates emphasize the importance of monitoring and choice of the most appropriate drug and dose. There have been significant improvements in the understanding and management of neonatal pain, but additional research evidence will further reduce the need to extrapolate data from older age groups. Translation into improved clinical care will continue to depend on an integrated approach to implementation that encompasses assessment and titration against individual response, education and training, and audit and feedback. PMID:24330444

Maintenance of smoking cessation in the postpartum period: which interventions work best in the long-term?

PubMed

Su, Anny; Buttenheim, Alison M

2014-04-01

Smoking during pregnancy has been linked to a variety of adverse outcomes for both maternal and child health. Decades of studies have sought to increase cessation antepartum and reduce relapse postpartum. A number of effective interventions exist to significantly reduce smoking rates during pregnancy; however, less is known about how to prevent relapse in the postpartum period. This review investigates interventions to prevent relapse in the long-term postpartum period. We focus specifically on nonspontaneous quitters (individuals who quit smoking as a result of an external intervention) to reveal differences in long-term response to interventions for this population compared to spontaneous quitters. A systematic literature search yielded 32 relevant studies of pharmacological, behavioral, and incentives-based interventions. Results were compiled, analyzed, and compared in order to evaluate success factors in maintaining cessation postpartum. Though intervention groups showed consistently higher quit rates during pregnancy than control groups, none of the intervention types were effective at preventing relapse in the longer-term postpartum period. One study maintained significantly higher abstinence in the longer-term period postpartum using a mix of behavioral and incentives strategies. Additional research in this area is needed to identify optimal intervention strategies to reduce long-term postpartum relapse, particularly for nonspontaneous quitters.

Short- and Long-Term Memories Formed upon Backward Conditioning in Honeybees ("Apis Mellifera")

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Felsenberg, Johannes; Plath, Jenny Aino; Lorang, Steven; Morgenstern, Laura; Eisenhardt, Dorothea

2014-01-01

In classical conditioning, the temporal sequence of stimulus presentations is critical for the association between the conditioned stimulus (CS) and the unconditioned stimulus (US). In forward conditioning, the CS precedes the US and is learned as a predictor for the US. Thus it acquires properties to elicit a behavioral response, defined as…

Adhesive Viscoelastic Response to Surfaces with Tailored Surface Chemistry

DTIC Science & Technology

2008-12-01

represents the minimum energy where failure occurs. This term (measured at low rates and high temperatures to minimize viscoelastic effects ) is...temperature effects described by Williams-Landel-Ferry (WLF) behavior. In this work, we present initial attempts to correlate interfacial bonding and...either 3-methacryloxypropyltrimethoxysilane 97% (MPS, Avocado Research Chemicals Ltd) or n- propyltrimethoxysilane (PTMO, Degussa Corporation). Each

Invasive plant species and the Joint Fire Science Program.

Treesearch

Heather E. Erickson; Rachel White

2007-01-01

Invasive nonnative plants may be responsible for serious, long-term ecological impacts, including altering fire behavior and fire regimes. Therefore, knowing how to successfully manage invasive plants and their impacts on natural resources is crucial. We present a summary of research on invasive plants and fire that has been generated through the Joint Fire Science...

Interaction between the Basolateral Amygdala and Dorsal Hippocampus Is Critical for Cocaine Memory Reconsolidation and Subsequent Drug Context-Induced Cocaine-Seeking Behaviorin Rats

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wells, Audrey M.; Lasseter, Heather C.; Xie, Xiaohu; Cowhey, Kate E.; Reittinger, Andrew M.; Fuchs, Rita A.

2011-01-01

Contextual stimulus control over instrumental drug-seeking behavior relies on the reconsolidation of context-response-drug associative memories into long-term memory storage following retrieval-induced destabilization. According to previous studies, the basolateral amygdala (BLA) and dorsal hippocampus (DH) regulate cocaine-related memory…

Maternal and Paternal Similarities and Differences in Parenting: An Examination of Mexican-American Parents of Young Children

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Gamble, Wendy C.; Ramakumar, Sri; Diaz, Abel

2007-01-01

The present study evaluated the degree of parental similarity-dissimilarity across parenting dimensions operationalized in terms of: (1) one's own and one's partner's style; (2) meta-emotion belief structures; (3) behavioral strategies in reaction to children's emotions; as well as (4) parental support and responsiveness. The first four dimensions…

Gustatory Habituation in "Drosophila" Relies on "Rutabaga" (Adenylate Cyclase)-Dependent Plasticity of GABAergic Inhibitory Neurons

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Paranjpe, Pushkar; Rodrigues, Veronica; VijayRaghavan, K.; Ramaswami, Mani

2012-01-01

In some situations, animals seem to ignore stimuli which in other contexts elicit a robust response. This attenuation in behavior, which enables animals to ignore a familiar, unreinforced stimulus, is called habituation. Despite the ubiquity of this phenomenon, it is generally poorly understood in terms of the underlying neural circuitry. Hungry…

"What's Wrong in This Picture?": Response to Motta et al.'s Review of Human Figure Drawings.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Gresham, Frank M.

1993-01-01

Responds to article (Motta, Little, and Tobin, this issue) which reviewed data-based studies on figure drawings and found little support for their validity or use in assessing personality, behavior, emotion, or intellectual functioning. Agrees with original article, suggesting that arguments be couched in terms of three basic concepts: illusory…

Tuning the Engine of Cognition: A Focus on NMDA/D1 Receptor Interactions in Prefrontal Cortex

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Castner, Stacy A.; Williams, Graham V.

2007-01-01

The prefrontal cortex of the primate frontal lobes provides the capacity for judgment which can constantly adapt behavior in order to optimize its outcome. Adjudicating between long-term memory programs and prepotent responses, this capacity reviews all incoming information and provides an interpretation dependent on the events that have just…

Factors That Affect Psycho-Social Development of Preschool Children in Terms of Art Activities: Family and Teacher of Variables

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Dereli, Esra; Akaroglu, E. Gulriz

2011-01-01

People living in a society need socialization. While maintaining social relations, they learn behaviors approved by the society. Through art education, which is applied in preschool education, planned studying habits, taking responsibilities, cooperating, helping, developing solidarity habit and building positive relations with others are taught…

Using Natural Experiments to Study the Impact of Media on the Family

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Price, Joseph; Dahl, Gordon B.

2012-01-01

The randomized trial is the gold standard in scientific research and is used by several fields to study the effects of media. Although useful for studying the immediate response to media exposure, the experimental approach is not well suited to studying long-term effects or behavior outside the laboratory. The "natural experiment" approach, a…

Preventing Bandwidth Abuse at the Router through Sending Rate Estimate-based Active Queue Management

DTIC Science & Technology

2007-06-01

behavior is growing in the Internet. These non-responsive sources can monopolize network bandwidth and starve the “congestion friendly” flows. Without...unnecessarily complex because most of the flows in the Internet are short flows usually termed as “web mice ” [7]. Moreover, having a separate queue for each

Comparing Correlations between Four-Quadrant and Five-Factor Personality Assessments

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Jones, Cathleen S.; Hartley, Nell T.

2013-01-01

For decades,some of the most popular devices used in educating students and employees to the values of diversity are those that are based on a four-grid identification of behavior style. The results from the scoring of the instruments provide individual profiles in terms of a person's assertiveness, responsiveness, and preferred tone of…

Examining Differences among Online Faculty Reporting Student Plagiarism Using the Theory of Planned Behavior

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Moeder Stowe, Susan A.

2013-01-01

Among higher education faculty, having to address academic misconduct and plagiarism is often viewed as a negative aspect of teaching resulting in inconsistent reporting by faculty. Some faculty members take no action in response. Differences exist in attitudes between traditional regular full-time and part-time adjunct faculty members in terms of…

Reconsolidation of a Context Long-Term Memory in the Terrestrial Snail Requires Protein Synthesis

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Gainutdinova, Tatiana H.; Tagirova, Rosa R.; Ismailova, Asja I.; Muranova, Lyudmila N.; Samarova, Elena I.; Gainutdinov, Khalil L.; Balaban, Pavel M.

2005-01-01

We investigated the influence of the protein synthesis blocker anisomycin on contextual memory in the terrestrial snail "Helix." Prior to the training session, the behavioral responses in two contexts were similar. Two days after a session of electric shocks (5 d) in one context only, the context conditioning was observed as the significant…

Decision modeling for analyzing fire action outcomes

Treesearch

Donald MacGregor; Armando Gonzalez-Caban

2008-01-01

A methodology for incident decomposition and reconstruction is developed based on the concept of an "event-frame model." The event-frame model characterizes a fire incident in terms of (a) environmental events that pertain to the fire and the fire context (e.g., fire behavior, weather, fuels) and (b) management events that represent responses to the fire...

The knowledge, attitude and behavior about public health emergencies and the response capacity of primary care medical staffs of Guangdong Province, China

PubMed Central

2012-01-01

Background Primary care medical staffs’ knowledge, attitude and behavior about health emergency and the response capacity are directly related to the control and prevention of public health emergencies. Therefore, it is of great significance for improving primary care to gain in-depth knowledge about knowledge, attitude and behavior and the response capacity of primary care medical staffs. The main objective of this study is to explore knowledge, attitude and behavior, and the response capacity of primary care medical staffs of Guangdong Province, China. Methods Stratified clustered sample method was used in the anonymous questionnaire investigation about knowledge, attitude and behavior, and the response capacity of 3410 primary care medical staffs in 15 cities of Guangdong Province, China from July, 2010 to October 2010. The emergency response capacity was evaluated by 33 questions. The highest score of the response capacity was 100 points (full score), score of 70 was a standard. Results 62.4% primary care medical staffs believed that public health emergencies would happen. Influenza (3.86 ± 0.88), food poisoning (3.35 ± 0.75), and environmental pollution events (3.23 ± 0.80) (the total score was 5) were considered most likely to occur. Among the 7 public health emergency skills, the highest self-assessment score is “public health emergency prevention skills” (2.90 ± 0.68), the lowest is “public health emergency risk management (the total score was 5)” (1.81 ± 0.40). Attitude evaluation showed 66.1% of the medical staffs believed that the community awareness of risk management were ordinary. Evaluation of response capacity of health emergency showed that the score of primary care medical staffs was 67.23 ± 10.61, and the response capacity of senior physicians, public health physicians and physicians with relatively long-term practice were significantly better (P <0.05). Multiple linear stepwise regression analysis showed gender, title, position, type of work, work experience and whether to participate relative training were the main factors affecting the health emergency response capacity. Conclusions The knowledge, attitude and behavior about public health emergencies and the response capacity of primary care medical staffs of Guangdong Province (China) were poor. Health administrative departments should strengthen the training of health emergency knowledge and skills of the primary care medical staffs to enhance their health emergency response capabilities. PMID:23009075

On the impact of fjord geometry on grounding line stability

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Åkesson, H.; Nick, F. M.; Morlighem, M.; Nisancioglu, K. H.

2016-12-01

Observations and reconstructions of Antarctic and Greenland marine-terminating glaciers and their grounding lines show that their response to external forcings is highly dependent on the geometry of individual glaciers, such as fjord geometry. While recent retreat of these glaciers is broadly consistent with warmer atmospheric and oceanic conditions, we observe considerable spatial and temporal variability, with diverse glacier behavior within the same regions. The relatively short observational record of marine-terminating glaciers also needs to be placed in a long-term context. Reconstructions of marine-terminating glaciers, however, indicate highly asynchronous retreat histories despite being subject to similar climatic forcings. These lines of evidence suggest that regional climate forcing alone cannot explain marine-terminating glacier behavior, and that these glaciers cannot be used uncritically as indicators of past climates because of their heterogeneous response to climate change. Here we use a dynamic flowline model with a physical treatment of iceberg calving to assess the effect of fjord geometry on grounding line stability on decadal and longer time scales. The model includes driving and resistive stresses of ice flow and is applied to idealized fjord geometries representing different real-world glaciers. We find that the geometry can override the signal from the ambient forcing over multiple centuries, resulting in non-linear, rapid grounding line migration. In particular we highlight the importance of fjord width, which has received relatively little attention in terms of marine ice sheet instability. Our findings provide new insights into grounding line behavior and may explain some of the documented heterogeneous, asynchronous patterns of marine-terminating glaciers in Greenland, Antarctica, Alaska and elsewhere. Further, we investigate the geometric influence on the reversibility and hysteresis of grounding line migration, relevant for oscillatory glacier behavior, marine-terminating glacier retreat-advance cycles and Heinrich events. Finally, we present comparative, preliminary results using the 3-dimensional ice sheet model ISSM and discuss our findings in terms of ice shelf stability and buttressing.

Stress reactivity, condition, and foraging behavior in zebra finches: effects on boldness, exploration, and sociality.

