Selective inactivation of the ventral hippocampus attenuates cue-induced and cocaine-primed reinstatement of drug-seeking in rats

Recent evidence suggests that the hippocampus may have a functional role in mediating relapse to cocaine-seeking behavior. Based on the importance of the ventral CA subfields in mediating reward, the present experiment determined the effects of temporary inactivation of the ventral hippocampus on reinstatement of cocaine-seeking in a rodent model of relapse. Male, Sprague-Dawley rats self-administered i.v. cocaine (0.6 mg/kg/infusion) in the presence of discrete conditioned cues (tone+light) in daily 2-h sessions for ten days. Following seven days of extinction sessions in which neither cues nor drug were available, rats underwent four reinstatement tests in a counterbalanced, within-subjects design. Bilateral microinjections of GABA receptor agonists (baclofen/muscimol (B/M; 1.0 mM/0.1 mM) [corrected] into the ventral hippocampus significantly attenuated cue-induced and cocaine-primed reinstatement compared with vehicle microinjections in the same rats. In contrast, injections just outside the ventral hippocampus did not block either form of reinstatement. Furthermore, inactivation failed to affect responding for food reinforcement, baseline extinction responding, or locomotor activity. These data indicate that the ventral hippocampus plays an important role in the relapse to cocaine-seeking behavior and may interact with key limbic structures previously implicated in cocaine addiction.     

Racial socialization, racial identity, and Black students' adjustment to college

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of racial socialization and racial identity on adjustment in Black college students. Self-report questionnaires were administered to 141 Black college students from a predominantly White university and racially diverse college. The findings suggest that racial socialization positively contributes to academic adjustment. An internalized-multicultural identity positively contributed to overall college adjustment, and pre-encounter miseducated racial identity negatively contributed. Internalized Afrocentric racial identity was negatively related to overall college adjustment. Implications for multicultural social scientists and directions for future research are discussed.     

Development of action monitoring through adolescence into adulthood: ERP and source localization

In this study we examined the development of three action monitoring event-related potentials (ERPs) - the error-related negativity (ERN/Ne), error positivity (P(E)) and the N2 - and estimated their neural sources. These ERPs were recorded during a flanker task in the following groups: early adolescents (mean age = 12 years), late adolescents (mean age = 16 years), and adults (mean age = 29 years). The amplitudes of the ERN/Ne and N2 were greater in the adult and late adolescent groups than in the early adolescent group. Both of these components had neural sources in the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC). Although P(E) was present across groups, P(E) amplitude was greater in the late adolescent group compared to the adult group and also had neural sources in the ACC. ERN/Ne amplitude was related to post-error slowing across age groups; it was related to task performance only in the adult group. These findings are discussed in light of the role of the maturation of the ACC in the development of action monitoring processes.     

Inhibition of return to social signals of fear

The present study examined whether inhibition of return (IOR) is modulated by the fear relevance of the cue. Experiment 1 found similar magnitude of IOR was produced by neutral and fear faces and luminance matched cues. To allow a more sensitive measure of endogenously directed attention, Experiment 2 removed a central reorienting cue and more precisely measured the time course of IOR. At stimulus onset asynchronies (SOAs) of 500, 1,000 and 1,500 ms, fear face and luminance matched cues resulted in similar IOR. These findings suggest that IOR is triggered by event onsets and disregards event value. Views of IOR as an adaptive "foraging facilitator," whereby attention is guided to promote optimal sampling of important environmental events, are discussed.     

Lost in a sea of subjectivity: the subject position of the researcher in the anthropology of Islam

This paper examines some of the illustrative features of doing participant observation research with Muslims both in the field and back “home.” It is based on my experiences of conducting research in East Java, Indonesia in the classicalist Islamic boarding schools. My religious subjectivity was important to my research in a number of ways including: (1) the ways in which the community tried to define my subjectivity; (2) the nature of my personal religious subjectivity; and (3) academic interpretations of my role and my subject position vis-à-vis Islam and the profession of anthropology.

Evidence from a response choice task reveals a selection bias in the attentional cueing paradigm

In a typical attentional cueing paradigm, irrelevant peripheral cues produce early facilitation (fast responses) followed by later inhibition (slow responses) to cued locations. Here we examine whether cues not only influence the speed with which responses are produced, but also impact or bias which location is ultimately selected as requiring a response. Specifically, can cues influence not only the speed with which we respond but also influence the behavior produced? To examine this question, a choice localization task was used in which no targets were presented, and subjects were asked to choose which effector (left hand, right hand) to use in response to a centrally presented tone. Thus, following either a left or right peripheral cue, and then a central tone, subjects were free to respond with either their left or right hand. Early facilitation and later inhibition with this choice procedure were found in both response times and the proportion of responses to the cued and uncued locations. These results suggest that there are processes which initially bias response selection toward cued locations and then subsequently bias response selection away from cued locations.     

Rapid onset and long-term inhibition of return in the multiple cuing paradigm

Inhibition of return (IOR) refers to the finding that targets at cued locations are responded to more slowly than targets at uncued locations when a relatively long temporal interval occurs between the two events. In studies which have examined the time course of IOR (e.g., Samuel & Kat in Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 10, 897-906, 2003), the effect is generally shown to develop at around 200 ms and dissipate at around 3,000 ms following a cue. A number of recent studies, however, have demonstrated that IOR can develop much more quickly (up to 50 ms following a cue) and last much longer (up to 13 min following a cue) in certain tasks. The present study uses the multiple cuing paradigm to determine whether IOR can be observed outside the normally reported temporal boundaries (300-3,000 ms) when attention is shifted very quickly (every 15 ms) or very slowly (every 1,500 ms) throughout the visual field. IOR was observed as quickly as 30 ms following cue onset and as long as 6,000 ms following cue onset. Implications for the role of IOR in visual search are discussed.     

The Femininity Ideology Scale: Factor Structure, Reliability, Convergent and Discriminant Validity, and Social Contextual Variation

This study reports on the psychometric properties of the Femininity Ideology Scale (FIS) from the responses of 407 undergraduate participants in the USA. Factor analysis supported the five factor structure. Cronbach alpha coefficients of the factors and total scale were adequate. Support for discriminant validity was found after examining the relationship between the FIS and the Bem Sex Role Inventory, which measures feminine traits. Support for convergent validity was found after examining, first, with the entire sample, the relationships between the FIS and the Male Role Norm Inventory, and second, with the female sample, the relationships between the FIS and the Feminist Identity Development Scale. We also found that FIS scores vary in relationship to the social contextual variables of race/ethnicity and sex.     

Beyond the Tower of Babel: A Nomenclature for Suicidology

Suicidology finds itself confused and stagnated for lack of a standard nomenclature. This paper proposes a nomenclature for suicide-related behavior in the hope of improving the clarity and precision of communications, advancing suicidological research and knowledge, and improving the efficacy of clinical interventions.