Cocaine sensitization in male quail: temporal, conditioning, and dose-dependent characteristics

Chronic cocaine administration typically results in increased locomotor activity, known as behavioral sensitization. Investigating the time course of locomotor activity across trials may provide a more detailed analysis of the temporal changes that might occur within sensitization. Prior research with rodents shows that the peak of locomotor activity shifts from acute to chronic drug administration. The purpose of the current experiment was to investigate acute versus chronic cocaine effects on locomotor activity in an avian species, Japanese quail, and to investigate whether this phenomenon is dose-dependent. Subjects received daily ip injections of saline or 5, 10, or 20 mg/kg cocaine for 20 days. Following each injection, birds were placed in standard locomotor activity chambers, and activity was recorded for 150 min. A cocaine challenge was given after a ten-day withdrawal period. Two retraining trials were given to re-establish cocaine responding prior to a saline challenge in the drug-paired environment. Results showed that repeated administration of the 10 mg/kg dose of cocaine enhanced activity across 120 min compared with acute administration. In contrast, repeated administration of the 20 mg/kg dose resulted in greater cocaine-induced activity for 60 min compared with acute administration. In addition, behavioral sensitization was shown to be dose-dependent and appeared to be due, at least in part, to conditioning.     

Web-Based Cognitive Behavioral Self-Help Intervention to Reduce Cocaine Consumption in Problematic Cocaine Users: Randomized Controlled Trial

Background

Web-based self-help programs that reduce problematic substance use are able to reach hidden consumer groups in the general population. These programs are characterized by their low treatment threshold and nonrestrictive intervention settings. They are also cost effective, making them of interest to both low-income and high-income industrialized countries with ever-increasing health costs.

Objective

To test the feasibility and effectiveness of an anonymous, fully automated, Web-based self-help intervention as an alternative to outpatient treatment services for cocaine users.

Methods

A total of 196 cocaine-using participants were recruited through various online and offline media for a randomized controlled trial. Participants in the intervention group received interactive cognitive behavioral modules and a consumption diary to reduce cocaine use, whereas participants in the control group received online psychoeducative information modules. Web-based follow-up assessments were conducted after 4 weeks, 6 weeks, and 6 months. Treatment retention was examined and compared between the intervention and control groups. Severity of cocaine dependence was the main outcome measure. Secondary outcomes were cocaine craving, depression symptoms, and alcohol and other substance use.

Results

This Web-based intervention attracted older and more educated participants than existing outpatient treatment programs for which cocaine is the primary substance of abuse. Participants in the intervention group showed greater treatment retention compared with the control group (P = .04). Low response rates at the follow-up assessments restricted the explanatory power of the analyses. At the follow-up assessments, the severity of cocaine dependence did not differ between the intervention and control groups (P = .75). Furthermore, there were no differences in cocaine craving, depression, or alcohol and other substance use. Using the consumption diaries, the average number of cocaine-free days per week did not change significantly, whereas the weekly quantity of cocaine used decreased equally in both groups (P = .009).

Conclusions

For cocaine users with low dependence severity, a fully automated Web-based cognitive behavioral self-help intervention is a feasible alternative with limited effectiveness in outpatient treatment services. However, this type of intervention may attract specific user groups that are rarely reached by existing outpatient treatment and may help them to control their cocaine consumption anonymously.

Trial Registration

ISRCTN93702927; http://www.controlled-trials.com/ISRCTN93702927 (Archived by WebCite at http://www.webcitation.org/6CTMM10MR)     

Shrinking social space in the doctor-modern patient relationship: a review of forces for, and implications of, homologisation

Objective

Forces for modernisation appear to have led to role convergence and reduced social distances between doctors and modern patients. This review aims to document and understand this process in theory and practice, and to consider the implications for modern patients in particular but also non-modern patients and doctors.

Method

Narrative review of published and grey literature identified from sources including electronic databases, the Internet and reference lists of retrieved works.

Results

Forces for role convergence between doctors and modern patients include consumerism and increased patient literacy; socio-technological changes; values convergence; increased licence for doctors to use their emotions in patient care; and structural changes in the social organisation of health care. As a result, modern patients appear to have gained more in health care than they have lost and more than have the non-modern (or less modern) patients. Doctors have lost authority and autonomy in patient care.

Conclusion

The net impulse toward role convergence is, on balance, a positive development. The differential uptake of modernisation by patients has increased health inequalities between modern and non-modern patients. The need of doctors to accommodate these changes has contributed to a form of reprofessonalisation.

