Drug and Alcohol Dependence
February 9, 2010
Joanna S Zeiger, Brett C Haberstick, Robin P Corley et al.
Introduction: Marijuana is the most commonly used illicit drug among adolescents. Marijuana use induces both psychological and physiological responses, which can be interpreted by an individual in a variety of ways (i.e. subjective effects). We have examined subjective effects in adolescent, young adult community, and clinical populations to determine how patterns of use may be predicted by an...
Psychopathology
February 9, 2010
S.B. Unnithan, J.C. Cutting
Eighteen patients admitted to a drug dependency unit for opiate detoxification and who had recently used cocaine were asked to describe the experience based on a questionnaire. A comparison was made with 18 schizophrenic patients who completed the same questionnaire. Results showed a qualitative difference in the subjective phenomena described by the two groups. There appeared to be certain...
Cortex; a journal devoted to the study of the nervous system and behavior
February 2010
Ilaria Berteletti, Edward M. Hubbard, Marco Zorzi
A fundamental question in the study of consciousness is the connection between subjective report and objective measures. We explored this question by testing NM, a grapheme-color synesthete, who experiences colors when viewing digits but not dot patterns. Synesthesia research has traditionally used variants of the Stroop paradigm as an objective correlate of these subjective synesthetic...
Journal of Neurochemistry
February 2010
Ni Fan, Hongwei Yang, Jian Zhang et al.
Chronic use of marijuana impairs synaptic plasticity and cognitive function. However, the molecular mechanisms by which marijuana alters long-term synaptic plasticity are largely unknown. Here, we show that repeated in vivo exposures to Delta9-THC for 7 consecutive days significantly impaired hippocampal long-term potentiation (LTP) of excitatory glutamatergic synaptic transmission. The...
Neuropharmacology
February 2010
Yan Xia, Cheng Z Wang, Jie Liu et al.
Phencyclidine is an N-methyl d-aspartate receptor (NMDAR) blocker that has been reported to induce neuronal apoptosis during development and schizophrenia-like behaviors in rats later in life. Brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) has been shown to prevent neuronal death caused by NMDAR blockade, but the precise mechanism is unknown. This study examined the role of the phosphatidylinositol-3...
Neuroscience Letters
January 29, 2010
Alejandra Arias-Cavieres, Carlos Rozas, Miguel Reyes-Parada et al.
3,4-Methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA), an important recreational psychostimulant drug, was examined for its ability to alter visuo-spatial learning and synaptic plasticity. Young rats received MDMA (0.2 and 2mg/kg s.c.) twice per day for 6 days while their visuo-spatial learning was tested using the Morris Water Maze. After this, animals were sacrificed and LTP induced in hippocampal slices....
Artificial Life
January 12, 2010
Anil K. Seth
85 citations
Concepts of emergence and autonomy are central to artificial life and related cognitive and behavioral sciences. However, quantitative and easy-to-apply measures of these phenomena are mostly lacking. Here, I describe quantitative and practicable measures for both autonomy and emergence, based on the framework of multivariate autoregression and specifically Granger causality. G-autonomy...
Annual Review of Psychology
2010
Ap Dijksterhuis, Henk Aarts
In this article, literature from neuroscience, cognitive psychology, and social cognition is integrated to discuss the relation between goals, attention, and consciousness. Goals are the tools with which people engage in volitional behavior. Whereas goal pursuit was traditionally assumed to be strongly related to consciousness, recent research and theorizing suggest that goals guide behavior...
Chemical Research in Toxicology
January 2010
Anne Felim, Guadalupe Herrera, Anne Neudörffer et al.
(+/-)-3,4-Methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA, also known as "ecstasy") is a chiral drug that is essentially metabolized in humans through O-demethylenation into 3,4-dihydroxymethamphetamine (HHMA). There has recently been a resurgence of interest in the possibility that MDMA metabolites, especially 5-(N-acetylcystein-S-yl)-N-methyl-alpha-methyldopamine (designated as 5-NAC-HHMA), might play a...
Addiction Biology
January 2010
Rocío Martín‐Santos, Marta Torrens, Sandra Poudevida et al.
A 3-year longitudinal prospective study was conducted to compare the incidence of substance use disorders (SUD) and non-substance use disorders (NSUD) among ecstasy users and two control groups: one of cannabis users and the other of non-drug users. The 5-HTTLPR polymorphism related to NSUD was also studied. A total of 94 subjects were included: 37 ecstasy users, 23 cannabis users and 34...