When Chocolate Seeking Becomes Compulsion: Gene-Environment Interplay

When Chocolate Seeking Becomes Compulsion: Gene-Environment Interplay

BACKGROUND Eating disorders appear to be caused by a complex interaction between environmental and genetic factors, and compulsive eating in response to adverse circumstances characterizes many eating disorders. MATERIALS AND METHODS We compared compulsion-like eating in the form of conditioned suppression of palatable food-seeking in adverse situations in stressed C57BL/6J and DBA/2J mice, t...

When risk seeking becomes a motivational necessity.

Four studies demonstrate the importance of self-regulatory mechanisms for understanding risk-seeking behavior under loss. Findings suggest that risk seeking becomes a motivational necessity under 3 conditions: (a) when an individual is in a state of loss; (b) when the individual is in a prevention-focused regulatory state (E. T. Higgins, 1997); and (c) when the risky option alone offers the pos...

Gene-environment interplay.

Gene-environment Interplay in Twin Models Gene-environment Interplay in Twin Models

In this article, we respond to Shultziner’s critique that argues identical twins are more alike not because of genetic similarity, but because they select into more similar environments and respond to stimuli in comparable ways, and these effects bias twin model estimates to such an extent that they are invalid. The essay further argues that the theory and methods that undergird twin models, as...

When inappropriate becomes beneficial.

We report the case of a young man who accidentally received a prolonged electric discharge from electrical wires and released the electric source with the help of an inappropriate shock from his implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD), after misinterpretation of the electrical signal by the device as a ventricular tachycardia. This case illustrates the "electrical noise" phenomenon, and un...