PubMed

Crino, O L; Buchanan, Katherine L; Trompf, Larissa; Mainwaring, Mark C; Griffith, Simon C

2017-04-01

The arid and semi-arid zones of Australia are characterized by highly variable and unpredictable environmental conditions which affect resources for flora and fauna. Environments which are highly unpredictable in terms of both resource access and distribution are likely to select for a variety of adaptive behavioral strategies, intrinsically linked to the physiological control of behavior. How unpredictable resource distribution has affected the coevolution of behavioral strategies and physiology has rarely been quantified, particularly not in Australian birds. We used a captive population of wild-derived zebra finches to test the relationships between behavioral strategies relating to food access and physiological responses to stress and body condition. We found that individuals that were in poorer body condition and had higher peak corticosterone levels entered baited feeders earlier in the trapping sequence of birds within the colony. We also found that individuals in poorer body condition fed in smaller social groups. Our data show that the foraging decisions which individuals make represent not only a trade-off between food access and risk of exposure, but their underlying physiological response to stress. Our data also suggest fundamental links between social networks and physiological parameters, which largely remain untested. These data demonstrate the fundamental importance of physiological mechanisms in controlling adaptive behavioral strategies and the dynamic interplay between physiological control of behavior and life-history evolution. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Peripheral and Central Determinants of a Nociceptive Reaction: An Approach to Psychophysics in the Rat

PubMed Central

Ballantyne, Kay; Plaghki, Léon; Le Bars, Daniel

2008-01-01

Background The quantitative end-point for many behavioral tests of nociception is the reaction time, i.e. the time lapse between the beginning of the application of a stimulus, e.g. heat, and the evoked response. Since it is technically impossible to heat the skin instantaneously by conventional means, the question of the significance of the reaction time to radiant heat remains open. We developed a theoretical framework, a related experimental paradigm and a model to analyze in psychophysical terms the “tail-flick” responses of rats to random variations of noxious radiant heat. Methodology/Principal Findings A CO2 laser was used to avoid the drawbacks associated with standard methods of thermal stimulation. Heating of the skin was recorded with an infrared camera and was stopped by the reaction of the animal. For the first time, we define and determine two key descriptors of the behavioral response, namely the behavioral threshold (Tβ) and the behavioral latency (Lβ). By employing more than one site of stimulation, the paradigm allows determination of the conduction velocity of the peripheral fibers that trigger the response (V) and an estimation of the latency (Ld) of the central decision-making process. Ld (∼130 ms) is unaffected by ambient or skin temperature changes that affect the behavioral threshold (∼42.2–44.9°C in the 20–30°C range), behavioral latency (<500 ms), and the conduction velocity of the peripheral fibers that trigger the response (∼0.35–0.76 m/s in the 20–30°C range). We propose a simple model that is verified experimentally and that computes the variations in the so-called “tail-flick latency” (TFL) caused by changes in either the power of the radiant heat source, the initial temperature of the skin, or the site of stimulation along the tail. Conclusions/Significance This approach enables the behavioral determinations of latent psychophysical (Tβ, Lβ, Ld) and neurophysiological (V) variables that have been previously inaccessible with conventional methods. Such an approach satisfies the repeated requests for improving nociceptive tests and offers a potentially heuristic progress for studying nociceptive behavior on more firm physiological and psychophysical grounds. The validity of using a reaction time of a behavioral response to an increasing heat stimulus as a “pain index” is challenged. This is illustrated by the predicted temperature-dependent variations of the behavioral TFL elicited by spontaneous variations of the temperature of the tail for thermoregulation. PMID:18769624

Peripheral and central determinants of a nociceptive reaction: an approach to psychophysics in the rat.

PubMed

Benoist, Jean-Michel; Pincedé, Ivanne; Ballantyne, Kay; Plaghki, Léon; Le Bars, Daniel

2008-09-03

The quantitative end-point for many behavioral tests of nociception is the reaction time, i.e. the time lapse between the beginning of the application of a stimulus, e.g. heat, and the evoked response. Since it is technically impossible to heat the skin instantaneously by conventional means, the question of the significance of the reaction time to radiant heat remains open. We developed a theoretical framework, a related experimental paradigm and a model to analyze in psychophysical terms the "tail-flick" responses of rats to random variations of noxious radiant heat. A CO(2) laser was used to avoid the drawbacks associated with standard methods of thermal stimulation. Heating of the skin was recorded with an infrared camera and was stopped by the reaction of the animal. For the first time, we define and determine two key descriptors of the behavioral response, namely the behavioral threshold (Tbeta) and the behavioral latency (Lbeta). By employing more than one site of stimulation, the paradigm allows determination of the conduction velocity of the peripheral fibers that trigger the response (V) and an estimation of the latency (Ld) of the central decision-making process. Ld (approximately 130 ms) is unaffected by ambient or skin temperature changes that affect the behavioral threshold (approximately 42.2-44.9 degrees C in the 20-30 degrees C range), behavioral latency (<500 ms), and the conduction velocity of the peripheral fibers that trigger the response (approximately 0.35-0.76 m/s in the 20-30 degrees C range). We propose a simple model that is verified experimentally and that computes the variations in the so-called "tail-flick latency" (TFL) caused by changes in either the power of the radiant heat source, the initial temperature of the skin, or the site of stimulation along the tail. This approach enables the behavioral determinations of latent psychophysical (Tbeta, Lbeta, Ld) and neurophysiological (V) variables that have been previously inaccessible with conventional methods. Such an approach satisfies the repeated requests for improving nociceptive tests and offers a potentially heuristic progress for studying nociceptive behavior on more firm physiological and psychophysical grounds. The validity of using a reaction time of a behavioral response to an increasing heat stimulus as a "pain index" is challenged. This is illustrated by the predicted temperature-dependent variations of the behavioral TFL elicited by spontaneous variations of the temperature of the tail for thermoregulation.

Behavioral assessment in youth sports: coaching behaviors and children's attitudes.

PubMed

Smith, R E; Zane, N W; Smoll, F L; Coppel, D B

1983-01-01

To define the characteristics and dimensional patterning of coaching behaviors, 15,449 behaviors of 31 youth basketball coaches were coded in terms of a 10-category system. Post-season attitude and self-esteem data were obtained from players on 23 teams and were related to the behavioral measures. Compared with rates of reinforcement, encouragement, and technical instruction, punitive responses occurred relatively infrequently. Factor analysis of the coaching behaviors indicated that supportive and punitive behavioral dimensions were orthogonal or statistically independent of one another rather than opposite ends of the same dimension. Punitive and instructional categories were part of the same behavior cluster. The relationship between coaching behaviors and the various player attitudes were highly specific in nature. Coaching behaviors accounted for about half of the variance in post-season attitudes toward the coach and the sport, but for significantly less variance in measures of team solidarity and self-esteem. Surprisingly, the rate of positive reinforcement was unrelated to any of the attitudinal measures. Punishment was negatively related to liking for the coach. In general, technical instruction categories were the strongest predictors of basketball player attitudes.

Interaction of plasticity and circuit organization during the acquisition of cerebellum-dependent motor learning

PubMed Central

Yang, Yan; Lisberger, Stephen G

2013-01-01

Motor learning occurs through interactions between the cerebellar circuit and cellular plasticity at different sites. Previous work has established plasticity in brain slices and suggested plausible sites of behavioral learning. We now reveal what actually happens in the cerebellum during short-term learning. We monitor the expression of plasticity in the simple-spike firing of cerebellar Purkinje cells during trial-over-trial learning in smooth pursuit eye movements of monkeys. Our findings imply that: 1) a single complex-spike response driven by one instruction for learning causes short-term plasticity in a Purkinje cell’s mossy fiber/parallel-fiber input pathways; 2) complex-spike responses and simple-spike firing rate are correlated across the Purkinje cell population; and 3) simple-spike firing rate at the time of an instruction for learning modulates the probability of a complex-spike response, possibly through a disynaptic feedback pathway to the inferior olive. These mechanisms may participate in long-term motor learning. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.01574.001 PMID:24381248

An Overview of the First Use of the Terms Cognition and Behavior

PubMed Central

Chaney, Daniel W.

2013-01-01

Use of the terms cognition and behavior and their variants can be traced back to the middle-ages. What is not widely known is how the terms were first used in the literature. This article identifies variations of terms for cognition and behavior and traces the first use of the terms using the Oxford English Dictionary (OED). A systematic search of the OED was conducted, identifying terms in the cognition and behavior families. Terms are defined and the year the term first appeared in the literature is identified. Terms are sorted and grouped chronologically by first appearance to determine their first use in the literature as noted in the OED. Results indicated more words are related to cognition than behavior. The first term related to cognition to appear was cogitation in circa 1225; while the first term related to behavior was port, which appeared circa 1330. Each family of terms experienced tremendous growth during the first appearance of terms. The cognition family saw 60% of its terms appear in the 17th and 19th centuries. The behavior family saw nearly 75% of its terms make their first appearance during the 15th through the 17th centuries. PMID:25379231

An overview of the first use of the terms cognition and behavior.

PubMed

Chaney, Daniel W

2013-03-01

Use of the terms cognition and behavior and their variants can be traced back to the middle-ages. What is not widely known is how the terms were first used in the literature. This article identifies variations of terms for cognition and behavior and traces the first use of the terms using the Oxford English Dictionary (OED). A systematic search of the OED was conducted, identifying terms in the cognition and behavior families. Terms are defined and the year the term first appeared in the literature is identified. Terms are sorted and grouped chronologically by first appearance to determine their first use in the literature as noted in the OED. Results indicated more words are related to cognition than behavior. The first term related to cognition to appear was cogitation in circa 1225; while the first term related to behavior was port, which appeared circa 1330. Each family of terms experienced tremendous growth during the first appearance of terms. The cognition family saw 60% of its terms appear in the 17(th) and 19(th) centuries. The behavior family saw nearly 75% of its terms make their first appearance during the 15(th) through the 17(th) centuries.

Corticosterone stress response shows long-term repeatability and links to personality in free-living Nazca boobies.

PubMed

Grace, Jacquelyn K; Anderson, David J

2014-11-01

The concept of "coping styles", or consistently different responses to stressors, is of broad interest in behavioral ecology and biomedicine. Two critical predictions of this concept are individual consistency of neurophysiological and behavioral responses (relative to population variability) and a negative relationship between aggression/proactivity and hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis reactivity. Recent studies failed to provide strong support for these predictions, especially outside of strictly controlled conditions, and long-term measures to test the first prediction are rare. Here, we demonstrate individual repeatability across 2-3years of maximum circulating corticosterone concentration [CORT] and area under the [CORT] response curve (AUCI) during a standard capture-restraint test in wild, free-living adult Nazca boobies (Sula granti). We also show that the stress response predicts the personality traits aggression and anxiety in these birds (measured in the wild); however, the strength of these results was weak. Maximum [CORT] and AUCI showed higher repeatability between years than baseline [CORT]. After controlling breeding status, sex, mass, date sampled, and their interactions, baseline [CORT] was most closely related to personality traits, followed by AUCI, and then maximum [CORT]. The direction of these relationships depended on whether the testing context was social or non-social. [CORT] parameters had little to no relationship with cross-context plasticity in personality traits. Our results generally affirm two critical predictions of coping styles, but match the emerging trend that these relationships are weak in the wild, and may depend on testing context. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Health investment decisions in response to diabetes information in older Americans.

PubMed

Slade, Alexander N

2012-05-01

Diabetes is a very common and serious chronic disease, and one of the fastest growing disease burdens in the United States. Further, health behaviors, such as exercise, smoking, drinking, as well as weight status, are instrumental to diabetes management and the reduction of its medical consequences. Nine waves of the Health and Retirement Study are used to model the role of a recent diabetes diagnosis and medication on present and subsequent weight status, exercise, drinking and smoking activity. Several non-linear dynamic population average probit models are estimated. Results suggest that compared to non-diagnosed individuals at risk for high blood sugar, diagnosed diabetics respond initially in terms of increasing exercise, losing weight, and curbing smoking and drinking behavior, but the effect diminishes after diagnosis. Evidence of recidivism is also found in these outcomes, especially weight status and physical activity, suggesting that some behavioral responses to diabetes may be short-lived. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Differential impact of response effort within a response chain on use of mands in a student with autism.

PubMed

Buckley, Scott D; Newchok, Debra K

2005-01-01

We investigated the effects of response effort on the use of mands during functional communication training (FCT) in a participant with autism. The number of links in a picture exchange response chain determined two levels of response effort. Each level was paired with a fixed ratio (FR3) schedule of reinforcement for aggression in a reversal design. Responding to either schedule produced access to a preferred item. The participant opted for the low effort mand while aggression decreased significantly. However, the high effort mand did not compete with the FR3 schedule for aggression. Results are discussed in terms of response effort within a response chain of a picture exchange system and competing ratio schedules for problem behavior during mand training.

Generalization of the disruptive effects of alternative stimuli when combined with target stimuli in extinction.

