Extensions of the lost letter technique to divisive issues of creationism,darwinism, sex education,and gay and lesbian affiliations

Two field studies using 1,004 "lost letters" were designed to test the hypotheses that returned responses would be greater in small towns than from a city, that addressees' affiliation with a group either (1) opposed to physical education in schools, (2) supporting gay and lesbian teachers, or (3) advocating Creationism or Darwinism would reduce the return rate. Of 504 letters "lost" in Study A, 163 (32.3%) were returned in the mail from residents of southeast Louisiana and indicated across 3 addressees and 2 sizes of community, addressees' affiLiations were not associated with returned responses. Community size and addressees' affiliations were associated with significantly different rates of return in the city. Return rates from sites within a city were lower when letters were addressed to an organization which opposed (teaching) health education in the schools than to one supporting daily health education. Of 500 letters "lost" in Study B, 95 (19.0%) were returned from residents of northwest Florida and indicated across 5 addressees and 2 sizes of community, addressees' affiliations were significantly associated with returned responses overall (5 addressees) and in small towns (control, Creationism, Darwinism addressees), but not with community size. Community size and addressees' affiliations were associated with significantly different rates of return in small towns, with returns greater than or equal to those in the city (except for the addressee advocating teaching Darwinism in public schools). The present findings appear to show that applications of the lost letter technique to other divisive social issues are useful in assessing public opinion.     

CATECHIZING THE HEAD AND THE HEART: AN INTEGRATED MODEL FOR CONFIRMATION MINISTRY

In catechesis for adolescents seeking confirmation in the Roman Catholic Church, a dualistic bias unconsciously dichotomizes objective doctrine and subjective psychology. This is problematic because if a catechist does not communicate mind‐independent truth, no seed of Catholic faith will have been planted in a student. At the same time, if a catechist does not affirm a student's subjectivity, the seed cannot find receptive soil. I believe the key to integrating these intellectual and affective elements – the head and the heart – lies in the link between what Bernard Lonergan calls authentic subjectivity and objectivity. Catechists can appeal to this link by embracing the moral responsibility to ‘know our knowing,’ becoming aware of our dualistic bias and judging our faith experiences according to objective standards of knowledge.     

Intracerebroventricular Administration of Mineralocorticoid Receptor Antisense Oligonucleotides Attenuates Salt Appetite in the Rat

The anterior ventral third ventricle (AV3V) region of the brain contains high concentrations of mineralocorticoid receptors (MR) and glucocorticoid receptors (GR) that are important in the maintenance of body fluid and electrolyte balance as well as other physiological processes. Daily intracerebroventricular pulse injections of MR antisense oligonucleotides significantly suppressed deoxycorticosterone acetate (DOCA) induced salt appetite in a dose-related manner. Similar administration of GR antisense or scrambled/sense oligonucleotide into the third ventricle failed to inhibit salt appetite. Salt appetite aroused after adrenalectomy was not suppressed by MR antisense oligonucleotide treatments but was suppressed by an antisense oligonucleotide directed against the angiotensin II AT1 receptor subtype. Receptor binding analysis demonstrated that MR and GR oligonucleotide treatments each reduced their respective receptor subtypes. Finally, although GR antisense oligonucleotide treatment was ineffective in suppressing DOCA-induced salt appetite, this treatment did increase stress induced corticosterone release as well as delayed the recovery of corticosterone to basal levels after stress.     

Impaired, spared, and enhanced ACh efflux across the hippocampus and striatum in diencephalic amnesia is dependent on task demands

Diencephalic amnesia manifests itself through a host of neurological and memory impairments. A commonly employed animal model of diencephalic amnesia, pyrithiamine-induced thiamine deficiency (PTD), results in brain lesions and impairments similar in nature and distribution to those observed in humans with Wernicke–Korsakoff syndrome (WKS). In the current investigation, 2 separate experiments were conducted in which acetylcholine (ACh) efflux was assessed in the hippocampus and striatum of PTD-treated and pair-fed (PF) control male Sprague–Dawley rats. The goal was to determine under what behavioral conditions and in which brain structures ACh efflux was spared, impaired, or adaptively enhanced. In Experiment 1, rats were assessed on a spontaneous alternation task; in Experiment 2, rats were tested on a T-maze discrimination task that could be learned via a hippocampal- or striatal-based strategy. In Experiment 1, PTD-treated rats were impaired on the spontaneous alternation task and ACh efflux in the hippocampus during testing was significantly reduced, but spared in the striatum. In Experiment 2, PTD- and PF-treated rats did not differ in the number of trials to criterion, but PTD-treated rats demonstrated greater reliance upon egocentric cues to solve the task. Furthermore, ACh efflux in the striatum was greater during maze learning in the PTD-treated animals when compared to the PF animals. These results suggest that there is behavioral and systems level plasticity that can facilitate the use of alternative strategies to solve a task following diencephalic damage and WKS.