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Full-Text Articles in Medicine and Health Sciences

Defining Behavioral And Molecular Differences Between Summer And Migratory Monarch Butterflies, Haisun Zhu, Robert Gegear, Amy Casselman, Sriramana Kanginakudru, Steven Reppert Dec 2015

Defining Behavioral And Molecular Differences Between Summer And Migratory Monarch Butterflies, Haisun Zhu, Robert Gegear, Amy Casselman, Sriramana Kanginakudru, Steven Reppert

Robert J. Gegear

BACKGROUND: In the fall, Eastern North American monarch butterflies (Danaus plexippus) undergo a magnificent long-range migration. In contrast to spring and summer butterflies, fall migrants are juvenile hormone deficient, which leads to reproductive arrest and increased longevity. Migrants also use a time-compensated sun compass to help them navigate in the south/southwesterly direction en route for Mexico. Central issues in this area are defining the relationship between juvenile hormone status and oriented flight, critical features that differentiate summer monarchs from fall migrants, and identifying molecular correlates of behavioral state. RESULTS: Here we show that increasing juvenile hormone activity to induce summer-like …


Chronic Systemic Immune Dysfunction In African-Americans With Small Vessel-Type Ischemic Stroke, Candice M. Brown, Cheryl D. Bushnell, Gregory P. Samsa, Larry B. Goldstein, Carol A. Colton Dec 2015

Chronic Systemic Immune Dysfunction In African-Americans With Small Vessel-Type Ischemic Stroke, Candice M. Brown, Cheryl D. Bushnell, Gregory P. Samsa, Larry B. Goldstein, Carol A. Colton

Neurology Faculty Publications

The incidence of small vessel-type (lacunar) ischemic strokes is greater in African-Americans compared to whites. The chronic inflammatory changes that result from lacunar stroke are poorly understood. To elucidate these changes, we measured serum inflammatory and thrombotic biomarkers in African-Americans at least 6 weeks post-stroke compared to control individuals. Cases were African-Americans with lacunar stroke (n = 30), and controls were age-matched African-Americans with no history of stroke or other major neurologic disease (n = 37). Blood was obtained > 6 weeks post-stroke and was analyzed for inflammatory biomarkers. Freshly isolated peripheral blood mononuclear cells were stimulated with lipopolysaccharide …


Belief About Nicotine Selectively Modulates Value And Reward Prediction Error Signals In Smokers, Xiaosi Gu, Terry Lohrenz, Ramiro Salas, Philip R. Baldwin, Alireza Soltani Feb 2015

Belief About Nicotine Selectively Modulates Value And Reward Prediction Error Signals In Smokers, Xiaosi Gu, Terry Lohrenz, Ramiro Salas, Philip R. Baldwin, Alireza Soltani

Dartmouth Scholarship

Little is known about how prior beliefs impact biophysically described processes in the presence of neuroactive drugs, which presents a profound challenge to the understanding of the mechanisms and treatments of addiction. We engineered smokers' prior beliefs about the presence of nicotine in a cigarette smoked before a functional magnetic resonance imaging session where subjects carried out a sequential choice task. Using a model-based approach, we show that smokers' beliefs about nicotine specifically modulated learning signals (value and reward prediction error) defined by a computational model of mesolimbic dopamine systems. Belief of "no nicotine in cigarette" (compared with "nicotine in …