PubMed

Podlesnik, Christopher A; Miranda-Dukoski, Ludmila; Jonas Chan, C K; Bland, Vikki J; Bai, John Y H

2017-09-01

Differential-reinforcement treatments reduce target problem behavior in the short term but at the expense of making it more persistent long term. Basic and translational research based on behavioral momentum theory suggests that combining features of stimuli governing an alternative response with the stimuli governing target responding could make target responding less persistent. However, changes to the alternative stimulus context when combining alternative and target stimuli could diminish the effectiveness of the alternative stimulus in reducing target responding. In an animal model with pigeons, the present study reinforced responding in the presence of target and alternative stimuli. When combining the alternative and target stimuli during extinction, we altered the alternative stimulus through changes in line orientation. We found that (1) combining alternative and target stimuli in extinction more effectively decreased target responding than presenting the target stimulus on its own; (2) combining these stimuli was more effective in decreasing target responding trained with lower reinforcement rates; and (3) changing the alternative stimulus reduced its effectiveness when it was combined with the target stimulus. Therefore, changing alternative stimuli (e.g., therapist, clinical setting) during behavioral treatments that combine alternative and target stimuli could reduce the effectiveness of those treatments in disrupting problem behavior. © 2017 Society for the Experimental Analysis of Behavior.

A conceptual model of parental behavior change following a child's dental general anesthesia procedure.

PubMed

Amin, Maryam S; Harrison, Rosamurd L

2007-01-01

The purpose of this study was to investigate parents' challenges to long-term maintenance of healthy behaviors following their child's dental general anesthesia (GA). Twenty-six in-depth interviews were conducted with parents of children younger than 6 years of age who had dental treatment under GA. The interviews were scheduled at various time periods following the surgery. Compared were the responses of: (1) "relapse" families, whose child had new cavities at the 6-month recall; and (2) "no relapse" families, who were caries-free at recoil. A grounded theory approach to data analysis was used. "Relapse" parents: (1) valued baby teeth differently; (2) perceived their child to be less susceptible to new cavities; and (3) expressed lower self-efficacy for controlling their child's oral health compared to "no relapse" parents. They also appeared to be: (1) in earlier stages of change; (2) less receptive to advice from others, including professionals; and (3) more permissive regarding their child's desires. "Relapse" parents did not seem to have any immediate plans to change their "home-care" behaviors. GA did not appear to affect long-term preventive behaviors for all parents. Readiness to change seemed to be an important predictor of whether parents adopted and maintained preventive behaviors to improve their child's oral health.

Montessori-based activities for long-term care residents with advanced dementia: effects on engagement and affect.

PubMed

Orsulic-Jeras, S; Judge, K S; Camp, C J

2000-02-01

Sixteen residents in long-term care with advanced dementia (14 women; average age = 88) showed significantly more constructive engagement (defined as motor or verbal behaviors in response to an activity), less passive engagement (defined as passively observing an activity), and more pleasure while participating in Montessori-based programming than in regularly scheduled activities programming. Principles of Montessori-based programming, along with examples of such programming, are presented. Implications of the study and methods for expanding the use of Montessori-based dementia programming are discussed.

Interaction function of oscillating coupled neurons

PubMed Central

Dodla, Ramana; Wilson, Charles J.

2013-01-01

Large scale simulations of electrically coupled neuronal oscillators often employ the phase coupled oscillator paradigm to understand and predict network behavior. We study the nature of the interaction between such coupled oscillators using weakly coupled oscillator theory. By employing piecewise linear approximations for phase response curves and voltage time courses, and parameterizing their shapes, we compute the interaction function for all such possible shapes and express it in terms of discrete Fourier modes. We find that reasonably good approximation is achieved with four Fourier modes that comprise of both sine and cosine terms. PMID:24229210

Fundamental Limits:. Developing New Tools for a Better Understanding of Second-Order Molecular Nonlinear Optics

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Pérez-Moreno, Javier; Clays, Koen

The generalized Thomas-Kuhn sum rules are used to characterize the nonlinear optical response of organic chromophores in terms of fundamental parameters that can be measured experimentally. The nonlinear optical performance of organic molecules is evaluated from the combination of hyper-Rayleigh scattering measurements and the analysis in terms of the fundamental limits. Different strategies for the enhancement of nonlinear optical behavior at the molecular and supramolecular level are evaluated and new paradigms for the design of more efficient nonlinear optical molecules are proposed and investigated.

Facing Off with Unfair Others: Introducing Proxemic Imaging as an Implicit Measure of Approach and Avoidance during Social Interaction

PubMed Central

McCall, Cade; Singer, Tania

2015-01-01

Nonverbal behavior expresses many of the dynamics underlying face-to-face social interactions, implicitly revealing one’s attitudes, emotions, and social motives. Although research has often described nonverbal behavior as approach versus avoidant (i.e., through the study of proxemics), psychological responses to many social contexts are a mix of these two. Fairness violations are an ideal example, eliciting strong avoidance-related responses such as negative attitudes, as well as strong approach-related responses such as anger and retaliation. As such, nonverbal behavior toward unfair others is difficult to predict in discrete approach versus avoidance terms. Here we address this problem using proxemic imaging, a new method which creates frequency images of dyadic space by combining motion capture data of interpersonal distance and gaze to provide an objective but nuanced analysis of social interactions. Participants first played an economic game with fair and unfair players and then encountered them in an unrelated task in a virtual environment. Afterwards, they could monetarily punish the other players. Proxemic images of the interactions demonstrate that, overall, participants kept the fair player closer. However, participants who actively punished the unfair players were more likely to stand directly in front of those players and even to turn their backs on them. Together these patterns illustrate that fairness violations influence nonverbal behavior in ways that further predict differences in more overt behavior (i.e., financial punishment). Moreover, they demonstrate that proxemic imaging can detect subtle combinations of approach and avoidance behavior during face-to-face social interactions. PMID:25675444

Bullying in the clinical training of pharmacy students.

PubMed

Knapp, Katherine; Shane, Patricia; Sasaki-Hill, Debra; Yoshizuka, Keith; Chan, Paul; Vo, Thuy

2014-08-15

To determine whether bullying is a significant factor in the clinical training of pharmacy students. The literature as well as the Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education (ACPE) Standards and American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy (AACP) surveys were reviewed for mention and/or measurement of bullying behaviors in the clinical training of pharmacy students. The authors used a Delphi process to define bullying behavior. The consensus definition was used to analyze 2,087 in-house student evaluations of preceptors for evidence of bullying behaviors. The authors mapped strings of text from in-house student comments to different, established categories of bullying behaviors. The ACPE Standards and AACP surveys contained no mention or measures of bullying. The 2013 AACP survey data reported overwhelmingly positive preceptor ratings. Of the 2,087 student evaluations of preceptors, 119 (5.7%) had at least 1 low rating. Within those 119 survey instruments, 34 comments were found describing bullying behaviors. Students' responses to the AACP survey were similar to data from the national cohort. Given the evidence that bullying behaviors occur in pharmacy education and that bullying has long-term and short-term damaging effects, more attention should be focused on this problem. Efforts should include addressing bullying in ACPE Standards and AACP survey tools developing a consensus definition for bullying and conducting more research into bullying in the clinical training of pharmacy students.

Bullying in the Clinical Training of Pharmacy Students

PubMed Central

Shane, Patricia; Sasaki-Hill, Debra; Yoshizuka, Keith; Chan, Paul; Vo, Thuy

2014-01-01

Objective. To determine whether bullying is a significant factor in the clinical training of pharmacy students. Methods. The literature as well as the Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education (ACPE) Standards and American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy (AACP) surveys were reviewed for mention and/or measurement of bullying behaviors in the clinical training of pharmacy students. The authors used a Delphi process to define bullying behavior. The consensus definition was used to analyze 2,087 in-house student evaluations of preceptors for evidence of bullying behaviors. The authors mapped strings of text from in-house student comments to different, established categories of bullying behaviors. Results. The ACPE Standards and AACP surveys contained no mention or measures of bullying. The 2013 AACP survey data reported overwhelmingly positive preceptor ratings. Of the 2,087 student evaluations of preceptors, 119 (5.7%) had at least 1 low rating. Within those 119 survey instruments, 34 comments were found describing bullying behaviors. Students’ responses to the AACP survey were similar to data from the national cohort. Conclusions. Given the evidence that bullying behaviors occur in pharmacy education and that bullying has long-term and short-term damaging effects, more attention should be focused on this problem. Efforts should include addressing bullying in ACPE Standards and AACP survey tools developing a consensus definition for bullying and conducting more research into bullying in the clinical training of pharmacy students. PMID:25147389

Influence of long-term social interaction on chirping behavior, steroid levels and neurogenesis in weakly electric fish.

PubMed

Dunlap, Kent D; Chung, Michael; Castellano, James F

2013-07-01

Social interactions dramatically affect the brain and behavior of animals. Studies in birds and mammals indicate that socially induced changes in adult neurogenesis participate in the regulation of social behavior, but little is known about this relationship in fish. Here, we review studies in electric fish (Apteronotus leptorhychus) that link social stimulation, changes in electrocommunication behavior and adult neurogenesis in brain regions associated with electrocommunication. Compared with isolated fish, fish living in pairs have greater production of chirps, an electrocommunication signal, during dyadic interactions and in response to standardized artificial social stimuli. Social interaction also promotes neurogenesis in the periventricular zone, which contributes born cells to the prepacemaker nucleus, the brain region that regulates chirping. Both long-term chirp rate and periventricular cell addition depend on the signal dynamics (amplitude and waveform variation), modulations (chirps) and novelty of the stimuli from the partner fish. Socially elevated cortisol levels and cortisol binding to glucocorticoid receptors mediate, at least in part, the effect of social interaction on chirping behavior and brain cell addition. In a closely related electric fish (Brachyhypopomus gauderio), social interaction enhances cell proliferation specifically in brain regions for electrocommunication and only during the breeding season, when social signaling is most elaborate. Together, these studies demonstrate a consistent correlation between brain cell addition and environmentally regulated chirping behavior across many social and steroidal treatments and suggest a causal relationship.

Acoustic Studies of the Effects of Environmental Stresses on Marine Mammals in Large Ocean Basins

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sidorovskaia, N.; Ma, B.; Ackleh, A. S.; Tiemann, C.; Ioup, G. E.; Ioup, J. W.

2014-12-01

Effects of environmental stresses on deep-diving marine mammal populations have not been studied systematically. Long-term regional passive acoustic monitoring of phonating marine mammals opens opportunities for such studies. This paper presents a unique multi-year study conducted by the Littoral Acoustic Demonstration Center (LADC) in the Northern Gulf of Mexico to understand short-term and long-term effects of anthropogenic stresses on resident populations of endangered sperm and elusive beaked whales. Both species spend many hours each day in deep dives which last about one hour each, so any visual observations for population estimates and behavioral responses are very limited. However, much more cost-efficient acoustic recordings of the phonations during dives on bottom-mounted hydrophones are not skewed by weather conditions or daylight requirements. Broadband passive acoustic data were collected by LADC in 2007 and 2010 at three ranges, 15, 40, and 80 km away from the 2010 Deep Water Horizon oil spill site. Pre-spill and post-spill data processing and comparison allow observing responses of both species to local short-term environmental condition changes and long-term responses to the spill. The short-term effects are studied by correlating daily activity cycles with anthropogenic noise curve daily and weekly cycles at different sites. The strong correlation between the decrease in overall daily activity and the increase in anthropogenic noise level associated with seismic exploration signals can be seen. After streaming raw acoustic data through detection algorithms and detailed assessment of false detection rates, the temporal densities of acoustic phonations are passed into statistical algorithms for resident population estimations. The statistically significant results have shown different regional abundance trends, associated with long-term responses to environmental stresses, for these two species.

The Characteristic Long-Term Upregulation of Hippocampal NF-κB Complex in PTSD-Like Behavioral Stress Response Is Normalized by High-Dose Corticosterone and Pyrrolidine Dithiocarbamate Administered Immediately after Exposure

PubMed Central

Cohen, Hagit; Kozlovsky, Nitsan; Matar, Michael A; Zohar, Joseph; Kaplan, Zeev

2011-01-01

Nuclear factor-κB (NF-κB) is a ubiquitously expressed transcription factor for genes involved in cell survival, differentiation, inflammation, and growth. This study examined the role of NF-κB pathway in stress-induced PTSD-like behavioral response patterns in rats. Immunohistochemical technique was used to detect the expression of the NF-κB p50 and p65 subunits, I-κBα, p38, and phospho-p38 in the hippocampal subregions at 7 days after exposure to predator scent stress. Expression of p65 nuclear translocation was quantified by western blot as the level of NF-κB activation. The effects of intraperitoneally administered corticosterone or a selective NF-κB inhibitor (pyrrolidine dithiocarbamate (PDTC)) at 1 h post exposure on behavioral tests (elevated plus-maze and acoustic startle response) were evaluated 7 days later. Hippocampal expressions of those genes were subsequently evaluated. All data were analyzed in relation to individual behavior patterns. Extreme behavioral responder animals displayed significant upregulation of p50 and p65 with concomitant downregulation of I-κBα, p38, and phospho-p38 levels in hippocampal structures compared with minimal behavioral responders and controls. Immediate post-exposure treatment with high-dose corticosterone and PDTC significantly reduced prevalence rates of extreme responders and normalized the expression of those genes. Stress-induced upregulation of NF-κB complex in the hippocampus may contribute to the imbalance between what are normally precisely orchestrated and highly coordinated physiological and behavioral processes, thus associating it with stress-related disorders. PMID:21734649

The effectiveness of lifestyle triple P in the Netherlands: a randomized controlled trial.

