Shape-shifting: changing animal morphologies as a response to climatic warming.

Many animal appendages, such as avian beaks and mammalian ears, can be used to dissipate excess body heat. Allen's rule, wherein animals in warmer climates have larger appendages to facilitate more efficient heat exchange, reflects this. We find that there is widespread evidence of 'shape-shifting' (changes in appendage size) in endotherms in response to climate change and its associated climatic warming. We re-examine studies of morphological change over time within a thermoregulatory context, finding evidence that temperature can be a strong predictor of morphological change independently of, or combined with, other environmental changes. Last, we discuss how Allen's rule, the degree of temperature change, and other ecological factors facilitate morphological change and make predictions about what animals will show shape-shifting.

Manipulating monoamines reduces exploration and boldness of Mediterranean field crickets.

Despite the prevalence and research interest of animal personality, its underlying mechanisms are not yet fully understood. Due to the essential role of monoamines in modulating behaviour, we manipulated the monoaminergic systems of Mediterranean field crickets (Gryllus bimaculatus) to explore whether this altered behavioural responses commonly used to describe animal personality. Previous work has shown that both serotonin and dopamine manipulations can alter cricket behaviour, although results differ depending on the drug in focus. Here, we investigate the effect of Fluphenazine, a dopamine antagonist which also interacts with serotonin receptors, on activity, exploration, boldness, and aggression. These results are compared with those of our earlier work that investigated the effect of drugs that more specifically target serotonin or dopamine systems (Fluoxetine and Ropinirole, respectively). Due to limited research on dose-effects of Fluphenazine, we created dose-response curves with concentrations ranging from those measured in surface waters up to human therapeutic doses. We show that compared to control animals, Fluphenazine manipulation resulted in lower levels of both exploration and boldness, but did not affect activity nor aggression. The effect on explorative behaviour contradicts our previous results of serotonin and dopamine manipulations. These results together confirm the causal role of monoamines in explaining variation in behaviour often used to describe animal personality, effects that can be both dose- and behaviour-dependent. Further, our results suggest that previous results assigned specifically to the dopaminergic system, may at least partly be explained by effects of the serotonergic system. Thus, future studies should continue to investigate the explicit underlying roles of specific monoamines in explaining behavioural variation.

EQ-5D-Y-5L as a patient-reported outcome measure in psychiatric inpatient care for children and adolescents - a cross-sectional study.

BACKGROUND: Psychiatric disorders have a major individual and societal impact. Until now, the association between health-related quality of life and physical disorders has been far more investigated than the association with psychiatric disorders. Patient-reported outcome measures makes it possible to capture the patient perspective to improve treatments and evaluate treatment outcomes. The aim of this study is to measure health-related quality of life with the EQ-5D-Y-5L among patients in child and adolescent psychiatric inpatient care and to test the instrument's psychometric properties in terms of feasibility and construct validity. METHODS: Data were collected at the child and adolescent psychiatric inpatient facility in Region Stockholm. A questionnaire including the EQ-5D-Y-5L instrument, the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire with an impact supplement and a self-rated health question, was administered for self-completion using paper and pencil, with an interviewer present. The Chi-square test was used to investigate differences in proportion of reported problems in the EQ-5D-Y-5L dimensions and the Mann-Whitney U test was used for differences in mean EQ VAS scores. Feasibility was assessed by investigating proportion of missing and ambiguous answers and Spearman's and Pearson's correlation were used to examine construct validity. RESULTS: In total 52 adolescents participated in the study and the majority were girls. The most common diagnosis at admission was depressive episode/recurrent depressive disorder. All participants reported problems on at least one dimension. Most problems were reported in the dimension 'feeling worried, sad or unhappy', where 64% reported severe or extreme problems. Mean EQ VAS score was 29.2. Feasibility was supported and construct validity indicated as some of the hypothesised correlations between the EQ-5D-Y-5 L and the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire were found, however, for 'doing usual activities' and 'having pain or discomfort' the correlations were weaker than hypothesised. CONCLUSIONS: This is the first study where the newly developed EQ-5D-Y-5L instrument has been used in psychiatric inpatient care for youth. Participants reported problems in all severity levels in most of the EQ-5D-Y-5L dimensions; mean EQ VAS score was considerably low. Feasibility of the EQ-5D-Y-5L was supported, however other psychometric properties need to be further tested in a larger sample.

The relationship between monoaminergic gene expression, learning, and optimism in red junglefowl chicks.

Intra-species cognitive variation is commonly observed, but explanations for why individuals within a species differ in cognition are still understudied and not yet clear. Cognitive processes are likely influenced by genetic differences, with genes in the monoaminergic systems predicted to be important. To explore the potential role of these genes in association with individual variation in cognition, we exposed red junglefowl (Gallus gallus) chicks to behavioural assays measuring variation in learning (discriminative learning, reversal learning, and cognitive flexibility) and optimism (measured in a cognitive judgement bias test). Following this, we analysed prefrontal cortex gene expression of several dopaminergic and serotonergic genes in these chicks. Of our explored genes, serotonin receptor genes 5HT2A and 5HT2B, and dopaminergic receptor gene DRD1 were associated with measured behaviour. Chicks that had higher 5HT2A were less flexible in the reversal learning task, and chicks with higher 5HT2B also tended to be less cognitively flexible. Additionally, chicks with higher DRD1 were more optimistic, whilst chicks with higher 5HT2A tended to be less optimistic. These results suggest that the serotonergic and dopaminergic systems are linked to observed cognitive variation, and, thus, individual differences in cognition can be partially explained by variation in brain gene expression.