A Quantitative and Narrative Evaluation of Goodman and Gilman's Pharmacological Basis of Therapeutics.

Goodman and Gilman's The Pharmacological Basis of Therapeutics (GGPBT) has been a cornerstone in the education of pharmacists, physicians, and pharmacologists for decades. The objectives of this study were to describe and evaluate the 13th edition of GGPBT on bases including: (1) author characteristics; (2) recency of citations; (3) conflict of interest (CoI) disclosure; (4) expert evaluation of chapters. Contributors' (N = 115) sex, professional degrees, and presence of undisclosed potential CoI-as reported by the Center for Medicare and Medicaid's Open Payments (2013-2017)-were examined. The year of publication of citations was extracted relative to Katzung's Basic and Clinical Pharmacology (KatBCP), and DiPiro's Pharmacotherapy: A Pathophysiologic Approach (DiPPAPA). Content experts provided thorough chapter reviews. The percent of GGPBT contributors that were female (20.9%) was equivalent to those in KatBCP (17.0%). Citations in GGPBT (11.5 ± 0.2 years) were significantly older than those in KatBCP (10.4 ± 0.2) and DiPPAPA (9.1 ± 0.1, p < 0.0001). Contributors to GGPBT received USD 3 million in undisclosed remuneration (Maximum author = USD 743,718). In contrast, DiPPAPA made CoI information available. Reviewers noted several strengths but also some areas for improvement. GGPBT will continue to be an important component of the biomedical curriculum. Areas of improvement include a more diverse authorship, improved conflict of interest transparency, and a greater inclusion of more recent citations.

Executive function and mental health in adopted children with a history of recreational drug exposures.

Adoptive children are at increased risk for problematic behaviors but the origin of these individual differences in neurobehavioral function is unclear. This investigation examined whether adopted children with prenatal exposure to a wide variety of recreational drugs exhibited higher scores (i.e. more problems) with executive function and psychiatric symptomology. Caregivers of children ages 5 to 18 completed an online survey with items about use of alcohol, nicotine, or methamphetamine during pregnancy followed by the Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Function (BRIEF, N = 437 including 59 adoptive parents) or the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL, N = 549 including 54 adoptive parents). Relative to a comparison group of children raised by their biological parents, adoptive children that were polysubstance exposed during prenatal development exhibited higher rates of academic difficulties and were behind their classmates in math and reading. Adoptive children had statistically and clinically significant higher BRIEF ratings and this pattern was similar for boys and girls. CBCL ratings were significantly increased in adoptive children, particularly for Externalizing and Attention problems. Adoptive children with a history of polysubstance exposures including alcohol, nicotine, and methamphetamine are at heightened risk for difficulties with executive function as well as various psychopathologies. These findings suggest that increased monitoring to identify and implement remediation strategies may be warranted for adopted children with a history of in utero drug exposures.

Reliability and validity of Brief Problem Monitor, an abbreviated form of the Child Behavior Checklist.

AIM: The parent form of the 113-item Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL) is widely utilized by child psychiatrists and psychologists. This report examines the reliability and validity of a recently developed abbreviated version of the CBCL, the Brief Problem Monitor (BPM). METHODS: Caregivers (n = 567) completed the CBCL online and the 19 BPM items were examined separately. RESULTS: Internal consistency of the BPM was high (Cronbach's alpha = 0.91) and satisfactory for the Internalizing (0.78), Externalizing (0.86), and Attention (0.87) scales. High correlations between the CBCL and BPM were identified for the total score (r = 0.95) as well as the Internalizing (0.86), Externalizing (0.93), and Attention (0.97) scales. The BPM and scales were sensitive and identified significantly higher behavioral and emotional problems among children whose caregiver reported a psychiatric diagnosis of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, bipolar disorder, depression, anxiety, developmental disabilities, or autism spectrum disorders relative to a comparison group that had not been diagnosed with these disorders. BPM ratings also differed by the socioeconomic status and education of the caregiver. Mothers with higher annual incomes rated their children as having 38.8% fewer total problems (Cohen's d = 0.62) as well as 42.8% lower Internalizing (d = 0.53), 44.1% less Externalizing (d = 0.62), and 30.9% decreased Attention (d = 0.39). A similar pattern was evident for maternal education (d = 0.30-0.65). CONCLUSION: Overall, these findings provide strong psychometric support for the BPM, although the differences based on the characteristics of the parent indicate that additional information from other sources (e.g., teachers) should be obtained to complement parental reports.

