Dopamine plays a key role in motivation. Phasic dopamine response reflects a reinforcement prediction error (RPE), whereas tonic dopamine activity is postulated to represent an average reward that mediates motivational vigor. However, it has been hard to find evidence concerning the neural encoding of average reward that is uncorrupted by influences of RPEs. We circumvented this difficulty in a...

influences on viability and germination of seeds have been studied intensively for many years, particularly for the numer-ous commercially important agricultural, ornamental, and timber species. high germinating seed lots may differ substantially in field emergence when sown at the same time in the same field, and/or may differ in performance after storage in the same environment or transport t...

Seedling vigor is an important agricultural trait as direct-seeded rice technology becomes widely applied. In order to investigate the genetic mechanisms underlying seedling vigor in rice, seeds of 132 recombinant inbred lines (RILs) derived from 93-11 and PA64s, harvested from Lingshui and Hangzhou were cultivated in the nutrient solution, and four indices for seedling vigor were measured incl...

Fractal symmetry is symmetry across scale. If one looks at a branch of a tree its branching pattern is reminiscent of the tree as a whole. Plants exhibit a number of different symmetries, including bilateral, rotational, translational, and fractal; deviations from each of these types has been associated with organisms developing in stressful environments. Here, we explore the utilization and me...

The controversy over the cardiovascular risks of cox-2 inhibitors stems from 2 main trials: VIGOR and CLASS. These two trials were designed to assess the gastrointestinal safety of rofecoxib (Vioxx) and celecoxib (Celebrex), respectively. From these trials, it was observed that the cox-2 inhibitors had a higher number of cardiovascular events than the NSAIDS that they were paired against. For e...

Experiential negative symptoms-including diminished motivation-have a profound impact on functional outcomes in schizophrenia. Animal research suggests that abnormalities in dopaminergic regulation can negatively impact effort exertion, a translational model that has been applied to individuals with schizophrenia. Paradigms that assess effort-based decision making, for example, suggest less lik...

To investigate wild and domesticated Mediterranean annual reproductive strategies, common garden comparisons of Old World lupins collected along aridity gradients were initiated. These are excellent candidates for ecophysiology, being widely distributed across contrasting environments, having distinct domestication histories, from ancient Lupinus albus to recently domesticated Lupinus angustifo...

We investigated the correlation between mood and heart rate variability (HRV) indices during daily life. The RR-interval and body acceleration of 40 normal male subjects were recorded using ambulatory device for 48 to 72 hours. Every hour that the subjects were awake they registered their current mood on a Visual Analogue Scale questionnaire. The questionnaire scales eight of the subjects’ curr...