Sappho is Worth More Than A Discussion of Her Sexuality

Previous scholarship has overanalyzed Sappho’s object preference more than her male counterparts. By examining the historiographical analyses of Sappho, as well as the progression of ideas throughout these analyses, we can easily see what past scholars have focused on, Sappho’s sexuality, and the inherent biases they have brought to the table. Sappho is worth more than her sexuality; it is important to study Sappho’s work within her social and cultural context in order to examine how her poetry was received in her own time as well as how her writing may reflect the values of her society. The methodology we use when we approach Sappho must be altered. Rather than debating Sappho’s sexuality based on modern biases, it is important to examine the language used within her poems to understand Sappho in her own context. The goal of this article is not to analyze a different aspect of Sappho. Rather, it aims to review past literary studies to show how there has been a problematic focus on Sappho’s sexuality, and that there is more knowledge to glean regarding antiquity if such focus is set aside.

Motion fluency effects on object preference is limited to learned context

Recently, Flavell et al. (2019) demonstrated that an object’s motion fluency (how smoothly and predictably it moves) influences liking of the object itself. Though the authors demonstrated learning of object-motion associations, participants only preferred fluently associated objects over disfluently associated objects when ratings followed a moving presentation but not a stationary presentation. In the presented experiment, we tested the possibility that this apparent failure of associative learning / evaluative conditioning was due to stimulus choice. To do so we replicate part of the original work but change the ‘naturally stationary’ household object stimuli with winged insects which move in a similar way to the original motions. Though these more ecologically valid stimuli should have facilitated object to motion associations, we again found that preference effects were only apparent following moving presentations. These results confirm the potential of motion fluency for ‘in the moment’ preference change, and they demonstrate a critical boundary condition that should be considered when attempting to generalise fluency effects across contexts such as in advertising or behavioural interventions.

Actualization of Existing Experience and Features of Subsequent Learning

The article presents data on the study of neurogenetic changes in the rat brain and the features of performing various behavioral acts during acquisition of a food-acquisition skill, depending on the actualization of the previously acquired skill. The experiments involved 13 animals who were successively trained in the following behaviors: new context in the open field test, new objects in the object preference test, drinking behavior using a vibrissal pad, and food-acquisition behavior of pressing the pedal. It turned out that the nature of motor activity and the severity of neurogenetic changes during learning a new skill in individuals who immediately before this training occurred short-term actualization of the experience formed at one of the previous stages of training, significantly differed from the same parameters in individuals who did not have such actualization. It is suggested that the actualization of previously formed experience before new training contributes to the formation of a new component of experience, but not in the sense of accelerating the formation of new behavior, but in the aspect of increasing the number of active neurons that change the expression of their genes.

d-Lysergic acid diethylamide has major potential as a cognitive enhancer

Psychedelic agonists of serotonin receptors induce neural plasticity and synaptogenesis, but their potential to enhance learning remains uncharted. Here we show that a single dose of d-LSD, a potent serotonergic agonist, increased novel object preference in young and adult rats several days after treatment. d-LSD alone did not increase preference in old animals, but could rescue it to young levels when followed by a 6-day exposure to enriched environment (EE). Mass spectrometry-based proteomics in human brain organoids treated with d-LSD showed upregulation of proteins from the presynaptic active zone. A computational model of synaptic connectivity in the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex suggests that d-LSD enhances novelty preference by combining local synaptic changes in mnemonic and executive regions, with alterations of long-range synapses. Better pattern separation within EE explained its synergy with d-LSD in rescuing novelty preference in old animals. These results advance the use of d-LSD in cognitive enhancement.

Early-life sleep disruption increases parvalbumin in primary somatosensory cortex and impairs social bonding in prairie voles

Across mammals, juveniles sleep more than adults, with rapid eye movement (REM) sleep at a lifetime maximum early in life. One function of REM sleep may be to facilitate brain development of complex behaviors. Here, we applied 1 week of early-life sleep disruption (ELSD) in prairie voles (Microtus ochrogaster), a highly social rodent species that forms lifelong pair bonds. Electroencephalographic recordings from juvenile voles during ELSD revealed decreased REM sleep and reduced γ power compared to baseline. ELSD impaired pair bond formation and altered object preference in adulthood. Furthermore, ELSD increased GABAergic parvalbumin immunoreactivity in the primary somatosensory cortex in adulthood, a brain region relevant to both affected behaviors. We propose that, early in life, sleep is crucial for tuning inhibitory neural circuits and the development of species-typical affiliative social behavior.