PubMed

Gerards, Sanne M P L; Dagnelie, Pieter C; Gubbels, Jessica S; van Buuren, Stef; Hamers, Femke J M; Jansen, Maria W J; van der Goot, Odilia H M; de Vries, Nanne K; Sanders, Matthew R; Kremers, Stef P J

2015-01-01

Lifestyle Triple P is a general parenting intervention which focuses on preventing further excessive weight gain in overweight and obese children. The objective of the current study was to assess the effectiveness of the Lifestyle Triple P intervention in the Netherlands. We used a parallel randomized controlled design to test the effectiveness of the intervention. In total, 86 child-parent triads (children 4-8 years old, overweight or obese) were recruited and randomly assigned (allocation ratio 1:1) to the Lifestyle Triple P intervention or the control condition. Parents in the intervention condition received a 14-week intervention consisting of ten 90-minute group sessions and four individual telephone sessions. Primary outcome measure was the children's body composition (BMI z-scores, waist circumference and skinfolds). The research assistant who performed the measurements was blinded for group assignment. Secondary outcome measures were the children's dietary behavior and physical activity level, parenting practices, parental feeding style, parenting style, and parental self-efficacy. Outcome measures were assessed at baseline and 4 months (short-term) and 12 months (long-term) after baseline. Multilevel multiple regression analyses were conducted to determine the effect of the intervention on primary and secondary outcome measures. No intervention effects were found on children's body composition. Analyses of secondary outcomes showed positive short-term intervention effects on children's soft-drink consumption and parental responsibility regarding physical activity, encouragement to eat, psychological control, and efficacy and satisfaction with parenting. Longer-term intervention effects were found on parent's report of children's time spent on sedentary behavior and playing outside, parental monitoring food intake, and responsibility regarding nutrition. Although the Lifestyle Triple P intervention showed positive effects on some parent reported child behaviors and parenting measures, no effects were visible on children's body composition or objectively measured physical activity. Several adjustments of the intervention content are recommended, for example including a booster session. Nederlands Trial Register NTR 2555.

Private Health Plans’ Contracts with Managed Behavioral Healthcare Organizations

PubMed Central

Garnick, Deborah W.; Horgan, Constance M.; Merrick, Elizabeth L.; Hodgkin, Dominic; Reif, Sharon; Quinn, Amity E.; Stewart, Maureen; Creedon, Timothy B.

2015-01-01

Contracts between health plans and managed behavioral health care organizations (MBHOs) influence access and quality of behavioral health care. This report presents information on performance requirements, information sharing, and financial risk from a nationally representative survey of private health plans. Most contracts include geographic access to providers (93.3%) and NCQA’s performance standards (84.2%). Health plans and MBHOs share data (99.0%), generally by the MBHO sending information to the health plan (96.3%). About a quarter of contracts impose financial penalties (23.0%), but few include incentives related to performance standards (<1.0%). Contract terms can shape the provision of behavioral health services in response to changes such as parity legislation or health reform. If current trends continue towards increases in value-based purchasing in the privately financed behavioral health sector, the focus on quality in contracts between health plans and MBHOs will be critical to understand. PMID:26276421

Mobbing behaviors encountered by nurse teaching staff.

PubMed

Yildirim, Dilek; Yildirim, Aytolan; Timucin, Arzu

2007-07-01

The term 'mobbing' is defined as antagonistic behaviors with unethical communication directed systematically at one individual by one or more individuals in the workplace. This cross-sectional and descriptive study was conducted for the purpose of determining the mobbing behaviors encountered by nursing school teaching staff in Turkey, its effect on them, and their responses to them. A large percentage (91%) of the nursing school employees who participated in this study reported that they had encountered mobbing behaviors in the institution where they work and 17% that they had been directly exposed to mobbing in the workplace. The academic staff who had been exposed to mobbing behaviors experienced various physiological, emotional and social reactions. They frequently 'worked harder and [were] more organized and worked very carefully to avoid criticism' to escape from mobbing. In addition, 9% of the participants stated that they 'thought about suicide occasionally'.

Evidence that NMDA-dependent limbic neural plasticity in the right hemisphere mediates pharmacological stressor (FG-7142)-induced lasting increases in anxiety-like behavior. Study 2--The effects on behavior of block of NMDA receptors prior to injection of FG-7142.

PubMed

Adamec, R E

1998-01-01

The hypothesis that N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptors mediate initiation of lasting behavioral changes induced by the anxiogenic beta-carboline, FG-7142, was supported in this study. Behavioral changes normally induced by FG-7142 were blocked when the competitive NMDA receptor blocker, 7-amino-phosphono-heptanoic acid, was given prior to administration of FG-7142. When cats were subsequently given FG-7142 alone, the drug produced lasting behavioral changes like those reported previously. Flumazenil, a benzodiazepine receptor antagonist, reversed an increase in defensiveness produced by FG-7142 alone, replicating previous findings. The data are consistent with the hypothesis that NMDA-dependent long-term potentiation in limbic pathways subserving defensive response to threat mediates lasting increases in defensiveness produced by FG-7142.

Relationships between in-role performance and individual values, commitment, and organizational citizenship behavior among Israeli teachers.

PubMed

Cohen, Aaron; Liu, Ying

2011-08-01

This study examines the relationship between (1) individual values, (2) organizational and occupational commitment, and (3) organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) and in-role performance in a sample of 192 teachers employed in 10 secular Jewish schools (response rate of 64%). The results showed that individual values were related to all commitment forms examined here, but contrary to expectations, there was no clear distinction between values that represent conservation and self-transcendence and values that represent openness to change and self-enhancement in terms of their relationship either to commitment or to behavioral outcomes. Likewise, there was no clear distinction between the three dimensions of commitment (affective, continuance, and normative) or two commitment foci (organizational and occupational) in terms of their relationships to different values. Unsurprisingly, the findings showed a strong effect of commitment on OCB and in-role performance. The findings show that both individual values and commitment are concepts that can increase our understanding of employees' behavior in the workplace. We conclude by emphasizing the need for further research on the relationship between values, commitment, and performance and by suggesting some directions for such research.

Nanofiber-structured hydrogel yarns with pH-response capacity and cardiomyocyte-drivability for bio-microactuator application.

PubMed

Wu, Shaohua; Duan, Bin; Qin, Xiaohong; Butcher, Jonathan T

2017-09-15

Polymeric hydrogels have great potential in soft biological micro-actuator applications. However, inappropriate micro-architecture, non-anisotropy, weak biomechanics, and inferior response behaviors limit their development. In this study, we designed and manufactured novel polyacrylonitrile (PAN)-based hydrogel yarns composed with uniaxially aligned nanofibers. The nanofibrous hydrogel yarns possessed anisotropic architecture and robust mechanical properties with flexibility, and could be assembled into defined scaffold structures by subsequent processes. The as-prepared hydrogel yarns showed excellent pH response behaviors, with around 100% maximum length and 900% maximum diameter changes, and the pH response was completed within several seconds. Moreover, the hydrogel yarns displayed unique cell-responsive abilities to promote the cell adhesion, proliferation, and smooth muscle differentiation of human adipose derived mesenchymal stem cells (HADMSC). Chicken cardiomyocytes were further seeded onto our nanofibrous hydrogel yarns to engineer living cell-based microactuators. Our results demonstrated that the uniaxially aligned nanofibrous networks within the hydrogel yarns were the key characteristics leading to the anisotropic organization of cardiac cells, and improved sarcomere organization, mimicking the cardiomyocyte bundles in the native myocardium. The construct is capable of sustaining spontaneous cardiomyocyte pumping behaviors for 7days. Our PAN-based nanofibrous hydrogel yarns are attractive for creating linear microactuators with pH-response capacity and biological microactuators with cardiomyocyte-drivability. A mechanically robust polyacrylonitrile-based nanofibrous hydrogel yarn is fabricated by using a modified electrospinning setup in combination with chemical modification processes. The as-prepared hydrogel yarn possesses a uniaxially aligned nanofiber microarchitecture and supports a rapid, pH-dependent expansion/contraction response within a few seconds. Embryonic cardiomyocytes-seeded hydrogel yarn improves the sarcomere organization and mimics the cardiomyocyte bundles in the native myocardium, which sustains spontaneous cardiomyocyte pumping behaviors. The nanofibrous hydrogel yarn has several advantages over traditional bulk hydrogel scaffolds in terms of robust biomechanics, anisotropic aligned architecture, and superior pH response behaviors. Our nanofibrous hydrogel yarn holds the potential to be developed into novel linear and biological microactuators for various biomedical applications. Copyright © 2017 Acta Materialia Inc. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Effects of music on physiological and behavioral responses of premature infants: a randomized controlled trial.

PubMed

Alipour, Zahra; Eskandari, Narges; Ahmari Tehran, Hoda; Eshagh Hossaini, Seyed Kamal; Sangi, Sareh

2013-08-01

Despite persuasive theories about the beneficial effects of music and singing in developmental care for premature infants, few small studies are available in this regard. We conducted this study to investigate the physiological and behavioral responses of premature infants to recorded lullaby music and silence. In a randomized controlled trial, 90 premature infants in the neonatal care unit of a hospital in Qom (Iran) were randomly allocated to intervention (lullaby and silence) or control groups. Lullaby music was played via headphones at a volume of 50-60 dB. In the silence group, headphones were placed on the infants' ears while no music was played. The three groups were surveyed for physiological responses including oxygen saturation, respiratory and heart rates, and behavioral states every five minutes before, during, and after the intervention. The three groups were not significantly different in terms of mean values of respiratory and heart rates, oxygen saturation, and behavioral states of infants. Similarly, no significant within group differences in respiratory and heart rates, oxygen saturation, and behavioral states were observed at different times. Our findings did not support the beneficial effects of music for premature infants. However, music is a noninvasive, non-pharmaceutical, and relatively low-cost intervention that can be implemented at infants' bedside. Thus further research is warranted to determine whether the effects noted in previous studies can be consistently replicated in diverse settings and with diverse groups of preterm infants. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Long-term behavioral consequences of prenatal MDMA exposure.

PubMed

Thompson, Valerie B; Heiman, Justin; Chambers, James B; Benoit, Stephen C; Buesing, William R; Norman, Mantana K; Norman, Andrew B; Lipton, Jack W

2009-03-23

The current study sought to determine whether prenatal 3,4-methylenedioxy-N-methamphetamine (MDMA) exposure from E14-20 in the rat resulted in behavioral sequelae in adult offspring. Prenatal MDMA exposure results in increased dopaminergic fiber density in the prefrontal cortex, striatum and nucleus accumbens of young rats. Since these areas are critical in response to novelty, reward, attention and locomotor activity, we hypothesized that prenatal MDMA exposure would produce significant changes in the performance of tasks that examine such behaviors in adult rats. Adult rats prenatally exposed to MDMA exhibited greater activity and spent more time in the center during a novel open field test as compared to controls. This increased activity was not reflected in normal home cage activity. Prenatal exposure to MDMA did not affect feeding or food reward. It did not alter cocaine self-administration behaviors, nor did it have an effect on the locomotor response to amphetamine challenge. Finally, while prenatal MDMA did not affect performance in the radial arm maze or the Morris water maze (MWM), these animals demonstrated altered performance in a cued MWM paradigm. Prenatal MDMA exposure resulted in perseverative attendance to a hanging cue when the platform in the MWM was removed as compared to controls. Together, these data demonstrate that prenatal exposure to MDMA results in a behavioral phenotype in adult rats characterized by reduced anxiety, a heightened response to novelty, and "hyperattentiveness" to environmental cues during spatial learning.

A General Methodology for the Translation of Behavioral Terms into Vernacular Languages.

PubMed

Virues-Ortega, Javier; Martin, Neil; Schnerch, Gabriel; García, Jesús Ángel Miguel; Mellichamp, Fae

2015-05-01

As the field of behavior analysis expands internationally, the need for comprehensive and systematic glossaries of behavioral terms in the vernacular languages of professionals and clients becomes crucial. We created a Spanish-language glossary of behavior-analytic terms by developing and employing a systematic set of decision-making rules for the inclusion of terms. We then submitted the preliminary translation to a multi-national advisory committee to evaluate the transnational acceptability of the glossary. This method led to a translated corpus of over 1200 behavioral terms. The end products of this work included the following: (a) a Spanish-language glossary of behavior analytic terms that are publicly available over the Internet through the Behavior Analyst Certification Board and (b) a set of translation guidelines summarized here that may be useful for the development of glossaries of behavioral terms into other vernacular languages.

Adolescence and the Ontogeny of the Hormonal Stress Response in Male and Female Rats and Mice

PubMed Central

Romeo, Russell D.; Patel, Ravenna; Pham, Laurie; So, Veronica M.

