Effects of food deprivation on conditioned orthonasal olfactory preferences with caloric and non-caloric reinforcers.

Three experiments were conducted to investigate Conditioned Olfactory Preferences using orthonasal inhalation, which is a less explored perceptual pathway compared to retronasal inhalation. In these experiments, odors were impregnated onto plastic disks to prevent the subjects from consuming or tasting them. The reinforcers used were a sucrose solution (Caloric groups) and a saccharin solution (Non-Caloric groups). The influence of nutritional deprivation was analyzed, with unrestricted access to food throughout the procedure in Experiment 1, food restriction during the conditioning phase in Experiment 2, and limited access to food during the test phase in Experiment 3. The results revealed conditioned preferences using both sucrose and saccharin as reinforcers. Furthermore, dietary restriction reduced the conditioned preference induced by saccharin, but not the preference induced by sucrose. These findings are discussed in light of the potential differences between orthonasal and retronasal presentation of odors during conditioning.

Sub-Diffraction Limited Writing based on Laser Induced Periodic Surface Structures (LIPSS).

Controlled fabrication of single and multiple nanostructures far below the diffraction limit using a method based on laser induced periodic surface structure (LIPSS) is presented. In typical LIPSS, multiple lines with a certain spatial periodicity, but often not well-aligned, were produced. In this work, well-controlled and aligned nanowires and nanogrooves with widths as small as 40 nm and 60 nm with desired orientation and length are fabricated. Moreover, single nanowire and nanogroove were fabricated based on the same mechanism for forming multiple, periodic structures. Combining numerical modeling and AFM/SEM analyses, it was found these nanostructures were formed through the interference between the incident laser radiation and the surface plasmons, the mechanism for forming LIPSS on a dielectric surface using a high power femtosecond laser. We expect that our method, in particular, the fabrication of single nanowires and nanogrooves could be a promising alternative for fabrication of nanoscale devices due to its simplicity, flexibility, and versatility.

Power delivery and self-heating in nanoscale near field transducer for heat-assisted magnetic recording.

To keep increasing the storage density in next-generation hard disk drives, heat-assisted magnetic recording is being developed where a nanoscale near field transducer (NFT) locally and temporally heats a sub-diffraction-limited region in the recording medium to reduce the magnetic coercivity. This allows the use of very small grain in the medium while still maintaining data thermal stability. Plasmonic nanostructures made of apertures or antennas are good candidates for NFTs because of their capability of subwavelength light manipulation in optical frequencies. The NFT must simultaneously deliver enough power to the recording medium with as small as possible incident laser power to reduce self-heating in the NFT, which could cause thermal expansion and materials failure that lead to degradation of the overall hard drive performance. In this work, we study the effect of optical properties on the power delivery efficiency of nanoscale bowtie aperture antennas, with the presence of a recording media stack. Heat dissipation and temperature rise in the NFT are also computed to investigate their dependence on materials' properties. The possibility of using alternative plasmonic materials for delivering higher power and/or reducing heating in NFTs is discussed.

Sub-diffraction laser synthesis of silicon nanowires.

We demonstrate synthesis of silicon nanowires of tens of nanometers via laser induced chemical vapor deposition. These nanowires with diameters as small as 60 nm are produced by the interference between incident laser radiation and surface scattered radiation within a diffraction limited spot, which causes spatially confined, periodic heating needed for high resolution chemical vapor deposition. By controlling the intensity and polarization direction of the incident radiation, multiple parallel nanowires can be simultaneously synthesized. The nanowires are produced on a dielectric substrate with controlled diameter, length, orientation, and the possibility of in-situ doping, and therefore are ready for device fabrication. Our method offers rapid one-step fabrication of nano-materials and devices unobtainable with previous CVD methods.

Effect of the NMDA antagonist MK-801 on latent inhibition of fear conditioning.

N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptors seem to play a central role in learning and memory processes involved in Latent Inhibition (LI). In fact, MK-801, a non-competitive NMDA receptor antagonist, has proved its effectiveness as a drug for attenuating LI when administered before or after stimulus preexposure and conditioning stages. This paper presents three experiments designed to analyze the effect of MK-801 on LI when the drug is administered before (Experiment 1A) or after (Experiment 1B) preexposure and conditioning stages with a conditioned emotional response procedure. Additionally, we analyze the effect of the drug when it was administered before preexposure, before conditioning or before both phases (Experiment 2). The results show that the effect of the drug varied as a function of the dose (with only the highest dose being effective), the moment of administration (with only the drug administered before the experimental treatments being effective), and the phase of procedure (reducing LI when the drug was administered only at preexposure, and disrupting fear conditioning when administered at conditioning). These differences may be due to several factors ranging from the role played by NMDA receptors in the processing of stimuli of different sensorial modalities to the molecular processes triggered by drug administration.

MK-801 induces a low intensity conditioned taste aversion.

N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptor antagonists are often used to assess the role of NMDA receptors in learning and memory processes. However, few studies have explored the possibility that the antagonists may induce a conditioned aversion when administered following flavor consumption. We report five experiments with rats intended to evaluate the MK-801 capacity to induce conditioned taste aversion. Our findings suggest that: i) MK-801 produces a low-intensity aversion following repeated pairings with saccharin (Experiments 1 and 2); ii) such aversion was not the result of a non-associative process (Experiment 3); and iii) pre-exposure to MK-801 does not interact with conditioned taste aversion induced by lithium chloride (Experiments 4 and 5). These findings suggest that MK-801 induces a low-intensity aversion, although the underlying mechanisms of this aversion may differ from those of a conditioned aversion produced by lithium chloride.