scholarly journals Analysis of behavioral variables across domains and skin phenotypes in zebrafish: Role of brain monoamines

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Monica Gomes Lima ◽  
Anderson Manoel Herculano ◽  
Caio Maximino
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Wild Type ◽  
Behavioral Differences ◽  
Brain Monoamines ◽  
Novel Object ◽  
General Arousal ◽  
Behavioral Variables ◽  
Cross Test

AbstractImportant neurochemical variations between strains or linages which correlate with behavioral differences have been identified in different species. Here, we report neurochemical and behavioral differences in four common zebrafish wild-type phenotypes (blue shortfin, longfin stripped, leopard and albino). Leopad zebrafish have been shown to display increased scototaxis in relation to the other strains, while both albino and leopard zebrafish show increased geotaxis. Moreover, leopard displayed increased nocifensive behavior, while albino zebrafish showed increased neophobia in the novel object task. Longfin zebrafish showed decreased turn frequency in both the novel tank and light/dark tests, and habituated faster in the novel tank, as well as displaying increased 5-HT levels. Leopard zebrafish showed decreased brain 5-HT levels and increased 5-HT turnover than other strains, and albino had increased brain DA levels. Finally, specific behavioral endpoints co-varied in terms of the behavioral and neurochemical differences between strains, identifying cross-test domains which included response to novelty, exploration-avoidance, general arousal, and activity.

scholarly journals Prostacyclin-IP signaling and prostaglandin E2-EP2/EP4 signaling both mediate joint inflammation in mouse collagen-induced arthritis

2006 ◽  
Vol 203 (2) ◽  
pp. 325-335 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tetsuya Honda ◽  
Eri Segi-Nishida ◽  
Yoshiki Miyachi ◽  
Shuh Narumiya
Keyword(s):  
Rheumatoid Arthritis ◽  
Synovial Fluid ◽  
Joint Inflammation ◽  
Synovial Fibroblasts ◽  
The Other ◽  
Receptor Subtype ◽  
Significant Suppression ◽  
Wild Type ◽  
Collagen Induced Arthritis

Prostaglandin (PG)I2 (prostacyclin [PGI]) and PGE2 are abundantly present in the synovial fluid of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients. Although the role of PGE2 in RA has been well studied, how much PGI2 contributes to RA is little known. To examine this issue, we backcrossed mice lacking the PGI receptor (IP) to the DBA/1J strain and subjected them to collagen-induced arthritis (CIA). IP-deficient (IP−/−) mice exhibited significant reduction in arthritic scores compared with wild-type (WT) mice, despite anti-collagen antibody production and complement activation similar to WT mice. IP−/− mice also showed significant reduction in contents of proinflammatory cytokines, such as interleukin (IL)-6 in arthritic paws. Consistently, the addition of an IP agonist to cultured synovial fibroblasts significantly enhanced IL-6 production and induced expression of other arthritis-related genes. On the other hand, loss or inhibition of each PGE receptor subtype alone did not affect elicitation of inflammation in CIA. However, a partial but significant suppression of CIA was achieved by the combined inhibition of EP2 and EP4. Our results show significant roles of both PGI2-IP and PGE2-EP2/EP4 signaling in the development of CIA, and suggest that inhibition of PGE2 synthesis alone may not be sufficient for suppression of RA symptoms.

scholarly journals Social Factors Influence Behavior in the Novel Object Recognition Task in a Mouse Model of Down Syndrome

2021 ◽  
Vol 15 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cesar Sierra ◽  
Ilario De Toma ◽  
Lorenzo Lo Cascio ◽  
Esteban Vegas ◽  
Mara Dierssen
Keyword(s):  
Down Syndrome ◽  
Object Recognition ◽  
Environmental Factors ◽  
Mouse Models ◽  
Recognition Task ◽  
Novel Object Recognition ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Wild Type ◽  
Male And Female ◽  
Novel Object

The use of mouse models has revolutionized the field of Down syndrome (DS), increasing our knowledge about neuropathology and helping to propose new therapies for cognitive impairment. However, concerns about the reproducibility of results in mice and their translatability to humans have become a major issue, and controlling for moderators of behavior is essential. Social and environmental factors, the experience of the researcher, and the sex and strain of the animals can all have effects on behavior, and their impact on DS mouse models has not been explored. Here we analyzed the influence of a number of social and environmental factors, usually not taken into consideration, on the behavior of male and female wild-type and trisomic mice (the Ts65Dn model) in one of the most used tests for proving drug effects on memory, the novel object recognition (NOR) test. Using principal component analysis and correlation matrices, we show that the ratio of trisomic mice in the cage, the experience of the experimenter, and the timing of the test have a differential impact on male and female and on wild-type and trisomic behavior. We conclude that although the NOR test is quite robust and less susceptible to environmental influences than expected, to obtain useful results, the phenotype expression must be contrasted against the influences of social and environmental factors.

