CHARACTERIZING THE ROLE OF GLUCOCORTICOIDS IN THE SIGN TRACKING BEHAVIOR OF MALE JAPANESE QUAIL (\u3cem\u3eCOTURNIX JAPONICA\u3c/em\u3e)

A devastating feature of drug-dependence is the susceptibility of relapse (40-60%) after stretches of abstinence. One theory that may account for relapse suggests that drug cues (e.g., paraphernalia) may increase stress hormones, and this may prompt relapse. Repeatedly pairing a neutral cue with a reward is commonly utilized to measure what subjects learn about a cue that is predictive of reward. Research has shown that animals that attend to a cue more than to the reward (sign trackers) may be more vulnerable to drug addiction. Additionally, research has shown that sign tracking is associated with an increase in corticosterone (CORT), a primary stress hormone. PT 150 is a novel glucocorticoid receptor antagonist that attenuates the effects of CORT. Experiment 1 hypothesized that subjects given repeated oral administration of 40 mg/kg PT 150 would reduce sign tracking compared to subjects given placebo. Results of Experiment 1 showed that repeated oral consumption of 40 mg/kg PT 150 decreased sign tracking behavior compared to placebo. In Experiment 2, it was hypothesized that PT 150 (20/40/60 mg/kg) given by subcutaneous (SC) injection would reduce sign tracking dose-dependently, and that sign tracking behavior would correlate with CORT levels. Results of Experiment 2 showed that SC injection of 20 mg/kg PT 150 reduced sign tracking but not 40 or 60 mg/kg. Additionally, the correlation between CORT and the sign tracking for the 20 mg/kg approached significance. Although tentative, the correlation may suggest that elevated plasma CORT concentrations correlate with elevated sign tracking. The current findings extend the current literature by suggesting that the glucocorticoid receptor may be a potential pharmacological target for reducing relapse-like behaviors

DEVELOPMENT OF AN AVIAN MODEL FOR IDENTIFYING INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES IN DRUG VULNERABILITY

The attribution of incentive salience to cues that become associated with drugs of abuse is a critical characteristic of individuals who may be vulnerable to drug addiction. Rodents with the propensity to sign track are thought to be vulnerable to drug abuse. The goal of the current work was to investigate whether sign trackers (STs) would acquire cocaine conditioned place preference (CPP) to a discrete cue using an avian species. In Experiment 1, sign and goal trackers (GTs) were first identified using a one third rank order split. Following identification, cocaine-CPP was conducted with a discrete cue in each end chamber. Contrary to previous research, results showed that GTs showed a CPP to the discrete cue but STs did not. Experiment 2 was conducted to determine whether sign and GTs had been misclassified with the rank order split. Experiment 2 compared the rank order method with a t-test method (absolute criterion). Misclassification of both sign and GTs occurred using the rank order split. The findings indicated that use of a more accurate method to identify sign and GTs may have led to different results for Experiment 1. The t-test method may be useful for models that require identification of STs

Beth Rice

Beth Rice is a native of Tennessee and studied at University of Tennessee Martin and University of Tennessee, Knoxville, before entering the field of child nutrition. Beth worked in a residential child care institution, for the Tennessee State Department of Education, and as a child nutrition director for Lake County, Tennessee, before joining the Fulton County School District in western Kentucky, from where she retired. Beth now works as a consultant for the Institute of Child Nutrition, instructing other directors in a course called Orientation to School Nutrition Leadership.https://egrove.olemiss.edu/icn_ohistories/1098/thumbnail.jp

Intramuscular Route of Administration Increases Potency in Eliciting Cocaine-Induced Behavioral Sensitization

Background: Cocaine is the number one abused psychostimulant drug that reaches addiction criterion in the US. In animals, repeated administration of cocaine results in behavioral sensitization which is thought to represent adaptations in the mesolimbic dopamine neural circuitry, the reward pathway. Cocaine-induced behavioral sensitization is evident in rodents and quail when cocaine is administered intraperitoneally (IP). Objective: The purpose of the current study was to investigate dose-dependent and temporal effects of acute and chronic intramuscular (IM) administration of cocaine in male quail. Method: After habituation to the test chambers, male quail received an IM injection of saline, 3 or 10 mg/kg cocaine and were immediately placed in the chambers. Distance traveled (in meters) was recorded in 5 min time bins for 30 min. Testing was conducted once per day for ten days with each subject receiving the same treatment throughout the experiment. Other behaviors including pecking, preening, and feather fluffing were measured. Results: Cocaine-induced behavioral sensitization and tolerance were evident at relatively low doses of IM cocaine. Dose-dependent effects were evident. IM cocaine also reduced feather fluffing, a behavior that typically occurs during hypothermia. Conclusion: The findings replicated and extended previous research with pigeons and suggested that IM administration of cocaine may be a relatively potent route of administration. Potency of drugs of abuse may be related to the bioavailability of a drug and its addictive properties. Thus, studying drugs of abuse using an IM route of administration may be useful in drug addiction research

