Naloxone, but not flupenthixol, disrupts the development of conditioned ejaculatory preference in the male rat.

Male rats display a conditioned preference to ejaculate with a female bearing an odor paired previously with copulation to ejaculation. The present study examined the role of endogenous opioid and dopamine systems in this preference. Male rats received saline, the opioid receptor antagonist naloxone, or the dopamine receptor antagonist flupenthixol prior to 10 conditioning trials in a pacing chamber with an almond-scented female.

Development of variable pitch factor scanning for multislice computed tomography.

Rationale And Objectives: The latest multislice computed tomography (MSCT) scanners permit the chest and abdomen to be scanned continuously. However, conventionally, it has been necessary to perform scanning twice using different pitch factors for the cardiac and abdominal regions. We have developed a new scanning technique known as variable pitch factor scanning, in which the table speed is changed during scanning to obtain continuous images from the heart to the abdomen in a single scan, and have evaluated its physical characteristics.

Extension of the reconstruction field of view and truncation correction using sinogram decomposition.

We propose a novel truncation correction algorithm that completes unmeasured data outside of the scan field of view, which allows extending the reconstruction field of view. When a patient extends outside the detector coverage the projection data are transversely truncated, which causes severe artifacts. The proposed method utilizes the idea of sinogram decomposition, where we consider sinogram curves corresponding to image points outside the field of view.