Aged rats: sex differences and responses to chronic stress.

Cognitive, as well as physiological, sex differences exist in young adult rats under both basal conditions and following chronic stress; however, few studies have examined whether sex differences remain in aged subjects and whether responses to stress are altered. We compared aged male and female Fischer 344 rats (21.5 months at testing) without stress and when given 21 days of restraint for 6 h/day on locomotion, anxiety-related behaviors, object recognition (non-spatial memory), object placement (spatial memory), body weight and serum steroid hormone levels.

College student drinking: perception of the norm and behavioral intentions.

Social norm campaigns assume that college students desire to increase their drinking, and may eventually do so, to match inflated perceptions of peer drinking. We assessed 171 college students on self-reported drinking, desired drinking and perception of peer drinking at baseline, and assessed 139 of those students one month later. Participants who believed their peers drank more than they were hypothesized to desire to increase their alcohol consumption to match the perceived norm.