Learn it now, sing it later? Field and laboratory studies on song repertoire acquisition and song use in nightingales.

In many bird species, song changes with age. The mechanisms that account for such changes are only partially understood. Common nightingales Luscinia megarhynchos change the size and composition of their repertoire between their first and second breeding season. To inquire into mechanisms involved in such changes, we compared the singing of 1-year-old and older free-living nightingales. Older males have more song types in common than have 1-year olds. Certain song types frequently sung by older birds did not (or only rarely) occur in the repertoire of yearlings ('mature' song types). We conducted learning experiments with hand-reared nightingales to address reasons for the lack of mature song types. The acquisition success of mature songs was as good as that of control songs (commonly sung by both age groups). However, the analysis of song type use revealed that all yearlings sang common song types more often than mature types. This indicates that the absence of certain song types in the repertoires of free-living yearlings cannot be accounted for by learning and/or motor constraints during song learning. Moreover, our results suggest that in communication networks, animals may restrict the actual use of their signal repertoire to a certain subset depending on the context.

Target structure and echo spectral discrimination by echolocating bats.

Echolocating bats can use sonar to discriminate among targets which reflect echoes differing in spectral distribution of energy but not in overall intensity. They can detect differences smaller than 1 millimeter in fine target structure. Bats may be capable of classifying targets from echo spectral signatures and might thus be able to distinguish among flying insect prey by sonar.

[Food protein-induced enterocolitis syndrome (FPIES) in 14 children]. / Syndrome d'entérocolite induite par les protéines alimentaires (SEIPA) : une série de 14 enfants.

INTRODUCTION: Food protein-induced enterocolitis syndrome (FPIES) is a particular non-IgE-mediated food allergy, manifested by profuse and repetitive vomiting with hypotonia and lethargy in its acute form. METHODS: A retrospective descriptive single-center study was conducted. Subjects included in this study were children with acute FPIES who consulted the allergy outpatient clinic of the Nancy Regional University Hospital between November 2013 and June 2016. RESULTS: Among the 14 patients (eight boys and six girls), nine had a history of atopy: a family history for six (42.8%) and a personal history for five (35.7%). Three had chronic FPIES turning into acute FPIES. Cow milk was the most common triggering food (50%), followed by fish (21.4%), mussels (14.3%), wheat (7.1%), egg (7.1%), and poultry (7.1%). The average time from ingestion to symptom onset was 90minutes. The symptoms were typical and diarrhea was not systematic (42.8%). Six children were hospitalized, some of them several times, including once in intensive care for one patient. The treatments established were, in order of frequency: oral or intravenous rehydration, corticosteroids, antihistamines, and antiemetics. Diagnosis time was 7.6 months on average; it was significantly shorter for milk than for solid foods (1.4 vs. 12 months, P-value=0.02), on average after two episodes. Another diagnosis than FPIES was raised at first for five patients (acute gastroenteritis, gastroesophageal reflux, and bowel obstruction caused by bowel volvulus). Allergy tests were initially negative. Two chronic FPIES cases (one milk FPIES and one milk and wheat FPIES) developed an acute FPIES to another food (fish and mussels); one patient changed from an acute fish FPIES to an IgE-mediated phenotype over time. FPIES resolved for four patients: three milk FPIES, on average 15.7 months after the first reaction, and one wheat FPIES, 2.5 years after the first reaction. A child with a white fish FPIES was able to introduce salmon and tuna. CONCLUSION: FPIES is a pathology that has suffered from a lack of knowledge, delaying diagnosis for many months. The progression of chronic forms to acute forms and acute forms to an IgE-mediated allergy is not rare. Doctors need more detailed knowledge: profuse and repetitive vomiting accompanied by hypotonia and/or lethargy should suggest the diagnosis of acute FPIES. To improve the management of acute FPIES, a treatment protocol is proposed here.

Pallidum and lateral ventricle volume enlargement in autism spectrum disorder.

