Embodying prison pain: women’s experiences of self-injury in prison and the emotions of punishment

This paper explores the meanings and motivations of self-injury practices as disclosed in interviews with a small group of female former prisoners in England. In considering their testimonies through a feminist perspective, I seek to illuminate aspects of their experiences of imprisonment that go beyond the ‘pains of imprisonment’ literature. Specifically, I examine their accounts of self-injury with a focus on the embodied aspects of their experiences. In so doing, I highlight the materiality of the emotional harms of their prison experiences. I suggest that the pains of imprisonment are still very much inscribed on and expressed through the prisoner’s body. This paper advances a more theoretically situated, interdisciplinary critique of punishment drawn from medical-sociological, phenomenological and feminist scholarship

Astrocytes: biology and pathology

Astrocytes are specialized glial cells that outnumber neurons by over fivefold. They contiguously tile the entire central nervous system (CNS) and exert many essential complex functions in the healthy CNS. Astrocytes respond to all forms of CNS insults through a process referred to as reactive astrogliosis, which has become a pathological hallmark of CNS structural lesions. Substantial progress has been made recently in determining functions and mechanisms of reactive astrogliosis and in identifying roles of astrocytes in CNS disorders and pathologies. A vast molecular arsenal at the disposal of reactive astrocytes is being defined. Transgenic mouse models are dissecting specific aspects of reactive astrocytosis and glial scar formation in vivo. Astrocyte involvement in specific clinicopathological entities is being defined. It is now clear that reactive astrogliosis is not a simple all-or-none phenomenon but is a finely gradated continuum of changes that occur in context-dependent manners regulated by specific signaling events. These changes range from reversible alterations in gene expression and cell hypertrophy with preservation of cellular domains and tissue structure, to long-lasting scar formation with rearrangement of tissue structure. Increasing evidence points towards the potential of reactive astrogliosis to play either primary or contributing roles in CNS disorders via loss of normal astrocyte functions or gain of abnormal effects. This article reviews (1) astrocyte functions in healthy CNS, (2) mechanisms and functions of reactive astrogliosis and glial scar formation, and (3) ways in which reactive astrocytes may cause or contribute to specific CNS disorders and lesions

Psychological wellbeing of Dutch incarcerated women: importation or deprivation?

In light of the dramatic increase over the past decade in the number of women incarcerated in the Netherlands, we examined 251 female inmates' psychological reactions to imprisonment with a survey that taps importation and deprivation factors and related life experiences. While depressive complaints, irritability and risk of self-harm were all predicted by both sets of factors, the evidence suggests that deprivation factors have a greater impact on these measures of well-being than importation factors. Previous treatment for psychological problems was the most important covariate for psychological complaints and post-traumatic stress. The most important deprivation factors were treatment by staff and other inmates, and environmental stress. Accordingly, we suggest that in order to further our understanding of women prisoners' adaptations to incarceration greater attention should be directed to women's conditions of confinement and less to their histories of victimization and drug abuse. © The Author(s) 2011

Transformation of neuronal modes associated with low-Mg2 + /high-K + conditions in an in vitro model of epilepsy

Nonparametric system modeling constitutes a robust method for the analysis of physiological systems as it can be used to identify nonlinear dynamic input–output relationships and facilitate their description. First- and second-order kernels of hippocampal CA3 pyramidal neurons in an in vitro slice preparation were computed using the Volterra–Wiener approach to investigate system changes associated with epileptogenic low-magnesium/high-potassium (low-Mg2 + /high-K + ) conditions. The principal dynamic modes (PDMs) of neurons were calculated from the first- and second-order kernel estimates in order to characterize changes in neural coding functionality. From our analysis, an increase in nonlinear properties was observed in kernels under low-Mg2 + /high-K + . Furthermore, the PDMs revealed that the sampled hippocampal CA3 neurons were primarily of integrating character and that the contribution of a differentiating mode component was enhanced under low-Mg2 + /high-K +