Search results for "Preference"
showing 10 items of 819 documents
Capacity of novelty-induced locomotor activity and the hole-board test to predict sensitivity to the conditioned rewarding effects of cocaine
2012
Novelty-seeking in rodents, defined as enhanced specific exploration of novel situations, is considered to predict the response of animals to drugs of abuse and, thus, allow "drug-vulnerable" individuals to be identified. The main objective of this study was to assess the predictive ability of two well-known paradigms of the novelty-seeking trait - novelty-induced locomotor activity (which distinguishes High- and Low-Responder mice, depending on their motor activity) and the hole-board test (which determines High- and Low-Novelty Seeker mice depending on the number of head dips they perform) - to identify subjects that would subsequently be more sensitive to the conditioned rewarding effect…
Acetaldehyde Oral Self-Administration: Evidence from the Operant-Conflict Paradigm
2011
Background: Acetaldehyde (ACD), ethanol's first metabolite, has been reported to interact with the dopaminergic reward system, and with the neural circuits involved in stress response. Rats self-administer ACD directly into cerebral ventricles, and multiple intracerebroventricular infusions of ACD produce conditioned place preference. Self-administration has been largely employed to assess the reinforcing and addictive properties of most drugs of abuse. In particular, operant conditioning is a valid model to investigate drug-seeking and drug-taking behavior in rats. Methods: This study was aimed at the evaluation of (i) the motivational properties of oral ACD in the induction and maintenanc…
Effects of CNQX and MPEP on sensitization to the rewarding effects of morphine
2011
The present study was conducted to evaluate the influence of the glutamatergic receptors α-amino-3-hydroxy-5-methyl-4-isoxazolepropionic acid (AMPA) and metabotropic glutamate 5 (mGlu5) receptors on sensitization to the rewarding effects of morphine. The effects of pre-treatment with saline or 20 mg/kg morphine plus the AMPA receptor antagonist 6-cyano-7-nitroquinoxaline-2,3-dione (CNQX) (5 or 10 mg/kg) or the metabotropic Glu5 receptor antagonist 6-methyl-2-(phenylethynyl)-pyridine (MPEP) (5 or 10 mg/kg) on the place conditioning induced by a low dose of morphine (2 mg/kg) were assessed. The 2 mg/kg dose of morphine was ineffective in animals pre-treated with saline but induced a clear con…
Life situation and identity among single older home-living people: A phenomenologicalhermeneutic study
2012
Being able to continue living in their own home as long as possible is the general preference for many older people, and this is also in line with the public policy in the Nordic countries. The aim of this study was to elucidate the meaning of self-care and health for perception of life situation and identity among single-living older individuals in rural areas in southern Norway. Eleven older persons with a mean age of 78 years were interviewed and encouraged to narrate their self-care and health experiences. The interviews were audio taped, transcribed verbatim and analysed using a phenomenological hermeneutic method inspired by the philosophy of Ricoeur. The findings are presented as a n…
Oral homeostasis disruption by medical plasticizer component bisphenol A in adult male rats.
2013
Objectives/Hypothesis Bisphenol A (BPA) is a synthetic estrogen-like chemical mimetic widely used in the manufacture of polycarbonate plastics and epoxy resins found in numerous consumer products including food packaging, medical devices, and dental sealants. Because it is recovered in fluids and it can reach high levels in saliva, this study aimed to evaluate its safety on oral homeostasis by examining its effects on salivary glands, mouth epithelium, water consumption, and salt preference, each parameter being estrogen sensitive. Study Design Randomized controlled trial involving rats. Methods A dose-response study was conducted in adult Wistar rats randomized into five groups (n = 12). B…
Neurochemical Substrates of MDMA Reward: Effects of the Inhibition of Serotonin Reuptake on the Acquisition and Reinstatement of MDMA-induced CPP
2013
Different neurotransmitter brain systems have been implicated in the rewarding effects of 3,4-methylenedioxymetamphetamine (MDMA), including dopamine or serotonin. Serotonin selective reuptake inhibitors (SSRI) are a commonly prescribed therapy for psychiatric disorders, and the SSRI fluoxetine is recommended for MDMA users due to its neuroprotective effect against MDMAinduced neurotoxicity. In the present work, we employed the conditioned place preference (CPP) paradigm to study how the inhibition of serotonin reuptake with fluoxetine affected the rewarding and reinstating effects of MDMA in adolescent male mice. Firstly, we evaluated the motivational effects of fluoxetine (1 and 10 mg/kg)…
Adolescent pre-exposure to ethanol or MDMA prolongs the conditioned rewarding effects of MDMA
2011
Adolescents often take ethanol (EtOH) in combination with MDMA (3,4-methylenedioxymethylamphetamine). In the present work we studied the effect of repeated intermittent adolescent pre-exposure to both drugs on the behavioral and neurochemical effects of MDMA in mice. Sixteen days after pre-treatment, the rewarding and reinstating effects of MDMA in the conditioned place preference (CPP) paradigm were evaluated, along with the levels of biogenic amines, basal motor activity and corticosterone response to different challenges. Pre-exposure to EtOH, MDMA or EtOH+MDMA did not affect the CPP induced by 10mg/kg of MDMA. However, adolescent exposure to EtOH or MDMA increased the duration of the co…
Personality may confound common measures of mate-choice.
2011
5 pages; International audience; The measurement of female mating preferences is central to the study of the evolution of male ornaments. Although several different methods have been developed to assess sexual preference in some standardized way, the most commonly used procedure consists of recording female spatial association with different males presented simultaneously. Sexual preference is then inferred from time spent in front of each male. However, the extent to which the measurement of female mate-choice is related to exploration tendencies has not been addressed so far. In the present study we assessed the influence of variation in exploration tendencies, a trait closely associated …
The evolution of mating preferences for genetic attractiveness and quality in the presence of sensory bias.
2022
The aesthetic preferences of potential mates have driven the evolution of a baffling diversity of elaborate ornaments. Which fitness benefit—if any—choosers gain from expressing such preferences is controversial, however. Here, we simulate the evolution of preferences for multiple ornament types (e.g., “Fisherian,” “handicap,” and “indicator” ornaments) that differ in their associations with genes for attractiveness and other components of fitness. We model the costs of preference expression in a biologically plausible way, which decouples costly mate search from cost-free preferences. Ornaments of all types evolved in our model, but their occurrence was far from random. Females typically p…
The Art of Helpful Relationships with Professionals: A Meta-ethnography of the Perspective of Persons with Severe Mental Illness.
2015
Relationships with professionals have been shown to be helpful to persons with severe mental illness (SMI) in relation to a variety of services. In this article, we aimed to synthesize the available qualitative research to acquire a deepened understanding of what helpful relationships with professionals consists of, from the perspective of persons with SMI. To do this, we created a meta-ethnography of 21 studies, through which ten themes and an overarching interpretation were created. The findings show that helpful relationships with professionals are relationships where the persons with SMI get to spend time with professionals that they know and trust, who gives them access to resources, s…