Socio-spatial cognition in cats: Mentally mapping owner’s location from voice

Many animals probably hold mental representations about the whereabouts of others; this is a form of socio-spatial cognition. We tested whether cats mentally map the spatial position of their owner or a familiar cat to the source of the owner’s or familiar cat’s vocalization. In Experiment 1, we placed one speaker outside a familiar room (speaker 1) and another (speaker 2) inside the room, as far as possible from speaker 1, then we left the subject alone in the room. In the habituation phase, the cat heard its owner’s voice calling its name five times from speaker 1. In the test phase, shortly after the 5th habituation phase vocalization, one of the two speakers played either the owner’s voice or a stranger’s voice calling the cat’s name once. There were four test combinations of speaker location and sound: SamesoundSamelocation, SamesoundDifflocation, DiffsoundSamelocation, DiffsoundDifflocation. In line with our prediction, cats showed most surprise in the SamesoundDifflocation condition, where the owner suddenly seemed to be in a new place. This reaction disappeared when we used cat vocalizations (Experiment 2) or non-vocal sounds (Experiment 3) as the auditory stimuli. Our results suggest that cats have mental representations about their out-of-sight owner linked to hearing the owner’s voice, indicating a previously unidentified socio-spatial cognitive ability.

One-Year Adherence to Continuous Positive Airway Pressure With Telemonitoring in Sleep Apnea Hypopnea Syndrome: A Randomized Controlled Trial

Study Objective: Telemedicine (TM) for continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) treated patients may save health-care resources without compromising treatment effectiveness. We assessed the effect of TM (AirView Online System, ResMed) during the CPAP habituation phase on 3-month and 1-year treatment adherence and efficacy in patients with moderate-to-severe obstructive sleep apnea (OSA).Methods: At CPAP initiation, 120 patients diagnosed with OSA were randomized to either usual care (UC) or TM during the habituation phase (clinical registration: ISRCTN12865936). Both groups received a first face-to-face appointment with a sleep care giver at CPAP initiation. Within the following month, 2 other physical visits were scheduled in the UC group whereas two phone consultations were planned in the TM group, in which CPAP parameters were remotely adapted. Additional physical visits were programmed at the patient's request. Face-to-face consultations were scheduled at 3 and 12 months after CPAP initiation. The primary outcome was the mean CPAP daily use over the course of 12 months.Results: Twenty of 60 patients stopped CPAP therapy in the UC group vs. 14 of 60 in the TM group (p = 0.24). In per protocol analysis, mean [95% CI] daily CPAP use among 86 patients still using CPAP at 12 months was 279 [237; 321] min in the 38 patients on UC and 279 [247; 311] min in the 43 patients on TM, mean difference [95% CI]: 0 [−52; 52] min, P = 0.99. Total consultation time per patient was not different between groups, TM: 163 [147; 178] min, UC: 178 [159; 197] min, difference: −15 [−39; 9] min, p = 0.22.Conclusions: Telemedicine during the CPAP habituation phase did not alter daily CPAP use or treatment adherence and did not require more healthcare time. Telemedicine may support clinic attendance for CPAP titration.Clinical Trial Registration: [ISRCTN], identifier [ISRCTN12865936].

Increased novelty-induced locomotion, sensitivity to amphetamine, and extracellular dopamine in striatum of Zdhhc15-deficient mice

Novelty-seeking behaviors and impulsivity are personality traits associated with several psychiatric illnesses including attention deficits hyperactivity disorders. The underlying neural mechanisms remain poorly understood. We produced and characterized a line of knockout mice for zdhhc15, which encodes a neural palmitoyltransferase. Genetic defects of zdhhc15 were implicated in intellectual disability and behavioral anomalies in humans. Zdhhc15-KO mice showed normal spatial learning and working memory but exhibited a significant increase in novelty-induced locomotion in open field. Striatal dopamine content was reduced but extracellular dopamine levels were increased during the habituation phase to a novel environment. Administration of amphetamine and methylphenidate resulted in a significant increase in locomotion and extracellular dopamine levels in the ventral striatum of mutant mice compared to controls. Number and projections of dopaminergic neurons in the nigrostriatal and mesolimbic pathways were normal. No significant change in the basal palmitoylation of known ZDHHC15 substrates including DAT was detected in striatum of zdhhc15 KO mice using an acyl-biotin exchange assay. These results support that a transient, reversible, and novelty-induced elevation of extracellular dopamine in ventral striatum contributes to novelty-seeking behaviors in rodents and implicate ZDHHC15-mediated palmitoylation as a novel regulatory mechanism of dopamine in the striatum.