Studies on structural brain abnormalities in individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) have been of limited size and many findings have not been replicated. In the largest ASD brain morphology study to date, we compared subcortical, total brain (TBV), and intracranial (ICV) volumes between 472 subjects with DSM-IV ASD diagnoses and 538 healthy volunteers (age range: 6-64 years), obtained from high-resolution structural brain scans provided by the Autism Brain Imaging Data Exchange (ABIDE). Compared to healthy volunteers, we found significantly larger pallidum (Cohen's d=0.15) and lateral ventricle volumes (Cohen's d=0.18) in ASD. These enlargements were independent of total brain volume and IQ, passed FDR correction for multiple comparisons, and were observed in overall, male-only, and medication-free subjects. In addition, intracranial, hippocampal, and caudate volumes were enlarged in ASD at a nominal statistical threshold of p<0.05. This study provides the first robust evidence for pallidum enlargement in ASD independent from TBV and encourages further study of the functional role of the pallidum in individuals with autism spectrum disorder.

Heritability of Hippocampal Formation Sub-region Volumes.

BACKGROUND: Hippocampal formation (HF) volume and episodic memory performance are substantially heritable, but HF subregion heritability estimates and their possible shared genetic variance with episodic memory performance remain to be determined. METHODS AND FINDINGS: This study provides heritability estimates for hippocampal subregions (e.g, Cornu Amonis, Subiculum, Parasubiculum, Molecular and Granule Cell Layers of the Dentate Gryus) and Total HF volumes obtained using FreeSurfer 6.0. In addition, this study assesses the heritability of object sequence and verbal episodic memory performance, and the amount of shared genetic variance between HF subregions and Total HF volume and episodic memory performance. HF volumes were obtained from high-resolution brain scans from a sample of 499 siblings (mean age±SD=30.0±3.1, 203 men), including 51 monozygotic and 46 dizygotic twin pairs and 305 non-twin siblings, collected by the Human Connectome Project (www.humanconnectome.org). Heritability estimates for HF subregions ranged from 0.42-0.87 and shared genetic variance of HF subregions with hippocampal volume was substantial (mean=0.79, range=0.50-0.98). HF subregion volumes residualized for Total HF and percent HF subregion volumes were also found to be substantially heritable (range=0.04-0.86 and 0.07-0.84, respectively). Verbal (h2=0.47) but not object sequence episodic memory was found to be significantly heritable; though the amount of shared genetic variance between HF subregions and verbal episodic memory was low (mean=0.10, range=0.01-0.20). CONCLUSIONS: These findings suggest that HF subregion volumes are heritable and can be used as quantitative phenotypes in genetic association studies. The low shared genetic variance between HF subregions and verbal episodic memory suggests that quantitative trait analyses may not benefit from including both HF volume and episodic memory as bivariate traits in healthy individuals. The extent to which HF subregion volumes share genetic variance with neuropsychiatric disorders, and as such add value to our ability to identify genetic risk loci for these disorders, remains to be determined.

Clinical improvement after ventricular aneurysm repair: prediction by angiographic and hemodynamic variables.

Surgical repair of a left ventricular aneurysm is associated with significant perioperative mortality and substantial mortality in the first 2 years after operation. In a retrospective review of 42 patients undergoing repair of an anteroapical aneurysm, two cardiac catheterization variables were identified that predicted a good surgical outcome, defined as perioperative survival and improved functional status. Specifically, patients with an ejection fraction of the contractile section (nonaneurysmal) of the left ventricle of 35% or greater and a left ventricular end-diastolic pressure of 25 mm Hg or less had a low perioperative mortality rate (6.5%), experienced no late mortality and had sustained clinical improvement of at least one New York Heart Association functional class (93.5%). In contrast, patients with a contractile section ejection fraction of less than 35% or a left ventricular end-diastolic pressure greater than 25 mm Hg had a higher perioperative mortality rate (27.3%), experienced a substantial late mortality rate (27.3%) or had no significant functional class improvement (9%); only 36.4% had sustained clinical improvement. This study suggests that the postoperative results of left ventricular aneurysm repair are dependent on the hemodynamic status of the nonresected left ventricle.

