1,720,965 research outputs found
C-section birth per se or followed by acute global asphyxia altered emotional behaviour in neonate and adult rats
No full textBirth complications such as perinatal asphyxia are considered risk factors for later neurobehavioural disorders. Behavioural analysis of animal models may help to clarify the contribution of particular patterns of early hypoxia and their combination to psychiatric morbidity. Wistar rats underwent caesarean section (c-section) alone or c-section followed by asphyxia, the latter induced by placing pups still in uterus horns into a water bath at 37°C for 20 min. Vaginally delivered pups were used as controls. Frequency of ultrasound emissions was analysed following isolation at a lower temperature than that of the home nest (23 ± 0.5°C) and reunion with their mother (3 min) on postnatal day (PND) 13 (maternal potentiation test). A sex-dependent effect of hypoxia was observed, with higher production of ultrasounds in hypoxic males. Caesarean-delivered pups produced significantly more ultrasounds than those vaginally delivered. At adolescence (PND 35) rats underwent a 25 min social interaction test with a conspecific of the same sex and age. Significant alterations in investigative behaviour (inclusive of: nose, anogenital, body sniffing, and following) were evident in caesarean-delivered rats of both sexes, but not in rats experiencing perinatal asphyxia. At adulthood, auditory, and context conditioned responses, analysed in a fear conditioning test, were not markedly affected either by c-section or c-section plus hypoxia. However, hypoxic rats emitted significantly more 22 kHz ultrasounds than c-section or vaginally delivered rats during the training session. In conclusion, differential effects appear to be brought about by c-section and by hypoxia mainly related to emotional/anxious responses. © 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved
Long term effects of prenatal 3'-azido-3' -deoxythymidine (AZT) on intermale aggressive behaviour of mice
No full textModelli innovativi di welfare: il progetto individuale come strumento di inclusione sociale e lavorativa di persone con autismo
No full textLa transizione dall’infanzia all’età adulta pone importanti problematiche legate ai temi del lavoro, della vita indipendente e della realizzazione personale. Nel caso di ragazzi con disturbi dello spettro autistico (Autism Spectrum Disorders, ASD) questa fase di passaggio è particolarmente critica e richiede sostegni e strategie in grado di promuovere l’autonomia e migliorare la qualità di vita della persona. Il rapporto descrive l’esperienza della Cooperativa Garibaldi, un modello di micro-impresa nata per volontà di un gruppo di genitori di ragazzi con ASD con bisogno di supporto intensivo, come un tentativo di affrontare il momento critico della transizione all’età adulta attraverso una rete partecipativa tra genitori, professionisti sanitari e sociali, microimprese private e istituti di ricerca. Il volume raccoglie i risultati di un progetto finanziato dal Fondo Sociale Europeo che ha avuto lo scopo di facilitare l’apprendimento di competenze finalizzate all’avviamento professionale e all’inclusione sociale di ragazzi con ASD attraverso l’utilizzo di interventi evidence-based
Early-Life Toxic Insults and Onset of Sporadic Neurodegenerative Diseases-an Overview of Experimental Studies
Full text linkThe developmental origin of health and disease hypothesis states that adverse fetal and early childhood exposures can predispose to obesity, cardiovascular, and neurodegenerative diseases (NDDs) in adult life. Early exposure to environmental chemicals interferes with developmental programming and induces subclinical alterations that may hesitate in pathophysiology and behavioral deficits at a later life stage. The mechanisms by which perinatal insults lead to altered programming and to disease later in life are still undefined. The long latency between exposure and onset of disease, the difficulty of reconstructing early exposures, and the wealth of factors which the individual is exposed to during the life course make extremely difficult to prove the developmental origin of NDDs in clinical and epidemiological studies. An overview of animal studies assessing the long-term effects of perinatal exposure to different chemicals (heavy metals and pesticides) supports the link between exposure and hallmarks of neurodegeneration at the adult stage. Furthermore, models of maternal immune activation show that brain inflammation in early life may enhance adult vulnerability to environmental toxins, thus supporting the multiple hit hypothesis for NDDs' etiology. The study of prospective animal cohorts may help to unraveling the complex pathophysiology of sporadic NDDs. In vivo models could be a powerful tool to clarify the mechanisms through which different kinds of insults predispose to cell loss in the adult age, to establish a cause-effect relationship between "omic" signatures and disease/dysfunction later in life, and to identify peripheral biomarkers of exposure, effects, and susceptibility, for translation to prospective epidemiological studies
Neonatal exposure to chlorpyrifos affects maternal responses and maternal aggression of female mice in adulthood
No full textCD-1 mice were exposed to the organophosphate pesticide chlorpyrifos (CPF) throughout postnatal days (PND) 11-14 at the subtoxic dose of 3 mg/kg. At adolescent age, females and males underwent a sociability test in which level of sociability and social preference were measured. At adulthood only females' behavior was analyzed. Maternal behavior of CPF-exposed females was assessed on postpartum day 1 after removal of the pups for 1 h, while anxiety levels were measured in a 5 min dark-light test on postpartum day 2. Nest defense response to an unfamiliar male intruder was assessed on postpartum day 7. In addition, from birth to postpartum day 7 a detailed analysis of nest building activity was carried out. Neonatal CPF exposure does not interfere with social behavior and social preferences at adolescence, whereas at adulthood it induces significant behavioral alterations in lactating females. Motivation to build and defend the nest was decreased in CPF females that were also less anxious than controls in the dark-light paradigm. These results confirm that developmental exposure to CPF induces long-lasting alterations in selected sexual-dimorphic responses of the adult social repertoire, and suggest that early exposure to CPF might interfere with hypothalamic neuroendocrine mechanisms regulating social responses. © 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved
Neonatal basal forebrain cholinergic hypofunction affects ultrasonic vocalizations and fear conditioning responses in preweaning rats
No full textThe present study investigated the effects of intracebroventricular injections of 192 IgG-saporin in 7-day-old rats on (i) ultrasound vocalizations (USVs) on postnatal day (pnd) 13 following isolation and reunion with the mother and (ii) fear conditioning on pnd 18-19 recording both freezing and other behavioural responses as well as USVs. On pnd 13 lesioned and control pups showed comparable USV baseline values; a brief reunion with the mother induced a significant increase in USVs in all rats (maternal potentiation). On pnd 18, during the fear conditioning training, 192 IgG-saporin rats emitted a lower number of USVs. On pnd 19 all rats showed a stronger conditioned response (with full inhibition of locomotion) to auditory than to contextual cues. Surprisingly, lesioned rats showed a stronger fear-conditioned response to contextual cues than controls. These results suggest that early selective removal of the cholinergic basal forebrain paradoxically enhances hippocampally dependent fear-conditioned responses on pnd 19. © 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved
Caesarean section birth per se or followed by acute global asphyxia induces a selective reduction in the expression of mGlu1 alpha receptors in the hippocampus of adult rats
No full text
Caesarean section birth per se or followed by acute global asphyxia induced a selective reduction in the expression of mGlu1a receptors in the hippocampus of adult rats
No full textGoing 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
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