Introduction: Religion and the Novel

2019 ◽  
pp. 3-33
Author(s):  
Christina Phillips
Keyword(s):  
Postcolonial Studies ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
Postcolonial Literature ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Religion And Literature ◽  
Religious Other ◽  
Role Of Religion ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter introduces the topic of religion and literature, theorises the novel as a secular genre, and develops a concept of religion as the other in the Arabic novel. It begins with a discussion of the relationship between religion and literature, identifying imagination, metaphorical language and mythos as areas of overlap, before turning to the question of religion and the Arabic novel as a modern form which eschews faith and dogma but is nevertheless packed with religious themes, images, characters, language and intertextuality. This is accounted for by the form’s secularism, which is theorised in terms of Charles Taylor’s conditions of belief. Literary secularism is not static and stable however, thus religion emerges as the other in the Egyptian novel, with all the ambivalence which alterity characteristically entails. This religious other calls into question postcolonial studies’ over-valorisation of the East/West binary insofar as it has obscured the critical role of religion in Arab postcolonial literature and identity.

scholarly journals Glucomannan-Mediated Attachment of Rhizobium leguminosarum to Pea Root Hairs Is Required for Competitive Nodule Infection

2008 ◽  
Vol 190 (13) ◽  
pp. 4706-4715 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan Williams ◽  
Adam Wilkinson ◽  
Martin Krehenbrink ◽  
Daniela M. Russo ◽  
Angeles Zorreguieta ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Biofilm Formation ◽  
Rhizobium Leguminosarum ◽  
Root Hairs ◽  
The Other ◽  
Plant Interactions ◽  
Wild Type ◽  
Polysaccharide Synthesis ◽  
Surface Polysaccharides

ABSTRACT The Rhizobium leguminosarum biovar viciae genome contains several genes predicted to determine surface polysaccharides. Mutants predicted to affect the initial steps of polysaccharide synthesis were identified and characterized. In addition to the known cellulose (cel) and acidic exopolysaccharide (EPS) (pss) genes, we mutated three other loci; one of these loci (gmsA) determines glucomannan synthesis and one (gelA) determines a gel-forming polysaccharide, but the role of the other locus (an exoY-like gene) was not identified. Mutants were tested for attachment and biofilm formation in vitro and on root hairs; the mutant lacking the EPS was defective for both of these characteristics, but mutation of gelA or the exoY-like gene had no effect on either type of attachment. The cellulose (celA) mutant attached and formed normal biofilms in vitro, but it did not form a biofilm on root hairs, although attachment did occur. The cellulose-dependent biofilm on root hairs appears not to be critical for nodulation, because the celA mutant competed with the wild-type for nodule infection. The glucomannan (gmsA) mutant attached and formed normal biofilms in vitro, but it was defective for attachment and biofilm formation on root hairs. Although this mutant formed nodules on peas, it was very strongly outcompeted by the wild type in mixed inoculations, showing that glucomannan is critical for competitive nodulation. The polysaccharide synthesis genes around gmsA are highly conserved among other rhizobia and agrobacteria but are absent from closely related bacteria (such as Brucella spp.) that are not normally plant associated, suggesting that these genes may play a wide role in bacterium-plant interactions.

scholarly journals STUDYING THE ARTISTIC DETAIL (based on Donna Tartt’s novel «The Goldfinch»)

2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (192) ◽  
pp. 80-84
Author(s):  
Olha Kozii ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Adult Male ◽  
Defense Mechanisms ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Main Character ◽  
Time And Space ◽  
Part D ◽  
Life And Death ◽  
Critical Situation