2016-01-01

Adolescent development is marked by many changes in neuroendocrine function, resulting in both immediate and long-term influences on an individual’s physiology and behavior. Stress-induced hormonal responses are one such change, with adolescent animals often showing different patterns of hormonal reactivity following a stressor compared with adults. This review will describe the unique ways in which adolescent animals respond to a variety of stressors and how these adolescent-related changes in hormonal responsiveness can be further modified by the sex and previous experience of the individual. Potential central and peripheral mechanisms that contribute to these developmental shifts in stress reactivity are also discussed. Finally, the short- and long-term programming effects of chronic stress exposure during adolescence on later adult hormonal responsiveness are also examined. Though far from a clear understanding of the neurobehavioral consequences of these adolescent-related shifts in stress reactivity, continued study of developmental changes in stress-induced hormonal responses may shed light on the increased vulnerability to physical and psychological dysfunctions that often accompany a stressful adolescence. PMID:27235079

Evaluation of TV commercials using neurophysiological responses.

PubMed

Yang, Taeyang; Lee, Do-Young; Kwak, Youngshin; Choi, Jinsook; Kim, Chajoong; Kim, Sung-Phil

2015-04-24

In recent years, neuroscientific knowledge has been applied to marketing as a novel and efficient means to comprehend the cognitive and behavioral aspects of consumers. A number of studies have attempted to evaluate media contents, especially TV commercials using various neuroimaging techniques such as electroencephalography (EEG). Yet neurophysiological examination of detailed cognitive and affective responses in viewers is still required to provide practical information to marketers. Here, this study develops a method to analyze temporal patterns of EEG data and extract affective and cognitive indices such as happiness, surprise, and attention for TV commercial evaluation. Twenty participants participated in the study. We developed the neurophysiological indices for TV commercial evaluation using classification model. Specifically, these model-based indices were customized using individual EEG features. We used a video game for developing the index of attention and four video clips for developing indices of happiness and surprise. Statistical processes including one-way analyses of variance (ANOVA) and the cross validation scheme were used to select EEG features for each index. The EEG features were composed of the combinations of spectral power at selected channels from the cross validation for each individual. The Fisher's linear discriminant classifier (FLDA) was used to estimate each neurophysiological index during viewing four different TV commercials. Post hoc behavioral responses of preference, short-term memory, and recall were measured. Behavioral results showed significant differences for all preference, short-term memory rates, and recall rates between commercials, leading to a 'high-ranked' commercial group and a 'low-ranked' group (P < 0.05). Neural estimation of happiness results revealed a significant difference between the high-ranked and the low-ranked commercials in happiness index (P < 0.01). The order of rankings based on happiness and attention matched well with the order of behavioral response rankings. In the elapsed-time analysis of the highest-ranked commercial, we could point to visual and auditory semantic structures of the commercial that induced increases in the happiness index. Our results demonstrated that the neurophysiological indices developed in this study may provide a useful tool for evaluating TV commercials.

Using diel movement behavior to infer foraging strategies related to ecological and social factors in elephants.

PubMed

Polansky, Leo; Douglas-Hamilton, Iain; Wittemyer, George

2013-01-01

Adaptive movement behaviors allow individuals to respond to fluctuations in resource quality and distribution in order to maintain fitness. Classically, studies of the interaction between ecological conditions and movement behavior have focused on such metrics as travel distance, velocity, home range size or patch occupancy time as the salient metrics of behavior. Driven by the emergence of very regular high frequency data, more recently the importance of interpreting the autocorrelation structure of movement as a behavioral metric has become apparent. Studying movement of a free ranging African savannah elephant population, we evaluated how two movement metrics, diel displacement (DD) and movement predictability (MP - the degree of autocorrelated movement activity at diel time scales), changed in response to variation in resource availability as measured by the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index. We were able to capitalize on long term (multi-year) yet high resolution (hourly) global positioning system tracking datasets, the sample size of which allows robust analysis of complex models. We use optimal foraging theory predictions as a framework to interpret our results, in particular contrasting the behaviors across changes in social rank and resource availability to infer which movement behaviors at diel time scales may be optimal in this highly social species. Both DD and MP increased with increasing forage availability, irrespective of rank, reflecting increased energy expenditure and movement predictability during time periods of overall high resource availability. However, significant interactions between forage availability and social rank indicated a stronger response in DD, and a weaker response in MP, with increasing social status. Relative to high ranking individuals, low ranking individuals expended more energy and exhibited less behavioral movement autocorrelation during lower forage availability conditions, likely reflecting sub-optimal movement behavior. Beyond situations of contest competition, rank status appears to influence the extent to which individuals can modify their movement strategies across periods with differing forage availability. Large-scale spatiotemporal resource complexity not only impacts fine scale movement and optimal foraging strategies directly, but likely impacts rates of inter- and intra-specific interactions and competition resulting in socially based movement responses to ecological dynamics.

Neural reward and punishment sensitivity in cigarette smokers.

PubMed

Potts, Geoffrey F; Bloom, Erika L; Evans, David E; Drobes, David J

2014-11-01

Nicotine addiction remains a major public health problem but the neural substrates of addictive behavior remain unknown. One characteristic of smoking behavior is impulsive choice, selecting the immediate reward of smoking despite the potential long-term negative consequences. This suggests that drug users, including cigarette smokers, may be more sensitive to rewards and less sensitive to punishment. We used event-related potentials (ERPs) to test the hypothesis that smokers are more responsive to reward signals and less responsive to punishment, potentially predisposing them to risky behavior. We conducted two experiments, one using a reward prediction design to elicit a Medial Frontal Negativity (MFN) and one using a reward- and punishment-motivated flanker task to elicit an Error Related Negativity (ERN), ERP components thought to index activity in the cortical projection of the dopaminergic reward system. The smokers had a greater MFN response to unpredicted rewards, and non-smokers, but not smokers, had a larger ERN on punishment motivated trials indicating that smokers are more reward sensitive and less punishment sensitive than nonsmokers, overestimating the appetitive value and underestimating aversive outcomes of stimuli and actions. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

Long term treadmill exercise performed to chronic social isolated rats regulate anxiety behavior without improving learning.

PubMed

Cevik, Ozge Selin; Sahin, Leyla; Tamer, Lulufer

2018-05-01

The type and duration of exposure to stress is an important influence on emotional and cognitive functions. Learning is the adaptive response of the central nervous system that occurs in hippocampus which affects from environmental factors like exercise. In this study, we investigated effects of long term treadmill exercise on learning and behavior on chronic social isolated rat. Male Wistar rats (n = 32) randomly assigned into four groups: control, exercised, social isolation, social isolation + exercise during postnatal days (PNDs) 21-34. Social isolation protocol was applied during 14 days by placing rat in a cage one by one. Rats were exercised during 5 days, days were chosen randomly for overall 4 weeks (20, 30, 50, 60 min respectively). Finally, learning performance was evaluated by Morris water maze (MWM). Anxiety behavior was evaluated by Open field and elevated plus maze test. At the end of learning and behavior tests, the rats were decapitated to collect blood samples via intracardiac puncture and corticosterone analysis was performed with ELISA method. Animal weights and water consumption did not change significantly but food intake differed among groups. Corticosterone level did not change between groups. The frequency of entering to the target quadrant increased in exercised rat significantly. However, there was no difference in learning and memory in rats. Treadmill exercise reduced anxiety behavior significantly. Taken together these findings may point out that, long term treadmill exercise did not change learning and memory but reduced anxiety level of rat without changing corticosterone level. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Experimental study of plastic responses of pipe elbows

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Greenstreet, W.L.

Load-deflection responses were determined experimentally for sixteen 152.4-mm (6-in.) (nominal) commercial carbon steel pipe elbows and four 152.4-mm (6-in.) stainless steel elbows. Each specimen was loaded with an external force of sufficient magnitude to produce predominantly plastic response. The influences of bend radius and wall thickness were studied, as well as the effect of internal prssure on load-deflection behavior. Comparisons of results from stainless steel and from carbon steel elbows indicate differences in responses attributable to material differences. The results were interpreted in terms of limit analysis concepts, and collapse loads were determined. Trends given by the collapse loads aremore » identified and discussed.« less

Appetitive traits from infancy to adolescence: Using behavioral and neural measures to investigate obesity risk

PubMed Central

Carnell, Susan; Benson, Leora; Pryor, Katherine; Driggin, Elissa

2013-01-01

We come into the world with enduring predispositions towards food, which interact with environmental factors to influence our eating behaviors and weight trajectories. But our fates are not sealed – by learning more about this process we can identify ways to intervene. To advance this goal this we need to be able to assess appetitive traits such as food cue responsiveness and satiety sensitivity at different developmental stages. Assessment methods might include behavioral measures (e.g. eating behavior tests, psychometric questionnaires), but also biomarkers such as brain responses to food cues measured using fMRI. Evidence from infants, children and adolescents suggests that these indices of appetite differ not only with body weight, but also with familial obesity risk as assessed by parent weight, which reflects both genetic and environmental influences, and may provide a useful predictor of obesity development. Behavioral and neural approaches have great potential to inform each other: examining eating behavior can help us identify meaningful appetitive endophenotypes whose neural bases can be probed, while increasing knowledge of the shared neurobiology underlying appetite, obesity, and related behaviors and disorders may ultimately lead to innovative generalized interventions. Another challenge will be to combine comprehensive behavioral and neural assessments of appetitive traits with measures of relevant genetic and environmental factors within long-term prospective studies. This approach may help to identify the biobehavioral precursors of obesity, and lay the foundations for targeted neurobehavioral interventions that can interrupt the pathway to excess weight. PMID:23458627

[Trust-promoting variables in child-adult interaction].

PubMed

Esser, M; Petermann, F

1985-01-01

As interpersonal trust is recognized as a central variable in child-psychotherapy, and as psychological research has not yet developed strategies to advance interpersonal trust, the question arose by which social behavior variables children's trust is determined in the interaction process between adults and children. After having developed a most concrete definition of trust in terms of social interaction behavior, everyday pedagogical interaction sequences involving adults and children were analyzed in order to identify behavioral elements or patterns of interaction conducive to trust. According to the hypotheses, the behavior classes "positive adult reaction", "adult trusting behavior" and the interaction pattern "positive adult response to child trusting behavior" were found as conducive to interpersonal trust in children. Furthermore the realisation of the pattern "alternation of trusting child behavior and positive adult behavior" for a longer period of interaction was identified as material to the foundation of interpersonal trust. The realisation of that pattern is encouraged by positive and permanent reinforcement of different child reactions by the adult and by the child's readiness to react trustfully to positive adult behavior.

HIV/AIDS status disclosure increases support, behavioural change and, HIV prevention in the long term: a case for an Urban Clinic, Kampala, Uganda

PubMed Central

2014-01-01

Background Disclosure of HIV status supports risk reduction and facilitates access to prevention and care services, but can be inhibited by the fear of negative repercussions. We explored the short and long-term outcomes of disclosure among clients attending an urban HIV clinic in Uganda. Methods Qualitative semi-structured interviews were administered to a purposeful sample of 40 adult HIV clients that was stratified by gender. The information elicited included their lived experiences and outcomes of disclosure in the short and long term. A text data management software (ATLAS.ti) was used for data analysis. Codes were exported to MS Excel and pivot tables, and code counts made to generate statistical data. Results Of the 134 short-term responses elicited during the interview regarding disclosure events, most responses were supportive including encouragement, advice and support regarding HIV care and treatment. The results show on-disclosing to spouse, there was more trust, and use of condoms for HIV prevention. Only one third were negative responses, like emotional shock and feeling of distress. The negative reactions to the spouses included rejection, shock and distress in the short term. Even then, none of these events led to drastic change such as divorce. Other responses reflected HIV prevention and call for behavioural change and advice to change sexual behaviour, recipient seeking HIV testing or care. Women reported more responses of encouragement compared to men. Men reported more preventive behaviour compared to women. Of the 137 long-term outcomes elicited during disclosure, three quarters were positive followed by behavioral change and prevention, and then negative responses. Men reported increased care and support when they disclosed to fellow men compared to when women disclosed to women. There was better or not change in relationship when women disclosed to women than when women disclosed to men. Conclusions There is overwhelming support to individuals that disclose their HIV status, especially in the long term. Besides, gender appears to influence responses to HIV disclosure, highlighting the need for gender specific disclosure support strategies. PMID:24950958

HIV/AIDS status disclosure increases support, behavioural change and, HIV prevention in the long term: a case for an Urban Clinic, Kampala, Uganda.