Effects of rat visual, olfactory, or combined stimuli during cohousing on stress-related physiology and behavior in C57BL/6NCrl mice.

The Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals recommends housing rats and mice separately to reduce the potential for environmental stress to mice. The literature presents equivocal support for this practice, and housing practices vary widely. According to the existing literature, it is unclear whether visual, olfactory, or combined stimuli are responsible for stress-related changes in mouse physiology and behavior. To determine the extent to which exposure to visual, olfactory, or combined stimuli produce stress-related changes, measures of physiologic and behavioral stress were evaluated in mice after cohousing them in a room with rats. Adult, male C57BL/6NCrl mice (n = 8 per group) were randomly assigned to control, isolator cage, visual stimuli, olfactory stimuli, or visual+olfactory stimuli groups. After 15 d of exposure, body, and adrenal weights did not differ between groups. None of the groups of mice experienced significant increases in corticosterone or stress-related behavior in the open-field test after exposure to rat stimuli. These results suggest that the stress-related effects of cohousing with rats are negligible in mice and have implications for housing rats and mice in shared rooms, thereby al- lowing efficient use of research resources.

Maternal smoking cessation and reduced academic and behavioral problems in offspring.

BACKGROUND: There is some debate whether smoking during pregnancy causes or is only a risk factor for negative academic outcomes and increased risk of psychopathology in offspring. This study evaluated whether maternal smoking cessation would reduce the risk of adverse outcomes in school-aged children. METHODS: Women completed an online survey that included items about child scholastic performance and the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL). Mothers were divided based on pre-pregnancy and pregnancy smoking status into: (1) Nonsmokers (N=320); (2) Women that smoked in the 3 months preceding and throughout pregnancy (Smokers, N=83); and (3) Smoking before, but not during pregnancy (Quitters, N=72). RESULTS: The Smokers and Quitters groups each had lower education and incomes compared to Nonsmokers but were indistinguishable from each other on these measures. The offspring of Smokers were more likely (p<.05) to be behind their peers on standardized tests in math (27.8%) relative to both Nonsmokers (17.4%) and Quitters (13.0%) with similar findings for reading. Smokers reported more behavioral problems by their children in several areas including Hyperactivity and Impulsivity, Social problems, and Externalizing problems including Aggression and Rule-Breaking. Further, the children of Quitters had significantly fewer Attention and Externalizing problems than Smokers. These outcomes were observed even after accounting for the variance attributable to maternal education and several other potential confounds. CONCLUSIONS: Together, these findings indicate that smoking cessation is associated with reduced risk of having children with academic and neuropsychological difficulties. These outcomes are discussed within the framework that nicotine may be a neurobehavioral teratogen.

The Trier Social Stress Test protocol for inducing psychological stress.