Alcohol, palatability, and taste reactivity.

The taste reactivity procedure provides a valuable tool for examining issues of palatability of alcohol solutions for rats. Given that alcohol is normally introduced to the internal milieu orally, taste factors must play an important role in the animal's decision to ingest or reject. Extensive studies of rats' reactivity to alcohol solutions have revealed several important variables that appear to affect palatability: solution concentration, alcohol experience, and postingestive consequences. In a recent selective breeding project, it has been found that taste reactivity to alcohol has a high heritability in rats. High ingestive responding and low ingestive responding rats were selected and bred to produce two lines. In the first selected generation, calculation of the realized heritability was 0.43; the cumulative realized heritability using the data from the second selected generation was 0.68. The introduction of the taste reactivity paradigm to the field of behavioral genetics may provide important information for the study of genetics, chemical senses, and alcohol consumption.

Mechanisms of action of progestational agents.

An in vitro tissue culture system utilizing human breast cancer cells in long-term culture was employed to examine mechanisms of action of progestational agents such as progesterone and megestrol acetate. Growth experiments were performed under various defined media conditions. Concentrations of both progesterone and megestrol acetate (10(-5) mol/L), which are attainable in patients, led to direct cytotoxicity of hormone-dependent cells and also to a modification of the known estrogen stimulation of growth in these cells.

Odor cue mediation of alcohol aversion learning in rats lacking gustatory neocortex.

Normal rats presented with a 5% alcohol solution followed by lithium chloride-induced illness quickly learned to avoid drinking alcohol. After training, the rats also avoided drinking water in the presence of the alcohol odor alone, whether tested immediately or 1 month later. In Experiment 1, rats with gustatory neocortex (GN) ablations also developed strong alcohol aversions when the alcohol solution was paired with illness. They also showed normal avoidance of drinking in the presence of the alcohol odor alone when tested soon after training. In Experiment 2, when normal rats were trained to avoid alcohol, given GN ablations, and then tested for retention 1 month later, avoidance of drinking water in the presence of the odor alone was significant but attenuated somewhat in relation to trained control rats. These data support the hypothesis that rats lacking GN partially acquire alcohol aversions by using odor cues and confirm that associative learning is intact in these rats despite the fact that GN rats display significant deficits in aversion learning when only tastes are paired with illness.

Taste avoidance, but not aversion, learning in rats lacking gustatory cortex.

Control rats rapidly learned to avoid drinking either a sucrose solution (Experiment 1) or a NaCl solution (Experiment 2) when the taste was paired with illness. These rats also produced aversive reactivity to each of these solutions in a taste reactivity test. Rats that lacked gustatory cortex (GC) learned to avoid drinking sucrose and NaCl, albeit at a slower rate than control rats. GC rats failed to display aversive reactivity to these tastes. The GC rats did show normal aversive reactivity to a strong quinine HCl solution during additional tests. It is suggested that the avoidance developed by GC rats did not entail a palatability shift of the conditional stimulus as it did in control rats. This altered learning strategy may account for the consistent learning deficits found in GC rats trained to avoid tastes.

Cessation of male rat copulatory behavior using illness as punishment: facilitation with a novel odor.

Two experiments were conducted to examine learned copulatory avoidance in male rats. One group of males was presented with receptive females that had been sprayed with a 2% almond solution, and the other group was presented with nonalmond odorous, receptive females. Following each test, males were made ill with lithium chloride (LiCl) by intragastric intubation or intraperitoneal injection. Results showed that male rats presented with almond-odorous females developed significant avoidance of copulatory behavior. Conditioning in males exposed to receptive females without the almond odor developed little, if any, avoidance. In Experiment 2, it was found that route of LiCl administration was not a factor in the results.

Taste reactivity to alcohol in rats.

