Search PubMed⌕ Search

Biomedical subjects

M A Persinger

Publications and source records attributed to M A Persinger.

At least 289 records · Page 16Linked to original sources
PubMed1978

No evidence for relationship between biorhythms and industrial accidents.

According to the popular biorhythm model accidents are more likely to occur during the "critical days" of three sine wave-like cycles that display periodicities of 23 days, 28 days, and 33 days. Analyses of 400 mining accidents from two separate industries demonstrated that the number of employees who were involved with accidents on their individual critical days of the different cycles did not differ significantly from chance expectancy. Furthermore the number of employees involved in accidents when their cycles were in ascending phases (presumably associated with positive behaviors) did not differ significantly from the number of employees who were involved in accidents when their cycles were in the descending phases, presumably associated with negative behaviors. We have found neither empirical nor theoretical support for the biorhythm model.

Accidents, Occupational↗
PubMed1976

Oral taurine effects on inhibitory behavior: response transients to step-like schedule changes.

Rats habituated to DRL 6-s schedules that required response inhibition in order to obtain reward did not alter their total responses or efficiency ratios (response/reinforcement) when placed ad libitum (orally) on 0.9% taurine (1.1 +/- 0.4 g/kg/24-h) relative to controls. In three separate experiments, taurine-administerd rats did show significantly poorer adjustment profiles (higher response/reinforcement ratios) during the 15 min immediately following step-like increases in inhibition time demand to DRL 12 s. The effect was transient and was not signficant in subsequent sessions. Taurine rats had been habituated to a DRL schedule intended to induce "frustration" before and step-change did not differ from the taurine group maintained on the normal DRL schedule. No significant differences were noted between taurine and control groups, either before or after taurine administration or before or after the step-change in inhibition demand, with respect to defecation in the test chamber, daily fluid consumption, body weight or total responses. We concluded that oral taurine may inhibit learning during labile periods of adjustment following sudden changes of input demand but does not influence a well learned or established response pattern. These results imply taurine's role in the brain as a "stabilizer" against short-term input fluctuations.

Animals↗
PubMed1976

Weak inhibitory behavioral effects of postnatal! preweaning taurine injections in rats.

The behavior of rats injected once every 2 days between Postnatal Days 4 and 20 with 62.5 mug/g or 125 mug/g body weight of taurine was compared with saline- or .5 M NaCl-injected litter-mate controls. Taurine-injected rats ran significantly less in the running wheel test and displayed lower response/reinforcement ratios following step-like changes in DRL reinforcement schedules. The quicker adjustments to the changes in DRL schedules did not occur immediately but during sessions following the change. We concluded that taurine administration during early juvenile development could weakly influence adult inhibitory behavior.

Animals↗
PubMed1972

Lever attacking by rats during free-operant avoidance.

Rats pressed a lever to avoid shock on a free-operant avoidance schedule. Some subjects were also exposed to extinction in which the response-shock contingency was eliminated while the shock-shock contingency remained in effect. A specially constructed lever was used that registered not only presses, but also biting attacks on the lever. Throughout various phases of the study, shocks often elicited lever biting as well as post-shock responding. The results suggested that shock-elicited attacks that are forceful enough to activate the operandum might account for some of the responding that occurs in experiments on free-operant avoidance behavior. In particular, shock-elicited operandum attacking might account for post-shock response bursting during free-operant avoidance and the extreme persistence of responding sometimes noted when shocks are delivered during the extinction of avoidance behavior. To the extent that this is true, these phenomena should not be characterized as operant behavior in interpreting the results of experiments on free operant avoidance.

Journal Article↗