The lesson from Bratislava is that the future of the European project looks bleak without the UK

The informal gathering of the 27 EU leaders, excluding the United Kingdom, in Slovakia’s capital Bratislava aimed to set an agenda to help the bloc regain the trust of European voters, damaged by the outcome of Britain’s June referendum as well as by the Union’s inability to confront its many deepening crises. Dalibor Rohac outlines its hidden meaning

Book review: the complacent class: the self-defeating quest for the American Dream by Tyler Cowen

In The Complacent Class: The Self-Defeating Quest for the American Dream, Tyler Cowen extends his previous work on economic stagnation into an examination of a broader sense of stasis that has enveloped US society and culture. While events of 2016 have made the book’s anticipation of an impending and dramatic shift less prescient than may otherwise have been the case, Dalibor Rohac nonetheless welcomes the book for its important observations about the end – whether here or to come – of US domestic complacency

Bratislava Summit: the future of the European project without the UK looks bleak

The informal gathering of the 27 EU leaders, excluding the United Kingdom, in Slovakia’s capital Bratislava aimed to set an agenda to help the bloc regain the trust of European voters, damaged by the outcome of the UK’s June referendum as well as by the Union’s inability to confront its many deepening crises. Dalibor Rohac outlines its hidden meaning

For free-market Leavers the UK’s exit will be a disappointment

There is hope for a best-case scenario when it comes to Brexit. However, it is no substitute for strategy, which the liberal Leavers still desperately lack. Dalibor Rohac writes that advocating for leaving the EU without presenting any idea about how it would lead to good outcomes, was by far the most significant error of judgment in modern politics

How I stopped worrying and learned to love the EU

The EU is a flawed organisation, which deserves much of the criticism that is directed at it from Eurosceptic circles. Dalibor Rohac argues conservatives and proponents of free enterprise should embrace European integration. His book on the matter, Towards an Imperfect Union: A Conservative Case for the EU, will be published on May 11

The British should be pleased with Biden’s victory, even the Brexiteers

Brexit has not led to a genuine renaissance of the ‘special relationship’ with the United States. Brexit might have untied the UK’s hands when it comes to foreign policy but it has not changed the world’s geography – the UK’s interests remain inextricably linked with those of Europe, writes Dalibor Rohac (AEI). He argues that the main promise of the Biden presidency, also internationally, is simply to take down the temperature. The UK’s political establishment should be pleased with such turn of events, even the Brexiteers

Great expectations? A US-UK trade deal will most likely disappoint

The great fanfare around the US-UK trade agreement creates expectations that almost certainly will not be met, argues Dalibor Rohac (AEI). While the Trump administration is looking for an easy deal and a symbolic gesture, it stands little chance of getting through the current House of Representatives, or being upheld by a Biden White House. Negotiating an FTA with the US needn’t be a priority for the British either. Given how unpopular the current US administration is in the UK, the political and PR value of these negotiations is low, if not negative

Long-Lasting Effects of Prenatal Ethanol Exposure on Fear Learning and Development of the Amygdala

Prenatal ethanol exposure (PrEE) produces developmental abnormalities in brain and behavior that often persist into adulthood. We have previously reported abnormal cortical gene expression, disorganized neural circuitry along with deficits in sensorimotor function and anxiety in our CD-1 murine model of fetal alcohol spectrum disorders, or FASD (El Shawa et al., 2013; Abbott et al., 2016). We have proposed that these phenotypes may underlie learning, memory, and behavioral deficits in humans with FASD. Here, we evaluate the impact of PrEE on fear memory learning, recall and amygdala development at two adult timepoints. PrEE alters learning and memory of aversive stimuli; specifically, PrEE mice, fear conditioned at postnatal day (P) 50, showed deficits in fear acquisition and memory retrieval when tested at P52 and later at P70–P72. Interestingly, this deficit in fear acquisition observed during young adulthood was not present when PrEE mice were conditioned later, at P80. These mice displayed similar levels of fear expression as controls when tested on fear memory recall. To test whether PrEE alters development of brain circuitry associated with fear conditioning and fear memory recall, we histologically examined subdivisions of the amygdala in PrEE and control mice and found long-term effects of PrEE on fear memory circuitry. Thus, results from this study will provide insight on the neurobiological and behavioral effects of PrEE and provide new information on developmental trajectories of brain dysfunction in people prenatally exposed to ethanol