Prolonged oral treatment with an essential amino acid L-leucine does not affect female reproductive function and embryo-fetal development in rats.

L-leucine, an essential amino acid, is one of the most popular ingredients in dietary supplements. To investigate a possibility of its embryo-fetal toxicity in rats, 11- to 12-week old dams were orally administered an aqueous solution of L-leucine at doses of 300 or 1000 mg/kg body weight on gestational days 7-17. Body weight and feed intake was evaluated throughout the whole course of pregnancy (days 0-20). L-Leucine did not influence body weight, but at a dose of 1000 mg/kg, slightly enhanced feed intake on days 14 and 18 of pregnancy. Caesarean section (day 20) revealed no influences on the litter size and weight of live-born fetuses, the number of corpora lutea, implantation index or the quality of placenta, and the minor increase in feed intake was considered irrelevant to the pregnancy outcomes. Fetuses were evaluated in a battery of external, visceral and skeletal examinations. No effects of L-leucine on gender ratio and external abnormalities, and no significant treatment-related variations in visceral and skeletal pathologies were observed. These results suggested that L-leucine, administered orally during organogenesis at doses up to 1000 mg/kg body weight, did not affect the outcome of pregnancy and did not cause fetotoxicity in rats.     

The role of time in neuropsychological performance: Investigation and application in an alcoholic population

The role of time as a factor in neuropsychological performance has been relatively neglected in the literature to date. Cognitive functioning in 76 male and 67 female alcoholics and 48 male and 49 female controls was examined using overall accuracy measures and time measures on a neuropsychological test battery. Alcoholics as a whole performed poorer than controls on both measures. When accuracy and time measures were combined to form an Efficiency Index (Accuracy/Time), alcoholics were significantly less efficient than controls. Discriminant function analysis of accuracy measures, the measures most commonly used in evaluating neuropsychological performance, significantly predicted alcoholics' performance as did the Efficiency Index. The study illustrates the value of the consideration of time in addition to traditional accuracy measures as a sensitive and significant factor in performance.     

How Gaming May Become a Problem: A Qualitative Analysis of the Role of Gaming Related Experiences and Cognitions in the Development of Problematic Game Behavior

This study focuses on the role of gaming expectancies, motives and the experiences of gamers in the development of video game behavior, from normal to problematic behavior. Qualitative interviews were conducted among 21 male gamers between 17 and 28 years of age, to get more of an insight into their excessive gaming patterns. Participants were recruited in several ways such as by distributing flyers and posting messages on gaming websites. Participants were included if they were between 14 and 26 years of age and if they had experienced game related behavior problems at the time of the study or in the past. Two processes emerged from the results that seem to contribute to the transition to an excessive gaming pattern. First, the duration of each single game session may become longer. Second, a game session may be started up more and more frequently. Gamers have several motives and expectancies that play a role in this process of increasing gaming time. Is seems that a combination of these gaming motives can lead to an increase in gaming time. Especially online role playing games were related to excessive gaming and the social mechanisms in these games seem to work as an intensifier for other motives.     

Nitrogen Dioxide Inhalation And Lung Antibodies

A self-refrigerated suit using dry ice as cooling agent and allowing the wearer to move about freely is described. Its efficiency during exposure to heat (dry bulb temperature, t_a = 46 C; wet bulb temperature, t_wb = 35 C) and heavy physical work on a treadmill has been demonstrated by experiments on 26 subjects. The heart rate is reduced and the body temperature is decreased. The way in which this self-refrigerated suit reduces the heat load is discussed and the usefulness of its application is emphasized.