Organization of sex-typical patterns of defense during food protection in the rat: The role of the opponent's sex

Feeding rats defend a food item from an approaching conspecific by turning away, laterally, about 180°. Females and males use a different composition of movements and stepping patterns to perform these defensive dodges. This study was designed to examine the role of the robber's sex on the execution of sex-typical patterns of dodging. All subjects were tested with a partner of each sex. During dodging, females used the female-typical pattern of pivoting around the pelvis, and males used the male-typical midbody pivot, irrespective of the robber's sex. These findings show that the sex-typical patterns of dodging are not determined by the sex of the partner. Females and males however, differed in how they were oriented towards a same sex robber at the end of the dodge. This suggests that while male and female robbers must pose different defensive problems, these differences are dealt with by modifying the sex-typical pattern of dodging rather than by switching to the dodge pattern of the opposite sex. This further suggests that the differences in the composition of the dodge pattern in males and females are not due to extrinsic contingencies, but rather, are due to intrinsic differences in the sex-typical organization of defensive motor patterns. Aggr. Behav. 23:197–214, 1997.© 1997 Wiley-Liss, Inc.     

On the ability to directly evaluate sensory ratios

The study explored whether participants could directly evaluate sensory ratios. The results indicate that they did not exhibit this ability for the extensive continuum of length and the intensive continua of brightness and brightness difference. Functional measurement analysis, combined with a chronometric analysis of responses, indicated that participants used mental counting for length and used difference evaluation for brightness and brightness difference. The finding that participants evaluated brightness differences under instructions to evaluate brightness ratios suggests that difference judgments may be a general human capability. It resolves questions raised by prior tests of Torgerson’s conjecture and by prior consistency tests of ratio evaluation.     

Towards a characterization of a motive whose ultimate goal is to increase the welfare of the world: Quixoteism

We use the term Quixoteism to refer to a new social motive. The characterization of this motive deals with two aspects: the definition of the ultimate goal (i.e., to increase the welfare of the world) and the proposal of a process that activates it (i.e., a transcendental-change orientation). Three studies were conducted to test this characterization. In Study 1 we developed an empirical measure of the transcendental-change orientation. The participants in Studies 2 and 3 were presented with a need situation. Results showed that the centrality of such an orientation was directly related to an interpretation consistent with the ultimate goal of Quixoteism (Study 2), and that its salience increases the likelihood of performing a high-cost prosocial behavior (Study 3).     

The Aβ oligomer hypothesis for synapse failure and memory loss in Alzheimer's disease

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is the 3rd most costly disease and the leading cause of dementia. It can linger for many years, but ultimately is fatal, the 6th leading cause of death. Alzheimer's disease (AD) is fatal and affected individuals can sometimes linger many years. Current treatments are palliative and transient, not disease modifying. This article reviews progress in the search to identify the primary AD-causing toxins. We summarize the shift from an initial focus on amyloid plaques to the contemporary concept that AD memory failure is caused by small soluble oligomers of the Aβ peptide, toxins that target and disrupt particular synapses. Evidence is presented that links Aβ oligomers to pathogenesis in animal models and humans, with reference to seminal discoveries from cell biology and new ideas concerning pathogenic mechanisms, including relationships to diabetes and Fragile X. These findings have established the oligomer hypothesis as a new molecular basis for the cause, diagnosis, and treatment of AD.     

Cardiovascular medicine at face value: a qualitative pilot study on clinical axiology

Introduction

Cardiology is characterized by its state-of-the-art biomedical technology and the predominance of Evidence-Based Medicine. This predominance makes it difficult for healthcare professionals to deal with the ethical dilemmas that emerge in this subspecialty. This paper is a first endeavor to empirically investigate the axiological foundations of the healthcare professionals in a cardiology hospital. Our pilot study selected, as the target population, cardiology personnel not only because of their difficult ethical deliberations but also because of the stringent conditions in which they have to make them. Therefore, there is an urgent need to reconsider clinical ethics and Value-Based Medicine. This study proposes a qualitative analysis of the values and the virtues of healthcare professionals in a cardiology hospital in order to establish how the former impact upon the medical and ethical decisions made by the latter.

Results

We point out the need for strengthening the roles of healthcare personnel as educators and guidance counselors in order to meet the ends of medicine, as well as the need for an ethical discernment that is compatible with our results, namely, that the ethical values developed by healthcare professionals stem from their life history as well as their professional education.

Conclusion

We establish the kind of actions, communication skills and empathy that are required to build a stronger patient-healthcare professional relationship, which at the same time improves prognosis, treatment efficiency and therapeutic adhesion.

     

Pseudoneglect in back space

Successful interaction with the environment depends upon our ability to retain and update visuo-spatial information of both front and back egocentric space. Several studies have observed that healthy people tend to show a displacement of the egocentric frame of reference towards the left. However representation of space behind us (back space) has never been systematically investigated in healthy people. In this study, by means of a novel visual imagery task performed within a virtual reality environment, we found that representation of right back space is perceived as smaller than the left. These results suggest that there is a selective compression or distortion for mental representation related to the right space behind us.     

Targets and tactics of agonistic and precopulatory behavior in montane and prairie voles: Their relationship to juvenile play-fighting

Play-fighting by juvenile montane and prairie voles involves attack and defense of the head, neck and shoulders. Since during play animals typically borrow behavior patterns from other functional contexts, two adult behavioral contexts were compared to juvenile play-fighting. These were serious fighting and sexual encounters. During serious fighting in a resident-intruder paradigm, most bites are directed at the rump and lower flanks. During sexual encounters, especially in precopulatory behavior, the head, neck and shoulders are gently contacted. Therefore, play-fighting by juveniles would appear to involve attack and defense of areas of the body contacted in adult precopulatory behavior, not adult fighting. Furthermore, the species-specific differences in juvenile play-fighting were also found to be matched by species-specific differences in precopulatory behavior. In both playful and precopulatory encounters, montane voles contacted the head and used upright defensive behaviors more often than prairie voles. In contrast, prairie voles made mutual contact more often and were more likely to rotate to supine in defense of contact to the nape and head. These findings support our hypothesis that juvenile play-fighting in muroid rodents involves the precocial expression of precopulatory, not agonistic behavior.