«The Goldfinch» is a story of a boy and later an adult male Theodore Decker who accidentally obtains a masterpiece. The writer, as a surgeon, separates one second of expectation from the other, detail from detail. The reader is presented not just a frightened child but deep sorrow of the loss of the whole world. In the second chapter of the first part D. Tartt reveals herself as a skillful psychologist, skillfully accustoms herself to the inner state of the main character, with him she travels through the memories, tracks associative relationships he makes. The writer brilliantly follows all defense mechanisms of a man who is faced with the inevitability. The author uses gradation way of describing while stringing visual and auditory details, retards artistic time. The writing of D. Tartt is characterized by the unique skill in the detail describing. The role of artistic detail in the process of inner state depicting is investigated. The author touches upon the problem of the depicting of critical situation in the novel. The attention is paid to the writer’s skills in showing main character’s feelings, memoirs, thoughts, associative relations and human nocifensor in critical situations. It is admitted that in case of such temporal and space detail the most suitable way of analysis is «in succession to the author». Thus, in the novel The Goldfinch D.Tartt declares herself a talented master of words, subtle psychologist and philosopher. As a surgeon, the writer separates one second of expectation from the other, detail from detail. Therefore, the reader can observe not just a frightened child but deep sorrow of the loss of the whole world. This is achieved by the skillful combination of visual and auditory details that create convex emotionally saturated images filled with heartbeat of life. The author dowers the main character – both a teenager and an adult man – with the ability to see deep philosophical maxims in small details, to decipher the message from the artist, to understand the dialectical interpenetration of life and death. Because of such careful author's treatment to the artistic time and space the most appropriate way to study seems to be the analysis «in succession to the author».

scholarly journals Representação e performance na literatura contemporânea

2007 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 80-93
Author(s):  
Luciene Azevedo
Keyword(s):  
Contemporary Literature ◽  
Literary Tradition ◽  
The Other ◽  
Clarice Lispector ◽  
The Novel ◽  
A Performance

Resumo: Identificando no romance A hora da estrela, de Clarice Lispector, a problematização da questão da representação do Outro, marca importante da tradição literária brasileira, o ensaio levanta a hipótese de a literatura contemporânea deslocar- se do paradigma da representação para o da performance construída sobre um precário equilíbrio entre a crítica e a reiteração de muitos preconceitos e estereótipos, desestabilização para a qual já acena o romance publicado em 1977. A ambigüidade da performance desdobra a questão da representação do Outro e abre um capítulo novo nos embates sobre o papel do escritor e da literatura.Palavras-chave: performance; representação; literatura contemporânea.Abstract: Identifying in Clarice Lispector’s novel A Hora da Estrela the discussion about the representation of the other, an important mark in the Brazilian literary tradition, the essay raises the hypothesis that contemporary literature dislocates the paradigm of representation to that of a performance constructed on a precarious balance between criticism and the reiteration of many preconceptions, to which the novel published in 1977 points. The ambiguity of the performance unfolds the question of the representation of the other and opens a new chapter by addressing the role of the writer and of literature.Keywords: performance; representation; contemporary literature.

scholarly journals Philosophical contexts in Mary Shelley’s novel «Frankenstein»

2020 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
pp. 61-66
Author(s):  
Konstantin A. Ozherelyev
Keyword(s):  
New Age ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Gothic Novel ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The One

The paper analyzes the key philosophical contexts and subtexts of M. Shelley’s most famous work “Frankenstein”. According to the author of the article, the philosophical layer of this Gothic novel consists of ideas and maxims that directly inherit the concepts of the worldview platforms of Plato, J.-J. Russo, G. W. F. Hegel, K. F. Volney, W. Godwin, M. Wollstonecraft, as well as the philosophy of the New Age and romanticism. An assumption is made, on the one hand, about the proximity of some worldview attitudes of these philosophers and the author of “Frankenstein” and, on the other hand, about the deliberate introduction of philosophical passages into the fabric of the novel, which play the role of retardation elements.

COMMODITIES, OWNERSHIP, AND THE EUSTACE DIAMONDS: THE VALUE OF FEMININITY

2010 ◽  
Vol 38 (1) ◽  
pp. 39-52 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jen Sattaur
Keyword(s):  
Moral Worth ◽  
Legal Issues ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Fictional World ◽  
Commodity Culture ◽  
Recent Commentary ◽  
Female Condition ◽  
Different Types

