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PubMed1986

Drosophila mutations that alter ionic conduction disrupt acquisition and retention of a conditioned odor avoidance response.

We have previously found that genetic alterations in neuronal ion channel function have specific effects on learning and memory of a conditioned courtship behavior in Drosophila. Using a behavioral assay of conditioned odor avoidance, we report here that shaker mutants, in which potassium-channel function is abnormal, are defective in both their rate and maximum level of acquisition when compared to wild-type flies. napts (no action potential, temperature sensitive) mutants, in which nerve excitability is decreased due to faulty sodium-channel function, can achieve a normal (wild-type) level of learning, but the rate of acquisition is reduced. Neither the shaker nor the napts mutations affect memory decay following rest periods greater than 30 min. However, memory may decay more rapidly in both shaker and napts flies during the initial 30-min period following training. These results suggest that neuronal sodium- and potassium-channel function may be of general importance to the processes of acquisition and short-term memory in Drosophila.

Animals↗
PubMed1991

Drosophila ebony mutants have altered circadian activity rhythms but normal eclosion rhythms.

Drosophila ebony mutants exhibit a syndrome of morphological and behavioral phenotypes that include an abnormally dark body color and defects in visual and courtship responses. We now show that mutants carrying any one of five ebony alleles display complex and variable locomotor activity rhythms. Although in the most extreme cases activity is essentially aperiodic, many individuals express short- and/or long-period activity components. Three different ebony mutants (e, e1, and e11) express free-running rhythmicity in a temperature-dependent manner; activity rhythms are robust at 28 degrees C, but weak or absent at 20 degrees C. Even while maintained in a light-dark (LD) cycle, ebony homozygotes characteristically display extremely disorganized patterns of activity; some individuals entrain with an apparently abnormal phase and/or express multiple rhythmic components. Interestingly, the visual system mutation norpA partially suppresses effects of the e1 allele, which suggests that aberrant visual system inputs might contribute to the rhythm deficits of ebony mutants. In contrast to their effects on the locomotor activity rhythm, ebony mutations have no apparent impact on the circadian rhythm of adult eclosion, and thus exert rhythm-specific effects on circadian periodicity.

Activity Cycles↗
PubMed1995

Behavioral and pheromonal phenotypes associated with expression of loss-of-function mutations in the sex-lethal gene of Drosophila melanogaster.

We have shown that female-specific functions of the sex determination gene Sex-lethal (Sxl) regulate sexual behavior and synthesis of the three major sex pheromones that have been identified in normal, sexually mature Drosophilia melanogaster males and virgin females. Diplo-X flies, heterozygous in trans for two partial loss-of-function Sxl mutations, elicit less courtship than normal females and produce large quantities of the inhibitory pheromones that normal males synthesize. In addition, the mutant flies fail to synthesize the female-predominant aphrodisiac pheromone or make very small quantities of this compound.

Animals↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Pre-marital HIV testing in couples from faith-based organisations: experience in Port Harcourt, Nigeria.

BACKGROUND: This descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted among prospective couples referred from Faith-Based Organisations in Port Harcourt, Nigeria for pre-marital HIV screening. The study sought to establish the sero-prevalence of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) in this peculiar study group. METHODS: A total of 84 healthy heterosexual couples who required pre-marital HIV screening were tested between January 2000 and December 2003 using a Double ELISA confirmatory test of Immunocomb and Genscreen HIV I&II Kits. RESULTS: Amongst the 168 individuals tested, 35 (20.8%) were found positive. Seroprevalence was significantly higher among females 23 (27.4%) compared to males 12 (14.3%). Infection rate was highest in the 25-29 years group (29.7%, n=22) and lowest in those of 35-39 years (6.1 %, n=2), though this difference was not statistically significant (p-value=0.058). Infection rate was significantly higher among females (p-value=0.036); among prospective couples from Orthodox churches (p-value=0.021); couples with prolonged courtship (>6 months) (p-value=0.0001); couples with history of premarital sex (p-value=0.0001); and couples with history of cohabitation (p-value=0.0001). CONCLUSION: Our findings prompt a wake-up call for faith-based organizations (FBOs) to urgently initiate or be more receptive of measures that emphasize behavioural and social changes amongst members. Government and non-governmental organizations should organise capacity building training for religious based organizations to enable them cope with the challenges of HIV/AIDS. The outcomes of this study further underscores the value of voluntary counselling and confidential HIV testing and especially pre- and post-test counselling as the basis of pre-marital HIV testing.

