Life Sciences Commons^™

Birds, Bats And Minds. Tales Of A Revolutionary Scientist: Donald R. Griffin. Volume One, Carolyn A. Ristau

eBooks

In this three-volume biography, we revisit the life and accomplishments of the revolutionary scientist, Donald R. Griffin. He encountered a lifetime of initial hostile resistance to his ideas and studies; now they are largely accepted. He and a colleague discovered the phenomenon of echolocation used by bats to navigate and capture insects, proposed that birds navigate guided by such cues as the sun and stars, and suggested that animals are likely aware, thinking and feeling beings. Forty interviews with his colleagues and friends help us understand the young emerging scientist and the mature researcher. We learn about his and others’ …

Biodiversity Of Philippine Marine Fishes: A Dna Barcode Reference Library Based On Voucher Specimens, Katherine E. Bemis, Matthew G. Girard, Mudjekeewis D. Santos, Kent E. Carpenter, Jonathan R. Deeds, Diane E. Pitassy, Nicko Amor L. Flores, Elizabeth S. Hunter, Amy C. Driskell, Kenneth S. Macdonald Iii, Lee A. Weigt, Jeffrey T. Williams

Biological Sciences Faculty Publications

Accurate identification of fishes is essential for understanding their biology and to ensure food safety for consumers. DNA barcoding is an important tool because it can verify identifications of both whole and processed fishes that have had key morphological characters removed (e.g., filets, fish meal); however, DNA reference libraries are incomplete, and public repositories for sequence data contain incorrectly identified sequences. During a nine-year sampling program in the Philippines, a global biodiversity hotspot for marine fishes, we developed a verified reference library of cytochrome c oxidase subunit I (COI) sequences for 2,525 specimens representing 984 species. Specimens were primarily purchased …

Law Library Blog (December 2021): Legal Beagle's Blog Archive, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Law Library Newsletters/Blog

No abstract provided.

Cognition And The Brain Of Brood Parasitic Cowbirds., David F Sherry, Mélanie F Guigueno

Psychology Publications

Cowbirds are brood parasites. Females lay their eggs in the nests of other species, which then incubate the cowbird eggs and raise the young cowbirds. Finding and returning to heterospecific nests presents cowbirds with several cognitive challenges. In some species, such as brown-headed cowbirds (Molothrus ater), females but not males search for and remember the locations of potential host nests. We describe recent research on sex differences in cognition and the hippocampus associated with this sex difference in search for host nests. Female brown-headed cowbirds perform better than males on some, but not all, tests of spatial memory and females …

Ohio River Survey (Fa 656), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

FA Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Folklife Archives Project 656. Kentucky Folklife Program project titled: “Ohio River Survey,” which includes interviews, tape logs, photographs and other documentation of folklife along the Ohio River in Illinois, Indiana and Kentucky. Interviews may include a description of belief, traditional occupation, practice, craft, or tool, informant’s name, age, birth date, and address.

Helping Farmers And Reducing Car Crashes: The Surprising Benefits Of Predators, Christopher O'Bryan, Eve Mcdonald-Madden, James Watson, Neil Carter

Human-Environment Systems Research Center Faculty Publications and Presentations

Humans may be Earth’s apex predator, but the fleeting shadow of a vulture or the glimpse of a big cat can cause instinctive fear and disdain. But new evidence suggests that predators and scavengers are much more beneficial to humans than commonly believed, and that their loss may have greater consequences than we have imagined.

Nmda Receptor Blockade Specifically Impedes The Acquisition Of Incentive Salience Attribution, Jonathan J. Chow, Joshua S. Beckmann

Psychology Faculty Publications

Glutamatergic signaling plays an important role in learning and memory. Using Pavlovian conditioned approach procedures, the mechanisms that drive stimulus-reward learning and memory have been investigated. However, there are instances where reward-predictive stimuli can function beyond being solely predictive and can be attributed with “motivational value” or incentive salience. Using a Pavlovian conditioned approach procedure consisting of two different but equally predictive stimuli (lever vs. tone) we investigated the role NMDA receptor function has in the attribution of incentive salience. The results revealed that the administration of MK-801, an NMDA receptor antagonist, during acquisition of Pavlovian conditioned approach promoted goal-tracking …

Post-Darwin Skepticism And Run-Of-The-Mill Suicide, John Hadley

Animal Sentience

Peña-Guzmán’s depiction of the opponent of animal suicide as a conservative is a straw man. It is possible to accept that animals are self-conscious and reflexive yet still reject the view that they have the mental wherewithal to commit run-of-the-mill suicide. That animal behaviour can be positioned on a continuum of self-destructive behaviour does not establish that animals can intentionally kill themselves.

