Search results for "behavioral"
showing 10 items of 3011 documents
Lobesia botrana larvae develop faster in the presence of parasitoids.
2013
3 pages; International audience; To combat parasitism hosts often rely on their immune system, which is the last line of defense. However, the immune system may not always be effective, and other non-immunological defenses might be favored to reduce the cost of parasite infection. Here we report that larvae of the moth Lobesia botrana can rapidly accelerate their development and reach maturity earlier in response to cues perceived at a distance from parasitoids. Such a phenotypically plastic life history shift, induced by the perception of deadly enemies in the environment, is likely to be an adaptive defensive strategy to prevent parasitoid attack, and has important implications in host-pa…
Assortative mating by size without a size-based preference: the female-sooner norm as a mate-guarding criterion.
2013
7 pages; International audience; The study of size-assortative mating, or homogamy, is of great importance in speciation and sexual selection. However, the proximate mechanisms that lead to such patterns are poorly understood. Homogamy is often thought to come from a directional preference for larger mates. However, many constraints affect mating preferences and understanding the causes of size assortment requires a precise evaluation of the pair formation mechanism. Mate-guarding crustaceans are a model group for the study of homogamy. Males guard females until moult and reproduction. They are also unable to hold a female during their own moult and tend to pair with females closer to moult…
Exposure to a Highly Caloric Palatable Diet During Pregestational and Gestational Periods Affects Hypothalamic and Hippocampal Endocannabinoid Levels…
2016
Journal Article; Exposure to unbalanced diets during pre-gestational and gestational periods may result in long-term alterations in metabolism and behavior. The contribution of the endocannabinoid system to these long-term adaptive responses is unknown. In the present study, we investigated the impact of female rat exposure to a hypercaloric-hypoproteic palatable diet during pre-gestational, gestational and lactational periods on the development of male offspring. In addition, the hypothalamic and hippocampal endocannabinoid contents at birth and the behavioral performance in adulthood were investigated. Exposure to a palatable diet resulted in low weight offspring who exhibited low hypotha…
New Therapeutic Implications of Endothelial Nitric Oxide Synthase (eNOS) Function/Dysfunction in Cardiovascular Disease
2019
The Global Burden of Disease Study identified cardiovascular risk factors as leading causes of global deaths and life years lost. Endothelial dysfunction represents a pathomechanism that is associated with most of these risk factors and stressors, and represents an early (subclinical) marker/predictor of atherosclerosis. Oxidative stress is a trigger of endothelial dysfunction and it is a hall-mark of cardiovascular diseases and of the risk factors/stressors that are responsible for their initiation. Endothelial function is largely based on endothelial nitric oxide synthase (eNOS) function and activity. Likewise, oxidative stress can lead to the loss of eNOS activity or even “uncoupli…
Cognitive network hyperactivation and motor cortex decline correlate with ALS prognosis.
2021
We aimed to quantitatively characterize progressive brain network disruption in Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) during cognition using the mismatch negativity (MMN), an electrophysiological index of attention switching. We measured the MMN using 128-channel EEG longitudinally (2-5 timepoints) in 60 ALS patients and cross-sectionally in 62 healthy controls. Using dipole fitting and linearly constrained minimum variance beamforming we investigated cortical source activity changes over time. In ALS, the inferior frontal gyri (IFG) show significantly lower baseline activity compared to controls. The right IFG and both superior temporal gyri (STG) become progressively hyperactive longitudina…
Different Brain Circuitries Mediating Controllable and Uncontrollable Pain.
2015
Uncontrollable, compared with controllable, painful stimulation can lead to increased pain perception and activation in pain-processing brain regions, but it is currently unknown which brain areas mediate this effect. When pain is controllable, the lateral prefrontal cortex (PFC) seems to inhibit pain processing, although it is unclear how this is achieved. Using fMRI in healthy volunteers, we examined brain activation during controllable and uncontrollable stimulation to answer these questions. In the controllable task, participants self-adjusted temperatures applied to their hand of pain or warm intensities to provoke a constant sensation. In the uncontrollable task, the temperature time …
Antiepileptic drug reduction and increased risk of stimulation-evoked focal to bilateral tonic-clonic seizure during cortical stimulation in patients…
2017
Introduction: Stimulation-evoked focal to bilateral tonic-clonic seizure (FBTCS) can be a stressful and possibly harmful adverse event for patients during cortical stimulation (CS). We evaluated if drug load reduction of anti epileptic drugs (AEDs) during CS increases the risk of stimulation-evoked FBTCS. Material and methods: In this retrospective cohort study, we searched our local database for patients with drug resistant epilepsy who underwent invasive video-EEG monitoring and CS in the University Hospital la Fe Valencia from January 2006 to November 2016. The AED drug load was calculated with the defined daily dose. We applied a uni- and multivariate logistic regression model to estima…
Lacosamide in patients with temporal lobe epilepsy: An observational multicentric open-label study.
2016
Abstract Purpose The aim of this study was to evaluate the efficacy and tolerability of lacosamide (LCM) both as add-on therapy and monotherapy in patients with temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) based on an observational, prospective, multicenter study. Methods We enrolled 100 patients (mean age: 43.4 ± 12.53 years, 57 females) with nonlesional TLE and TLE with hippocampal sclerosis (HS) that did not respond to the first drug and who were referred to epilepsy centers of the University of Catanzaro, University of Palermo, IRCSS Neuromed of Pozzilli, and Otto-von-Guericke University of Magdeburg. In this open-label, multicenter trial, patients were initiated on oral LCM as add-on therapy to first …
Neuropsychiatric Symptoms as Predictors of Clinical Course in Neurodegeneration. A Longitudinal Study
2019
Background: To study the extent to which neuropsychiatric symptoms (NPS) influence the cognitive and functional decline in frontotemporal degeneration (FTD) and Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Methods: We assessed the progression of NPS and their influence on cognitive and functional progression in a group of FTD (n = 36) and AD patients (n = 47) at two different stages of the disease (2.5 years). A standardized scale was used to assess NPS—the Columbia University Scale for Psychopathology in Alzheimer’s Disease (CUSPAD)—which tracks different symptoms including depression, psychotic symptoms, as well as sleep and conduct problems. In addition, in a subsample of patients (AD n = 14 and FTD n = 14…
Determinants of Quality of Life According to Cognitive Status in Parkinson’s Disease
2020
Background: Quality of life (QoL) was worse in Parkinson's disease patients with mild cognitive impairment (PD-MCI) or dementia (PDD) than PD patients with normal cognition (PD-NC). The aim of this study was to investigate and compare the potential heterogeneous determinants of QoL in PD patients with different cognitive statuses. Methods: We recruited 600 PD patients, including 185 PD-NC patients, 336 PD-MCI patients and 79 PDD patients, in this cross-sectional study. All patients completed the QoL assessment by the 39-item Parkinson's Disease Questionnaire (PDQ-39), as well as clinical evaluations and neuropsychological tests. The determinants of the QoL were analysed by multiple stepwise…