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GABAA receptor-mediated tonic transmission in sleep-wake cycles
No full textSleep-wake cycles are an important physiological characteristic of the mammalian rain and essential for wellbeing and cognitive performance. In this review, a novel and comprehensive view on the organisation of sleep in the brain is described. Evidence is presented that sleep is regulated in a local manner and is dependent on prior cortical activity. Moreover, the composition, expression, and role of a specific type of GABA (γ-aminobutyric acid) inhibitory neurotransmission mediated by extrasynaptic δ-GABAa receptors, known as tonic GABAa transmission, is described. Furthermore, this article reviews findings linking the regulation of sleep to this tonic GABAergic conductance that is observed in the thalamo-cortical circuitry relevant to slow wave sleep. This will contribute to our understanding of the basic mechanisms underlying the contribution of GABAergic tonic transmission to the neural basis of sleep-wake regulation, to ultimately develop more efficient clinical interventions to treat sleep disorders
Spirituality and Resilience: New Insights Into Their Relation With Life Satisfaction and Depression
Get PDFSpirituality is not only commonly under debate as part of peoples’ quest for meaning, but has also been subject to many studies concerning its influence on people with severe illnesses. The current research aims at investigating its influence on mental health. For this purpose a four-scale questionnaire was used to test peoples’ spirituality and resilience as well as their life satisfaction and current symptoms of depression. To diversify the sample the survey was conducted in three languages, namely English, German and Dutch. Spirituality was found to correlate positively with life satisfaction and negatively with depression. Furthermore, resilience was identified as a mediator of the effect of spirituality on depression and as a partial mediator for the effect on life satisfaction. This study therefore suggests spirituality and resilience could be valuable factors in promoting peoples’ mental health
The relationship between impulsivity, weight concern and the yoyo-effect in healthy women
Get PDFWeight cycling, or the so-called yoyo-effect, is an unhealthy aspect of eating behaviour. It is hypothesized that being more impulsive is related to more weight cycling. Furthermore, the yoyo-effect is expected to follow from an interaction between impulsivity and weight concern; high-impulsive, high weight concerned eaters might experience the yoyo-effect to a higher degree than low-impulsive, high weight concerned eaters. In the current study, 214 women aged 25-50 were recruited. Weight cycling, weight concern and two concepts of impulsivity were assessed, namely trait impulsiveness and reward sensitivity. It is found that trait impulsive people and weight concerned people show a higher degree of weight cycling. The results do not reveal an interaction between both aspects of impulsivity and weight concern. This study suggests that impulsivity, as well as weight concern, might play a role in maintaining a healthy body weight and reducing the risks of the yoyo-effect.
Rehabilitation of sexual offenders: clearing the stage for neuroscience
Get PDFWith respect to the grave implications of sexual delinquency, much focus of research and the public is therefore on the issue of assessing the risk of recidivism among the group of sexual offenders. It is however challenging to find strategies that are most likely to achieve the goals of prevention of relapse (Levenson, 2009). Taking into account the significance to provide the community and more importantly victims of sexual offences a life without fear and to protect them from future assaults, rehabilitation systems could draw great benefit from a deeper engagement within the uprising neuroscientific dimension. The rapidly growing field of neurosciences and the technological and medical development offer new opportunities to understand the brain, and the correlation between damaged brain structures and misbehaviour of criminals. Sexual deviance and violence are increasingly being associated with anomalies in the brain structure of the offenders. A better understanding of a sexual delinquent’s brain and the rise of new different neuroscientific techniques provide new prospects for the rehabilitation of these delinquents. In light of the new insights neuroscience can provide, the question arises how neuroscience could be used for the rehabilitation of sexual offenders in order to reduce the possibility for recidivism. This paper will thus analyse the possible use of neuroscience in treatment of sexual offenders before release and reintegration to community. Therefore, the study intends to provide insight into the deficiencies of contemporary rehabilitation methods. Furthermore, it attempts to propose possible innovative approaches to safe reintegration of sexual offenders by using neuroscience and to examine in how far it would be possible with regards to ethical issues. The overall claim of the paper is that neuroscience could provide complementation to rehabilitation methods aiming at the reduction of recidivism among sexual offenders, though in limitation of the respect of certain rights of the delinquent
