Сomparison of Exams in Terms of Benefits for the Future Engineer

This article describes advantages and disadventages of international exams for students. to motivate students to pass the English exam as soon as possible. Based on our survey, many students have never even heard about language exams and benefits it gives

Bidirectional Modulation of Alcohol-Associated Memory Reconsolidation through Manipulation of Adrenergic Signaling.

Alcohol addiction is a problem of great societal concern, for which there is scope to improve current treatments. One potential new treatment for alcohol addiction is based on disrupting the reconsolidation of the maladaptive Pavlovian memories that can precipitate relapse to drug-seeking behavior. In alcohol self-administering rats, we investigated the effects of bidirectionally modulating adrenergic signaling on the strength of a Pavlovian cue-alcohol memory, using a behavioral procedure that isolates the specific contribution of one maladaptive Pavlovian memory to relapse, the acquisition of a new alcohol-seeking response for an alcohol-associated conditioned reinforcer. The β-adrenergic receptor antagonist propranolol, administered in conjunction with memory reactivation, persistently disrupted the memory that underlies the capacity of a previously alcohol-associated cue to act as a conditioned reinforcer. By contrast, enhancement of adrenergic signaling by administration of the adrenergic prodrug dipivefrin at reactivation increased the strength of the cue-alcohol memory and potentiated alcohol seeking. These data demonstrate the importance of adrenergic signaling in alcohol-associated memory reconsolidation, and suggest a pharmacological target for treatments aiming to prevent relapse through the disruption of maladaptive memories.This work was supported by a UK Medical Research Council Programme Grant (G1002231) to BJE and ALM and was conducted in the Behavioural and Clinical Neuroscience Institute (BCNI), an initiative jointly funded by the MRC and the Wellcome Trust. MJWS was supported by an MRC Doctoral Training Grant and the James Baird Fund at the Medical School of the University of Cambridge. ALM was partly supported by a BCNI lectureship and the Ferreras-Willetts Fellowship from Downing College, Cambridge.This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Nature Publishing Group via http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/npp.2015.24

Validar a guerra: a construção do regime de Expertise estratégica

This article is intended to contribute to the interpretative analysis of war. For that purpose, it investigates how some apparatuses located in strategic thinking help to make modern war a social practice considered both technically feasible and, at the same time, legitimate for soldiers. In so doing, it makes use of two different but closely related theoretical fields, pragmatic sociology (finding inspiration in the work of scholars such as Luc Boltanski, Nicolas Dodier and Francis Chateauraynaud), and the sociology of scientific knowledge (based mostly on the work of Bruno Latour). On the one hand, the sociology of scientific knowledge has developed a productive questioning of the construction of scientific facts that is particularly relevant to the present research. On the other hand, pragmatic sociology generates a compatible framework able to describe collective actions. The combination of both approaches allows the description of the formation of a strategic expertise regime that supports the technical legitimacy of the use of military force. Together, the sociology of scientific knowledge and pragmatic sociology bring a particularly relevant perspective to research pertaining to war.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishe

Epigenetic alteration of the dopamine transporter gene in alcohol-dependent patients is associated with age

Chronic alcohol abuse and dependence are associated with dysfunctional dopaminergic neurotransmission in mesocorticolimbic circuits. Genetic and environmental factors have been shown to modulate susceptibility to alcohol dependence, and both may act through epigenetic mechanisms that can modulate gene expression, e.g. DNA methylation at CpG sites. Recent studies have suggested that DNA methylation patterns may change over time. However, few data are available concerning the rate of these changes in specific genes. A recent study found that hypermethylation of the promoter of the dopamine transporter (DAT) gene was positively correlated with alcohol dependence and negatively correlated with alcohol craving. The aim of the present study was to replicate these findings in a larger sample of alcohol-dependent patients and population-based controls matched for age and sex. No difference in methylation level was observed between patients and controls, and no difference in methylation level was observed before and after alcohol withdrawal in patients. However, patients with more severe craving showed a trend towards lower DAT methylation levels (P = 0.07), which is consistent with previous findings. Furthermore, in our overall sample, DAT methylation levels increased with age. Interestingly, a separate analysis of patients suggested that this finding was mainly driven by the patient group. Although the present data do not clarify whether chronic alcohol abuse is responsible for this phenomenon or merely enhances an ageing-specific process, our findings suggest that hypermethylation in alcohol-dependent patients is a consequence, rather than a cause, of the disorder

Association of leptin with food cue-induced activation in human reward pathways

Context: Overlapping neurobiological pathways between obesity and addiction disorders are currently in discussion. Whereas the hypothalamic regulation of energy homeostasis by endocrine feedback signals has been widely investigated, its interplay with mesolimbic reward-associated pathways represents a rich field of future research. Objective: To assess changes in regional brain activation in response to food-related cues in association with body mass index (BMI; calculated as weight in kilograms divided by height in meters squared) and the plasma concentration of the appetite-regulating peptide leptin. Design: Case-control study. Setting: Academic addiction and brain imaging center, Central Institute of Mental Health, Mannheim, Germany. Participants: Twenty-one obese subjects (BMI >30) and 23 age- and sex-matched nonobese control subjects (BMI 18.5-24.0) recruited by advertisements. Main Outcome Measures: Regional brain activation (blood oxygen level–dependent response) in response to visual cue presentation and association of the brain activation with BMI and plasma leptin concentration. Results: Significant positive relationships were observed for food cue–induced brain activations in the ventral striatum in association with the plasma concentration of leptin (r = 0.27; P = .04) and with BMI (r = 0.47; P = .001). Conclusions: Data suggest a physiological role of satiety factors in modulating the responsivity of mesolimbic circuits to food cues. Moreover, an altered homeostatic feedback regulation of reward pathways might explain addictionlike behavior and the inability of obese patients to adapt food intake to physiological needs