Pola Implementasi Gerakan Literasi Sekolah Di SMP Negeri 5 Malang

The students 'reading ability is low, it certainly affects the students' writing ability. Implementation of the School Literacy Movement is a solution to students' low reading ability. This study aims to describe the pattern of Implementation of School Literacy Movement that took place in SMP Negeri 5 Malang. This study uses a qualitative approach with a descriptive type that describes the School Literacy Movement in SMP Negeri 5 Malang. Data collection techniques using observation, interviews, and documentation. The results showed that the pattern of implementation of school literacy measures in SMP Negeri 5 Malang included: 1) The habituation phase was carried out by way of students bringing reading books from home or borrowing books to the library. At this stage a class reading corner was prepared, reading 15 minutes before learning began, and a literacy journal; 2) The Development and Learning Phase increases the school resources especially at the State Junior High School 5 Malang, namely the existence of a reading corner in each class, an increase in the number of books, a 30-minute reading club, and a product of the School Literacy Movement.Keywords: School Literacy Movement, Habituation Phase, Development Phase, LearningAbstrak: Kemampuan membaca peserta didik tergolong rendah pasti berpengaruh terhadap kemampuan menulis peserta didik. Implementasi Gerakan Literasi Sekolah menjadi solusi atas kemampuan membaca siswa yang rendah. Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mendeskripsikan pola Implementasi Gerakan Literasi Sekolah yang berlangsung di SMP Negeri 5 Malang. Penelitian ini menggunakan pendekatan kualitatif dengan jenis deskriptif yang mendeksripsikan Gerakan Literasi Sekolah di SMP Negeri 5 Malang. Teknik pengumpulan data menggunakan observasi, wawancara, dan dokumentasi. Hasil penelitian menunjukan bahwa pola implementasi geakan literasi sekolah di SMP Negeri 5 Malang meliputi: 1) Tahap Pembiasaan dilaksanakan dengan cara peserta didik membawa buku bacaan dari rumah atau meminjam buku ke perpustakaan. Pada tahap ini sudah disiapkan pojok baca kelas, membaca 15 menit sebelum pembelajaran dimulai, dan jurnal literas; 2) Tahap Pengembangan dan Pembelajaran meningkatkan sumber daya sekolah khusnya di Sekolah Menengah Pertama Negeri 5 Malang yaitu adanya pojok baca di masing-masing kelas, penambahan jumlah buku, adanya club baca 30 menit, dan hasil produk Gerakan Literasi Sekolah.Kata Kunci: Gerakan Literasi Sekolah, Tahap Pembiasaan, Tahap Pengembangan, Pembelajaran