Historical Observations And Identifications Of Plants And Animals In The Vicinity Of Engineer Cantonment In 1819-1820, Hugh H. Genoways, Brett C. Ratcliffe, Carl R. Falk, John R. Bozell

University of Nebraska State Museum: Mammalogy Papers

Historical observations and identifications of plants and animals in the vicinity of Engineer Cantonment in 1819–1820 (James 1822) are shown below in Roman and Roman italic print. Specimens identified through phytoarcheological and zooarcheological analysis of materials and believed to be reasonably associated or contemporaneous with the Long Expedition use of the site (AU4) are shown in boldface. Species present in both the historical and archeological data are marked by an asterisk (*). References used in this compilation include Benedict (1996), Brewer (1970 [1840]), Conant and Collins (1991), Ducey (2000), Evans (1997), Falk et al. (this volume), Genoways et al. (2008), …

The Effects Of Nicotine In The Neonatal Quinpirole Rodent Model Of Psychosis: Neural Plasticity Mechanisms And Nicotinic Receptor Changes, Daniel J. Peterson, W. Drew Gill, John M. Dose, Donald B. Hoover, James R. Pauly, Elizabeth D. Cummins, Katherine C. Burgess, Russell W. Brown

Pharmaceutical Sciences Faculty Publications

Neonatal quinpirole (NQ) treatment to rats increases dopamine D2 receptor sensitivity persistent throughout the animal’s lifetime. In Experiment 1, we analyzed the role of α7 and α4β2 nicotinic receptors (nAChRs) in nicotine behavioral sensitization and on the brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) response to nicotine in NQ- and neonatally saline (NS)-treated rats. In Experiment 2, we analyzed changes in α7 and α4β2 nAChR density in the nucleus accumbens (NAcc) and dorsal striatum in NQ and NS animals sensitized to nicotine. Male and female Sprague-Dawley rats were neonatally treated with quinpirole (1 mg/kg) or saline from postnatal days (P)1–21. Animals were given …

Single-Trait And Multi-Trait Genome-Wide Association Analyses Identify Novel Loci For Blood Pressure In African-Ancestry Populations, Jingjing Liang, Thu H. Le, Digna R. Velez Edwards, Bamidele O. Tayo, Kyle J. Gaulton, Jennifer A. Smith, Yingchang Lu, Richard A. Jensen, Guanjie Chen, Lisa R. Yanek, Karen Schwander, Salman M. Tajuddin, Tamar Sofer, Wonji Kim, James Kayima, Colin A. Mckenzie, Ervin Fox, Michael A. Nalls, J. Hunter Young, Yan V. Sun, Jacqueline M. Lane, Sylvia Cechova, Jie Zhou, Hua Tang, Myriam Fornage, Solomon K. Musani, Heming Wang, Juyoung Lee, Adebowale Adeyemo, Albert W. Dreisbach, Donna K. Arnett

Epidemiology and Environmental Health Faculty Publications

Hypertension is a leading cause of global disease, mortality, and disability. While individuals of African descent suffer a disproportionate burden of hypertension and its complications, they have been underrepresented in genetic studies. To identify novel susceptibility loci for blood pressure and hypertension in people of African ancestry, we performed both single and multiple-trait genome-wide association analyses. We analyzed 21 genome-wide association studies comprised of 31,968 individuals of African ancestry, and validated our results with additional 54,395 individuals from multi-ethnic studies. These analyses identified nine loci with eleven independent variants which reached genome-wide significance (P < 1.25×10⁻⁸) for either systolic and …

Retention Of Normal Glia Function By An Isoform-Selective Protein Kinase Inhibitor Drug Candidate That Modulates Cytokine Production And Cognitive Outcomes, Zhengqiu Zhou, Adam D. Bachstetter, Claudia B. Späni, Saktimayee M. Roy, D. Martin Watterson, Linda J. Van Eldik

Sanders-Brown Center on Aging Faculty Publications

Background: Brain p38α mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK), a potential therapeutic target for cognitive dysfunction based on the neuroinflammation-synaptic dysfunction cycle of pathophysiology progression, offers an innovative pharmacological strategy via inhibiting the same activated target in both glia and neurons, thereby enhancing the possibility for efficacy. The highly selective, brain-penetrant p38αMAPK inhibitor MW150 attenuates cognitive dysfunction in two distinct Alzheimer's disease (AD)-relevant models and avoids the problems encountered with previous mixed-kinase inhibitor drug candidates. Therefore, it is essential that the glial effects of this CNS-active kinase inhibitor be addressed in order to anticipate future use in clinical investigations.

