Biomedical subjects
Publications and source records attributed to A I Leshner.
The addicted brain is qualitatively different from the nonaddicted brain, in ways that include glucose use, gene expression, and responsiveness to environmental cues. Such discoveries place researchers in the early but hopeful stages of translating fundamental findings into new treatments that address the neurobiologic basis of drug craving--even for cocaine, against which there are currently no pharmacologic interventions.
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During the past three decades, research advances in the biomedical and behavioral sciences have converged to revolutionize--or rather "evolutionize"--public and professional views of the etiology and treatment of mental disorders. As Sabshin has observed, at long last science has replaced ideology as the foundation for understanding and designing treatments for these disorders. One might also add that, at long last, science is providing solid support for the biopsychosocial approach long espoused by family physicians and many mental health clinicians and researchers.
As the amount of basic neuroscientific information increases dramatically, its day-to-day integration and application becomes an increasing difficulty. Technological advances, particularly in computer and information sciences, should allow this information 'explosion' to become more manageable. To this end, the Human Brain Project, an initiative of several NIH Institutes and other United States Government agencies, is being developed to provide a computer database that will allow neuroscientists access to information at all levels of integration, from genes to behavior. In this article Michael Huerta, Stephen Koslow and Alan Leshner outline the genesis and ideas behind the initiative and discuss its future development.
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As an essential contributor to the scientific understanding of mental health and illness, psychology continues to be the leading discipline receiving National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) research support. Future behavioral science research initiatives at NIMH are likely to emphasize cognitive science, behavioral genetics, behavioral patterns and physiological systems, and personality, motivation, emotion, and interpersonal processes. Although prognostication is particularly risky in times of transition such as the present, advocacy efforts focused on mental-illness-related research are most likely to help the NIMH and the field if they avoid polarization and factionalization by providing equal encouragement for studies of biological aspects, of behavioral aspects, and of their interaction.
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Male mice were given a single injection of either adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH) or lysine vasopressin immediately after a defeat in an encounter with an aggressive male mouse. The defeated mice were tested for submissiveness at either 24 hours, 48 hours, or 7 days after the initial encounter. Both hormone treatments increased future submissiveness, although the time courses of the effects were different: The effects of ACTH disappeared after 48 hours, whereas those of vasopressin persisted for 7 days. These results suggest that changes in peptide hormone levels following naturally stressful experiences can affect the memory of those experiences, as expressed in future adaptive responses.
In a study of the mechanisms controlling the learned helplessness phenomenon, rats were exposed to either inescapable preshocks or control procedures, treated with one of three dosages of desmethylimipramine, and tested for later adaptive responding. This catecholamine modulator attenuated the deficits in escape responding that ordinarily follow prior exposure to inescapable preshocks, and it did so in a dose-dependent fashion. These findings support the position that the learned helplessness phenomenon is mediated by catecholamine changes.
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Three adult male rhesus monkeys were tested daily with intact adult female partners over the course of four or five mentstrual cycles. The males were made permanently anosmic by chemical ablation of the olfactory epithelium after the second or fourth cycle was completed. All males continued to display typical cycles of copulation with their partners after the anosmia procedures, with the shortest latencies to ejaculation occurring during the periovulatory phase of the partner's ovulatory cycle. Hence, female attractivity and cyclic copulatory performance of rhesus monkeys are not dependent upon olfactory signals.
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