Female gonadal hormones, mild restraint, and male preference.

The partner preference paradigm was used to test the hypothesis that mild restraint reduced sexual motivation of female rats. Ovariectomized rats were primed with 10 pg estradiol benzoate or estradiol benzoate and 500 microg progesterone. Additional rats were injected with sesame seed oil. These three groups of rats (oil-oil, estradiol benzoate-oil, or estradiol benzoate-progesterone; OO, EO, EP) were placed for 10 min in an arena, the ends of which enclosed either a sexually active male or an ovariectomized, unprimed female. Time spent near the sexually active male relative to time spent near either stimulus animal was used as the index of male preference. As expected, hormonal treatment significantly increased male preference. After this first 10 min interval, females were returned to the home cage or restrained for 5 min in a Decapicone. Thereafter, male preference was recorded for another 10 min. Consistent with the first 10 min period, EP rats spent significantly more time near the male than did OO rats while EO rats were intermediate. There was no effect of restraint, but there was a significant increase in self-grooming. These findings contrast with previous studies and allow the suggestion that a brief, mild restraint fails to influence the female's sexual motivation. The implications of these findings are discussed.

Clinical and molecular cytogenetic characterisation of a newly recognised microdeletion syndrome involving 2p15-16.1.

BACKGROUND: During whole genome microarray-based comparative genomic hybridisation (array CGH) screening of subjects with idiopathic intellectual disability, we identified two unrelated individuals with a similar de novo interstitial microdeletion at 2p15-2p16.1. Both individuals share a similar clinical phenotype including moderate to severe intellectual disability, autism/autistic features, microcephaly, structural brain anomalies including cortical dysplasia/pachygyria, renal anomalies (multicystic kidney, hydronephrosis), digital camptodactyly, visual impairment, strabismus, neuromotor deficits, communication and attention impairments, and a distinctive pattern of craniofacial features. Dysmorphic craniofacial features include progressive microcephaly, flat occiput, widened inner canthal distance, small palpebral fissures, ptosis, long and straight eyelashes, broad and high nasal root extending to a widened, prominent nasal tip with elongated, smooth philtrum, rounding of the upper vermillion border and everted lower lips. METHODS: Clinical assessments, and cytogenetic, array CGH and fluorescence in situ hybridisation (FISH) analyses were performed. RESULTS: The microdeletions discovered in each individual measured 4.5 Mb and 5.7 Mb, spanning the chromosome 2p region from 57.2 to 61.7 Mb and from 56 to 61.7 Mb, respectively. Each deleted clone in this range demonstrated a dosage reduction from two to one copy in each proband except for clone RP11-79K21, which was present in three copies in each proband and in four copies in their respective parents (two per each chromosome 2 homologue). DISCUSSION: The common constellation of features found in the two affected subjects indicates that they have a newly recognised microdeletion syndrome involving haploinsufficiency of one or more genes deleted within at least a 4.5-Mb segment of the 2p15-16.1 region.

Mechanisms of second-order conditioning with a backward conditioned stimulus.

Five conditioned suppression experiments with rats examined the conditions under which backward pairings endow a first-order conditioned stimulus (CS1) with the ability to serve as a secondary reinforcer. Experiments 2-5B found evidence for excitatory second-order conditioning (SOC) if, during first-order pairings, the US-CS1 interval was 0 s rather than 3 s. Levels of SOC were comparable after forward and backward pairings (Experiments 1-3), and were unaffected by extinction of CS1 after SOC (Experiment 3). These results suggest that forward and backward CS1s support SOC for the same reason, and they call into question the need to invoke any special mechanism such as memory integration.

On the role of eye movements and saccade preparation in generating auditory inhibition of return.

In three experiments, listeners were required to either localize or identify the second of two successive sounds. The first sound (the cue) and the second sound (the target) could originate from either the same or different locations, and the interval between the onsets of the two sounds (Stimulus Onset Asynchrony, SOA) was varied. Sounds were presented out of visual range at 135 azimuth left or right. In Experiment 1, localization responses were made more quickly at 100 ms SOA when the target sounded from the same location as the cue (i.e., a facilitative effect), and at 700 ms SOA when the target and cue sounded from different locations (i.e., an inhibitory effect). In Experiments 2 and 3, listeners were required to monitor visual information presented directly in front of them at the same time as the auditory cue and target were presented behind them. These two experiments differed in that in order to perform the visual task accurately in Experiment 3, eye movements to visual stimuli were required. In both experiments, a transition from facilitation at a brief SOA to inhibition at a longer SOA was observed for the auditory task. Taken together these results suggest that location-based auditory IOR is not dependent on either eye movements or saccade programming to sound locations.

Empathy as related to creativity, dogmatism, and expressiveness.

Empathy (affective sensitivity) was hypothesized to be positively related to creativity and expressiveness and inversely related to dogmatism, when gender and age were controlled. Participants were 56 graduate students enrolled in counseling and educational psychology courses at a large southwestern (U.S.) university. Participants were administered the Affective Sensitivity Scale (Kagan & Schneider, 1977) to measure empathy, the Statement of Past Creative Activities (Bull & Davis, 1980) to measure creativity, the Opinion Scale (Kleiber, Veldman, & Menaker, 1973) to measure dogmatism, and the Extended Personal Attributes Questionnaire (Spence, Helmreich, & Holahan, 1979) to measure expressiveness. The results of multiple regressions provide support for the hypotheses that empathy is positively related to creativity and inversely related to dogmatism, but the results do not support the hypothesized positive relationship between empathy and expressiveness. Implications of these findings for persons serving as counselors and counselor educators are discussed.

Recurrent spontaneous pregnancy loss. Investigation and reproductive follow-up.

Between July 1, 1985, and Dec 31, 1988, 187 women referred to the University of British Columbia Medical Genetics Clinical Unit for two or more consecutive, unexplained, spontaneous pregnancy losses were evaluated for seven categories of possible etiology. Follow-up of the total subsequent reproductive experience was obtained in 171 cases. For those who became pregnant, achievement of a live birth was tabulated according to the number of previous pregnancy losses, age at the investigation and abnormalities found in the investigation. Overall, 81.8% of those who became pregnant after the evaluation and with a known outcome or outcomes at follow-up had a live birth-78% of primary aborters (no previous liveborn infant) and 86.3% of secondary aborters (previous liveborn infant).