Methods: …

Niche By Basma Kavanagh, Vivian M. Hansen

The Goose

Review of Basma Kavanagh's Niche.

Origins Of Thalamic And Cortical Projections To The Posterior Auditory Field In Congenitally Deaf Cats., Blake E Butler, Nicole Chabot, Andrej Kral, Stephen G Lomber

Psychology Publications

Crossmodal plasticity takes place following sensory loss, such that areas that normally process the missing modality are reorganized to provide compensatory function in the remaining sensory systems. For example, congenitally deaf cats outperform normal hearing animals on localization of visual stimuli presented in the periphery, and this advantage has been shown to be mediated by the posterior auditory field (PAF). In order to determine the nature of the anatomical differences that underlie this phenomenon, we injected a retrograde tracer into PAF of congenitally deaf animals and quantified the thalamic and cortical projections to this field. The pattern of projections from …

Are There Place Cells In The Avian Hippocampus?, David F Sherry, Stephanie L Grella, Mélanie F Guigueno, David J White, Diano F Marrone

Psychology Publications

Birds possess a hippocampus that serves many of the same spatial and mnemonic functions as the mammalian hippocampus but achieves these outcomes with a dramatically different neuroanatomical organization. The properties of spatially responsive neurons in birds and mammals are also different. Much of the contemporary interest in the role of the mammalian hippocampus in spatial representation dates to the discovery of place cells in the rat hippocampus. Since that time, cells that respond to head direction and cells that encode a grid-like representation of space have been described in the rat brain. Research with homing pigeons has discovered hippocampal cells, …

Selective Suppression Of The Α Isoform Of P38 Mapk Rescues Late-Stage Tau Pathology, Nicole Maphis, Shanya Jiang, Guixiang Xu, Olga N. Kokiko-Cochran, Saktimayee M. Roy, Linda J. Van Eldik, D. Martin Watterson, Bruce T. Lamb, Kiran Bhaskar

Sanders-Brown Center on Aging Faculty Publications

Background: Hyperphosphorylation and aggregation of tau protein are the pathological hallmarks of Alzheimer’s disease and related tauopathies. We previously demonstrated that the microglial activation induces tau hyperphosphorylation and cognitive impairment via activation of p38 mitogen-activated protein kinase (p38 MAPK) in the hTau mouse model of tauopathy that was deficient for microglial fractalkine receptor CX3CR1.

Method: We report an isoform-selective, brain-permeable, and orally bioavailable small molecule inhibitor of p38α MAPK (MW181) and its effects on tau phosphorylation in vitro and in hTau mice.

Results: First, pretreatment of mouse primary cortical neurons with MW181 completely blocked inflammation-induced p38α MAPK activation and AT8 …

Animals Aren’T Persons, But Is It Time For A Neologism?, Helen Steward

Animal Sentience

Mark Rowlands argues that at least some animals are persons, based on the idea that (i) many animals have a property he calls “pre-reflective awareness,” (ii) the capacity for pre-reflective awareness is sufficient to satisfy the traditional Lockean definition of personhood, and (iii) satisfaction of the traditional Lockean definition of personhood is sufficient for being a person. I agree with (i) and can see that there is a persuasive case for (ii), but I think the case against (iii) blocks the conclusion that animals are persons. I suggest that we may need instead to coin a neologism in order to …

Unconscious Higher-Order Thoughts (Hots) As Pre-Reflective Self-Awareness?, Rocco J. Gennaro

Animal Sentience

Rowlands argues that many nonhuman animals are “persons,” contrary to the prevailing orthodoxy which rests on a mistaken conception of the kind of self-awareness relevant to personhood. He argues that self-awareness bifurcates into two importantly different forms — reflective self-awareness and pre-reflective self-awareness — and that many animals can have the latter, which is sufficient for personhood. I agree that there is good reason to think that many animals can have pre-reflective self-awareness, but I think Rowlands is mistaken about its nature. His account runs the risk of leading to an infinite regress objection, and his notion of pre-reflective self-awareness …

An Analysis Of The Use Of Animal Models In Predicting Human Toxicology And Drug Safety, Jarrod Bailey, Michelle Thew, Michael Balls

