Electrodermal measures of attention and effort to stimulus onset and offset for intramodal and intermodal tasks.

Two experiments were designed to assess the relationship between task difficulty and arousal. Electrodermal measures of tonic and phasic arousal to four levels of task difficulty at stimulus onset and offset were studied in college students for intramodal and intermodal tasks. The students were presented for 18 trails with visual-auditory or visual-visual stimuli with either 2.0-, 0.2-, or 0.02-sec difference between stimuli onset or offset, and asked to judge which stimulus came on or went off first or merely to observe the stimuli. Both frequency and amplitude of skin conductance responses reliably differentiated the levels of task difficulty for both the intramodal and the intermodal task. None of the measures of tonic level of arousal was reliable. Electrodermal measures of phasic responses accurately reflected the task demands.

Benzylidenemalononitrile derivatives as substrates and inhibitors of a new NAD(P)H dehydrogenase of erythrocytes. Purification and crystallisation of two forms of the enzyme.

Using the powerful lachrymator (2-chlorobenzylidene)malononitrile as electron acceptor, two types of NAD(P)H dehydrogenases have been isolated from human blood. Crystallisation of the homogenous enzymes was performed in 50% polyethylene glycol solution. The enzymes (average molecular weight 18 000) are composed of only one polypeptide chain and have a very similar amino acid composition. B-side stereospecificity was determined with respect to the cofactor by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry for the reductase. Besides (2-chlorobenzylidene)malononitrile, 2,6-dichloroindophenol, methylene blue, 4-benzoquinone, FMN and FAD are also reduced using NADH or NADPH as hydrogen donor with the rates decreasing in the given order. Reduction of methemoglobin is observed only upon addition of methylene blue, FMN or FAD as carriers. (2-Chlorobenzylidene)malononitrile reduction is inhibited by most of the compounds known to be decouplers of oxidative phosphorylation.

Inhibitory control of the pituitary LH secretion by LH-RH in male rats.

Luteinizing hormone-releasing hormone (LH-RH) was administered to prepubertal male rats (intact, castrate or castrate-adrenalectomized, 60 g body weight) for 28 days (1 microgram LH-RH/day, s.c.), at a 10-fold physiological dose, as compared to the minimal FSH-releasing dose of 100 ng/rat s.c. In intact rats, serum LH and weight of androgen-dependent organs (vented prostate, seminal vesicles) were reduced after 14 days of treatment. In castrate rats, the postcastration rise in serum LH was abolished by treatment. Pituitary LH content, FSH secretion and prolactin secretion were not suppressed. Hypothalamic LH-RH was increased at 14 and 21 days. In castrate adrenalectomized male rats, LH secretion was also suppressed by 1 microgram LH-RH s.c. x 28 days. The hypothalamic LH-RH content did not increase. The pituitary LH-RH receptor level was not down-regulated after 14 days treatment either in intact or castrate male rats. Pituitary inhibition (LH release) in rats by a supraphysiological dose of LH-RH given for 28 days indicates that the optimal regime for chronic treatment has to be determined by monitoring LH release at regular intervals. Direct pituitary inhibition by LH-RH may explain some of the unexpected antifertility effects observed with high doses of LH-RH.