Practice implications

A key challenge is to make available the benefits of modernisation, for example through patient education, to as many patients as possible while minimising the risk of harm. It is important therefore to elucidate and be responsive to patient preferences for modernisation, for example by enlisting the support of the modern patients in overcoming barriers to the modernisation of non-modern patients. There is also a need to support doctors as they redefine their own professional role identity.     

Cyanobacteria metal interactions: requirements, toxicity, and ecological implications

The environmental health-related relevance of cyanobacteria is primarily related to their ability to produce a wide range of toxins, which are known to be hazardous to many organisms, including human beings. The occurrence of cyanobacterial blooms has been related to eutrophic surface water. In the bloom-forming process the levels of phosphorus and nitrogen have been well documented but information regarding concentrations of other chemicals (inorganic, organo-metallic, and organic) is still incipient. Several contaminants, like trace metals, elicit a variety of acute and chronic toxicity effects, but cyanobacteria also have the capability to accumulate, detoxify, or metabolize such substances, to some extent. The role of cyanobacterial exudates has been proved a means of both nutrient acquisition and detoxification. In addition, cyanobacteria are effective biological metal sorbents, representing an important sink for metals in aquatic environment. Understanding the fundamental physicochemical mechanisms of trace metal bio-uptake by cyanobacteria in natural systems is a step towards identifying under what conditions cyanobacterial growth is favored and to ascertain the mechanisms by which blooms (and toxin production) are triggered. In this review the cyanobacterial interactions with metals will be discussed, focusing on freshwater systems.     

HIV, reproductive aging, and health implications in women: a literature review

Infection by the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is increasing among women. After the advent of highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART), a decrease occurred in the mortality rate, which now seems to have stabilized. One of the consequences of this current situation is that more and more HIV-infected women are now reaching menopause. Therefore, factors often investigated in seronegative women need to be evaluated in middle-aged, HIV-positive women. In midlife, HIV-positive women will experience the onset of menopause, while concomitantly they may also be affected by metabolic complications related to the HIV infection and to HAART. This literature review was therefore carried out to identify studies dealing with conditions related to middle-aged women with HIV with the aim of providing data on age at menopause, menopausal symptoms, reproductive hormones, cognitive function, bone mineral density, cardiovascular disease, and lipid and glucose metabolism in middle-aged women with HIV and discussing these issues. Some of these factors may be aggravated by the HIV infection and by HAART. The prevention and treatment of these conditions in middle-aged, HIV-positive women are discussed in the light of current knowledge.     

Social status,social support,and stress: a comparative review of the health consequences of social control factors

Abstract

The purpose of this review is to present evidence that two fundamental relationship dimensions, social status and social support, play significant roles in protecting individuals from stressors, stress responding, and related health problems. While there is a substantial literature on the link between social support and health, the role of social status has been largely overlooked in health psychology research. Research with humans and animals, in a variety of disciplines, demonstrates the effects of both status and support on acute stress responding and long-term health outcomes. Taken together, this research suggests that status and support serve to increase the individual's control over the social and physical environment, thus reducing the experience and effects of stress. The proposed social control model has implications for future research, including development of new measures, identification of health-relevant relationships, and generation of research questions to further illuminate our understanding of how social interactions affect health.     

Postmenopausal changes of lipid and glucose metabolism: a review of their main aspects

In postmenopausal women, partly in relation to advancing age and partly due to oestrogen deficiency, there is a frequent increase in body weight, and more specifically, in android fat distribution. In addition, loss of ovarian function is associated with the development of a more atherogenic profile with increased triglycerides, LDL-cholesterol and its smaller dense subfractions, decreased HDL- and HDL2-cholesterol and, potentially, an irregular increase in Lp(a). Not only does oestrogen therapy counteract all these changes towards a definitely less atherogenic profile but oestrogens seem also implicated in reducing LDL oxidative products, in favouring a higher ratio of prostacyclin to thromboxane and, potentially, of endothelium derived relaxing factor to endothelin, and also in acting as a calcium antagonist in the vessel wall. All of these favourable vascular effects are not solely attributable to lipid-related oestrogen effects. Excess weight and central obesity, diet changes and lack of exercise, more frequent with advancing age, all concur to alter glucose tolerance and increase insulin resistance during the postmenopause. Impaired glucose tolerance and diabetes mellitus may be found in nearly 20% of women aged 55 to 65 years. In addition, oestrogen deficiency may be further responsible for decreased pancreatic insulin secretion and alteration of its metabolic clearance rate-changes that can be reversed toward improved insulin secretion and sensitivity by oestrogen treatment in small dosages. By contrast, synthetic androgenic progestins can counteract these effects of oestrogens more than progesterone derivatives do, and they may partly help to promote insulin resistance and hyperinsulinism. Indeed, long lasting hyperinsulinaemia has been linked to an increased risk of cardiovascular morbidity and mortality, maybe in relation to the effects of excess insulin on vascular wall and its adverse impact on lipoprotein metabolism and haemostatic factors. Accordingly, long term administration of androgenic progestins at the menopause should be best avoided.     