Pola Implementasi Gerakan Literasi Sekolah Di SMP Negeri 5 Malang

The students 'reading ability is low, it certainly affects the students' writing ability. Implementation of the School Literacy Movement is a solution to students' low reading ability. This study aims to describe the pattern of Implementation of School Literacy Movement that took place in SMP Negeri 5 Malang. This study uses a qualitative approach with a descriptive type that describes the School Literacy Movement in SMP Negeri 5 Malang. Data collection techniques using observation, interviews, and documentation. The results showed that the pattern of implementation of school literacy measures in SMP Negeri 5 Malang included: 1) The habituation phase was carried out by way of students bringing reading books from home or borrowing books to the library. At this stage a class reading corner was prepared, reading 15 minutes before learning began, and a literacy journal; 2) The Development and Learning Phase increases the school resources especially at the State Junior High School 5 Malang, namely the existence of a reading corner in each class, an increase in the number of books, a 30-minute reading club, and a product of the School Literacy Movement.Keywords: School Literacy Movement, Habituation Phase, Development Phase, LearningAbstrak: Kemampuan membaca peserta didik tergolong rendah pasti berpengaruh terhadap kemampuan menulis peserta didik. Implementasi Gerakan Literasi Sekolah menjadi solusi atas kemampuan membaca siswa yang rendah. Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mendeskripsikan pola Implementasi Gerakan Literasi Sekolah yang berlangsung di SMP Negeri 5 Malang. Penelitian ini menggunakan pendekatan kualitatif dengan jenis deskriptif yang mendeksripsikan Gerakan Literasi Sekolah di SMP Negeri 5 Malang. Teknik pengumpulan data menggunakan observasi, wawancara, dan dokumentasi. Hasil penelitian menunjukan bahwa pola implementasi geakan literasi sekolah di SMP Negeri 5 Malang meliputi: 1) Tahap Pembiasaan dilaksanakan dengan cara peserta didik membawa buku bacaan dari rumah atau meminjam buku ke perpustakaan. Pada tahap ini sudah disiapkan pojok baca kelas, membaca 15 menit sebelum pembelajaran dimulai, dan jurnal literas; 2) Tahap Pengembangan dan Pembelajaran meningkatkan sumber daya sekolah khusnya di Sekolah Menengah Pertama Negeri 5 Malang yaitu adanya pojok baca di masing-masing kelas, penambahan jumlah buku, adanya club baca 30 menit, dan hasil produk Gerakan Literasi Sekolah.Kata Kunci: Gerakan Literasi Sekolah, Tahap Pembiasaan, Tahap Pengembangan, Pembelajaran

The effects of exposure on the generalization of habituation on multiple indices of disgust

Examination of habituation to disgust-related stimuli has received limited experimental investigation. In this study, 38 undergraduates were divided into two groups. The vomit-blood (VB) group was first exposed to a realistic approximation of vomit and allowed to habituate to this stimulus, while the blood-vomit (BV) group was first allowed to habituate to a realistic approximation of blood. Following the habituation phase, each group underwent a short exposure to the unexposed stimuli (blood in the VB group, vomit in the BV group). Physiological and self-report assessments were collected during exposure. Self-report habituation was observed for both groups. In addition, only muscle tension at the levator labii and heart rate in the VB group demonstrated significant changes that could be interpreted as habituation. Consistent with previous literature, muscle tension at the levator labii appeared to be a unique indicator of disgust responding. Implications and suggestions for future research are discussed.

Attention to a threat-related feature does not interfere with concurrent attentive feature selection

Visual features that are associated with a task and those that predict noxious events both prompt selectively heightened visuocortical responses. Conflicting views exist regarding how the competition between a task-related and a threat-related feature is resolved when they co-occur in time and space. Utilizing aversive differential Pavlovian conditioning, we investigated the visuocortical representation of two simultaneously presented, fully overlapping visual stimuli. Stimuli were isoluminant red and green random dot kinematograms (RDKs) which flickered at two tagging frequencies (8.57 Hz, 12 Hz) to elicit distinguishable steady-state visual evoked potentials (ssVEPs). Occasional coherent motion events prompted a motor response or predicted a noxious noise. These events occurred either in the green (task cue), the red (threat cue), or in both RDKs simultaneously. In an initial habituation phase, participants responded to coherent motion of the green RDK with a key press, but no loud noise was presented at any time. Here, selective amplification was seen for the task-relevant (green) RDK, but interference was observed when both RDKs simultaneously showed coherent motion. Upon pairing the threat cue with the noxious noise in the subsequent acquisition phase, the threat cue-evoked ssVEP (red RDK) was also amplified, but this amplification did not interact with amplification of the task cue, and did not alter the behavioral or visuocortical interference effect seen during simultaneous coherent motion. Results demonstrate that although competing feature conjunctions result in interference in visual cortex, the acquisition of a bias towards an individual threat-related feature does not result in additional cost effects.