Violation of Article 19 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child: An analysis from a neurobiological point of view with regard to criminal behaviour
Get PDFCriminal behaviour, in the case of persons below the age of 18 called delinquency, is a concept stemming from the legal field, according to which a person shows “conduct that does not conform to the legal or moral standards of society” (Deliquency, n.d.). The notion of antisocial behaviour in psychopathology features similar characteristics described as “behaviour usually marked by aggression but representing transgressions against societal norms” (Smith & Stern, 1997, p. 383). Chakraborty et al. confirm that criminal behaviour is defined by law, and that it is thus not usable in biology. This leads to the use of the notion of antisocial behaviour instead and the investigation thereof by researchers. They identify three ways of defining antisocial behaviour: the first one would be an equation with criminal behaviour and delinquency, which were explained above. This, however, seems to be problematic because a definition thereof changes over time and from one legal system to another. A second possibility is to investigate Antisocial Personality Disorder (ASPD) because it often involves the commission of criminal acts resulting from neglect of rights of fellow human beings. The third possible way of how to define antisocial behaviour is a focus on characteristics that are at risk for developing criminal behaviour, such as aggressiveness and impulsivity (Chakraborty et al., 2011, pp. 37-38). I am seeking to find out what is meant by holistic development from a neurobiological perspective and which consequences child maltreatment has on this development. In particular, I am focussing on criminal behaviour as a possible consequence. Hence, my research question states as follows: In how far does a violation of Article 19 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child lead to criminal behaviour
He came, He saw and He observed – An Analysis of Reis door Noord Amerika by Pehr Kalm
Get PDFAccording to Carl Thompson, who teaches on English literature and Travel Culture, travel accounts are a quite popular genre these days. Just think about the television series by Michael Palin and Paul Theroux. Not only contemporary writings (or programmes) are in the centre of attention, but also the ones from the past. It creates curiosity and an illusion that there are still places in the world that are not yet discovered. Also the academic world pays growing attention to travel writings. The main aims for that research is to better understand the colonial and postcolonial times. The accounts show the activities of the travellers and the kind of ideas that were incentives for their journeys. Already at the beginning of a travel the traveller encounters “otherness” and difference from his own environment. In most writings a distinction between “us & them” can be found. This happens often in the form of stereotypes. As a result the genre of travel accounts has been seen as a morally dubious form of literature (Thompson, 2011, p. 1-9). The quotation above stems from a travel account, Reis door Noord Amerika, written by the Swedish scientist Pehr Kalm. In his journey to North America he steps into a new world and there encounters a totally new world. When he arrives back in Sweden he writes down his travel into three volumes. This paper will discuss his journey, and his depiction of the others and of the New World. The main question of this paper will be: “To what extent does the background of Pieter/Pehr Kalm influence his depiction of the Native Americans and the European Americans in his book Reis door Noord Amerika?” This paper will firstly introduce the author Pehr Kalm before it continues with the travel itself. Secondly the translation history of the book is briefly touched upon. After this the paper will look at his depiction of “the others,” both Native Americans and Europeans. The travel account that is being discussed is Reis door Noord Amerika, which is an Dutch translation of the original Swedish text ‘En Resa til Norra America’ written by Pehr Kalm, sometimes known as Pieter Kalm
A Voice can lead to a Vision: How to Organize a Successful European Citizens’ Initiative
No full textMy research builds upon the existing research on ICT, narrowing the focus of attention down to its influence on the potential of governmental petitioning. I use the Civic Voluntarism Model (CVM) in order to analyze the factors necessary for successful participation in and especially through the ECI. This theoretical assessment is then applied to the case of the Right to Water initiative. Hereby, I want to find out what factors lead to its success in gathering signatures, thereby raising awareness about EU policies. I argue that ICT enhances the chance for success, as it heavily simplifies advertising, and supporting an ECI. However, the ECI does not constitute a ‘revolutionary’ step for European politics. As the analysis of the Right to Water initiative exemplifies, the resources necessary for launching and organizing a successful ECI are too high for giving every EU citizen the chance to influence the public debate. Still, this paper argues the ECI can be an effective instrument for interest groups like political parties, workers unions, environmental activists and other non-governmental organizations to raise citizen awareness of supranational development and gather support for reacting to these
