Background: Dysregulated ventral striatum function has been proposed as one important process occurring in individuals with substance use disorder. This study investigates the role of altered reward and loss anticipation, which is an important component of impaired decision-making, impulsivity, and vulnerability to relapse in individuals with amphetamine use disorder (AMP).
Aims: To determine whether AMP is associated with blunted striatum, prefrontal cortex, and insula signals during win and loss anticipation.
Methods: Participants with and without AMP (AMP+ = 46, AMP- = 90) from the Tulsa 1000 study completed a monetary incentive delay (MID) task during functional magnetic resonance imaging.
Results: Group main effects indicated that: (1) AMP+ exhibited lower bilateral caudate/putamen and left nucleus accumbens signal than AMP- across anticipation of wins and losses; and (2) AMP+ showed slower reaction times than AMP- during loss anticipation. Group*condition interactions demonstrated that AMP+ exhibited greater right amygdala signal than AMP- while anticipating large wins, a pattern that reversed when anticipating small losses. Left caudate/putamen attenuations in AMP+ during small loss anticipation were also evident. Groups did not differ in prefrontal or insula signals.
Conclusions: AMP+ individuals have altered neural processing and response patterns during reward and loss anticipation, potentially reflecting impairments in dopamine function, which may influence their decision-making and reactions to different win/loss scenarios. These findings help to explain why AMP+ have difficulty with decision-making and exhibit a heightened focus on immediate rewards or punishments.
Topotactic transformation is an emerging strategy for synthesizing materials with exotic functional properties. In this report, instead of producing new crystals with related structures, we exploited the topotactic transformation phenomenon to spontaneously produce compositionally diverse nanostructures on the transforming substrate. The surface of magnetite nanoparticles (Fe3O4 NPs) is topotactically transformed into maghemite (γ-Fe2O3).
Department of Pharmacology & Therapeutics, McGill University, McIntyre Medical Building, 3655 Promenade Sir William Osler Room 1210, Montreal, H3G 1Y6, Canada.
The combination of amyloid beta and tau pathologies leads to tau-mediated neurodegeneration in Alzheimer's disease. However, the relative contributions of amyloid beta and tau peptide accumulation to the manifestation of the pathological phenotype in the early stages, before the overt deposition of plaques and tangles, are still unclear. We investigated the longitudinal pathological effects of combining human-like amyloidosis and tauopathy in a novel transgenic rat model, coded McGill-R-APPxhTau.
Background: Anticipatory grief has been shown to be highly prevalent among family caregivers of patients with advanced illness. However, there is less research on the anticipatory grief of family caregivers with chronic heart failure. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to explore the profile of anticipatory grief among family caregivers of patients with chronic heart failure and to analyze the influencing factors of different profiles.
Background: Spontaneous preterm birth (sPTB) has a deep immediate impact on patients but also alters their care and experience in subsequent pregnancies. There is an absence of the pregnant patient's voice in the research surrounding pregnancy at risk of sPTB.
Materials/methods: The Preterm Birth Advisory Council was established at the National Maternity Hospital (NMH) in January 2023, to introduce and embed the patient voice in research into sPTB prevention.
The Arctic has warmed nearly four times faster than the global average since 1979, resulting in rapid glacier retreat and exposing new glacier forelands. These forelands offer unique experimental settings to explore how global warming impacts ecosystems, particularly for highly climate-sensitive arthropods. Understanding these impacts can help anticipate future biodiversity and ecosystem changes under ongoing warming scenarios.
