The Role of Early Life Experience and Species Differences in Alcohol Intake in Microtine Rodents

Social relationships have important effects on alcohol drinking. There are conflicting reports, however, about whether early-life family structure plays an important role in moderating alcohol use in humans. We have previously modeled social facilitation of alcohol drinking in peers in socially monogamous prairie voles. We have also modeled the effects of family structure on the development of adult social and emotional behaviors. Here we assessed whether alcohol intake would differ in prairie voles reared by both parents compared to those reared by a single mother. We also assessed whether meadow voles, a closely related species that do not form lasting reproductive partnerships, would differ in alcohol drinking or in the effect of social influence on drinking. Prairie voles were reared either bi-parentally (BP) or by a single mother (SM). BP- and SM-reared adult prairie voles and BP-reared adult meadow voles were given limited access to a choice between alcohol (10%) and water over four days and assessed for drinking behavior in social and non-social drinking environments. While alcohol preference was not different between species, meadow voles drank significantly lower doses than prairie voles. Meadow voles also had significantly higher blood ethanol concentrations than prairie voles after receiving the same dose, suggesting differences in ethanol metabolism. Both species, regardless of rearing condition, consumed more alcohol in the social drinking condition than the non-social condition. Early life family structure did not significantly affect any measure. Greater drinking in the social condition indicates that alcohol intake is influenced similarly in both species by the presence of a peer. While the ability of prairie voles to model humans may be limited, the lack of differences in alcohol drinking in BP- and SM-reared prairie voles lends biological support to human studies demonstrating no effect of single-parenting on alcohol abuse

Contrasting deficits on executive functions between ADHD and reading disabled children

BACKGROUND. The object of this study was to analyze the executive functioning of children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) or reading disability (RD) independent of their non-executive deficits. METHODS: Three carefully diagnosed groups of children, aged between 7 and 12 years (35 ADHD, 22 RD and 30 typically developing children), were tested on a wide range of tasks related to five major domains of executive functioning (EF): inhibition, visual working memory, planning, cognitive flexibility, and verbal fluency. Additional tasks were selected for each domain to control for non-executive processing. RESULTS: ADHD children were impaired on interference control, but not on prepotent and ongoing response suppression. ADHD showed deficits on visual working memory, planning, cognitive flexibility and phonetic fluency. RD children were impaired on phonetic fluency. The only EF measure that differentiated ADHD from RD was planning. CONCLUSIONS: The present sample of ADHD children showed several EF deficits, whereas RD children were almost spared executive dysfunction, but exhibited deficits in phonetic fluency

Beyond knowing nature: Contact, emotion, compassion, meaning, and beauty are pathways to nature connection

Feeling connected to nature has been shown to be beneficial to wellbeing and pro-environmental behaviour. General nature contact and knowledge based activities are often used in an attempt to engage people with nature. However the specific routes to nature connectedness have not been examined systematically. Two online surveys (total n = 321) of engagement with, and value of, nature activities structured around the nine values of the Biophila Hypothesis were conducted. Contact, emotion, meaning, and compassion, with the latter mediated by engagement with natural beauty, were predictors of connection with nature, yet knowledge based activities were not. In a third study (n = 72), a walking intervention with activities operationalising the identified predictors, was found to significantly increase connection to nature when compared to walking in nature alone or walking in and engaging with the built environment. The findings indicate that contact, emotion, meaning, compassion, and beauty are pathways for improving nature connectedness. The pathways also provide alternative values and frames to the traditional knowledge and identification routes often used by organisations when engaging the public with nature.N/

Biocultural approaches to sustainability: A systematic review of the scientific literature

1. Current sustainability challenges demand approaches that acknowledge a plurality of human-nature interactions and worldviews, for which biocultural approaches are considered appropriate and timely. 2. This systematic review analyses the application of biocultural approaches to sustainability in scientific journal articles published between 1990 and 2018 through a mixed methods approach combining qualitative content analysis and quantitative multivariate methods. 3. The study identifies seven distinct biocultural lenses, that is, different ways of understanding and applying biocultural approaches, which to different degrees consider the key aspects of sustainability science-inter- and transdisciplinarity, social justice and normativity. 4. The review suggests that biocultural approaches in sustainability science need to move from describing how nature and culture are co-produced to co-producing knowledge for sustainability solutions, and in so doing, better account for questions of power, gender and transformations, which has been largely neglected thus far.A free Plain Language Summary can be found within the Supporting Information of this article.A free Plain Language Summary can be found within the Supporting Information of this article.</div