Jarrod Bailey, PhD

Animal use continues to be central to preclinical drug development, in spite of a lack of its demonstrable validity. The current nadir of new drug approvals and the drying-up of pipelines may be a direct consequence of this. To estimate the evidential weight given by animal data to the probability that a new drug may be toxic to humans, we have calculated Likelihood Ratios (LRs) for an extensive data set of 2,366 drugs, for which both animal and human data are available, including tissue-level effects and MedDRA Level 1–4 biomedical observations. This was done for three preclinical species (rat, mouse …

Reduced Efficacy Of Anti-AΒ Immunotherapy In A Mouse Model Of Amyloid Deposition And Vascular Cognitive Impairment Comorbidity, Erica M. Weekman, Tiffany L. Sudduth, Carly N. Caverly, Timothy J. Kopper, Oliver W. Phillips, David K. Powell, Donna M. Wilcock

Sanders-Brown Center on Aging Faculty Publications

Vascular cognitive impairment and dementia (VCID) is the second most common form of dementia behind Alzheimer's disease (AD). It is estimated that 40% of AD patients also have some form of VCID. One promising therapeutic for AD is anti-Aβ immunotherapy, which uses antibodies against Aβ to clear it from the brain. While successful in clearing Aβ and improving cognition in mice, anti-Aβ immunotherapy failed to reach primary cognitive outcomes in several different clinical trials. We hypothesized that one potential reason the anti-Aβ immunotherapy clinical trials were unsuccessful was due to this high percentage of VCID …

Wild Justice Redux: What We Know About Social Justice In Animals And Why It Matters, Jessica Pierce, Marc Bekoff

Marc Bekoff, PhD

Social justice in animals is beginning to attract interest in a broad range of academic disciplines. Justice is an important area of study because it may help explain social dynamics among individuals living in tightly- knit groups, as well as social interactions among individuals who only occasionally meet. In this paper, we provide an overview of what is currently known about social justice in animals and offer an agenda for further research. We provide working definitions of key terms, outline some central research questions, and explore some of the challenges of studying social justice in animals, as well as the …

The Ethics Of Wildlife Control In Humanized Landscapes, John Hadidian, Camilla H. Fox, William S. Lynn

William S. Lynn, PhD

The 21st century is witness to an unprecedented and rapid growth of human settlements, from urban centers to wilderness vacation resorts. Concurrent with this has been the growing tolerance and acceptance of many wild animals and humans for one another. This has created an expanding ‘zone’ of human-animal contacts, some number of which invariably result in conflicts. While the vast majority of our interactions with wild animals are undoubtedly benign, it is the conflict between wildlife and people that draws particularly close attention from the public. Animals viewed as vertebrate “pests” range from the small to the large, the timid …

Are Animals Persons?, Mark Rowlands

Animal Sentience

It is orthodox to suppose that very few, if any, nonhuman animals are persons. The category “person” is restricted to self-aware creatures: humans (above a certain age) and possibly some of the great apes and cetaceans. I argue that this orthodoxy should be rejected, because it rests on a mistaken conception of the kind of self-awareness relevant to personhood. Replacing this with a sense of self-awareness that is relevant requires us to accept that personhood is much more widely distributed through the animal kingdom.

Framework For Drafting Ecological Objectives For Water Sharing Plans - Submission Of The Nsw Aboriginal Land Council, Geoff Scott, New South Wales Aboriginal Land Council

Indigenous Water Justice Symposium (June 6)

Presenter: Phil Duncan, Gomeroi Nation, New South Wales Aboriginal Land Council

4 pages

Contains 1 footnote

Letter addressed to Nick Cook, A/Team Leader, WSP Science & Evaluation - North, NSW Office of Water, from Geoff Scott, Chief Executive Officer, New South Wales Aboriginal Land Council.

The Tnfα-Transgenic Rat: Hippocampal Synaptic Integrity, Cognition, Function, And Post-Ischemic Cell Loss, L. Creed Pettigrew, Richard J. Kryscio, Christopher M. Norris

Sanders-Brown Center on Aging Faculty Publications

The cytokine, tumor necrosis factor α (TNFα), is a key regulator of neuroinflammation linked to numerous neurodegenerative conditions and diseases. The present study used transgenic rats that overexpress a murine TNFα gene, under the control of its own promoter, to investigate the impact of chronically elevated TNFα on hippocampal synaptic function. Neuronal viability and cognitive recovery in TNFα Tg rats were also determined following an ischemic insult arising from reversible middle cerebral artery occlusion (MCAO). Basal CA3-CA1 synaptic strength, recorded in acute brain slices, was not significantly different between eight-week-old TNFα Tg rats and non-Tg rats. In contrast, slices from …

