Progress in neuro-psychopharmacology & biological psychiatry
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Prog. Neuropsychopharmacol. Biol. Psychiatry · Oct 2002
Dopamine D1 and D2 receptor mRNA up-regulation in the caudate-putamen and nucleus accumbens of rat brains by smoking.
Nicotine, the toxic substance that is exclusively absorbed from smoking, produces a wide array of behavior and collectively propels drug-seeking behaviors when abused. The neurotransmitter dopamine (DA) is important in the reward and reinforcing properties of many addictive drugs: however, the effect of nicotine by cigarette smoking itself on the expression of DA receptors in the caudate-putamen (CPu), nucleus accumbens (NAc) and olfactory tubercle (OTu) has not been elucidated completely. Hence, the effects of smoking and nicotine on DA receptors need to be defined. ⋯ These results suggest that smoking and nicotine administration both influence DA receptor mRNAs in the CPu, NAc and OTu, in terms of up-regulation. The up-regulation was much more evident in the smoking group than in the nicotine group. In conclusion, we believe that smoking up-regulate the DA receptor mRNA expression significantly higher in rat CPu and NAc than nicotine but only a little bit higher in OTu.
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Prog. Neuropsychopharmacol. Biol. Psychiatry · Feb 2002
Ibogaine interferes with motivational and somatic effects of naloxone-precipitated withdrawal from acutely administered morphine.
It has been reported that ibogaine interferes with somatic withdrawal reactions in rats chronically treated with morphine. The present experiments demonstrated that ibogaine also interferes with motivational withdrawal reactions and somatic withdrawal reactions in rats treated with morphine on only two occasions. ⋯ In two experiments, ibogaine interfered with naloxone-precipitated withdrawal. In Experiment 1, ibogaine-treated rats displayed a weaker aversion to the withdrawal-paired chamber, and in Experiment 2, ibogaine-treated rats displayed fewer somatic withdrawal reactions than did saline treated rats.
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Prog. Neuropsychopharmacol. Biol. Psychiatry · Jan 2002
ReviewEvolutionary psychiatry. Adaptationist and nonadaptationist conceptualizations.
Darwin's theory of evolution, and in particular one of its mechanisms, natural selection, is being used as the explanatory cornerstone of many unsolved problems in human biology and human affairs. Psychiatry is an example of that. Darwinian psychiatry's main proponents endorse the adaptationist program to carry out their project to implement an evolutionary psychiatry. ⋯ The other mistake is biological; it is their belief that adaptation is the driving force of evolution while in fact it is just an outcome of evolution. The current status of the controversy between cognitive versus emotional experiences as essentially independent is reviewed, and evidence is presented, that they cannot be considered platonic, categorically independent functions of CNSs. These data, taken together, plus arguments derived from the high degree of plasticity of nervous systems, lead us to suggest a different approach to classification of mental diseases.
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Prog. Neuropsychopharmacol. Biol. Psychiatry · Apr 1999
Representations of knowledge about dominoes in demented and normal elderly players.
1. Dementia patients who retain musical and game-playing skills exhibit impaired performance on explicit memory tests of knowledge about their retained skill. 2. Dementia patients who retain skill at playing dominoes can answer complex questions about the play of the game almost as well as normal elderly domino players when the questions are presented with real dominoes. 3. ⋯ Fourteen of the 17 patients and all of the controls showed no decline in answering questions about domino play when two-dimensional drawings were used. These patients showed retained symbolic processing of information about dominoes despite declines in overall mental status, generation of words from specific semantic categories, and recognition memory for domino terminology. 6. Because the 14 patients with retained domino skill performed as accurately as controls on both administrations of a letter cancellation task, the ability to process familiar symbols may be important to their game-playing skill.