Mid-morning Break and Poster Sessions: Psychological and physiological responses to gambling cues in pathological gamblers

Introduction Gamblers experience exposure to gambling cues on a daily basis, ranging from celebrity-endorsed TV commercials, to walking past a high street bookmaker. Research on substance addictions indicates that these cues are likely to activate urges / cravings to gamble. Wulfert et al (2005) found higher ratings of subjective excitement following a horse race with a wager on in students, Kushner et al (2008) used frequent gamblers in a simulated casino environment and found positive anticipation and positive priming increased urges to gamble, however these studies used only a single self report item to measure craving. Ashrafioun et al (2012) used the Gambling Urge Scale (GUS, Raylu & Oei, 2004b) and found increases in craving following gambling cues in student gamblers. Craving comprises the short-term, acute ‘urges’ to obtain relief and reward (Raylu & Oei, 2004b), as well as more stable aspects of ‘preoccupation’ (Pallanti et al, 2005). The current study used the Gambling Craving Scale (Young & Wohl, 2009) to measure stable preoccupation, and the three most heavily loaded factors from the GACS to capture short-term gambling urges generated by the images / adverts on a block by block basis, thus capturing both facets of craving. Previous studies have used heart rate and skin conductance levels to measure physiological arousal following gambling cues, finding increased reactivity recreational gamblers (Ladouceur et al 2003) and pathological gamblers (Sodano et al 2010). However, different physiological parameters tend not to correlate with each other, or with subjective craving measures (Diskin et al, 2003) suggesting physiological and psychological measures are not necessarily capturing the same elements of craving. Arousal has been measured following different cue types videos and images, but to date not actual gambling adverts. When differentiating between different gambling forms, Sharpe & Tarrier (1995) showed EGM players showed increased skin conductance responses to EGM cues compared to horse race cues, while Franco et al (2008) demonstrated significant increases in heart rate in horse gamblers following exposure to horse races compared to scratchcards. We compared craving ratings and physiological responses to preferred and non-preferred games in pathological gamblers

The Concise guide to pharmacology 2019/20: Ion channels

The Concise Guide to PHARMACOLOGY 2019/20 is the fourth in this series of biennial publications. The Concise Guide provides concise overviews of the key properties of nearly 1800 human drug targets with an emphasis on selective pharmacology (where available), plus links to the open access knowledgebase source of drug targets and their ligands (www.guidetopharmacology.org), which provides more detailed views of target and ligand properties. Although the Concise Guide represents approximately 400 pages, the material presented is substantially reduced compared to information and links presented on the website. It provides a permanent, citable, point‐in‐time record that will survive database updates. The full contents of this section can be found at http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/bph.14749. Ion channels are one of the six major pharmacological targets into which the Guide is divided, with the others being: G protein‐coupled receptors, nuclear hormone receptors, catalytic receptors, enzymes and transporters. These are presented with nomenclature guidance and summary information on the best available pharmacological tools, alongside key references and suggestions for further reading. The landscape format of the Concise Guide is designed to facilitate comparison of related targets from material contemporary to mid‐2019, and supersedes data presented in the 2017/18, 2015/16 and 2013/14 Concise Guides and previous Guides to Receptors and Channels. It is produced in close conjunction with the International Union of Basic and Clinical Pharmacology Committee on Receptor Nomenclature and Drug Classification (NC‐IUPHAR), therefore, providing official IUPHAR classification and nomenclature for human drug targets, where appropriate

Epistemic geographies of climate change: science, space and politics

Anthropogenic climate change has been presented as the archetypal global problem, identified by the slow work of assembling a global knowledge infrastructure, and demanding a concertedly global political response. But this ‘global’ knowledge has distinctive geographies, shaped by histories of exploration and colonialism, by diverse epistemic and material cultures of knowledge-making, and by the often messy processes of linking scientific knowledge to decision-making within different polities. We suggest that understanding of the knowledge politics of climate change may benefit from engagement with literature on the geographies of science. We review work from across the social sciences which resonates with geographers’ interests in the spatialities of scientific knowledge, to build a picture of what we call the epistemic geographies of climate change. Moving from the field site and the computer model to the conference room and international political negotiations, we examine the spatialities of the interactional co-production of knowledge and social order. In so doing, we aim to proffer a new approach to the intersections of space, knowledge and power which can enrich geography’s engagements with the politics of a changing climate

