State-making in Somalia #LDNsomalia

In the aftermath of the London Somalia summit, LSE’s Katy Long says that effort must be made to understand the Somali state before trying to “fix” it

Kenya, Jubaland and Somalia’s refugees: no quick fixes

Dr Katy Long is a lecturer in LSE’s Department of International Development. As Kenyan troops march into Somalia on the pretext of countering recent border raids, Dr Long says that the real reason for the military incursion is the culmination of a long-incubated and self-interested political strategy

Regional citizenship could be the solution for refugee crises in East Africa

LSE’s Katy Long argues that the West African model which allows refugees to become migrants is one way to end protracted refugees situations

African perspectives on migration

Migration may be timeless, but it is also emerging as the debate of our time. Over the next three weeks, the Africa at LSE will present alternative perspectives on migration – those from the African continent. In the introductory article of the series, Katy Long explores the dynamics of African migration

Outsourcing refugees to Kenya – why Tory MP Julian Brazer is wrong

UK Conservative MP, Julian Brazier recommends outsourcing immigrants to Kenya as one way of reducing asylum seekers in Britain, but LSE’s Katy Long argues that this approach demonstrates a lack of understanding of Kenyan politics and the plight of Somali refugees in the East African country

Humanitarian development?

Where does conflict end and development begin? Who’s responsible for “early recovery” in the messy continuum between crisis and stability, the “relief-development gap”? These are not new questions: the international community’s been arguing over the answers for at least the past fifty years. But they are pressing ones. Not only for those of us whose work defies easy categorisation along the humanitarian–development axis, but more importantly for the millions whose lives are shaped by protracted emergency

Dopamine Lesions Alter the Striatal Encoding of Single-Limb Gait

The striatum serves an important role in motor control, and neurons in this area encode the body\u27s initiation, cessation, and speed of locomotion. However, it remains unclear whether the same neurons also encode the step-by-step rhythmic motor patterns of individual limbs that characterize gait. By combining high-speed video tracking, electrophysiology, and optogenetic tagging, we found that a sizable population of both D1 and D2 receptor expressing medium spiny projection neurons (MSNs) were phase-locked to the gait cycle of individual limbs in mice. Healthy animals showed balanced limb phase-locking between D1 and D2 MSNs, while dopamine depletion led to stronger phase-locking in D2 MSNs. These findings indicate that striatal neurons represent gait on a single-limb and step basis, and suggest that elevated limb phase-locking of D2 MSNs may underlie some of the gait impairments associated with dopamine loss

Restraint, disinhibition and food-related processing bias

This study examined associations between restraint, disinhibition and food-related processing bias (FPB, assessed by the emotional Stroop task) in males and females in the UK, Greece and Iran. Results showed high restraint was associated with higher FPB. However, high restrained current dieters showed lower FPB that high restrained non-dieters. There was no significant difference in FPB for those showing high versus low disinhibition. Results are discussed in relation to theories of incentive salience and current concerns