Rats were infused intraorally with 4 concentrations of ethanol (3%, 6%, 9%, and 12%), and their subsequent oral, facial, and bodily responses were videotaped and analyzed. Naive rats did not display significant changes in ingestive-type responding over the concentrations tested. A significant increase in aversive responses was noted, with the largest number of aversive responses found with the 12% solution. Initial reactivity failed to predict subsequent consumption when rats were given free access to the same alcohol concentrations during 2-bottle tests. Reactivity testing after the period of alcohol access indicated that only the aversive responding changed significantly from the initial reactivity, with rats showing fewer aversive responses. The results indicated how the taste of alcohol is perceived by naive rats and how this perception is changed after consummatory experience with alcohol.

Neonatal ablations of the gustatory neocortex in the rat: taste aversion learning and taste reactivity.

Rats sustaining ablations of gustatory neocortex (GN) at 2, 10, 20, or 60 days of age were compared with control rats in the acquisition and extinction of a learned taste aversion; in addition, these rats were tested for taste preference across five concentrations of sodium chloride solution. Results indicated that GN ablation disrupted aversion acquisition and extinction regardless of age at surgery. Taste response functions for the sodium chloride solutions shown by all GN groups of rats mirrored those of control rats: preference (relative to water baseline) for middle concentrations and rejection of the strongest salt concentration. There was a suggestion that the 20- and 60-day-old GN rats were hyperresponsive to the suprathreshold concentrations of NaCl (except the strongest concentration). The increased response to salt solutions in the 20- and 60-day GN rats may have been related to the significant decreases in water consumption relative to that of normal rats. Water consumption of control rats and GN rats in the 2-day and 10-day groups was essentially equal. It is concluded that infant ablation of the GN does not spare normal taste aversion learning and that rats with GN ablations, regardless of age at surgery, respond in a normal manner to the hedonic aspects of sodium chloride solutions.

Alcohol aversion generalization in rats: specific disruption of taste and odor cues with gustatory neocortex or olfactory bulb ablations.

Rats with ablations of the gustatory neocortex (Experiment 1) and rats with olfactory bulb ablations (Experiment 2) were compared with normal rats for aversion generalization to both single taste solutions (sucrose, sodium chloride, quinine hydrochloride, hydrochloric acid) and compound taste solutions (pairs of the four single tastants) following alcohol aversion training. All rats acquired equal and strong alcohol aversions. Control rats showed consistent aversion generalization to both the sucrose + quinine and the sucrose + hydrochloric acid solutions; no significant generalization occurred to the single tastants except a weak generalization to sucrose in Experiment 2. Rats with gustatory neocortical ablations failed to show aversion generalization to any of the taste solutions. Rats with olfactory bulbectomies displayed the same aversion generalization functions as control rats but exhibited significantly faster extinction of the alcohol aversion than did the trained control rats. Results from the present experiments suggest that during alcohol aversion learning, rats lacking gustatory neocortex use odor cues (no taste generalization), whereas rats lacking olfactory bulbs utilize taste cues (normal taste generalization).

Taste agnosia following gustatory neocortex ablation: dissociation from odor and generality across taste qualities.

In Experiment 1, rats trained to avoid drinking in the presence of a compound odor (benzyl acetate) and taste (sucrose) conditional stimulus (CS) lost the taste habit but retained the odor habit following gustatory neocortex (GN) ablation. Conversely, olfactory bulb ablation resulted in loss of the odor habit but retention of the taste habit. In Experiment 2, rats lacking GN did not retain preoperatively instated learned aversions to a suprathreshold quinine hydrochloride (bitter) taste solution which had been employed as a CS. However, rats with GN lesions that were virtually identical to those of the bitter-trained group retained a preoperatively learned aversion to a hydrochloric acid (sour) CS. Experiment 3 demonstrated that reliable agnosia for an acid CS could be produced by lesions that extended more deeply into perirhinal areas near the claustrum at the level of the GN. It is concluded that the agnosia following GN ablation is relatively specific to gustation and that agnosia for preoperatively acquired taste aversion habits occurs for all four basic gustatory stimuli following anterolateral cortex ablations centered on the GN.

Taste potentiation of poisoned odor by temporal contiguity.

