1,720,960 research outputs found
Stress-related neuropeptides and addictive behaviors: beyond the usual suspects.
No full textAddictive disorders are chronic, relapsing conditions that cause extensive disease burden. Genetic factors partly account for susceptibility to addiction, but environmental factors such as stressful experiences and prolonged exposure of the brain to addictive drugs promote its development. Progression to addiction involves neuroadaptations within neurocircuitry that mediates stress responses and is influenced by several peptidergic neuromodulators. While corticotrophin releasing factor is the prototypic member of this class, recent work has identified several additional stress-related neuropeptides that play an important role in regulation of drug intake and relapse, including the urocortins, nociceptin, substance P, and neuropeptide S. Here, we review this emerging literature, discussing to what extent the properties of these neuromodulators are shared or distinct and considering their potential as drug targets
Increased perioculomotor urocortin 1 immunoreactivity in genetically selected alcohol preferring rats.
No full textINTRODUCTION:
Urocortin 1 (Ucn 1) is an endogenous peptide related to the corticotropin-releasing factor (CRF). Ucn 1 is mainly expressed in the perioculomotor area (pIII), and its involvement in alcohol self-administration is well confirmed in mice. In other species, the relationship between the perioculomotor Ucn 1-containing population of neurons (pIIIu) and alcohol consumption needs further investigation. The pIII also has a significant subpopulation of dopaminergic neurons. Because of dopamine's (DA) role in addiction, it is important to evaluate whether this subpopulation of neurons contributes to addiction-related phenotypes. Furthermore, the effects of gender on the relationship between Ucn 1 and tyrosine hydroxylase (TH) in pIII and alcohol preference in rats have not been previously assessed.
METHODS:
To address these issues, we compared 2 Sardinian alcohol-preferring sublines of rats, a population maintained at the Scripps Research Institute (Scr:sP) and a population maintained at University of Camerino-Marchigian Sardinian preferring rats (msP), to corresponding nonselectively bred Wistar rats of both sexes. Ucn 1- and TH-positive cells were detected on coronal midbrain sections from 6- to 8-week-old alcohol-naïve animals using brightfield and fluorescent immunohistochemistry. Ucn 1- and TH-positive cells in pIII were counted in the perioculomotor area, averaged across 2 to 3 sets, and binned into 3 bregma levels.
RESULTS:
Results demonstrated increased average counts of Ucn 1-positive cells in the middle bregma level in preferring male rats compared to Wistar controls and no difference in TH-positive cell counts in pIII. In addition, fluorescent double labeling revealed no colocalization of Ucn 1-positive and TH-positive neurons. Ucn 1 but not TH distribution was influenced by gender with female animals expressing more Ucn 1-positive cells than male animals in the peak bregma level.
CONCLUSIONS:
These findings extend previous reports of increased Ucn 1-positive cell distribution in preferring lines of animals. They indicate that Ucn1 contributes to increased alcohol consumption across different species and that this contribution could be gender specific. The results also suggest that Ucn1 regulates positive reinforcing rather than aversive properties of alcohol and that these effects could be mediated by CRF(2) receptors, independent of direct actions of DA
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Full text linkWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
koamabayili/VECTRON-author-checklist: VECTRON author checklist
No full textWe have done our best to complete the author checklist relating to the use of animals in the hut study. Note that the objective for the hut study was to evaluate the IRS treatment applications for residual efficacy against Anopheles mosquitoes, including the local An. coluzzii mosquito population. Cows were only used to attract mosquitoes into the huts and no tests were carried out directly on the cows. The author checklist is intended for use with studies where experiments are carried out on animals, which is why we have had such difficulty in completing this for the hut study, as many of the questions do not relate to how the cows were used
Author-wise bibliometric analysis based on entropy.
No full textAuthor-wise bibliometric analysis based on entropy.</p
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