Effects of early-life FGF2 on ultrasonic vocalizations (USVs) and the mu-opioid receptor in male Sprague-Dawley rats selectively-bred for differences in their response to novelty.

In previous studies, early-life fibroblast growth factor-2 (FGF2) administration conferred resilience to developing anxiety-like behavior in vulnerable animals in adulthood. To follow up on this work, we administered FGF2 the day after birth to animals that differ in emotional behavior and further explored its long-term effects on affective behavior and circuitry. Selectively-bred "high responder" rats (bHRs) exhibit low levels of anxiety-like and depression-like behavior, whereas selectively-bred "low responders" (bLRs) display high levels of anxiety-like and depression-like behavior.

Neural cell adhesion molecule peptide mimetics modulate emotionality: pharmacokinetic and behavioral studies in rats and non-human primates.

Recent evidence highlights the fibroblast growth factor (FGF) family in emotion modulation. Although ligands that activate FGF receptors have antidepressant and anxiolytic effects in animal models, FGF ligands have a broad range of actions both in the brain and the periphery. Therefore, identifying molecular partners that may function as allosteric modulators could offer new avenues for drug development.

Selectively Bred Rats Provide a Unique Model of Vulnerability to PTSD-Like Behavior and Respond Differentially to FGF2 Augmentation Early in Life.

Individuals respond differently to traumatic experiences, including their propensity to develop posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Understanding individual differences in PTSD vulnerability will allow the development of improved prevention and treatment options. Here we characterized fear conditioning and extinction in rats selectively bred for differences in their locomotor response to a novel environment.

Fibroblast growth factor 9 is a novel modulator of negative affect.

Both gene expression profiling in postmortem human brain and studies using animal models have implicated the fibroblast growth factor (FGF) family in affect regulation and suggest a potential role in the pathophysiology of major depressive disorder (MDD). FGF2, the most widely characterized family member, is down-regulated in the depressed brain and plays a protective role in rodent models of affective disorders. By contrast, using three microarray analyses followed by quantitative RT-PCR confirmation, we show that FGF9 expression is up-regulated in the hippocampus of individuals with MDD, and that FGF9 expression is inversely related to the expression of FGF2.

FGF2 is a target and a trigger of epigenetic mechanisms associated with differences in emotionality: partnership with H3K9me3.

Posttranslational modifications of histone tails in chromatin template can result from environmental experiences such as stress and substance abuse. However, the role of epigenetic modifications as potential predisposing factors in affective behavior is less well established. To address this question, we used our selectively bred lines of high responder (bHR) and low responder (bLR) rats that show profound and stable differences in affective responses, with bLRs being prone to anxiety- and depression-like behavior and bHRs prone to addictive behavior.

A cocaine context renews drug seeking preferentially in a subset of individuals.

Addiction is characterized by a high propensity for relapse, in part because cues associated with drugs can acquire Pavlovian incentive motivational properties, and acting as incentive stimuli, such cues can instigate and invigorate drug-seeking behavior. There is, however, considerable individual variation in the propensity to attribute incentive salience to reward cues. Discrete and localizable reward cues act as much more effective incentive stimuli in some rats ('sign-trackers', STs), than others ('goal-trackers', GTs).

Lengthened temporal integration in schizophrenia.

Research in schizophrenia has tended to emphasize deficits in higher cognitive abilities, such as attention, memory, and executive function. Here we provide evidence for dysfunction at a more fundamental level of perceptual processing, temporal integration. On a measure of flicker fusion, patients with schizophrenia exhibited significantly lower thresholds than age and education matched healthy controls.

Priming for letters and pseudoletters in mid-fusiform cortex: examining letter selectivity and case invariance.

A large body of research indicates a critical role for the left mid-fusiform cortex in reading, however, the extent to which this area is dedicated exclusively to the processing of words and letters has been debated. Two questions regarding left mid-fusiform function are critical to this debate: (1) Are letters stored preferentially compared to visually equivalent non-letters (letter selectivity)? (2) Are letter representations abstract with respect to changes in letter case (e.g.