Pets can be loyal, loving, and entertaining members of a family. Their deaths are generally experienced as painful losses by the people who love them, even though the grief experience is often culturally disenfranchised. In this manuscript, we discuss the role that pets can play in a person's life; the effects that pet loss can have on the people…

Brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) is a potent modulator of synaptic transmission and plasticity in the CNS, acting both pre- and postsynaptically. We demonstrated recently that BDNF/TrkB signaling increases dendritic spine density in hippocampal CA1 pyramidal neurons. Here, we tested whether activation of the prominent ERK (MAPK) signaling…

This study examines whether or not habituation contributes to the regulation of the inhibition of predatory behavior observed during the "prawn-in-the-tube" training procedure. When presented with prawns that are visible behind glass but untouchable, cuttlefish promptly learn to inhibit their capture attempts. The first three experiments…

Neural integration of glutamate- and dopamine-coded signals within the nucleus accumbens (NAc) is a fundamental process governing cellular plasticity underlying reward-related learning. Intra-NAc core blockade of NMDA or D1 receptors in rats impairs instrumental learning (lever-pressing for sugar pellets), but it is not known during which phase of…

"Aplysia" motoneurons cocultured with a presynaptic sensory neuron exhibit homosynaptic depression when stimulated at low frequencies. A single bath application of serotonin (5HT) leads within seconds to facilitation of the depressed synapse. The facilitation is attributed to mobilization of neurotransmitter-containing vesicles from a…

Extensive evidence indicates that the insular cortex (IC), also termed gustatory cortex, is critically involved in conditioned taste aversion and taste recognition memory. Although most studies of the involvement of the IC in memory have investigated taste, there is some evidence that the IC is involved in memory that is not based on taste. In…

The Enlightenment rejection of the Cartesian mechanistic understanding of animals was accompanied by a (re)new(ed) anti-cruelty sentiment. Compassion, however, fell victim to the triumph of reason leading Western culture toward an era of cruelty to animals on an unprecedented scale. What was absent in Enlightenment thought, even among proponents…

In this paper, the author makes a case for why stories are important for learning: why they can provide the conditions to listen to the expelled voices, otherwise drowned even by those who are left leaning, and how they can challenge some political premises. She proposes that art and narrative are resources for political imagination and for…

Six male Sprague-Dawley rats were used to examine the long-term retention of an olfactory discrimination learning set. Rats were trained on 30 odor-unique, 5-trial discrimination problems, transferred to an olfactory discrimination reversal task, and then given a 6-week break in training. The rats demonstrated use of a learning set by performing…

Six experimentally naive rhesus monkeys produced 0.01 mg/kg/infusion cocaine by lever pressing under a tandem fixed-ratio 1 differential-reinforcement-of-other- behavior schedule. One lever press initiated an unsignaled 15- or 30-s delay culminating in cocaine delivery. Each press made during the delay reset the delay interval. With two…

Several researchers have suggested that conditioning history may have long-term effects on fixed-interval performances of rats. To test this idea and to identify possible factors involved in temporal control development, groups of rats initially were exposed to different reinforcement schedules: continuous, fixed-time, and random-interval.…

It is well documented that people are less interested in studying plants than animals. We tested whether university students would selectively recall more animal images than plant images even when equally-nameable plant and animal images were presented for equal lengths of time. Animal and plant images were pre-tested and 14 animal-plant pairs…

This study examined the use of form and function analogy object boxes to teach second graders (n = 21) animal adaptations. The study used a pretest-posttest design to examine animal adaptation content learned through focused analogy activities as compared with reading and Internet searches for information about adaptations of animals followed by…

Adult learning and memory functions are strongly dependent on neonatal experiences. We recently showed that neonatal odor-shock learning attenuates later life odor fear conditioning and amygdala activity. In the present work we investigated whether changes observed in adults can also be observed in other structures normally involved, namely…

The New 7 Wonders of the World organization announced a shiny new list of the world's premier candidates. The people behind "Exceptional Parent" (EP) magazine were intrigued and inspired by the New 7 Wonders undertaking, and it started them thinking. If they had to name the 7 Wonders of the World of Disabilities, what or who would they…