PubMed

Atuyambe, Lynn Muhimbuura; Ssegujja, Eric; Ssali, Sarah; Tumwine, Christopher; Nekesa, Nicolate; Nannungi, Annette; Ryan, Gery; Wagner, Glenn

2014-06-21

Disclosure of HIV status supports risk reduction and facilitates access to prevention and care services, but can be inhibited by the fear of negative repercussions. We explored the short and long-term outcomes of disclosure among clients attending an urban HIV clinic in Uganda. Qualitative semi-structured interviews were administered to a purposeful sample of 40 adult HIV clients that was stratified by gender. The information elicited included their lived experiences and outcomes of disclosure in the short and long term. A text data management software (ATLAS.ti) was used for data analysis. Codes were exported to MS Excel and pivot tables, and code counts made to generate statistical data. Of the 134 short-term responses elicited during the interview regarding disclosure events, most responses were supportive including encouragement, advice and support regarding HIV care and treatment. The results show on-disclosing to spouse, there was more trust, and use of condoms for HIV prevention. Only one third were negative responses, like emotional shock and feeling of distress. The negative reactions to the spouses included rejection, shock and distress in the short term. Even then, none of these events led to drastic change such as divorce. Other responses reflected HIV prevention and call for behavioural change and advice to change sexual behaviour, recipient seeking HIV testing or care. Women reported more responses of encouragement compared to men. Men reported more preventive behaviour compared to women. Of the 137 long-term outcomes elicited during disclosure, three quarters were positive followed by behavioral change and prevention, and then negative responses. Men reported increased care and support when they disclosed to fellow men compared to when women disclosed to women. There was better or not change in relationship when women disclosed to women than when women disclosed to men. There is overwhelming support to individuals that disclose their HIV status, especially in the long term. Besides, gender appears to influence responses to HIV disclosure, highlighting the need for gender specific disclosure support strategies.

Brain Angiotensin II AT1 receptors are involved in the acute and long-term amphetamine-induced neurocognitive alterations.

PubMed

Marchese, Natalia Andrea; Artur de laVillarmois, Emilce; Basmadjian, Osvaldo Martin; Perez, Mariela Fernanda; Baiardi, Gustavo; Bregonzio, Claudia

2016-03-01

Angiotensin II, by activation of its brain AT1-receptors, plays an active role as neuromodulator in dopaminergic transmission. These receptors participate in the development of amphetamine-induced behavioral and dopamine release sensitization. Dopamine is involved in cognitive processes and provides connectivity between brain areas related to these processes. Amphetamine by its mimetic activity over dopamine neurotransmission elicits differential responses after acute administration or after re-exposure following long-term withdrawal periods in different cognitive processes. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the AT1-receptor involvement in the acute and long-term amphetamine-induced alterations in long-term memory and in cellular-related events. Male Wistar rats (250-300 g) were used in this study. Acute effects: Amphetamine (0.5/2.5 mg/kg i.p.) was administered after post-training in the inhibitory avoidance (IA) response. The AT1-receptor blocker Losartan was administered i.c.v. before a single dose of amphetamine (0.5 mg/kg i.p.). Long-term effects: The AT1-receptors blocker Candesartan (3 mg/kg p.o.) was administered for 5 days followed by 5 consecutive days of amphetamine (2.5 mg/kg/day, i.p.). The neuroadaptive changes were evidenced after 1 week of withdrawal by an amphetamine challenge (0.5 mg/kg i.p.). The IA response, the neuronal activation pattern, and the hippocampal synaptic transmission were evaluated. The impairing effect in the IA response of post-training acute amphetamine was partially prevented by Losartan. The long-term changes induced by repeated amphetamine (resistance to acute amphetamine interference in the IA response, neurochemical altered response, and increased hippocampal synaptic transmission) were prevented by AT1-receptors blockade. AT1-receptors are involved in the acute alterations and in the neuroadaptations induced by repeated amphetamine associated with neurocognitive processes.

Developmental exposure to a complex PAH mixture causes persistent behavioral effects in naive Fundulus heteroclitus (killifish) but not in a population of PAH-adapted killifish.

PubMed

Brown, D R; Bailey, J M; Oliveri, A N; Levin, E D; Di Giulio, R T

2016-01-01

Acute exposures to some individual polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and complex PAH mixtures are known to cause cardiac malformations and edema in the developing fish embryo. However, the heart is not the only organ impacted by developmental PAH exposure. The developing brain is also affected, resulting in lasting behavioral dysfunction. While acute exposures to some PAHs are teratogenically lethal in fish, little is known about the later life consequences of early life, lower dose subteratogenic PAH exposures. We sought to determine and characterize the long-term behavioral consequences of subteratogenic developmental PAH mixture exposure in both naive killifish and PAH-adapted killifish using sediment pore water derived from the Atlantic Wood Industries Superfund Site. Killifish offspring were embryonically treated with two low-level PAH mixture dilutions of Elizabeth River sediment extract (ERSE) (TPAH 5.04 μg/L and 50.4 μg/L) at 24h post fertilization. Following exposure, killifish were raised to larval, juvenile, and adult life stages and subjected to a series of behavioral tests including: a locomotor activity test (4 days post-hatch), a sensorimotor response tap/habituation test (3 months post hatch), and a novel tank diving and exploration test (3months post hatch). Killifish were also monitored for survival at 1, 2, and 5 months over 5-month rearing period. Developmental PAH exposure caused short-term as well as persistent behavioral impairments in naive killifish. In contrast, the PAH-adapted killifish did not show behavioral alterations following PAH exposure. PAH mixture exposure caused increased mortality in reference killifish over time; yet, the PAH-adapted killifish, while demonstrating long-term rearing mortality, had no significant changes in mortality associated with ERSE exposure. This study demonstrated that early embryonic exposure to PAH-contaminated sediment pore water caused long-term locomotor and behavioral alterations in killifish, and that locomotor alterations could be observed in early larval stages. Additionally, our study highlights the resistance to behavioral alterations caused by low-level PAH mixture exposure in the adapted killifish population. Furthermore, this is the first longitudinal behavioral study to use killifish, an environmentally important estuarine teleost fish, and this testing framework can be used for future contaminant assessment. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

A new method for analysis of limit cycle behavior of the NASA/JPL 70-meter antenna axis servos

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Hill, R. E.

1989-01-01

A piecewise linear method of analyzing the effects of discontinuous nonlinearities on control system performance is described. The limit cycle oscillatory behavior of the system resulting from the nonlinearities is described in terms of a sequence of linear system transient responses. The equations are derived which relate the initial and the terminal conditions of successive transients and the boundary conditions imposed by the non-linearities. The method leads to a convenient computation algorithm for prediction of limit cycle characteristics resulting from discontinuous nonlinearities such as friction, deadzones, and hysteresis.

A framework for investigating animal consciousness.

PubMed

Droege, Paula; Braithwaite, Victoria A

2015-01-01

An assessment of consciousness in nonverbal animals requires a framework for research that extends testing methods beyond subjective report. This chapter proposes a working definition of consciousness in terms of temporal representation that provides the critical link between internal phenomenology and external behavior and neural structure. Our claim is that consciousness represents the present moment as distinct from the past and the future in order to flexibly respond to stimuli. We discuss behavioral and neural evidence that indicates the capacity for both flexible response and temporal representation, and we illustrate these capacities in fish, a taxonomic group that challenges human intuitions about consciousness.

Behavioral and physiological effects of a short-term feed restriction in lactating dairy cattle with different body condition scores at calving.

PubMed

Schütz, K E; Cox, N R; Macdonald, K A; Roche, J R; Verkerk, G A; Rogers, A R; Tucker, C B; Matthews, L R; Meier, S; Webster, J R

2013-07-01

Body condition score (BCS) around calving, and the typical BCS loss for up to 100 d after parturition, is associated with both production and reproductive performance of dairy cattle. In addition, there is public concern that thin cows may have impaired welfare, particularly in early lactation where feed demand exceeds pasture growth, and a lag exists between peak milk energy requirements and intake. The aim of this experiment was to determine how BCS at calving influences behavioral and physiological responses to a short-term feed restriction at 47 DIM. Body condition score (on a 10-point scale) at calving was manipulated by modifying the diets in the previous lactation of healthy dairy cattle to generate 3 treatment groups: low BCS (3.4; n=17), medium BCS (4.6; n=18), or high BCS (5.4; n=20). Cows were tested in 4 groups for 8 consecutive days; testing consisted of different levels of feed allocation (d 1 and 2: 100%; d 3 and 4: 75%; d 5: 50%; d 6 to 8: 125%), where 100% was 15kg of DM/cow per day. All BCS groups had similar and marked behavioral and physiological responses to feed restriction. For example, they increased vocalization, time spent eating silage and grazing, aggressive behavior, and fat metabolism (as measured by concentrations of β-hydroxybutyrate and nonesterified fatty acids), and reduced milk production. Body condition affected some of these responses. Fewer cows with low BCS engaged in aggressive interactions in a feed competition test (trough filled with silage that could be consumed in 15 min) on the first day of feed restriction (low: 32%; medium: 74%; high: 64%; standard error of difference=15.4%). High BCS cows had greater concentrations of β-hydroxybutyrate and nonesterified fatty acids throughout the experimental period, which suggests more fat mobilization; however, plasma leptin and fecal glucocorticosteroid metabolite concentrations were unaffected by BCS. Whereas cows demonstrated marked responses to feed restriction, the results suggest that a BCS of 3.4, 4.6, or 5.4 in healthy cows at calving does not overwhelmingly influence this response at 47 DIM. Copyright © 2013 American Dairy Science Association. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Physical versus psychological social stress in male rats reveals distinct cardiovascular, inflammatory and behavioral consequences

PubMed Central

Padi, Akhila R.; Moffitt, Casey M.; Wilson, L. Britt; Wood, Christopher S.; Wood, Susan K.

2017-01-01

Repeated exposure to social stress can precipitate the development of psychosocial disorders including depression and comorbid cardiovascular disease. While a major component of social stress often encompasses physical interactions, purely psychological stressors (i.e. witnessing a traumatic event) also fall under the scope of social stress. The current study determined whether the acute stress response and susceptibility to stress-related consequences differed based on whether the stressor consisted of physical versus purely psychological social stress. Using a modified resident-intruder paradigm, male rats were either directly exposed to repeated social defeat stress (intruder) or witnessed a male rat being defeated. Cardiovascular parameters, behavioral anhedonia, and inflammatory cytokines in plasma and the stress-sensitive locus coeruleus were compared between intruder, witness, and control rats. Surprisingly intruders and witnesses exhibited nearly identical increases in mean arterial pressure and heart rate during acute and repeated stress exposures, yet only intruders exhibited stress-induced arrhythmias. Furthermore, re-exposure to the stress environment in the absence of the resident produced robust pressor and tachycardic responses in both stress conditions indicating the robust and enduring nature of social stress. In contrast, the long-term consequences of these stressors were distinct. Intruders were characterized by enhanced inflammatory sensitivity in plasma, while witnesses were characterized by the emergence of depressive-like anhedonia, transient increases in systolic blood pressure and plasma levels of tissue inhibitor of metalloproteinase. The current study highlights that while the acute cardiovascular responses to stress were identical between intruders and witnesses, these stressors produced distinct differences in the enduring consequences to stress, suggesting that witness stress may be more likely to produce long-term cardiovascular dysfunction and comorbid behavioral anhedonia while exposure to physical stressors may bias the system towards sensitivity to inflammatory disorders. PMID:28241050

Effects of long-term shock and associated stimuli on aggressive and manual responses1

PubMed Central

Hutchinson, R. R.; Renfrew, J. W.; Young, G. A.

1971-01-01

Squirrel monkeys were exposed to response-independent, fixed-frequency shock that produced biting attack upon a pneumatic hose. Attacks decreased within and across sessions at low intensities and high frequencies of shock, but increased within and across sessions at higher intensities and lower shock frequencies. Stimuli paired with shock, when presented alone, came to produce biting, and stimuli correlated with shock parameters that produced increases in responding within sessions produced similar increases when presented alone. Further experiments showed that continuing exposure to shock also produced lever pressing or chain pulling, with longer shock exposure again producing higher response rates. Whereas biting generally decreased throughout the intershock interval, manual responding generally increased as shock time approached, but immediately before shock was often suppressed. Following shock, biting attack predominated over manual behavior. The results suggest a possible explanation for the extreme resistance of avoidance behavior to extinction, and may also partially explain the persistence of responding during schedules of response-produced shock. Relationships of the present findings to naturalistic observations of relations between fleeing, freezing, and fighting performances are discussed. PMID:16811496

Steady-state dynamic behavior of an auxiliary bearing supported rotor system

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Xie, Huajun; Flowers, George T.; Lawrence, Charles

1995-01-01

This paper investigates the steady-state responses of a rotor system supported by auxiliary bearings in which there is a clearance between the rotor and the inner race of the bearing. A simulation model based upon the rotor of a production jet engine is developed and its steady-state behavior is explored over a wide range of operating conditions for various parametric configurations. Specifically, the influence of rotor imbalance, support stiffness, and damping is studied. It is found that imbalance may change the rotor responses dramatically in terms of frequency contents at certain operating speeds. Subharmonic responses of 2nd order through 10th order are all observed except the 9th order. Chaotic phenomenon is also observed. Jump phenomena (or double-valued responses) of both hard-spring type and soft-spring type are shown to occur at low operating speeds for systems with low auxiliary bearing damping or large clearance even with relatively small imbalance. The effect of friction between the shaft and the inner race of the bearing is also discussed.