AIDS Serodiagnosis↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Alleviating gender role strain in adult men with traumatic brain injury: an evaluation of a set of guidelines for occupational therapy.

OBJECTIVE: A set of guidelines to assist men with traumatic brain injury (TBI) to alleviate gender role strain was assessed to determine its effectiveness and acceptability to participants. METHOD: Four adult male participants with TBI received the intervention (the set of guidelines) for 4 months. The intervention consisted of rebuilding self-identified gendered social roles and activities. Focused interviews and participant observation were used to determine whether gender role strain changed after intervention. RESULTS: The participants reported that the intervention enabled them to (a) enhance their gender role satisfaction through newly rebuilt roles and activities, (b) attain certain long-held personal goals, (c) feel more like members of society, (d) perceive a greater congruency between their internal self-images and external postinjury roles, (e) learn more about personal skills and values as men, (f) feel more comfortable using help-seeking behaviors, (g) feel a sense of shared experience and affinity, (h) feel more understood and accepted, and (i) contribute to others through community member roles. DISCUSSION: The set of guidelines for alleviating gender role strain was effective in assisting these participants to enhance their gender role satisfaction through rebuilding desired male-gendered social roles and activities. Dating, courtship, extended family member, community member, friend, and mentor-protege roles, lost as a result of TBI, were rebuilt through gender-neutral activities that facilitated a sense of volitional control, competency, and normalcy. Nonetheless, the men continued to lack desired rites of passage leading from male adolescence to adulthood.

Adult↗
PubMed1982

Avian pox in birds from Trinidad.

Over a 7-year period in Trinidad, 9,514 birds were examined for avian pox and four species were found infected: the golden-headed manakin, Pipra erythrocephala (7% infected), the white-bearded manakin, Manacus manacus (5%), the violaceous euphonia Euphonia violacea (1%), and the bare-eyed thrush, Turdus nudigenis (less than 1%). The elaborate courtship displays of manakins may have a bearing on a "common source" type of infection. The apparently abrupt appearance of the disease at three localities in Trinidad in 1964 perhaps indicates introduction of the virus by migratory birds.

Animal Population Groups↗
PubMed2002

Temporal encoding for auditory computation: physiology of primary afferent neurons in sound-producing fish.

Many fish rely on sounds for communication, yet the peripheral structures containing the hair cells are simple, without the morphological specializations that facilitate frequency analysis in the mammalian cochlea. Despite this, neurons in the midbrain of sound-producing fish (Pollimyrus) have complex receptive fields, extracting features from courtship sounds. Here we present an analysis of the initial encoding of sounds by the primary afferents and demonstrate that the representation of sound undergoes a substantial transformation as it ascends to the midbrain. Afferents were isolated as they coursed from the sacculus through the medulla. Tones (100 Hz-1.2 kHz) elicited synchronized spikes [vector strength (VS) >0.9] on each stimulus cycle [coefficient of variation (CV) <1.1], with little spike rate adaptation. Most afferents (67%) were spontaneously active and began synchronizing 10 dB below rate threshold. Rate thresholds for the most sensitive afferents (65 dB) were close to behavioral thresholds. The distribution of characteristic frequencies and best sensitivities was matched to the spectrum of sounds of this species and to its audiogram. Three clusters of afferents were identified, one including afferents that generated spike bursts and had v-shaped response areas (bursters), and two others that included entrained afferents with broad response areas (entrained types I and II). All afferents encoded the timing of clicks within click trains with time-locked spikes, and none showed selectivity for interclick intervals. Understanding the computations that yield complex receptive fields is an essential goal for auditory neuroscience, and these data on primary encoding advance this goal, allowing a comparison of inputs with feature-extracting midbrain neurons.