In an 1867 treatise on diamonds and precious stones, Harry Emanuel writes the following: [I]n the process of cutting, flaws and imperfections are often laid bare, which go much deeper than the appearance of the rough diamond would predict; and, on the other hand, the colour, apparent in the rough stone, is sometimes found to arise from the presence of flaws or specks, which are removed in cutting, thus leaving the stone white. (70) From such a description, it is easy to see the parallel to the female condition, and particularly the female condition, as it is popularly portrayed in the mid-nineteenth century. With the emphasis on purity and hidden flaws, it is not difficult to understand why the diamond could hold such symbolic significance for the female wearer, by functioning as an indicator not only of personal wealth, but of moral worth. Trollope's The Eustace Diamonds (1871), a novel which can be said to revolve around this metaphor, is essentially a novel about worth: absolute vs. transitory worth, actual vs. symbolic worth, and especially monetary vs. moral worth. Lizzie's character, the legal issues surrounding the diamonds, and the convoluted marriage arrangements which are perpetuated by or affected by the presence of the diamonds are all, in one way or another, concerned with the different types of value – moral, symbolic, monetary, etc. – placed upon commodity objects: objects which, by their very nature, can never be permanently owned, as their value lies in their exchangeability. I will return later to a discussion of the diamonds themselves. There has been considerable recent commentary on the role of commodities – whatever their worth – and of commodity culture within Trollope's novel; such readings, however, concentrate on the purely symbolic role played by commodity objects – and primarily the diamonds – in the novel; it is worth, by contrast, examining how Trollope utilizes the discourses and associations of actual commodity objects as he deploys them within his fictional world. This paper will examine the ways in which Trollope uses four commodity objects in particular – books of poetry, hunting horses, the safe box, and finally, the Eustace diamonds themselves – and the contemporary discourses surrounding them to defend the essentially mercenary character of Lizzie as a woman shaped by the demands that a commodity-driven society places upon her.

Acquiring the transitive construction in English: the role of animacy and pronouns

1998 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
pp. 605-622 ◽  
Author(s):  
KELLY DODSON ◽  
MICHAEL TOMASELLO
Keyword(s):  
Young Children ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Transitive Action ◽  
Only Children ◽  
The Third

Twenty-four children between 2;5 and 3;1 were taught two nonce verbs. Each verb was used multiple times by an adult experimenter to refer to a highly transitive action involving a mostly animate agent (including the child herself) and a patient of varying animacy. One of the verbs was modelled in the Two-Participants condition in which the experimenter said: ‘Look. Big Bird is dopping the boat’. The other verb was modelled in the No-Participant condition in which the experimenter named the Two-Participants but did not use them as arguments of the novel verb: ‘Look what Big Bird is doing to the boat. It's called keefing’. It was found that whereas many children produced transitive sentences with the Two-Participants verb, only children close to 3;0 produced transitive sentences with the No-Participant verb. This age is somewhat younger than previous studies in which young children were asked to produce transitive sentences with two lexical nouns for the two animate participants. Also, re-analyses of previously published studies in which children learned novel verbs in sentence frames without arguments found that the few transitive sentences produced by children under 2;6 involved either I or me as subject. One hypothesis is thus that as young children in the third year of life begin to construct a more abstract and verb-general transitive construction, this construction initially contains only certain types of participants expressed in only certain kinds of linguistic forms.

scholarly journals Construction and Characterization of a Derivative of Neisseria gonorrhoeae Strain MS11 Devoid of AllopaGenes

2012 ◽  
Vol 194 (23) ◽  
pp. 6468-6478 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adriana LeVan ◽  
Lindsey I. Zimmerman ◽  
Amanda C. Mahle ◽  
Karen V. Swanson ◽  
Philip DeShong ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Monoclonal Antibody ◽  
The Other ◽  
Flow Cytometry Analysis ◽  
Wild Type ◽  
Homogeneous Population ◽  
Host Cell Interactions ◽  
Strain Ms11 ◽  
Adherence Ability

ABSTRACTTo better understand the role of Opa in gonococcal infections, we created and characterized a derivative of MS11 (MS11Δopa) that had the coding sequence for all 11 Opa proteins deleted. The MS11Δopa bacterium lost the ability to bind to purified lipooligosaccharide (LOS). While nonpiliated MS11Δopa and nonpiliated Opa-expressing MS11 cells grew at the same rate, nonpiliated MS11Δopa cells rarely formed clumps of more than four bacteria when grown in broth with vigorous shaking. Using flow cytometry analysis, we demonstrated that MS11Δopa produced a homogeneous population of bacteria that failed to bind monoclonal antibody (MAb) 4B12, a MAb specific for Opa. Opa-expressing MS11 cells consisted of two predominant populations, where ∼85% bound MAb 4B12 to a significant level and the other population bound little if any MAb. Approximately 90% of bacteria isolated from a phenotypically Opa-negative colony (a colony that does not refract light) failed to bind MAb 4B12; the remaining 10% bound MAb to various degrees. Piliated MS11Δopa cells formed dispersed microcolonies on ME180 cells which were visually distinct from those of piliated Opa-expressing MS11 cells. When Opa expression was reintroduced into MS11Δopa, the adherence ability of the strain recovered to wild-type levels. These data indicate that Opa contributes to both bacterium-bacterium and bacterium-host cell interactions.

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