Progesterone-receptive dopaminergic and neuropeptide Y neurons project from the arcuate nucleus to gonadotropin-releasing hormone-rich regions of the ovine preoptic area

International audienc

Bullying in schools: Rates, correlates and impact on mental health

This chapter provides an overview of the international research on bullying in schools with a particular focus on the negative mental health effects. We recognize 3 main groups of students: students who bully others, students who are bullied by others, and students who do both. We begin by defining bullying as it occurs in schools and note challenges in defining bullying, especially given the emergence of cyber bullying (which itself has implications for schools). Next, we review the research literature for each of the above 3 student groups in terms of the rates of these behaviours, the factors that predict whether a student engages in these behaviours, and the effects of these behaviours with a focus on mental health. Along the way, we comment on the methodological limitations of the research to date. Next, theoretical frameworks for bullying in school, and in particular, the links between bullying and mental health are described and it is noted that this is an area for further development in the literature. We then review prevention and early intervention programs which are designed to promote mental health and reduce bullying. In the concluding section, we summarize the issues confronting the bullying in schools research literature and highlight some areas where future research is likely to be particularly illuminating

Differential Activity by Polymorphic Variants of a Remote Enhancer that Supports Galanin Expression in the Hypothalamus and Amygdala: Implications for Obesity, Depression and Alcoholism

The expression of the galanin gene (GAL) in the paraventricular nucleus (PVN) and in the amygdala of higher vertebrates suggests the requirement for highly conserved, but unidentified, regulatory sequences that are critical to allow the galanin gene to control alcohol and fat intake and modulate mood. We used comparative genomics to identify a highly conserved sequence that lay 42 kb 5′ of the human GAL transcriptional start site that we called GAL5.1. GAL5.1 activated promoter activity in neurones of the PVN, arcuate nucleus and amygdala that also expressed the galanin peptide. Analysis in neuroblastoma cells demonstrated that GAL5.1 acted as an enhancer of promoter activity after PKC activation. GAL5.1 contained two polymorphisms; rs2513280(C/G) and rs2513281(A/G), that occurred in two allelic combinations (GG or CA) where the dominant GG alelle occurred in 70-83 % of the human population. Intriguingly, both SNPs were found to be in LD (R(2) of 0.687) with another SNP (rs2156464) previously associated with major depressive disorder (MDD). Recreation of these alleles in reporter constructs and subsequent magnetofection into primary rat hypothalamic neurones showed that the CA allele was 40 % less active than the GG allele. This is consistent with the hypothesis that the weaker allele may affect food and alcohol preference. The linkage of the SNPs analysed in this study with a SNP previously associated with MDD together with the functioning of GAL5.1 as a PVN and amygdala specific enhancer represent a significant advance in our ability to understand alcoholism, obesity and major depressive disorder