Noradrenergic facilitation of shock-probe defensive burying in lateral septum of rats, and modulation by chronic treatment with desipramine.

PubMed

Bondi, Corina O; Barrera, Gabriel; Lapiz, M Danet S; Bedard, Tania; Mahan, Amy; Morilak, David A

2007-03-30

We have previously shown that acute stress-induced release of norepinephrine (NE) facilitates anxiety-like behavioral responses to stress, such as reduction in open-arm exploration on the elevated-plus maze and in social behavior on the social interaction test. Since these responses represent inhibition of ongoing behavior, it is important to also address whether NE facilitates a response that represents an activation of behavior. Correspondingly, it is unknown how a chronic elevation in tonic steady-state noradrenergic (NA) neurotransmission induced by NE reuptake blockade might alter this acute modulatory function, a regulatory process that may be pertinent to the anxiolytic effects of NE reuptake blockers such as desipramine (DMI). Therefore, in this study, we investigated noradrenergic modulation of the shock-probe defensive burying response in the lateral septum (LS). In experiment 1, shock-probe exposure induced an acute 3-fold increase in NE levels measured in LS of male Sprague-Dawley rats by microdialysis. Shock-probe exposure also induced a modest rise in plasma ACTH, taken as an indicator of perceived stress, that returned to baseline more rapidly in rats that were allowed to bury the probe compared to rats prevented from burying by providing them with minimal bedding, indicating that the active defensive burying behavior is an effective coping strategy that reduces the impact of acute shock probe-induced stress. In experiment 2, blockade of either alpha(1)- or beta-adrenergic receptors in LS by local antagonist microinjection immediately before testing reduced defensive burying and increased immobility. In the next experiment, chronic DMI treatment increased basal extracellular NE levels in LS, and attenuated the acute shock probe-induced increase in NE release in LS relative to baseline. Chronic DMI treatment decreased shock-probe defensive burying behavior in a time-dependent manner, apparent only after 2 weeks or more of drug treatment. Moreover, rats treated chronically with DMI showed no significant rise of plasma ACTH in response to shock-probe exposure. Thus, acute stress-induced release of NE in LS facilitated defensive burying, an active, adaptive behavioral coping response. Chronic treatment with the NE reuptake blocker and antidepressant drug DMI attenuated acute noradrenergic facilitation of the active burying response, and also attenuated the level of perceived stress driving that response. These results suggest that long-term regulation of the acute modulatory function of NE by chronic treatment with reuptake blockers may contribute to the mechanisms by which such drugs exert their anxiolytic effects in the treatment of stress-related psychiatric conditions, including depression and anxiety.

Immediate, but no delayed, behavioral response to a snake model by captive black tufted-ear marmosets.

PubMed

Cagni, Priscila; Sampaio, Ana Cristhina; Ribeiro, Natália B; Barros, Marilia

2011-07-01

Whether callitrichids are naturally capable of detecting and responding to predators - or if such skills are learned - remains a controversial issue, with results differing in terms of species, predator and encounter conditions. Therefore, the behavioral response of naïve adult captive black tufted-ear marmosets (Callithrix penicillata) was assessed before, during, 0 and 4 h after a 5-min encounter with a snake and flower model. Using a two-phase cross-over design, marmosets (n = 16) were submitted to one trial for each stimulus, divided into four 5-min intervals: pre-exposure, exposure and post-exposure observations held 0 and 4h later. The snake exposure increased the number of gazes made towards the stimulus and the time cage-mates spent close to each other, as well as induced tsik-tsik alarm/mobbing calls, while inhibiting foraging and decreasing the time spent near the snake's location. After the snake was removed, all changes were immediately reversed. Mobbing was not observed. The flower stimulus only increased direct gazes and time spent in proximity during its presentation. All marmosets were captive-born and snake-naïve yet had recently been confronted with a cat stimulus in a previous experiment. Thus, previous experiences with snakes may be required for marmosets to fully develop appropriate immediate and long-term responses. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Competition in the Brain. The Contribution of EEG and fNIRS Modulation and Personality Effects in Social Ranking.

PubMed

Balconi, Michela; Vanutelli, Maria E

2016-01-01

In the present study, the social ranking perception in competition was explored. Brain response (alpha band oscillations, EEG; hemodynamic activity, O2Hb), as well as self-perception of social ranking, cognitive performance, and personality trait (Behavioral Activation System, BAS) were considered during a competitive joint-action. Subjects were required to develop a strategy to obtain a better outcome than a competitor (C) (in term of error rate, and response time, RT). A pre-feedback (without a specific feedback on the performance) and a post-feedback condition (which reinforced the improved performance) were provided. It was found that higher-BAS participants responded in greater measure to perceived higher cognitive performance (post-feedback condition), with increased left prefrontal activity, higher ranking perception, and a better real performance (reduced RTs). These results were explained in term of increased sense of self-efficacy and social position, probably based on higher-BAS sensitivity to reinforcing conditions. In addition, the hemispheric effect in favor of the left side characterized the competitive behavior, showing an imbalance for high-BAS in comparison to low-BAS in the case of a rewarding (post-feedback) context. Therefore, the present results confirmed the significance of BAS in modulating brain responsiveness, self-perceived social position, and real performance during an interpersonal competitive action which is considered highly relevant for social status.

Photo-induced locomotion of chemo-responsive polymer gels

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Dayal, Pratyush; Kuksenok, Olga; Balazs, Anna C.

2009-03-01

The need to translate chemical energy into a mechanical response, a characteristic of many biological processes, has motivated the study of stimuli-responsive polymer gels. Recently, it has been shown experimentally that by coupling the mechanical properties of the gel with the Belousov-Zhabotinsky (BZ) reaction it is possible to induce self-sustained oscillations in the gel. One of the means for controlling these chemical oscillations is using light as an external stimulus. To study the effect of light on the mechanical behavior of the gel, we use our recently developed a 3D gel lattice spring model (gLSM) which couples the BZ reaction kinetics to the gel dynamics. In this model, the polymer-solvent interactions were taken into account by adding a coupling term to the Flory-Huggins free energy. By virtue of this coupling term, the swelling---de-swelling behavior of the gel was captured in 3D. In order to include the effect of the polymer on the reaction kinetics, the Oregonator model for the photo-sensitive BZ reaction was also modified. Using gLSM model, we probed the effect of non-uniform light irradiation on the gel dynamics. We were able to manipulate the direction and velocity of locomotion of the gel using light as a control parameter. This ability to control the movement of the gel can be utilized in a variety of applications, ranging from bio-actuators to controlled drug release systems.

Serine 133 Phosphorylation Is Not Required for Hippocampal CREB-Mediated Transcription and Behavior

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Brian, Lisa A.; Lee, Bridgin G.; Lelay, John; Kaestner, Klaus H.; Blendy, Julie A.

2015-01-01

The cAMP response element (CRE)-binding protein, CREB, is a transcription factor whose activity in the brain is critical for long-term memory formation. Phosphorylation of Ser133 in the kinase-inducible domain (KID), that in turn leads to the recruitment of the transcriptional coactivator CREB-binding protein (CBP), is thought to mediate the…

Recovery from Fatigue.

DTIC Science & Technology

1976-06-30

block number) FATIGUE NAPPING PATTERNS SLEEP AND HYPNOSIS NAPPING CONTROL OF SLEEP PROPHYLACTIC NAPPING SLEEP NON-NAPPERS STRESS SLEEP EFFICIENCY 2-L...responsivity to hypnosis and aspects of the napping questionnaire. While there were no differences between hypnotizable and unhypnotizable napper... hypnosis to help modify sleep behavior is documented in a collaborative study. The implications of each of these sets of data, both in terms of our

Politics, Policy, Practice and Personal Responsibility: Adult Education in an Era of Welfare Reform. NCSALL Reports #10A.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

D'Amico, Deobrah

The relationship of literacy to work should be considered in terms of the political and economic conditions that structure the experiences of the working and non-working poor with respect to education and work. Research shows welfare-to-work programs constitute behavioral solutions to what are structural economic problems; literacy alone cannot…

Does Maintenance CBT Contribute to Long-Term Treatment Response of Panic Disorder with or without Agoraphobia? A Randomized Controlled Clinical Trial

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

White, Kamila S.; Payne, Laura A.; Gorman, Jack M.; Shear, M. Katherine; Woods, Scott W.; Saksa, John R.; Barlow, David H.

2013-01-01

Objective: We examined the possibility that maintenance cognitive behavior therapy (M-CBT) may improve the likelihood of sustained improvement and reduced relapse in a multi-site randomized controlled clinical trial of patients who met criteria for panic disorder with or without agoraphobia. Method: Participants were all patients (N = 379) who…

Culturally Responsive Adolescent Pregnancy and Sexually Transmitted Infection Prevention Program for Middle School Students in Hawai‘i

PubMed Central

Barker, Linda Toms; Chan, Vincent; Eucogco, Jasmine

2016-01-01

Objectives. To evaluate the effectiveness of Pono Choices, a culturally responsive adolescent pregnancy and sexually transmitted infection (STI) prevention program targeting middle school youths in Hawai‘i. Methods. We conducted a cluster randomized controlled trial with the school as the unit of random assignment over 3 semesters between 2012 and 2013. The sample consisted of 36 middle schools and 2203 students. We administered student surveys to collect baseline outcomes, student demographic data, and outcomes at 12 months after baseline. Results. We found statistically significant effects for the knowledge assessment, which focused on basic understanding of adolescent pregnancy and STI prevention. The average percentage of correct responses was 73.6 for the treatment group and 60.4 for the control group (P < .001). We did not find statistically significant effects on behavioral outcomes (initiation of sexual activity or engagement in high-risk sexual behavior) or on other nonbehavioral outcomes (attitudes, skills, intentions). Conclusions. Pono Choices had a statistically significant impact on knowledge of adolescent pregnancy and STI prevention among middle school students at 12 months after baseline, though it did not lead to detectable changes in behavioral outcomes within the 1-year observation period. These results call for an exploration of longer-term outcomes to assess effects on knowledge retention and behavioral changes. PMID:27689477

Lack of stress responses to long-term effects of corticosterone in Caps2 knockout mice.

PubMed

Mishima, Yuriko; Shinoda, Yo; Sadakata, Tetsushi; Kojima, Masami; Wakana, Shigeharu; Furuichi, Teiichi

2015-03-10

Chronic stress is associated with anxiety and depressive disorders, and can cause weight gain. Ca(2+)-dependent activator protein for secretion 2 (CAPS2) is involved in insulin release. Caps2 knockout (KO) mice exhibit decreased body weight, reduced glucose-induced insulin release, and abnormal psychiatric behaviors. We chronically administered the stress hormone corticosterone (CORT), which induces anxiety/depressive-like behavior and normally increases plasma insulin levels, via the drinking water for 10 weeks, and we examined the stress response in KO mice. Chronic CORT exposure inhibited stress-induced serum CORT elevation in wild-type (WT) mice, but not in KO mice. Poor weight gain in CORT-treated animals was observed until week 6 in WT mice, but persisted for the entire duration of the experiment in KO mice, although there is no difference in drug*genotype interaction. Among KO mice, food consumption was unchanged, while water consumption was higher, over the duration of the experiment in CORT-treated animals, compared with untreated animals. Moreover, serum insulin and leptin levels were increased in CORT-treated WT mice, but not in KO mice. Lastly, both WT and KO mice displayed anxiety/depressive-like behavior after CORT administration. These results suggest that Caps2 KO mice have altered endocrine responses to CORT administration, while maintaining CORT-induced anxiety/depressive-like behavior.

Economics, ecologics, and mechanics: The dynamics of responding under conditions of varying motivation

PubMed Central

Killeen, Peter R.

1995-01-01

The mechanics of behavior developed by Killeen (1994) is extended to deal with deprivation and satiation and with recovery of arousal at the beginning of sessions. The extended theory is validated against satiation curves and within-session changes in response rates. Anomalies, such as (a) the positive correlation between magnitude of an incentive and response rates in some contexts and a negative correlation in other contexts and (b) the greater prominence of incentive effects when magnitude is varied within the session rather than between sessions, are explained in terms of the basic interplay of drive and incentive motivation. The models are applied to data from closed economies in which changes of satiation levels play a key role in determining the changes in behavior. Relaxation of various assumptions leads to closed-form models for response rates and demand functions in these contexts, ones that show reasonable accord with the data and reinforce arguments for unit price as a controlling variable. The central role of deprivation level in this treatment distinguishes it from economic models. It is argued that traditional experiments should be redesigned to reveal basic principles, that ecologic experiments should be redesigned to test the applicability of those principles in more natural contexts, and that behavioral economics should consist of the applications of these principles to economic contexts, not the adoption of economic models as alternatives to behavioral analysis. PMID:16812776

Marital conflict in older adults: endocrinological and immunological correlates.