The synergistic interaction between odor and taste in flavor-toxicosis conditioning was tested in two experiments. The temporal interval between a 2-min odor and a 2-min taste was varied for thirsty rats licking at a water spout. In the first experiment, taste was presented at time zero, and odor was presented at -10, -1, 0, 1 and 10 min to independent groups in a simple compartment. In the second experiment, taste was presented at 0, and odor was presented at -5, -2, and 0 min in a "wind tunnel" apparatus. The results indicated that odor alone is an ineffective conditioned stimulus for a toxic unconditioned stimulus under our conditions, simultaneous (0-min) presentation of odor with taste potentiates the odor component so that it becomes more effective than the taste component, a 2-min interval between odor and taste attenuates potentiation, and a 5-min interval disrupts the effect, and the interaction in asymmetrical, that is, odor has no such systematic effect on the conditioning of taste.

Ingestive responses to homeostatic challenges in rats with ablations of the anterolateral neocortex.

Because rats with either anterolateral neocortical or lateral hypothalamic (LH) damage initially display similar feeding and drinking deficits and recovery patterns, the possibility that anterolateral neocortical ablations would also produce similar chronic ingestive impairments to glucoprivic and hydrational challenges was examined. In general, rats with anterolateral neocortical ablations exhibited normal feeding responses to food deprivation and glucoprivation induced by insulin or moderate doses of 2-deoxy-D-glucose (2-DG), but their response to a high dose (500 mg/kg) of 2-DG was impaired. These animals also drank normally in response to hypertonic saline injections and following water deprivation, but only if food was available during the test session, results indicating that they drank prandially. Results indicate that although the anterolateral neocortex and LH are anatomically related, these brain regions appear to be functionally dissimilar in terms of the regulation of ingestion.

Neural mediation of conditioned food aversions.

The above discussion is only a brief review of what is known about the neural mediation of conditioned food aversions. Although several other approaches were not mentioned (e.g. biochemical studies), one can still appreciate the value of the aversion paradigm for providing important information about neural mechanisms in learning and memory. A theoretical approach that may be valuable in understanding brain function in conditioned food aversion data is Hughlings Jackson's hierarchical notions of nervous organization. Hedonic responses to food stimuli appear to be brainstem reflexes. On top of these are rostral brain structures that add greater complexity to the consummatory behavior of the organism. An important aspect of this complexity is reflected in an animal's ability to form conditioned food aversions, a process undoubtedly tied intimately to particular neural mechanisms.

Lateralized functional relationship between the preoptic area and lateral hypothalamic reinforcement.

Electrical self-stimulation in the lateral hypothalamus of both hemispheres was recorded in 14 rats before and after administration of a unilateral ibotenic acid lesion of the cell bodies in the region of the lateral preoptic area. A significant decrease in the rate of self-stimulation at each of two stimulation intensities was found when the electrode was placed in the hemisphere in which the ibotenic acid lesion was made. This decrease remained constant over 21 days of testing. No changes were detected in rate of self-stimulation in the intact contralateral hemisphere. These results provide evidence for a role in lateral hypothalamic self-stimulation of intrinsic neurons located in the region of the lateral preoptic area.

Harvey Cushing and Claude Beck: a surgical legacy.

Harvey cushing's contribution to neurosurgery and other surgical specialties has been profound. The accomplishments of his many pupils have further immortalized Cushing's role as a pioneering advocate of surgical science. Claude S. Beck, the first professor of cardiovascular surgery in the United States, was one such student. Beck's career and successes are illustrative of Cushing's guidance and enduring support for his surgical heirs. Beck's first encounter with Cushing evoked a spirit of fraternity and fashioned a respect and loyalty to Cushing that lasted for the duration of Beck's career. Cushing's personality and the methods by which he perpetuated a rich surgical tradition are illuminated by details of Beck's stay at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital as a Cabot Fellow in Cushing's laboratory, by diary accounts of his later 6-week visit in 1927, and by the numerous telling correspondences between the two men. This article traces Beck's association with Cushing and provides unique insights into Cushing, his Cleveland connections, and his neurosurgical service at the Brigham.