[Éric de Rosny, an astonishing man and an original career]. / Éric de Rosny, un homme étonnant et un parcours original.

Éric de Rosny's decentralized approach is of particular interest today for any caregiver who has to deal with people from cultures different from his own. He demonstrates the value of traditional care as a complement to techno-scientific medicine.

[Psychology and culture in sickle cell disease]. / Psychologie et culture dans la drépanocytose.

Sickle cell disease is a chronic pathology which can be expressed as early as the first few months of life. There are many psychological repercussions, linked to the effects of the disease itself, to its impact on the patients' relational life and, for some, to exile and cultural differences. Psychological support is useful for both the patient and his or her family, particularly at key moments in the treatment process.

[Falling ill as a migrant, psychological and cultural aspects]. / Être malade dans la migration, aspects psychologiques et culturels.

When the body fails a person's foundations are damaged. The wait for a diagnosis, the physical pain, the chronic disease weaken the patient who may be overwhelmed by fears and anxiety. For patients from another country, this distressing experience adds to their vulnerability inherent to the separation from the home country the effects of which are intensified when illness strikes.

[Living with HIV/AIDS today, impacts on mental health]. / Vivre avec le VIH/sida aujourd'hui, retentissements sur la vie psychique.

The human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)/AIDS, at one time fatal, has now become a chronic disease. Physically, patients are generally in good health. However, 35 years after the discovery of the virus, mental suffering is still very much present. Morbid representations, understandable given the history of the disease, are still active on an individual level as well as on a broader level within society. Adapted information campaigns are essential in order to change behaviour.

Maternal separation fails to render animals more susceptible to methamphetamine-induced conditioned place preference.

The maternal separation (MS) paradigm is an animal model that has been successfully used to study the long term effects of child abuse and neglect. Experiments showed that animals subjected to trauma and stress early in life display behavioural, endocrinological and growth factor abnormalities at a later stage in life, results that mirrored clinical conditions. It is apparent that adverse events early in life may affect the development and maturation of the brain negatively. The purpose of the present study was to investigate whether the abnormal brain development occurring in separated animals would also enhance the development of a preference for psychostimulant drug usage. Rats were subjected to maternal deprivation and further exposed to methamphetamine-induced conditioned place preference (CPP) which primarily measures drug reward (ventral striatum) learning and memory. Apomorphine-induced locomotor activity was also assessed to investigate the effects of methamphetamine on the dorsal (primarily locomotor activity) striatal dopaminergic system. We found that four consecutive injections of methamphetamine resulted in CPP behaviour 24 h after the 4th injection. A further four injections yielded similar CPP results and this effect lasted for at least 7 days until the third CPP assessment. These animals also had decreased ACTH and corticosterone secretions, but the prolactin levels were increased. Prior exposure to maternal separation did not have any effect on the CPP test. The ACTH and corticosterone secretions were also similarly reduced. However maternal separation decreased the release of prolactin and this reduction was not evident in the separated group that received methamphetamine. There was no significant difference in the apomorphine-induced locomotor activity of normally reared animals whether they received methamphetamine or saline. Interestingly there was a significant difference in locomotor activity between the two groups of animals that were subjected to maternal deprivation. The separated animals that received methamphetamine displayed markedly reduced locomotor activity upon apomorphine administration when compared to those that were treated with saline. Taken together, we conclude that maternal deprivation differentially influences dorsal and ventral striatal regions implicating dopaminergic mechanisms.

Early maternal separation alters the response to traumatization: resulting in increased levels of hippocampal neurotrophic factors.

Early life adversity predisposes individuals to the development of psychopathology in later life, especially depression and anxiety disorders. Prior history of stressors may also be a vulnerability factor for developing posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in response to trauma. We examined the mechanisms underlying this phenomenon by employing two animal stress models, early maternal separation followed by later time-dependent sensitization (TDS). In animals exposed to adult TDS, those with prior early adversity did not differ from controls on tests of anxiety (elevated plus maze, open field), or HPA function (ACTH and corticosterone levels). However, those with prior early adversity had increased levels of neurotrophic factors (BDNF, NGF and NT-3) in both the dorsal and ventral hippocampus. Although early adversity is known to be associated with negative effects on neuronal function, it may also be associated with an increased ability to respond to subsequent stressors with compensatory mechanisms such as increased neurotrophic factor release.

Developmental trauma is associated with behavioral hyperarousal, altered HPA axis activity, and decreased hippocampal neurotrophin expression in the adult rat.

Effects of early-life trauma on adult behavioral responses, corticosterone (CORT) concentration, and levels of nerve growth factor (NGF), brain-derived neutrophic factor (BDNF), and neurotrophin-3 (NT-3) in hippocampus and frontal cortex were investigated. Traumatized animals showed an increase in rearing in both the elevated plus maze and open field after adult restress, higher basal levels of CORT, lower levels of BDNF in dorsal hippocampus, and lower levels of NT-3 in dorsal and ventral hippocampus. Trauma-related behavioral hyperarousal and altered hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis activity may be mediated by decreases in hippocampal neurotrophin expression.

Early maternal separation followed by later stressors leads to dysregulation of the HPA-axis and increases in hippocampal NGF and NT-3 levels in a rat model.

Early adverse life events, followed by subsequent stressors, appear to increase susceptibility for subsequent onset of psychiatric disorders in humans. The molecular mechanisms that underlie this phenomenon remain unclear, but dysregulation of the HPA axis and alterations in neurotrophic factors have been implicated. The present study investigated the effects in rodents of early maternal separation, followed by stress in adolescence and adulthood on later HPA-axis activity and hippocampal neurotrophin levels (brain-derived neurotrophic factor, nerve growth factor, and neurotrophin-3). Animals subjected to repeated stressors showed a significant decrease in basal ACTH (p < 0.05) and CORT (p < 0.05) levels when compared to controls, as well as significantly increased levels of NGF in the dorsal (p < 0.001) and ventral hippocampus (p < 0.01), and of NT-3 in the dorsal hippocampus (p < 0.01). Dysregulation of the HPA axis after multiple stressors is consistent with previous preclinical and clinical work. Given that neurotrophins are important in neuronal survival and plasticity, it is possible to speculate that their elevation reflects a compensatory mechanism.