Acoustic Stimulation↗
PubMed1995

Open or closed staff?

A competent medical contract lawyer should always review any contract prior to your signing. Physicians often rush into a contract under the press of the moment and the good behavior of all parties during the initial courtship phase. Situations can become very nasty during the termination phases of a contract, and you should have researched potential termination scenarios long before they become a reality. Every contract should have a strong non-compete clause clearly written into it. If your potential partner refuses to sign a contract with a strong non-compete clause in it, you may rest assured that this individual may have already coveted your position in the center. As a radiation oncologist, your best protection is to have some type of equity ownership and therefore a voice in the administration and direction of a freestanding center. This will give you the greatest possible security in terms of control over staffing, billing and managerial matters.

Contract Services↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Acing the 'chemistry' test.

With the right boss, you can go far and learn much. The wrong boss could actually slow or even stall your executive career. When you interview for a job, you're also interviewing for a boss--and it's in your own interest to try to find the individual who is the best possible fit with your own management style. This is a matching process--not quite a courtship, but with some of the same characteristics. What can you do to ensure a good match with your new boss? (1) Do your homework; (2) Make your interview a dialog; (3) Use subtle strategies, too, such as watching for body language; (4) Ask the employer for references; and (5) Know yourself.

Career Mobility↗
PubMedDate not supplied

[The regulation of male sexual behavior by the sex hormones].

The article provides a review of the clinical and experimental data, both published and the author's own observations. They demonstrate that the hormone regulation of sex behaviour takes place at the central and the peripheral levels. The major role is played by androgenes, of which testosterone is the main regulator of sex appeal (libido, courtship behaviour in animals), while the most important regulator of ejaculation, in particular, of the time of ejaculation, is the non-aromatized androgene dihydrotestosterone (DHT). There is no rigid correlation between the level of sex activity and the level of androgenes, if the latter are within the normal individual and physiological range. However, both in case of hypo- and hyperendrogeny, the observations indicate depression of sexuality, though the mechanism of the depression are different. The author established the optimal levels of androgenes, which maintain the individual elements of the sexual act. The role of estrogene in regulation of the male sex appeal is not yet clear. As a rule, use of estrogenes results in depression of the male sexuality. At the same time, combination of DHT and estradiole (in laboratory and productive animals) leads to normalisation of erection and ejaculation disorders. These result is, probably, due to the central effect of estrogene, which prolongs the DHT effect and censures its accelerated penetration into cellular neuronal structures, as well as to the peripheral effect of DHT.

Androgens↗
PubMed1999

Age-dependent changes in memory and mushroom bodies in the Drosophila mutant vermilion deficient in the kynurenine pathway of tryptophan metabolism.

Evolutionary conservation of homologous genes that cause related phenotypes in humans and Drosophila help to unravel genes implicated in polygenic human diseases. Among them are neurodegenerative disorders, such as Huntington, Parkinson, Alzheimer and HIV-induced diseases. They are characterized by a late onset disturbances of memory, changes in volumetric indices of the brain structures involved in memory formation, synaptic and glial pathology, and altered content of the intermediates of the kynurenine pathway, the endogenous modulators of the NMDA receptors. This pathway in conserved in insects, rodents and humans. We, therefore, studied the effects of aberrant tryptophan metabolism on memory, brain plasticity, synaptic and glial immunoreactivity in the Drosophila mutants vermilion (no kynurenines) and cinnabar (excess of neuroprotective kynurenic acid) over the life time. The mutant vermilion demonstrated gradual decline of 3-th memory performance and complete memory failure on the 28th day of life in a paradigm of conditioned courtship suppression. A drastic increase in the volume of the calyces of the mushroom bodies, and a decay in immunochemical staining of this brain structure with antibodies to synaptic protein csp and glia, precede the age-dependent memory defect and develop from the 12th day of adult life.