Social psychological theories of disordered eating in college women: review and integration

Because peer interaction, weight/shape, and self-concept formation are particularly salient to college women, the implications of social psychological theories may be especially far-reaching during the college years. College women may be particularly vulnerable to the effects of social comparison, objectification, and uses and gratifications theories, which describe social-cognitive mechanisms that provide an individual with information regarding her own view of her body and how she perceives that others perceive her body. The current paper will review and integrate findings related to these three theories of disordered eating in college women in an effort to present a more comprehensive understanding of the social psychological mechanisms that play a role in the development and maintenance of such pathology for this group of young women. Limitations of and future directions for research on these theories will be discussed, as will their potential integration with other factors that contribute to disordered eating and implications for treatment and prevention.     

Mentalizing, motivation, and social mentalities: Theoretical considerations and implications for psychotherapy

Background.?Mentalization has recently been identified as a major process in the origins, maintenance, and recovery from various mental disorders. Aims.?Questions arise however, as to the degree to which deficits in mentalization can be trait or state-like: whether they manifest themselves across all types of human interaction, or are they relationship dependent, such that different types of relationship (e.g., affiliative vs. competitive) can facilitate or compromise mentalizing? Findings.?This paper suggests that mentalization has a complex evolutionary history, has various subtypes and functions, is highly regulated by the experience of threat or safeness within relationships, and can operate differently in different types of social relationship. Implications.?Awareness of this enables therapists to pay particular attention to the social roles and types of relationships in which mentalization occurs, its specific focus and functions for specific types of relationships. Therapists can be mindful of the kind of specific events in social roles that activate threat and loss of mentalizing (e.g., abandonment threats, feeling controlled by 'the other', status loss, non-reciprocation).     

Peer social initiations and the modification of social withdrawal: a review and future perspective

In the initial portions of this paper the adult-mediated interventionstudies that led to the development of the peer social initiationstrategy are described. Notable findings from these adult-mediatedstudies include (a) that the immediate temporal consequenceof reinforcement delivery was a termination of child-child interaction;(b) that no intervention procedure studied resulted in spontaneousmaintenance and generalization effects, and (c) that maintenanceand generalization programming required elaborate proceduresthat are not logically feasible in most settings. Then the availableliterature on the peer social initiation tactic is summarized.Particular attention is paid to the need for training peer helpersand the relationship between subjects' behavioral repertoiresand the magnitude of immediate and long-term behavior change.Finally, several recommendations are offered for future researchon the effects of participating in a study on peer helpers,and programming for sustained behavior change.     

Ionophore toxicity in chickens: a review of pathology and diagnosis

The ionophores (polyether compounds) have been the predominant means of chemical control of coccidiosis in the past 15 years because of the slow development of resistant strains to them relative to other anticoccidial drugs. However, the ionophores have a narrow range of safety, and it is sometimes difficult to ensure an even distribution of the drug throughout the feed. Diagnosis of toxicity is difficult because of the reversibility of clinical signs and the variability of pathological lesions ranging from none to non-specific. This paper reviews the known pathology of ionophore toxicity and the inadequacies of present diagnostic approaches. Analysis for ionophores in feed may be made by silica gel and high performance thin layer chromatography, but tissue analyses for toxic levels, a more specific diagnostic aid, are not commonly carried out. Limited studies suggest that residues in even severely intoxicated birds remain low. Diagnosis relies upon clinical signs of incoordination, leg weakness, diarrhoea and depression, non-specific histopathological lesions of myopathy and the presence of high levels of ionophores in the feed. If, however, toxicity is due to uneven distribution, feed samples may return false negative results. Current diagnostic criteria are, therefore, unsatisfactory and there is a clear need to investigate other diagnostic approaches.