PubMed

Kiecolt-Glaser, J K; Glaser, R; Cacioppo, J T; MacCallum, R C; Snydersmith, M; Kim, C; Malarkey, W B

1997-01-01

To assess endocrinological and immunological correlates of marital conflict and marital satisfaction, 31 older couples (mean age 67 years) who had been married an average of 42 years were studied. Couples were admitted to the Clinical Research Center and a catheter was placed in each subject's arm. Blood was drawn on entry for immunological assays; for hormone analyses, five blood samples were drawn during a 30-minute conflict discussion and a 15-minute recovery session. The conflict session was recorded on videotapes that were later coded for problem-solving behaviors using the Marital Interaction Coding System (MICS). Among wives, escalation of negative behavior during conflict and marital satisfaction showed strong relationships to endocrine changes, accounting for 16% to 21% of the variance in the rates of change of cortisol, adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH), and norepinephrine (but not epinephrine). In contrast, husbands' endocrine data did not show significant relationships with negative behavior or marital quality. Both men and women who showed relatively poorer immunological responses across three functional assays (the blastogenic response to two T-cell mitogens and antibody titers to latent Epstein-Barr virus) displayed more negative behavior during conflict; they also characterized their usual marital disagreements as more negative than individuals who showed better immune responses across assays. Abrasive marital interactions may have physiological consequences even among older adults in long-term marriages.

An overview of behavioral strategies for reducing hand-related stereotypies of persons with severe to profound intellectual and multiple disabilities: 1995-2007.

PubMed

Lancioni, Giulio E; Singh, Nirbhay N; O'Reilly, Mark F; Sigafoos, Jeff

2009-01-01

This paper provides an overview of behavioral strategies used for reducing hand-related stereotypies (i.e., hand/finger mouthing, eye poking, self-slapping, and other hand-to-head/body responses) of persons with severe to profound intellectual and multiple disabilities. Computerized and manual searches were conducted to identify the studies carried out in this area between 1995 and 2007. Forty-one studies were identified which used five main strategies: (1) mechanical restraints employed alone or together with other intervention variables, (2) response blocking alone or together with other intervention variables, (3) noncontingent stimulation (environmental enrichment) with or without prompting or contingent reinforcement events, (4) contingency manipulations differing from those relied upon by the other strategies, and (5) programs based on microswitch clusters. The outcomes of the studies tended to be positive but occasional failures also occurred. Outcomes were discussed in terms of the characteristics of the strategies employed, the implications of the strategies for the participants' overall stimulation and occupational situation, and the overall practicality, applicability, affordability and potential of the strategies in the short and long term. Issues for future research were also examined.

Dose-response characteristics of methylphenidate on locomotor behavior and on sensory evoked potentials recorded from the VTA, NAc, and PFC in freely behaving rats.

PubMed

Yang, Pamela B; Swann, Alan C; Dafny, Nachum

2006-01-17

Methylphenidate (MPD) is a psychostimulant commonly prescribed for attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder. The mode of action of the brain circuitry responsible for initiating the animals' behavior in response to psychostimulants is not well understood. There is some evidence that psychostimulants activate the ventral tegmental area (VTA), nucleus accumbens (NAc), and prefrontal cortex (PFC). The present study was designed to investigate the acute dose-response of MPD (0.6, 2.5, and 10.0 mg/kg) on locomotor behavior and sensory evoked potentials recorded from the VTA, NAc, and PFC in freely behaving rats previously implanted with permanent electrodes. For locomotor behavior, adult male Wistar-Kyoto (WKY; n = 39) rats were given saline on experimental day 1 and either saline or an acute injection of MPD (0.6, 2.5, or 10.0 mg/kg, i.p.) on experimental day 2. Locomotor activity was recorded for 2-h post injection on both days using an automated, computerized activity monitoring system. Electrophysiological recordings were also performed in the adult male WKY rats (n = 10). Five to seven days after the rats had recovered from the implantation of electrodes, each rat was placed in a sound-insulated, electrophysiological test chamber where its sensory evoked field potentials were recorded before and after saline and 0.6, 2.5, and 10.0 mg/kg MPD injection. Time interval between injections was 90 min. Results showed an increase in locomotion with dose-response characteristics, while a dose-response decrease in amplitude of the components of sensory evoked field responses of the VTA, NAc, and PFC neurons. For example, the P3 component of the sensory evoked field response of the VTA decreased by 19.8% +/- 7.4% from baseline after treatment of 0.6 mg/kg MPD, 37.8% +/- 5.9% after 2.5 mg/kg MPD, and 56.5% +/- 3.9% after 10 mg/kg MPD. Greater attenuation from baseline was observed in the NAc and PFC. Differences in the intensity of MPD-induced attenuation were also found among these brain areas. These results suggest that an acute treatment of MPD produces electrophysiologically detectable alterations at the neuronal level, as well as observable, behavioral responses. The present study is the first to investigate the acute dose-response effects of MPD on behavior in terms of locomotor activity and in the brain involving the sensory inputs of VTA, NAc, and PFC neurons in intact, non-anesthetized, freely behaving rats previously implanted with permanent electrodes.

The Cellular Basis of a Corollary Discharge

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Poulet, James F. A.; Hedwig, Berthold

2006-01-01

How do animals discriminate self-generated from external stimuli during behavior and prevent desensitization of their sensory pathways? A fundamental concept in neuroscience states that neural signals, termed corollary discharges or efference copies, are forwarded from motor to sensory areas. Neurons mediating these signals have proved difficult to identify. We show that a single, multisegmental interneuron is responsible for the pre- and postsynaptic inhibition of auditory neurons in singing crickets (Gryllus bimaculatus). Therefore, this neuron represents a corollary discharge interneuron that provides a neuronal basis for the central control of sensory responses.

A predator equalizes rate of capture of a schooling prey in a patchy environment.

PubMed

Vijayan, Sundararaj; Kotler, Burt P; Abramsky, Zvika

2017-05-01

Prey individuals are often distributed heterogeneously in the environment, and their abundances and relative availabilities vary among patches. A foraging predator should maximize energetic gains by selectively choosing patches with higher prey density. However, catching behaviorally responsive and group-forming prey in patchy environments can be a challenge for predators. First, they have to identify the profitable patches, and second, they must manage the prey's sophisticated anti-predator behavior. Thus, the forager and its prey have to continuously adjust their behavior to that of their opponent. Given these conditions, the foraging predator's behavior should be dynamic with time in terms of foraging effort and prey capture rates across different patches. Theoretically, the allocation of its time among patches of behaviorally responsive prey should be such that it equalizes its prey capture rates across patches through time. We tested this prediction in a model system containing a predator (little egret) and group-forming prey (common gold fish) in two sets of experiments in which (1) patches (pools) contained equal numbers of prey, or in which (2) patches contained unequal densities of prey. The egret equalized the prey capture rate through time in both equal and different density experiments. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Characteristics of ethanol-induced behavioral sensitization in rats: Molecular mediators and cross-sensitization between ethanol and cocaine.

PubMed

Xu, Shijie; Kang, Ung Gu

2017-09-01

Repeated exposure to drugs of abuse can induce a progressive increase in locomotor activity, known as behavioral sensitization. However, little is known about behavioral sensitization to ethanol. We examined whether ethanol could induce behavioral sensitization and investigated several molecular changes accompanying sensitization. We also assessed whether "cross-sensitization" occurred between ethanol and cocaine, another abused drug. Ethanol-induced sensitization was examined in rats after ethanol treatment (0.5 or 2g/kg) for 15days. The biochemical effects of low- or high-dose ethanol were examined in terms of N-methyl-d-aspartate (NMDA) receptor subunit phosphorylation or expression. Neuronal activity after ethanol treatment was assessed by measuring the level of early growth response (Egr-1) expression. Ethanol-induced behavioral sensitization was observed at the low dose (0.5g/kg) but not the high dose (2g/kg). Although acute treatment with the sensitizing dose of ethanol robustly increased Egr-1 protein and mRNA levels, the expression and phosphorylation of NMDA receptor subunits were not affected. The biochemical responses to ethanol seemed to be enhanced in ethanol-sensitized animals. Cross-sensitization between ethanol and cocaine was observed, which supports the hypothesis that there are commonalities among substances in the pathophysiology of substance dependence. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Salivary cortisol reactivity in preschoolers is associated with hair cortisol and behavioral problems.

PubMed

Kao, Katie; Doan, Stacey N; St John, Ashley M; Meyer, Jerrold S; Tarullo, Amanda R

2018-01-01

The interplay between children's cortisol reactivity to challenge and cumulative cortisol exposure is not well understood. Examining the role of cortisol reactivity in early childhood may elucidate biological mechanisms that contribute to children's chronic physiological stress and behavioral dysregulation. In a sample of 65 preschool-aged children, we examined the relation between children's salivary cortisol reactivity to challenging tasks and their hair cortisol concentration (HCC). While both are biomarkers of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis, salivary cortisol reactivity reflects an acute cortisol response to a stressor and HCC reflects cumulative cortisol exposure. In addition, we examined the relations of these stress biomarkers with internalizing and externalizing problems. Salivary cortisol reactivity was associated with higher HCC and with increased externalizing behaviors. Child HCC also was positively correlated with parent HCC. Results highlight the contributions of salivary cortisol reactivity to children's cumulative cortisol exposure, which may add to their biological risk for health problems later. The observed association between externalizing problems and salivary cortisol reactivity indicates concordances between dysregulated behavioral reactions and dysregulated cortisol responses to challenges. The finding that salivary cortisol reactivity to challenge in early childhood plays a role in children's cumulative cortisol exposure and behavioral development suggests pathways through which cortisol reactivity may influence long-term physical and mental health.

Analysis of utilization of desert habitats with dynamic simulation

USGS Publications Warehouse

Williams, B.K.

1986-01-01

The effects of climate and herbivores on cool desert shrubs in north-western Utah were investigated with a dynamic simulation model. Cool desert shrublands are extensively managed as grazing lands, and are defoliated annually by domestic livestock. A primary production model was used to simulate harvest yields and shrub responses under a variety of climatic regimes and defoliation patterns. The model consists of six plant components, and it is based on equations of growth analysis. Plant responses were simulated under various combinations of 20 annual weather patterns and 14 defoliation strategies. Results of the simulations exhibit some unexpected linearities in model behavior, and emphasize the importance of both the pattern of climate and the level of plant vigor in determining optimal harvest strategies. Model behaviors are interpreted in terms of shrub morphology, physiology and ecology.

The four free-operant freedoms

PubMed Central

Lindsley, Ogden R.

1996-01-01

This article reviews early free-operant conditioning laboratory research and applications. The seldom-mentioned four free-operant freedoms are described for the first time in detail. Most current behavior analysts do not realize that the freedom to form responses and the freedom to speed responses were crucial steps in designing free-operant operanda in the 1950s. These four freedoms were known by the laboratory researchers of the 1950s to the point that, along with operanda design, Sidman (1960) did not feel the need to detail them in his classic, Tactics of Scientific Research. The dimensions of freedom in the operant were so well understood and accepted in the 1950s that most thought it redundant to use the term free operant. These issues are reviewed in some detail for younger behavior analysts who did not have the opportunity of learning them firsthand. PMID:22478258

Preisach modeling of temperature-dependent ferroelectric response of piezoceramics at sub-switching regime

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ochoa, Diego Alejandro; García, Jose Eduardo

2016-04-01

The Preisach model is a classical method for describing nonlinear behavior in hysteretic systems. According to this model, a hysteretic system contains a collection of simple bistable units which are characterized by an internal field and a coercive field. This set of bistable units exhibits a statistical distribution that depends on these fields as parameters. Thus, nonlinear response depends on the specific distribution function associated with the material. This model is satisfactorily used in this work to describe the temperature-dependent ferroelectric response in PZT- and KNN-based piezoceramics. A distribution function expanded in Maclaurin series considering only the first terms in the internal field and the coercive field is proposed. Changes in coefficient relations of a single distribution function allow us to explain the complex temperature dependence of hard piezoceramic behavior. A similar analysis based on the same form of the distribution function shows that the KNL-NTS properties soften around its orthorhombic to tetragonal phase transition.

An organizational metamodel for hospital emergency departments.

PubMed

Kaptan, Kubilay

2014-10-01

I introduce an organizational model describing the response of the hospital emergency department. The hybrid simulation/analytical model (called a "metamodel") can estimate a hospital's capacity and dynamic response in real time and incorporate the influence of damage to structural and nonstructural components on the organizational ones. The waiting time is the main parameter of response and is used to evaluate the disaster resilience of health care facilities. Waiting time behavior is described by using a double exponential function and its parameters are calibrated based on simulated data. The metamodel covers a large range of hospital configurations and takes into account hospital resources in terms of staff and infrastructures, operational efficiency, and the possible existence of an emergency plan; maximum capacity; and behavior both in saturated and overcapacitated conditions. The sensitivity of the model to different arrival rates, hospital configurations, and capacities and the technical and organizational policies applied during and before a disaster were investigated. This model becomes an important tool in the decision process either for the engineering profession or for policy makers.