Aging↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Drosophila mushroom bodies are dispensable for visual, tactile, and motor learning.

A total of 18 associative learning/memory tests have been applied to Drosophila melanogaster flies lacking mushroom bodies. Only in paradigms involving chemosensory cues as conditioned stimuli have flies been found to be compromised by a block in the mushroom body pathway. Among the learning tasks not requiring these structures are a case of motor learning (yaw torque/heat), a test of the fly's spatial orientation in total darkness, conditioned courtship suppression by mated females, and nine different examples of visual learning. The latter used the reinforcers of heat, visual oscillations, mechanical shaking, or sucrose, and as conditioned stimuli, color, intensity contrast, as well as stationary and moving visual patterns. No forms of consolidated memory have been tested in mushroom body-less flies. With respect to short-term memory the mushroom bodies of Drosophila are specially required for chemosensory learning tasks, but not for associative learning and memory in general.

Animals↗
PubMed1999

Prolactin opens the sensitive period for androgen regulation of a larynx-specific myosin heavy chain gene.

The larynx of Xenopus laevis is a sexually differentiated vocal organ in which male muscle is entirely fast twitch and expresses high levels of a fast twitch myosin heavy chain gene, LM. Female muscle, however, is mostly slow twitch and expresses little LM. Androgen is unable to induce expression of LM until after metamorphosis is complete. The expression of LM during metamorphic and early postmetamorphic development parallels secretion and expression of the pituitary hormone prolactin. Here, we show that exposure to prolactin is necessary to allow androgen-induced LM expression in postmetamorphic froglets. In prolactin-deprived animals, androgen-induced changes in the contractile properties of laryngeal muscle are blocked, which prevents the rapid rates of muscle contraction required for males to produce courtship songs. Thus, prolactin opens the sensitive period for androgen-induced LM expression in the larynx and controls the ability of male sex hormones to masculinize the vocal system both at the level of gene expression and vocal organ physiology.

Androgens↗
PubMed1999

Olfactory bulbectomy-induced changes in the reproductive behaviour of the south Indian gerbil, Tatera indica cuvieri.

Male South Indian gerbils (T. indica cuvieri), both adults and weanlings, were olfactory bulbectomized (OBX) and changes in male reproductive behaviour were assessed. Consequent to OBX, majority of the adult males failed to ejaculate, and courtship behaviour has also been considerably reduced. All OBX weanlings were rendered incapable of ejaculation. However, maturational parameters, and organ weights (testes, epididymis and seminal vesicle) remained unchanged in OBX males.

Animals↗
PubMed1999

Sexual behaviour of rams: male orientation and its endocrine correlates.

The components of heterosexual behaviour in rams are reviewed as a basis for understanding partner preference behaviour. A small percentage of rams will not mate with oestrous females and if given a choice will display courtship behaviour towards another ram in preference to a female. Some of the endocrine profiles of these male-oriented rams differ from those of heterosexual controls. These differences include reduced serum concentrations of testosterone, oestradiol and oestrone, reduced capacity to produce testosterone in vitro, and reduced capacity to aromatize androgens in the preoptic-anterior hypothalamus of the brain. Our observation that aromatase activity is significantly lower in the preoptic-anterior hypothalamic area of male-oriented rams than in female-oriented rams may indicate an important neurochemical link to sexual behaviour that should be investigated. The defect in steroid hormone production by the adult testes of the male-oriented ram may represent a defect that can be traced to the fetal testes. If this contention is correct, partner preference behaviour of rams may also be traceable to fetal development and represent a phenomenon of sexual differentiation.

