Chronic use of benzodiazepines: The problem that persists.

Though clinical guidelines and policies discourage the chronic prescribing of benzodiazepines, rates of prescribing have continued to rise in the United States with an estimated 65.9 million office visits per year made for this purpose. Quietly, we have become a nation on benzodiazepines.

Social isolation dysregulates endocrine and behavioral stress while increasing malignant burden of spontaneous mammary tumors.

In a life span study, we examined how the social environment regulates naturally occurring tumor development and malignancy in genetically prone Sprague-Dawley rats. We randomly assigned this gregarious species to live either alone or in groups of five female rats. Mammary tumor burden among social isolates increased to 84 times that of age-matched controls, as did malignancy, specifically a 3.

Isolation and the timing of mammary gland development, gonadarche, and ovarian senescence: implications for mammary tumor burden.

In this study of Norway rats, we hypothesized that lifelong psychosocial experiences, social isolation or group living, trigger different developmental trajectories in the ovarian system, contributing to predisease pathways for spontaneous mammary tumors. Epidemiological studies indicate that early puberty and delayed menopause are risk factors for breast cancer. To that end, we took a cross-sectional, prospective approach and examined the ovarian system at two developmental points, young adulthood and middle age.

Social isolation and the inflammatory response: sex differences in the enduring effects of a prior stressor.

Numerous epidemiological studies have demonstrated an association between persistent social isolation and "all-cause" morbidity and mortality. To date, no causal mechanism for these findings has been established. Whereas animal studies have often reported short-term effects of social isolation on biological systems, the long-term effects of this adverse psychological state have been understudied.

The sectored foraging field: a novel design to quantify spatial strategies, learning, memory, and emotion.

Although Norway rats are naturally gregarious, males typically live alone at some point during adulthood. Different social ecologies often require different learning strategies and also modulate response to stressors and gonadal development. To measure effects of the social environment on the interaction between cognition and emotion during aging, we focused on a natural learning context and devised the sectored foraging field, a progressively difficult spatial navigation task.