Effects of Highly Palatable Diet on motivation for food and resistance to punishment in rats: Role of sex and age of exposure.

Exposure to highly palatable food is believed to induce behavioral and neurobiological changes that may produce addiction-like behavior and increase the risks of obesity and overweight. Studies in rodents have led to conflicting results suggesting that several factors such as sex and age of exposure contribute to the development of maladaptive behaviors towards food. In addition, it is not clear whether effects of exposure to highly palatable diets (HPD) persist after their discontinuation, which would indicate long-term risks to develop addiction-like behavior.

Delay of punishment highlights differential vulnerability to developing addiction-like behavior toward sweet food.

Resistance to punishment is commonly used to measure the difficulty in refraining from rewarding activities when negative consequences ensue, which is a hallmark of addictive behavior. We recently developed a progressive shock strength (PSS) procedure in which individual rats can titrate the amount of punishment that they are willing to tolerate to obtain food rewards. Here, we investigated the effects of a range of delays (0-12 s) on resistance to punishment measured by PSS break points.

Female mice prenatally exposed to valproic acid exhibit complex and prolonged social behavior deficits.

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized mainly by deficits in social communication and stereotyped and restricted behavior and interests with a male to female bias of 4.2/1. Social behavior in ASD animal models is commonly analyzed in males, and seldomly in females, using the widely implemented three-chambers test procedure.

Mice prenatally exposed to valproic acid do not show autism-related disorders when fed with polyunsaturated fatty acid-enriched diets.

Dietary supplementations with n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acid (PUFA) have been explored in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) but their efficiency and potential in ameliorating cardinal symptoms of the disease remain elusive. Here, we compared a n-3 long-chain (LC) PUFA dietary supplementation (n-3 supp) obtained from fatty fish with a n-3 PUFA precursor diet (n-3 bal) obtained from plant oils in the valproic acid (VPA, 450 mg/kg at E12.5) ASD mouse model starting from embryonic life, throughout lactation and until adulthood.

A self-adjusting, progressive shock strength procedure to investigate resistance to punishment: Characterization in male and female rats.

Indifference to harmful consequences is one of the main characteristics of compulsive behaviors and addiction. Animal models that provide a rapid and effective measure of resistance to punishment could be critical for the investigation of mechanisms underlying these maladaptive behaviors. Here, analogous to the progressive ratio (PR) procedure widely used to evaluate appetitive motivation as the response requirement is increased, we developed a self-adjusting, progressive shock strength (PSS) procedure.

SMS: Smart Model Selection in PhyML.

Model selection using likelihood-based criteria (e.g., AIC) is one of the first steps in phylogenetic analysis.

Isolation, characterization and PCR multiplexing of microsatellite loci for a mite crop pest, Tetranychus urticae (Acari: Tetranychidae).

Background: Tetranychus urticae is a highly polyphagous species with a cosmopolitan distribution that has the status of pest in more than 100 economically significant crops all over the world. Despite a number of previous efforts to isolate genetic markers, only a reduced set of microsatellite loci has been published. Taking advantage of the whole genome sequence of T.