BNCT research activities at the Granada group and the project NeMeSis: Neutrons for medicine and sciences, towards an accelerator-based facility for new BNCT therapies, medical isotope production and other scientific neutron applications.

The Granada group in BNCT research is currently performing studies on: nuclear and radiobiological data for BNCT, new boron compounds and a new design for a neutron source for BNCT and other applications, including the production of medical radioisotopes. All these activities are described in this report.

The effect of partial reinforcement on instrumental successive negative contrast in inbred Roman High- (RHA-I) and Low- (RLA-I) Avoidance rats.

Frustration is an emotional response that can be induced by the sudden devaluation of a reinforcer in the presence of greater reinforcement expectancies (e.g. instrumental successive negative contrast, iSNC). This emotional response seems to be similar to anxiety and can be attenuated by previous experiences of reward loss (e.g. partial reinforcement, PR, as opposed to continuous reinforcement, CR). In this study we used iSNC and PR procedures in order to compare the performance of two strains of rats psychogenetically selected on the basis of their emotional reactivity: the inbred Roman High- (RHA-I, low anxiety) and Low- (RLA-I, high anxiety) Avoidance rats. Animals were exposed to a straight alley, where they were changed from 12 pellets in the preshift phase (presented in 100% of trials-CR vs. 50% of trials-PR) to 2 pellets in the postshift phase, or exposed to 2 pellets throughout the training. The results indicated that the iSNC only appeared in RLA-I rats exposed to CR, as opposed to RLA-I animals exposed to PR and to RHA-I rats exposed to PR or CR. These data seem to support the implication of emotional responses in both iSNC and PR situations, and indicate that the behavioral reactivity to reward loss experiences is modulated by genetic variables.

Simple analytical expressions for the dose of point photon sources in homogeneous media.

The contributions to the dose of a point photon source in homogeneous media due to primary and first, second, ..., nth scattered photons are investigated. Assuming a simple statistical model, an analytical form comes out for each of these contributions. It includes a polynomial and a single exponential and depends on three parameters which have a physical meaning. The values of these parameters for different energies and for water, as a test case, are obtained from numerical fits to the results of a Monte Carlo simulation with the code PENELOPE. The average differences between the model and the Monte Carlo results, after the fitting process, are below 1%. Our model permits to obtain improved versions of the classical approach of Berger in a straightforward way. The expressions obtained also describe the dose build-up of the primary photons.