Animals↗
PubMedDate not supplied

[The participation of GFAD-synthesizing neurons in behavior regulation in the snail (Helix lucorum L.)].

It was shown earlier that some neurons in Helix CNS express the mRNA of the precursor of neuropeptide GFAD. Using the data obtained with the help of the whole-mount in situ hybridization, we tried to identify a group of such neurons, namely, the pedal caudo-ventral group and to determine their possible functions. The local extracellular stimulation of the pedal caudo-ventral group resulted in movements of reproductive organs in the semi-intact preparation and suppressed the activity of the modulatory neurons controlling feeding and defensive behavior. Application of synthetic peptide GFAD (10(-8) mol/l) also activated movements of the reproductive organs and suppressed the activity of the modulatory neuron controlling feeding behavior. Stimulation of the labial nerves resulted in suppression of caudo-ventral neurons with simultaneous activation of the modulatory neuron controlling feeding behavior. The obtained evidence suggests that the caudo-ventral neurons can regulate movements of the reproductive organs and also coordinate different functions in realization of the integral sexual behavior. This group of neurons inhibits the modulatory neurons controlling the forms of behavior incompatible with courtship, i.e., feeding and defensive forms.

Animals↗
PubMed2000

Neuromodulatory effects of gonadotropin releasing hormone on olfactory receptor neurons.

The terminal nerve is an anterior cranial nerve that innervates the lamina propria of the chemosensory epithelia of the nasal cavity. The function of the terminal nerve is ambiguous, but it has been suggested to serve a neuromodulatory role. We tested this hypothesis by exposing olfactory receptor neurons from mudpuppies (Necturus maculosus) to a peptide, gonadotropin releasing hormone (GnRH), that is found in cells and fibers of the terminal nerve. We used voltage-clamped whole-cell recordings to examine the effects of 0. 5-50 micrometer GnRH on voltage-activated currents in olfactory receptor neurons from epithelial slices. We found that GnRH increases the magnitude, but does not alter the kinetics, of a tetrodotoxin-sensitive inward current. This increase in magnitude generally begins 5-10 min after initial exposure to GnRH, is sustained for at least 60 min during GnRH exposure, and recovers to baseline within 5 min after GnRH is washed off. This effect occurred in almost 60% of the total number of olfactory receptor neurons examined and appeared to be seasonal: approximately 67% of neurons responded to GnRH during the courtship and mating season, compared with approximately 33% during the summer, when the sexes separate. GnRH also appears to alter an outward current in the same cells. Taken together, these data suggest that GnRH increases the excitability of olfactory receptor neurons and that the terminal nerve functions to modulate the odorant sensitivity of olfactory receptor neurons.

Animals↗
PubMed2000

[Molecular genetics of satori, a Drosophila mutant with altered sexual orientation].

satori (sat) is a Drosophila mutant in which male sexual orientation changes from heterosexual to homosexual. Another phenotype of the satori mutant is the absence of the male-specific muscle of Lawrence (MOL). The formation of MOL is repressed in females by the action of a female-determinant protein. Transformer (Tra), while a Tra-target doublesex (dsx) has no role in the MOL formation. Molecular cloning of the fruitless (fru) gene responsible for the sat mutation revealed that it encodes a putative transcription factor with a BTB domain and Zn finger motifs, and that the second exon of this gene contains three repeats of the Tra-binding consensus sequence. These observations suggest that fru is a novel target of Tra in the sex determination cascade of Drosophila. MOL formation is known to occur when the sex of the innervating motoneuron is male regardless of the sex of the MOL itself. Taking into account the fact that Fru is preferentially expressed in the nervous system, Fru is likely involved in neuronal sex determination. We hypothesize that the sat mutation feminizes a class of neurons which otherwise promote heterosexual courtship and the formation of the MOL in males.

Animals↗