Data repurposing from digital home cage monitoring enlightens new perspectives on mouse motor behaviour and reduction principle

: In this longitudinal study we compare between and within-strain variation in the home-cage spatial preference of three widely used and commercially available mice strains-C57BL/6NCrl, BALB/cAnNCrl and CRL:CD1(ICR)-starting from the first hour post cage-change until the next cage-change, for three consecutive intervals, to further profile the circadian home-cage behavioural phenotypes. Cage-change can be a stressful moment in the life of laboratory mice, since animals are disturbed during the sleeping hours and must then rapidly re-adapt to a pristine environment, leading to disruptions in normal motor patterns. The novelty of this study resides in characterizing new strain-specific biological phenomena, such as activity along the cage walls and frontality, using the vast data reserves generated by previous experimental data, thus introducing the potential and exploring the applicability of data repurposing to enhance Reduction principle when running in vivo studies. Our results, entirely obtained without the use of new animals, demonstrate that also when referring to space preference within the cage, C57BL/6NCrl has a high variability in the behavioural phenotypes from pre-puberty until early adulthood compared to BALB/cAnNCrl, which is confirmed to be socially disaggregated, and CRL:CD1(ICR) which is conversely highly active and socially aggregated. Our data also suggest that a strain-oriented approach is needed when defining frequency of cage-change as well as maximum allowed animal density, which should be revised, ideally under the EU regulatory framework as well, according to the physiological peculiarities of the strains, and always avoiding the "one size fits all" approach

Negative media portrayals of immigrants increase ingroup favoritism and hostile physiological and emotional reactions

Anti-immigration rhetoric in the mass media has intensified over the last two decades, potentially decreasing prosocial behavior and increasing outgroup hostility toward immigrants, and fostering ingroup favoritism toward natives. We aim to understand the effects of negative and positive discourses about immigration on prosociality at different levels of societal ethnic diversity. In two studies (student sample, nationally representative sample), we conduct a survey and a 3X3 between-subject experiment, including money-incentivized behavioral games measuring prosociality. We manipulate media representations of immigrants and the probability of interacting with immigrants (the latter measuring diversity). Results show that negative news affects prosociality as a function of the probability of interacting with immigrants. Negative portrayals increase altruism and trustworthiness in ethnically homogenous settings relative to unknown and ethnically-mixed contexts. These results are stronger for right-wing and high-prejudice respondents. Moreover, negative media portrayals of immigrants increase the testosterone-cortisol ratio, which is a proxy for proneness to social aggression. Negative news also increases outgroup-related perceived health risk, outgroup anxiety and outgroup threat less in ethnically-homogeneous contexts. Overall, negative portrayals of immigrants generate physiological and emotional hostility toward the outgroup, and ingroup favoritism in economic transactions, possibly determining efficiency losses in ethnically-diverse markets, relative to ethnically-homogeneous markets

Puberty onset curve in CD (Sprague Dawley) and Long Evans outbred male rats

The exact timing of puberty is fundamental in preclinical studies. In male rats, the age at sexual maturity varies considerably between 40 and 60 days of age. Here, we summarize pubertal onset evaluation of two outbred rat strains (Crl:CD(SD) and Crl:LE), relying on the balano-preputial separation test. Evaluation was carried out on animals under standard barrier conditions, from four to nine weeks of age. In the Crl:CD(SD) population, 90% of males gained puberty at week 6, and 100% in the following weeks, whereas 75% of Crl:LE reached puberty at week 6, 90% at week 7 and 100% from week 8. Remarkably, in both strains, puberty onset was gained at the average weight of 200 g, suggesting that weight range, not only age range, can be considered a biomarker of puberty onset in these two strains. On the contrary, descended testes cannot be considered an additional factor to identify full puberty onset either in Crl:CD(SD) or Crl:LE rats

Radiation-induced depassivation of latent plasma damage

Plasma treatments are widely used in microelectronic industry but they may leave some residual passivated damage in the gate oxides at the end of the processing. The plasma-induced damage can be amplified by metal interconnects (antenna) attached to the gate during the plasma treatments. Ionising radiation reactivates this latent damage, which produces enhanced oxide charge and Si/SiO2 interface state density. Two CMOS technologies have been investigated, with 5 and 7 nm gate oxides. Threshold voltage shifts, transconductance decrease, and interface traps build-up are always larger for plasma damaged devices than for reference devices

Development of associational fiber tracts in fetal human brain: a cadaveric laboratory investigation

The advent of diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) in addition to cadaveric brain dissection allowed a comprehensive description of an adult human brain. Nonetheless, the knowledge of the development of the internal architecture of the brain is mostly incomplete. Our study aimed to provide a description of the anatomical variations of the major associational bundles, among fetal and early post-natal periods. Seventeen formalin-fixed fetal human brains were enrolled for sulci analysis, and 13 specimens were dissected under the operating microscope, using Klingler's technique. Although fronto-temporal connections could be observed in all stages of development, a distinction between the uncinate fascicle, and the inferior fronto-occipital fascicle was clear starting from the early preterm period (25-35 post-conceptional week). Similarly, we were consistently able to isolate the periatrial white matter that forms the sagittal stratum (SS), with no clear distinction among SS layers. Arcuate fascicle and superior longitudinal fascicle were isolated only at the late stage of development without a reliable description of their entire course. The results of our study demonstrated that, although white matter is mostly unmyelinated among fetal human brains, cadaveric dissection can be performed with consistent results. Furthermore, the stepwise development of the associational fiber tracts strengthens the hypothesis that anatomy and function run in parallel, and higher is the cognitive functions subserved by an anatomical structure, later the development of the fascicle. Further histological-anatomical-DWI investigations are required to appraise and explore this topic