This article demonstrates a psychological stress protocol for use in a laboratory setting. Protocols that allow researchers to study the biological pathways of the stress response in health and disease are fundamental to the progress of research in stress and anxiety. Although numerous protocols exist for inducing stress response in the laboratory, many neglect to provide a naturalistic context or to incorporate aspects of social and psychological stress. Of psychological stress protocols, meta-analysis suggests that the Trier Social Stress Test (TSST) is the most useful and appropriate standardized protocol for studies of stress hormone reactivity. In the original description of the TSST, researchers sought to design and evaluate a procedure capable of inducing a reliable stress response in the majority of healthy volunteers. These researchers found elevations in heart rate, blood pressure and several endocrine stress markers in response to the TSST (a psychological stressor) compared to a saline injection (a physical stressor). Although the TSST has been modified to meet the needs of various research groups, it generally consists of a waiting period upon arrival, anticipatory speech preparation, speech performance, and verbal arithmetic performance periods, followed by one or more recovery periods. The TSST requires participants to prepare and deliver a speech, and verbally respond to a challenging arithmetic problem in the presence of a socially evaluative audience. Social evaluation and uncontrollability have been identified as key components of stress induction by the TSST. In use for over a decade, the goal of the TSST is to systematically induce a stress response in order to measure differences in reactivity, anxiety and activation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) or sympathetic-adrenal-medullary (SAM) axis during the task. Researchers generally assess changes in self-reported anxiety, physiological measures (e.g. heart rate), and/or neuroendocrine indices (e.g. the stress hormone cortisol) in response to the TSST. Many investigators have adopted salivary sampling for stress markers such as cortisol and alpha-amylase (a marker of autonomic nervous system activation) as an alternative to blood sampling to reduce the confounding stress of blood-collection techniques. In addition to changes experienced by an individual completing the TSST, researchers can compare changes between different treatment groups (e.g. clinical versus healthy control samples) or the effectiveness of stress-reducing interventions.

Acute anxiogenic-like effects of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors are attenuated by the benzodiazepine diazepam in BALB/c mice.

Selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitors (SSRIs), which are used commonly to treat anxiety disorders, have characteristic anxiogenic effects following acute administration. Treatment with anxiolytic benzodiazepines (BZs) may reduce these effects, although little is known about potential drug interactions. Our study evaluated acute anxiogenic-like effects of SSRIs, alone and combined with a BZ. Adult male BALB/c mice received fluoxetine (3.0-30.0mg/kg, i.p.) or citalopram (3.0-30.0mg/kg, i.p.) alone or in combination with diazepam (0.3-10.0mg/kg, i.p.), after which they were evaluated with the light/dark and open-field tests for anxiogenesis/anxiolysis. In addition, release of the stress hormone corticosterone was assessed following combined SSRI/BZ administration. In the light/dark and open-field tests, acute SSRIs produced a behavioral profile consistent with anxiogenesis, while diazepam produced an anxiolytic-like profile. Pre-treatment with diazepam (0.3-10mg/kg) reversed the effects of an anxiogenic-like dose of an SSRI (18mg/kg fluoxetine, 30mg/kg citalopram) in both light/dark and open-field tests. Diazepam, fluoxetine or citalopram, and their combination all significantly increased plasma corticosterone levels to the same degree. These findings suggest that a BZ-type drug can attenuate acute anxiogenic-like effects of an SSRI via a mechanism independent of corticosterone regulation.

Every cell counts: an inquiry-based approach to address a novel research question in an undergraduate neuroscience lab.

A science-based curriculum that encourages hands-on experiences, skill development, and promotes student engagement are critical components in both successful undergraduate psychology and neuroscience programs. This lab explored an inquiry-based research project focused on microscopy skills, critical thinking, and independent research design. This lesson used a novel research question (How many serotonergic cells are located in the dorsal raphe nucleus?) to engage students in research and methodology design. The resulting lab received positive feedback from students and provided data about the serotonergic system in a previously unreported species.

Retinal ganglion cells projecting to the dorsal raphe and lateral geniculate complex in Mongolian gerbils.

Injections of rhodamine-B into the dorsal raphe nucleus (DRN) and Fluoro-Gold into the lateral geniculate nucleus (LGN) revealed double-labeled retinal ganglion cells (DL RGCs) projecting to both nuclei. The soma-size distribution of DL RGCs was compared with three other distributions: DRN-projecting RGCs, LGN-projecting RGCs, and a large sample of RGCs labeled via the optic nerve with DiI. DL RGC soma diameters fell primarily within the mid-to-upper size range of all three distributions. DL RGCs may provide information to both nuclei concerning comparable aspects of light and visual stimulation via collateralized axons.