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.     

Perceptions of Chicano/Latino Students Who Have Dropped Out of School

Chicano/Latino drop out was investigated in a qualitative study, conducting focus group interviews with Chicano/Latinos who had dropped out of high school. Participant responses revealed themes of alienation and discrimination in the school setting. The roles of school counselors as multicultural advocates and community-family-school liaisons are discussed.     

A psychometric investigation of Eysenck's personality inventory

Eysenck's personality inventory (EPI) was administered to 653 females and 666 males. Item analyses were carried out for the subsamples and the combined sample. In addition hierarchical oblique factor analysis was applied to the data. The purpose of both item and factor analysis was to examine the psychometric properties of the EPI in regard to (a) the homogeneity of the scales, in terms both of internal and external item-scale relationships (b) the univocality of the scales assessed in factor analytic terms. It was found that the neuroticism scale was superior to the extraversion scale in both these respects.     

The accuracy of aiming at a target: Some further evidence for a theory of intermittent control

On the assumption that intermittent corrections to accurate movements aimed at a target are made every 290 msec on average, it was possible to predict where the last possible correction should occur. This was done by determining the shape of the approach curves at different speeds. The relationship between speed and error was successfully predicted by relating the terminal error to this corrective reaction distance, and thus to speed.     

Can Hick's law and Fitts' law be combined?

An attempt was made to combine the two information-theory based laws relating speed and accuracy, Hick's law and Fitts' law, in a task where subjects were asked to repetitively aim at randomly indicated alternative targets from a home position.     

Strength duration curves for elegtrical stimulation of the human eye

Baumgardt's surprising report of a minimum at about 30 milliseconds in the strength-duration curve for electrical stimulation of the human eye is confirmed. Arguments are presented against his explanation of the phenomenon.

An alternative hypothesis is developed: that the complex strength-duration curve is due to the interaction of on and off processes, which are separately excited by the make and break of the current: that these processes summate when separated by 30 milliseconds but are mutually inhibitory at 70 milliseconds: that these processes are the same as those known to be aroused by light. Two new experiments are designed to test this hypothesis, and the predicted result has been obtained from each.

Experiments are devised which show that the site of stimulation is the retina.

The accuracy of the method is discussed. Over the range 10 to 100 milliseconds distortion is found to be small. For shorter pulses distortion is to be expected in all cases, and it is suggested that the chronaxie is an expression merely of the condenser effect of the tissues. The use of this term should be discontinued in connection with stimulation through the skin.

Some parallels between these results and brightness comparison experiments with light are pointed out. The nature and location of the interaction is discussed.     

The effect of temporal separation and prior habituation upon preconditioning

The effect of temporal separation and prior habituation was tested by measuring response transfer in a shuttle box following different initial treatments. Thirty hooded rats were split into three main groups and six sub-groups. One main group was preconditioned with concurrent light and sound stimuli, another with temporally spaced stimuli, and a control group had no preconditioning. Half of each main group was permitted to explore the apparatus before preconditioning on the supposition that this might reduce emotionality and hence reduce startle or attention responses.

It was found that concurrent stimulation produced significantly greater response transfer than in controls, whereas preconditioning with spaced stimuli did not. Prior habituation produced no significant effect on the amount of response transfer.     

The power of politics: How political leaders in Serbia discursively manage identity continuity and political change to shape the future of the nation

The construction of national identities through political discourse is a growing field of interest to social psychologists, particularly as many countries face changing demographics, borders and social realities as part of globalization, immigration and continued political integration and conflict. Through an analysis of 17 key speeches by Serbian politicians over the past 25 years, the present paper explores the question of how politicians, as entrepreneurs of identity, discursively manage the relationship between identity continuity and political change over time, in attempts to construct the future of a nation. We particularly explore this issue in the context of Serbia's present political aspirations toward joining the European Union. The findings indicate that (i) political change becomes negotiated within the framework of established and legitimized identity discourses that have developed over time, and (ii) while history is frequently drawn on to support political agendas, it is successful to the extent that this history offers a sense of cultural continuity rather than a coherent narrative of historical events and time periods. We conclude by arguing for the benefits that a diachronic approach to political discourse can offer social psychologists interested in the discursive construction of national identity.