A One Health Message About Bats Increases Intentions To Follow Public Health Guidance On Bat Rabies, Hang Lu, Katherine A. Mccomas, Danielle E. Buttke, Sungjong Roh, Margaret A. Wild

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Since 1960, bat rabies variants have become the greatest source of human rabies deaths in the United States. Improving rabies awareness and preventing human exposure to rabid bats remains a national public health priority today. Concurrently, conservation of bats and the ecosystem benefits they provide is of increasing importance due to declining populations of many bat species. This study used a visitor-intercept experiment (N = 521) in two U.S. national parks where human and bat interactions occur on an occasional basis to examine the relative persuasiveness of four messages differing in the provision of benefit and uncertainty information on intentions …

Mw151 Inhibited Il-1Β Levels After Traumatic Brain Injury With No Effect On Microglia Physiological Responses, Adam D. Bachstetter, Zhengqiu Zhou, Rachel K. Rowe, Bin Xing, Danielle S. Goulding, Alyssa N. Conley, Pradoldej Sompol, Shelby Meier, Jose F. Abisambra, Jonathan Lifshitz, D. Martin Watterson, Linda J. Van Eldik

Sanders-Brown Center on Aging Faculty Publications

A prevailing neuroinflammation hypothesis is that increased production of proinflammatory cytokines contributes to progressive neuropathology, secondary to the primary damage caused by a traumatic brain injury (TBI). In support of the hypothesis, post-injury interventions that inhibit the proinflammatory cytokine surge can attenuate the progressive pathology. However, other post-injury neuroinflammatory responses are key to endogenous recovery responses. Therefore, it is critical that pharmacological attenuation of detrimental or dysregulated neuroinflammatory processes avoid pan-suppression of inflammation. MW151 is a CNS-penetrant, small molecule experimental therapeutic that restores injury- or disease-induced overproduction of proinflammatory cytokines towards homeostasis without immunosuppression. Post-injury administration of MW151 in a …

AΒ40 Reduces P-Glycoprotein At The Blood-Brain Barrier Through The Ubiquitin-Proteasome Pathway, Anika M. S. Hartz, Yu Zhong, Andrea Wolf, Harry Levine Iii, David S. Miller, Björn Bauer

Sanders-Brown Center on Aging Faculty Publications

Failure to clear amyloid-β (Aβ) from the brain is in part responsible for Aβ brain accumulation in Alzheimer's disease (AD). A critical protein for clearing Aβ across the blood–brain barrier is the efflux transporter P-glycoprotein (P-gp) in the luminal plasma membrane of the brain capillary endothelium. P-gp is reduced at the blood–brain barrier in AD, which has been shown to be associated with Aβ brain accumulation. However, the mechanism responsible for P-gp reduction in AD is not well understood. Here we focused on identifying critical mechanistic steps involved in reducing P-gp in AD. We …

It Is All About (U)Biquitin: Role Of Altered Ubiquitin-Proteasome System And Uchl1 In Alzheimer Disease, Antonella Tramutola, Fabio Di Domenico, Eugenio Barone, Marzia Perluigi, D. Allan Butterfield

Chemistry Faculty Publications

Free radical-mediated damage to macromolecules and the resulting oxidative modification of different cellular components are a common feature of aging, and this process becomes much more pronounced in age-associated pathologies, including Alzheimer disease (AD). In particular, proteins are particularly sensitive to oxidative stress-induced damage and these irreversible modifications lead to the alteration of protein structure and function. In order to maintain cell homeostasis, these oxidized/damaged proteins have to be removed in order to prevent their toxic accumulation. It is generally accepted that the age-related accumulation of “aberrant” proteins results from both the increased occurrence of damage and the decreased efficiency …

A Moral Argument For Veganism, Dan Hooley, Nathan Nobis

Human Health Collection

In this essay, we argue for dietary veganism. Our case has two steps. First, we argue that, in most circumstances, it is morally wrong to raise animals to produce meat, dairy products, most eggs (a possible exception we discuss is eggs from pet chickens) and most other animal food products. Turning animals into food, and using them for their byproducts, causes serious harms to animals that are morally unjustified: that is, the reasons given to justify causing these kinds of harms – goods or alleged goods that result from animal farming and slaughter – are inadequate to justify the bad …