Reply to Griffiths: the relationship between gambling and homelessness

Reply to Griffiths: the relationship between gambling and homelessnes

Rates of Problematic Gambling in a British Homeless Sample:A Preliminary Study

Homelessness and problem gambling are two public health concerns in the UK that are rarely considered concurrently, and little is known about the extent of gambling involvement and problematic gambling in the homeless. We recruited 456 individuals attending homelessness services in London, UK. All participants completed a screen for gambling involvement, and where gambling involvement was endorsed, the Problem Gambling Severity Index (PGSI) was administered. The PGSI risk categories were compared against data from the 2010 British Gambling Prevalence Survey (BGPS). PGSI problem gambling was indicated in 11.6 % of the homeless population, compared to 0.7 % in the BGPS. Of participants endorsing any PGSI symptoms, a higher proportion of homeless participants were problem gamblers relative to the low and moderate risk groups, compared to the BGPS data. These results confirm that the homeless constitute a vulnerable population for problem gambling, and that diagnostic tools for gambling involvement should be integrated into homelessness services in the UK

Study of the depletion of tylosin residues in honey extracted from treated honeybee (Apis mellifera) colonies and the effect of the shook swarm procedure

Bee colonies were dosed with tylosin tartrate 1.1 g per hive (single dose in sucrose solution) and samples of honey were then collected at intervals over a 20-week period. The samples were analysed for tylosin A and desmycosin (tylosin B) using LC-MS/MS. The mean concentration of tylosin A in the honey (pooled results) 3 days after dosing was 17 $\mu$g/g, declining to 0.9 $\mu$g/g after 140 days. The mean concentration of desmycosin was 2.3 $\mu$g/g, 3 days after dosing declining to 1.1 $\mu$g/g after 140 days. The shook swarm procedure was investigated and resulted in a tylosin A concentration in brood honey of 10 $\mu$g/g, 3 days after dosing declining to 0.02 $\mu$g/g, 140 days after dosing. A corresponding decrease in the mean concentrations of desmycosin in brood honey, 1.1 $\mu$g/g, 3 days after dosing to 0.03 $\mu$g/g, 140 days after dosing also was observed. Tylosin A depletes to desmycosin in honey and can still be detected 238 days after dosing. Thus a more accurate residue definition is the sum of tylosin A and desmycosin

Increasing fluid milk favorably affects bone mineral density responses to resistance training in adolescent boys

This study examined the effects of increasing milk on bone and body composition responses to resistance training in adolescents. Twenty-eight boys (13 to 17 years of age) were randomly assigned to consume, in addition to their habitual diet, 3 servings/day of 1% fluid milk (n=14) or juice not fortified with calcium (n=14) while engaged in a 12-week resistance-training program. For all subjects combined, there were significant (P≤.05) changes in height (+0.5%), Σseven skin folds (−7.7%), body mass (+2.6%), lean body mass (+5.1%), fat mass (−9.3%), whole-body bone mineral content (+3.6%), bone mineral density (+1.8%), and maximal strength in the squat (+43%) and bench press (+23%). Compared with juice, the milk group had a significantly greater increase in bone mineral density (0.014 vs 0.028 g/cm2). Increasing intake of milk in physically active adolescent boys may enhance bone health

α4β2-Nicotinic Receptor Binding with 5-IA in Alzheimer’s Disease: Methods of Scan Analysis

Five patients with Alzheimer's disease and five healthy volunteers were examined by SPECT with the nicotinic receptor ligand 123I-5-IA-85380. Patients were scanned before and after 6 weeks of treatment with donepezil. Quantification by regions of interest was reliable and the optimal normalisation procedure used cerebellar ratios. We found relative reductions in 5-IA binding capacity in patients in thalamus, frontal and central regions of interest of approximately one standard deviation unit (Cohen's d = 1). Reductions in binding after treatment with the acetylcholinesterase inhibitor donepezil of the same magnitude occurred in the brain stem. The study was clearly too small to confirm group differences, but it suggests that 5-IA can be used to examine both group differences and treatment effects in patients with Alzheimer's disease