Time course of alpha-flupenthixol action explains "response artifacts" of neuroleptic action on brain stimulation reward

Perspectives on a time-dependent model of neuroleptic action.

The best support for the hypothesized involvement of central nervous system dopamine systems in the pathophysiology of schizophrenia is the association between the affinity of neuroleptic drugs for the D2 dopamine receptor and their potency as antipsychotics. Discrepancy between the time course of receptor binding and the development of antipsychotic effects, however, limits this model. Preclin...

Self-limiting Action of Nicotine on Brain Reward

Previous work has shown that nicotine facilitates brain stimulation reward (BSR) but that the maximum effect obtainable with nicotine is similar to that seen with compounds having a low addiction liability (e.g., caffeine, diphenhydramine, pseudoephedrine). Two studies further explored nicotine’s effects on BSR using a threshold-tracking procedure. Male, Long-Evans rats were implanted with stim...

An Audit of Perioperative Antimicrobial Prophylaxis: Time to Take Action

The Time Course of Routine Action

Previous studies of action selection in routinized tasks have used error rates as their sole dependent measure (e.g. Reason, 1979; Schwartz et al., 1998). Consequently, conclusions about the underlying mechanisms of correct behavior are necessarily indirect. The present experiment examines the performance of normal subjects in the prototypical coffee task (Botvinick & Plaut, 2004) when carried ...

Action of brain-derived neurotrophic factor on function and morphology of visual cortical neurons

Brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) is known to play a role in experience-dependent plasticity of the developing visual cortex. For example, BDNF acutely enhances long-term potentiation and blocks long-term depression in the visual cortex of young rats. Such acute actions of BDNF suggested to be mediated mainly through presynaptic mechanisms. A chronic application of BDNF to the visual cor...