A Stepwise Protocol for Induction and Selection of Prominent Coniferous Cell Cultures for the Production of β-Thujaplicin

In order to demonstrate the potential of plant cell culture systems to produce a target natural bioactive compound, we proposed a stepwise protocol for β-thujaplicin production as follows. 1. Induction phase: Characteristics of callus cultures originating from newly flushed shoots of 10 conifer species were evaluated on different basal media such as Murashige and Skoog (MS), Schenk and Hildebrandt (SH), and Lloyd and McCown's Woody Plant medium (WP) containing 10 μM 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4-D) either alone or in combination with 1 μM of N6-benzyladenine (BA). The conifer species used were as follows: Chamaecyparis ( C. obtusa Sieb. et Zucc. and C. pisifera Sieb. et Zucc), Juniperus (J. chinensis L. ‘Kaizuka', J. chinensis L. var. sargentii, and J. conferta Parlatore), Thuja (T. occidentals L. and T. standishii (Gord.) Carr.), Thujopsis (T. dolabrata Sieb. et Zucc. and T. dolabrata Sieb. et Zucc. var. hondae), and Cryptomeria (C. japonica D. Don). We observed the phenotypes of each callus to determine the optimal conditions for callus induction and to infer biosynthetic activity of the calli over 4–8 weeks. 2. Habituation phase: Each of the cell cultures obtained was transferred to a modified MS medium containing 680 mg L−1 KH2PO4 and 10 μM Picloram to select the habituated cells with synchronous growth pattern. The growth of each cell culture was highly improved in the habituation medium, except that of J. chinensis ‘Kaizuka'. 3. Metabolite-production phase: The concentration of β-thujaplicin (known as hinokitiol in Japan) in the shoots of donor trees and the habituated cell cultures was analyzed via high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). Histochemical characteristics of the cells were also observed using laser scanning microscopy (LSM) imaging. After the third step, we tested the biosynthetic activity of two habituated calli ( C. obtusa and J. conferta) on a 0.3%, w/v, yeast extract (YE)-containing medium. We found significant improvement in β-thujaplicin production in J. conferta callus (4600 μg g DW-1), which was up to 20-fold higher than in the habituation phase.

Comparison of Male and Female Rats in Avoidance of a Moving Object: More Thigmotaxis, Hypolocomotion and Fear-Like Reactions in Females

Although male rats generally outperform females in many spatial tasks, sometimes gender differences are not present. This preliminary study examined gender effects in the Enemy avoidance task, in which a rat on a stable circular arena avoids approaching a small mobile robot while collecting randomly dispersed small pellets. Whenever distance between robot and the rat dropped below 25 cm, animal was punished by a mild footshock. Female rats showed thigmotaxis, hypolocomotion and avoidance of robot in the habituation phase, when approaches were not punished. No statistically significant differences in avoidance learning under reinforcement training sessions were observed; but females still spent significantly more time at periphery of the arena and foraged less than males. We conclude that females were able to perform at the same level as males under reinforcement despite different behavioral strategy. The thigmotaxic behavior appears to function as innate escape strategy in female rats triggered by the stressing effect of the moving robot rather then the presence of shocks.

Recognition of faces and Greebles in 3-month-old infants: Influence of temperament and cognitive abilities

The aim of the present study was to investigate whether temperament and cognitive abilities are related to recognition performance of Caucasian and African faces and of a nonfacial stimulus class, Greebles. Seventy Caucasian infants were tested at 3 months with a habituation/dishabituation paradigm and their temperament and cognitive abilities were measured. Analyses revealed that only infants with easy temperament recognized familiar Greebles from the habituation phase. A similar pattern was found for cognitive abilities showing that only infants with higher cognitive abilities recognized Greebles. Irrespectively of temperament and cognitive abilities, all infants recognized the faces. Thus, the data suggest that recognition of unfamiliar Greebles, but not of faces, is demanding for 3-month-old infants with difficult temperament or lower cognitive abilities.