Publications by authors named "R J Crook"

Article Synopsis
  • Cephalopods, such as squid and octopus, are fascinating marine animals known for their advanced nervous systems and behaviors.
  • Their remarkable camouflage abilities have drawn significant scientific interest, leading to advancements in neuroscience, cell biology, and materials engineering.
  • The ongoing research on cephalopods is highlighted in the Special Issue titled "Cephalopods: Inspired Science".
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Introduction: Policies aiming to prevent ill health and reduce health inequalities need to consider the full complexity of health systems, including environmental determinants. A learning health system that incorporates environmental factors needs healthcare, social care and non-health data linkage at individual and small-area levels. Our objective was to establish privacy-preserving household record linkage for England to ensure person-level data remain secure and private when linked with data from households or the wider environment.

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Article Synopsis
  • Judgement bias tasks (JBTs) help evaluate the emotional states of animals by how they respond to ambiguous cues; positive emotions lead to optimistic interpretations, while negative emotions lead to pessimistic ones.
  • A modified JBT was created for stumpy-spined cuttlefish to investigate whether they show negative emotional states when subjected to external stressors.
  • The study found that stressed cuttlefish were slower to approach ambiguous cues and preferred not to enter areas associated with those cues, indicating that stress may lead to a pessimistic judgement bias, marking a first for cephalopods.
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Octopus arms, notable for their complex anatomy and remarkable flexibility, have sparked significant interest within the neuroscience community. However, there remains a dearth of knowledge about the neurochemical organization of various cell types in the arm's nervous system. To address this gap, we used hybridization chain reaction (HCR) to identify distinct neuronal types in the axial nerve cords of the pygmy octopus, Octopus bocki, including putative dopaminergic, octopaminergic, serotonergic, GABAergic, glutamatergic, cholinergic, and peptidergic cells.

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