Preschool Children's Color Preferences in Clothing for Opposite Sex

Family Relations and Child Developmen

Disc fragmentation rarely forms planetary-mass objects

It is now reasonably clear that disc fragmentation can only operate in the outer parts of protostellar discs ($r > 50$ au). It is also expected that any object that forms via disc fragmentation will have an initial mass greater than that of Jupiter. However, whether or not such a process actually operates, or can play a significant role in the formation of planetary-mass objects, is still unclear. We do have a few examples of directly imaged objects that may have formed in this way, but we have yet to constrain how often disc fragmentation may actually form such objects. What we want to consider here is whether or not we can constrain the likely population of planetary-mass objects formed via disc fragmentation by considering how a population of objects at large radii ($a > 50$) au - if they do exist - would evolve under perturbations from more distant stellar companions. We find that there is a specific region of parameter space to which such objects would be scattered and show that the known exoplanets in that region have properties more consistent with that of the bulk exoplanet population, than with having been formed via disc fragmentation at large radii. Along with the scarcity of directly-imaged objects at large radii, our results provide a similar, but independent, constraint on the frequency of objects formed via disc fragmentation.Comment: 8 pages, 5 figures, accepted for publication in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Societ

Antibody glycosylation in pregnancy and in newborns: biological roles and implications.

PURPOSE OF REVIEW: Glycosylation patterns have the potential to affect the function of antibody, antibody half-life and transplacental transfer from mother to foetus. Here, we review recent advances in our understanding of how glycosylation patterns of antibodies may be altered during pregnancy, vaccination and infection. RECENT FINDINGS: During pregnancy, there is preferential transplacental transfer of natural killer (NK) cell-activating antibodies that are galactosylated and sialylated, against both bacterial and viral antigens. Markers of NK cell function are also associated with a higher abundance of galactosylation and sialylation in respiratory syncytial virus-specific IgG, compared with total IgG, in infants up to 7 months of age which may suggest a role for NK-cell activating antibodies as important mediators of immunity during early infancy. Differential glycosylation patterns have been observed in some respiratory conditions, as increased nongalactosylated antibodies have been associated with the development of chronic inflammatory bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD) in preterm infants. Glycosylation patterns in children appear age-dependent, which could modulate the effector function of IgG. The clinical relevance of these findings needs to be established. SUMMARY: Glycosylation plays a key role in mediating antibody function. Glycosylation patterns associated with positive outcomes from infection in mothers and infants could inform the design of the next generation of vaccines for use in pregnancy and infancy. SDC VIDEO LINK:: http://links.lww.com/COID/A29

Regular-fat dairy and human health:A Synopsis of Symposia presented in Europe and North America (2014-2015)

In recent history, some dietary recommendations have treated dairy fat as an unnecessary source of calories and saturated fat in the human diet. These assumptions, however, have recently been brought into question by current research on regular fat dairy products and human health. In an effort to disseminate, explore and discuss the state of the science on the relationship between regular fat dairy products and health, symposia were programmed by dairy industry organizations in Europe and North America at The Eurofed Lipids Congress (2014) in France, The Dairy Nutrition Annual Symposium (2014) in Canada, The American Society for Nutrition Annual Meeting held in conjunction with Experimental Biology (2015) in the United States, and The Federation of European Nutrition Societies (2015) in Germany. This synopsis of these symposia describes the complexity of dairy fat and the effects regular-fat dairy foods have on human health. The emerging scientific evidence indicates that the consumption of regular fat dairy foods is not associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular disease and inversely associated with weight gain and the risk of obesity. Dairy foods, including regular-fat milk, cheese and yogurt, can be important components of an overall healthy dietary pattern. Systematic examination of the effects of dietary patterns that include regular-fat milk, cheese and yogurt on human health is warranted