Dysfunctional suction dynamics in newborns with ankyloglossia.

Purpose: Compare infant suction in babies with and without ankyloglossia using a microprocessor-controlled pressure sensor coupled to a pacifier.

Methods: Fifty-five infants from 0 to 2 months of age underwent clinical examination for ankyloglossia, after which they were offered a silicone pacifier connected to the pressure acquisitiondevice and suction activity was recorded. Thus, we extracted the frequency of sucks within a burst, the average suck duration, the burst duration, the number of sucks per burst, the maximum amplitude of sucks per burst and the inter-burst interval.

The role of the lateral orbitofrontal cortex in creating cognitive maps.

We use mental models of the world-cognitive maps-to guide behavior. The lateral orbitofrontal cortex (lOFC) is typically thought to support behavior by deploying these maps to simulate outcomes, but recent evidence suggests that it may instead support behavior by underlying map creation. We tested between these two alternatives using outcome-specific devaluation and a high-potency chemogenetic approach.

Dopamine.

Dopamine was first described by George Barger, James Ewens, and Henry Dale in 1910 as an epinephrine-like monoamine compound. Initially believed to be a mere precursor of norepinephrine, it was mostly ignored for the next four decades (Figure 1A). However, in the 1950s Kathleen Montagu showed that dopamine occurred in the brain by itself, and a series of studies by Arvid Carlsson and collaborators demonstrated that dopamine is a bona fide neurotransmitter, a finding that would earn Carlsson the 2000 Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine.

Neuroscience: Finding the middle ground of behavioral (in)flexibility.

We often perform actions even when they incur heavy costs or no longer serve any clear purpose. Two recent studies have independently identified heightened phasic dopamine release in the dorsomedial striatum as a predisposing factor for such behavioral inflexibility.

Neuroscience: What, where, and how wonderful?

Hippocampal place cells represent spatial locations, but it is unclear how they incorporate associations between locations and specific outcomes. A recent study illuminates this issue by showing that place cells in intermediate hippocampus remap their fields following changes in reward.

The orbitofrontal cortex is necessary for learning to ignore.

Animals learn not only what is potentially useful but also what is meaningless and should be disregarded. How this is accomplished is a key but seldom explored question in psychology and neuroscience. Learning to ignore irrelevant cues is evident in latent inhibition-the ubiquitous phenomenon where presenting a cue several times without consequences leads to retardation of subsequent conditioning to that cue.

Sex-dependent alterations in behavior, drug responses and dopamine transporter expression in heterozygous DAT-Cre mice.

Heterozygous mice that express Cre-recombinase under the dopamine transporter promoter (DAT-Cre knock in mice, or KI) are widely used for targeting midbrain dopamine neurons, under the assumption that their constitutive physiology is not affected. We report here that these mice display striking sex-dependent behavioral and molecular differences in relation to wildtypes (WT). Male and female KI mice were constitutively hyperactive, and male KI mice showed attenuated hyperlocomotor responses to amphetamine.

In vivo functional diversity of midbrain dopamine neurons within identified axonal projections.

Functional diversity of midbrain dopamine (DA) neurons ranges across multiple scales, from differences in intrinsic properties and connectivity to selective task engagement in behaving animals. Distinct in vitro biophysical features of DA neurons have been associated with different axonal projection targets. However, it is unknown how this translates to different firing patterns of projection-defined DA subpopulations in the intact brain.

Behavioral and cardiorespiratory responses to bilateral microinjections of oxytocin into the central nucleus of amygdala of Wistar rats, an experimental model of compulsion.

Introduction: The central nucleus of amygdala plays an important role mediating fear and anxiety responses. It is known that oxytocin microinjections into the central nucleus of amygdala induce hypergrooming, an experimental model of compulsive behavior. We evaluated the behavioral and cardiorespiratory responses of conscious rats microinjected with oxytocin into the central nucleus of amygdala.

Voice disorder in cystic fibrosis patients.

Cystic fibrosis is a common autosomal recessive disorder with drastic respiratory symptoms, including shortness of breath and chronic cough. While most of cystic fibrosis treatment is dedicated to mitigating the effects of respiratory dysfunction, the potential effects of this disease on vocal parameters have not been systematically studied. We hypothesized that cystic fibrosis patients, given their characteristic respiratory disorders, would also present dysphonic symptoms.

A new low cost wide-field illumination method for photooxidation of intracellular fluorescent markers.

Analyzing cell morphology is crucial in the fields of cell biology and neuroscience. One of the main methods for evaluating cell morphology is by using intracellular fluorescent markers, including various commercially available dyes and genetically encoded fluorescent proteins. These markers can be used as free radical sources in photooxidation reactions, which in the presence of diaminobenzidine (DAB) forms an opaque and electron-dense precipitate that remains localized within the cellular and organelle membranes.

Scopolamine- and diazepam-induced amnesia are blocked by systemic and intraseptal administration of substance P and choline chloride.

Systemic (IP) and/or intraseptal (IS) administration of scopolamine (SCP) and diazepam (DZP) induce amnesia, whereas IP injection of the neuropeptide substance P (SP) and choline chloride (ChCl) produce memory facilitation. The septohippocampal cholinergic system has been pointed out as a possible site of SCP and DZP-induced amnesia as well as for the mnemonic effects induced by SP and ChCl. We performed a series of experiments in order to investigate the interactions between cholinergic and GABA/benzodiazepine (GABA/BZD) systems with the SPergic system on inhibitory avoidance retention.