Corruption Exposure Mechanisms of the EU Assessing the European Anti-Fraud Office
Get PDFCurrently four out of five EU citizens assume corruption as a grave issue in their own member state (Special Eurobarometer 374, 2012, p. 4). Furthermore, it is estimated that 120 billion euros a year are lost to corruption, which amounts to one per cent of the EU’s GDP (ibid.). These numbers are quite worrying, and corruption is rightly assumed to be one of the most serious social problems facing the EU and Europe today. Corruption is such an important issue, because it distorts competition of the free market, negatively affects budgets and undermines political institutions as well as democratically elected politicians (Della Porta & Vannucci, 1999). The scope of corruption is very broad and therefore difficult to define. This is due to the fact that the financial and ethical impact varies greatly and already smaller criminal offences encounter as corruption. In the context of the financial crisis, the negative effect of financial crime have been noted to be of even bigger consequence on already tight budgets and thus influences individuals directly. Thus, it becomes of considerable importance that taxpayers’ money is spent to revitalizing the European economy and not lost in the realm of criminality. Sadly enough “the European budget attracts both organised economic criminals, and opportunistic entrepreneurs who resort to fraud as means of supporting a failing enterprise or helping a company or organisation in financial difficulties” (Quirke, 2009, p. 531). It is very important to recover as much as possible of the funds that have been lost to fraud, in order to build trust in the EU institutions
Introduction
No full textTravelling is a fascinating thing to do. But what today is seen for the most part as an interruption of the daily life at home, as something done only during vacations, used to be a much more challenging endeavor, full of risks. People travelled to explore virtually unknown and uncharted land; they went to conquer, to investigate, and to bring Christianity. Letters and reports written during the journey or after one’s return were a means to share whatever one had learned, as well as to let those who stayed behind participate in one’s experiences. For us today these documents are a treasure of ideas and worldviews. One such treasure has been preserved in the Jesuit Collection of the University Library in Maastricht. Among the 265,000 volumes covering an immense variety of fields, the international orientation of the Jesuit order has given us a series of travel writings. They span a time period from as early as the sixteenth century to as late as the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and are proof of the explorative nature of past travellers: both the Old World and the New World were explored widely, and since not all of the books in the Jesuit Collection were written by actual Jesuits, the different backgrounds – scientific and religious, military and commercial – add to the writings’ diversity
François Caron and his Beschryvinghe van Iappan – His Perception of the Japanese
Get PDFIn his book; Beschryvinghe van Iappan, Caron analyses the Japanese state and society. Originally intended as a report for the Governor-General of Batavia, his work was very succinct. However, in spite of the nature of the report, which required Caron to provide objective information, he becomes more personal when writing about Japanese trade. As such, the present chapter investigates the basis of this apparent subjectivity how Caron depicted the Japanese and why. Consequently, the chapter focuses more deeply on the linkage between Caron’s vision of the Japanese ‘Other’ and how this was displayed in his work, especially in regards to the trading activities of the Japanese. Firstly, it is necessary to introduce Caron and his writing, since he and his book Beschryvinge van Japan are the main guidelines for this research. Therefore, the first section of this chapter zooms in on the context in which this book was written. Moreover, this section contains a short biography of Caron’s life and his book, as well as the publication history of his work. The second section investigates into more detail what the main trading aims of the Dutch were in Japan, and how these differed from those of the Japanese. It takes a closer look on the Dutch stance towards its competition in the Japanese Traffick (trade and, therefore, serves as a background to gain a better understanding what events on the national level could have potentially contributed to Caron’s perception of the Japanese