Neural Circuits Underlying Rodent Sociality: A Comparative Approach

All mammals begin life in social groups, but for some species, social relationships persist and develop throughout the course of an individual’s life. Research in multiple rodent species provides evidence of relatively conserved circuitry underlying social behaviors and processes such as social recognition and memory, social reward, and social approach/avoidance. Species exhibiting different complex social behaviors and social systems (such as social monogamy or familiarity preferences) can be characterized in part by when and how they display specific social behaviors. Prairie and meadow voles are closely related species that exhibit similarly selective peer preferences but different mating systems, aiding direct comparison of the mechanisms underlying affiliative behavior. This chapter draws on research in voles as well as other rodents to explore the mechanisms involved in individual social behavior processes, as well as specific complex social patterns. Contrasts between vole species exemplify how the laboratory study of diverse species improves our understanding of the mechanisms underlying social behavior. We identify several additional rodent species whose interesting social structures and available ecological and behavioral field data make them good candidates for study. New techniques and integration across laboratory and field settings will provide exciting opportunities for future mechanistic work in non-model species

Environmental Citizenship in Primary Formal Education

The concept of Environmental Citizenship, as it has been developed in this project, calls for the development of specific awareness, attitudes, skills, behaviours and competences that need to be cultivated from early childhood for active civic participation. Primary formal education could provide opportunities for the achievement of these goals. In this chapter, we elaborate on how Environmental Citizenship, which provides the specifics of age and formal settings, could be approached and the educational strategies that could be recommended or avoided based on the existing literature. This chapter also provides an overview of the most important educational aims regarding the development of Environmental Citizenship in primary formal education. These include environmental sensitivity, a sense of justice, a basic understanding of ecological systems, necessary skills for the investigation of ecological and social phenomena, and action skills that relate to active participation in community issues. We suggest that successful educational interventions, integrated pedagogical approaches and key designing principles could promote Environmental Citizenship at primary schools. In addition, effective training and professional development programmes can equip teachers with the knowledge, values, skills and strategies necessary to implement Environmental Citizenship at this level

Organized recreational fishing in school, knowledge about nature and influence on outdoor recreation habits

In this study we have investigated the effectiveness of a one day school-basedintervention with recreational fishing (in Swedish called Klassdraget) in increasingenvironmental awareness, interest in nature and recreational fishing in pupils agedbetween 8 and 12. Our results suggest a weak positive association between exposure tonatural environments in a recreational fishing context and interest in nature andrecreational fishing. We found the intervention to have no effect on the frequency offishing, interest in fishing more, or number of visits in nature during spare time.Knowledge about nature and possibly also environmental awareness are positivelyaffected and these effects can be traced as long as three years after the intervention. Ourfindings also reveal a low correlation between frequency of nature visits and selfreportedinterest in nature. The observed effects of Klassdraget are small but appear tobe larger for girls, who are traditionally less interested in recreational fishing whencompared with boys

Consumers in the Circular Economy - Essays on Extending Product Lifecycles

This dissertation sheds light on how a better understanding of consumer practices during product use can help us make consumption more sustainable. The role of consumers in circular economy models has been underexplored and marginalized. The discussion on product circularity is often framed around production and design, where consumers are treated as passive users of circular offerings. Instead, this dissertation elaborates on how consumers can have active roles in the circular economy by extending product lifecycles through maintenance. In this dissertation, I build on the cyclical view of consumption that looks at consumption through acquisition, usage, and disposal. The dissertation focuses on the usage phase of the cycle. To escape the traps of the previous attitude-behavior studies focusing on the individual consumer's attitudes and behavior, this dissertation draws from a more holistic view taking macro, meso, and micro perspectives into account. The research draws on practice theory and analyzes the different practice elements and their configurations. By taking a macro perspective, the findings of the dissertation elaborate on institutional regulations, market resources and social structures shaping practices during product use. Through a more micro and meso perspective, the findings bring new understanding to how consumers participate in lengthening product life spans and how they keep products part of their practices through product maintenance. The dissertation is comprised of three interlinked essays that draw from a longitudinal ethnographic study exploring consumption practices through a sustainable perspective. The study context focuses on leisure boating in Finland, Sweden, Denmark, and Germany. The context of leisure boating around the Baltic Sea provided an excellent context to study sustainable consumption practices due to the extensive use of unsustainable, environmentally destructive boat hull paints during maintenance practices

Using the Five Pathways to Nature to Make a Spiritual Connection in Early Recovery from SUD: a Pilot Study

Spirituality is a broad concept and open to different perspectives. It is associated with a sense of connection to something larger than oneself and a search for life’s meaning. Many people find this meaning through a connection with nature, but less is known about how to create a connection for those who are actively seeking one. Individuals in early recovery from addiction are encouraged to engage in 12 Step programmes (TSPs). However, the spiritual nature of the programme with references to the word “god” can serve as a deterrent. Nature connectedness through the five pathways provides a potential opportunity to introduce the concept of a higher power (HP) through a connection with nature. In this pilot mixed-methods study, a group of participants (n=12) in outpatient treatment for SUD were exposed to the five pathways and compared to a control group. Semi-structured interviews were conducted following the initial intervention. Drawing upon nature as a higher power through the pathways led to significant increases in nature connectedness, well-being, quality of life, and spirituality compared to a control group. The pilot study indicates that nature through the five pathways to nature connectedness provides a potential alternative for a higher power to draw upon within Twelve-Step.N/