Nitric oxide (NO) is an atypical neurotransmitter that has been related to the pathophysiology of major depression disorder. Increased plasma NO levels have been reported in depressed and suicidal patients. Inhibition of neuronial nitric oxide synthase (nNOS), on the other hand, induces antidepressant effects in clinical and pre-clinical trials. The mechanisms responsible for the antidepressant...

Smoking is frequently co-morbid with depression. Although it is recognized that depression increases the risk for smoking, it is unclear if early smoking exposure may increase the risk for depression. To test this possibility we assessed the effects of adolescent nicotine exposure on the Forced Swim Test (FST), which is used as a measure of passive coping, and depressive-like behavior in rodent...

Current animal models of antipsychotic activity that have the capacity to dissociate between typical and atypical antipsychotic drugs (APDs) have two drawbacks: they require previous administration of a psychotomimetic drug, and they achieve the dissociation by demonstrating effectiveness of atypical but not typical APDs, thus losing specificity and selectivity for APDs. The present experiments...

Wright's FST and related statistics are often used to measure the extent of divergence among populations of the same species relative to the net genetic diversity within the species. This paper compares several definitions of FST which are relevant to DNA sequence data, and shows that these must be used with care when estimating migration parameters. It is also pointed out that FST is strongly ...

Forecasting invasion success remains a fundamental challenge in invasion biology. The effort to identify universal characteristics that predict which species become invasive has faltered in part because of the diversity of taxa and systems considered. Here, we use an alternative approach focused on the spread stage of invasions. FST, a measure of alternative fixation of alleles, is a common pro...

Laminar-to-turbulent transition in a swept flat-plate boundary layer is caused by the breakdown of crossflow vortex via high-frequency secondary instability and promoted wall-surface roughness freestream turbulence (FST). Although FST characterized its intensity wavelength, it not clear how wavelength affects turbulent transitions interacts with roughness-induced transition. The depends on wind...

A general analytical formula is derived, which predicts the effects of background selection on population differentiation at a neutral locus as a result of its linkage with selected loci of deleterious mutations. The theory is based on the assumptions of random mating, multiplicative fitness, and weak selection in hermaphrodite plants in the island model of population structure. The analytical ...

This study investigated the involvement of NMDA receptors and the L-arginine-nitric oxide (NO) pathway in the antidepressant-like effects of zinc in the forced swimming test (FST). The immobility times in the FST and in the tail suspension test (TST) were reduced by zinc chloride (ZnCl(2), 30 and 10-30 mg/kg intraperitoneal (i.p.), respectively). The doses active in the FST and TST reduced loco...

The forced swim test (FST) is a preclinical test to the screening of antidepressants based on rats or mice behaviours, which is also sensitive to stimulants of motor activity. This work standardised and validated a method to register the active and passive behaviours of Swiss mice during the FST in order to strength the specificity of the test. Adult male Swiss mice were subjected to the FST fo...