Biomedical subjects
Publications and source records attributed to W A McKim.
Too much caffeine can cause numerous physical and psychological symptoms of poor health. It could negatively affect reproduction and is suspected of causing some cancers. It can affect cardiovascular functioning, and can even produce symptoms similar to those of mental illness. Despite this broad range of known and suspected effects of caffeine, nurses rarely consider caffeine intake in initial nursing assessments of clients. They should.
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Twelve albino rats were trained to lever press on a variable-interval one min schedule for sweetened condensed milk reinforcement. While responding on this schedule a two minute tone was presented. For one group it signalled a response contingent shock (Punishment), for another group it signalled the delivery of an unavoidable non-contingent shock at its termination (CER) and for a third group, reinforcement was withheld during the tone (Extinction). In the first experiment scopolamine in doses of 0.8 to 12.8 mg/kg did not alter response rates during the tone for any group. In a second experiment 16 hooded rats were tested with 6.4 mg/kg of scopolamine using a similar procedure, but with different shock levels, apparatus, reinforcement and session duration. For all three groups the drug depressed responding during the tone. It was concluded that when all other aspects of the situation are equated scopolamine will produce the same effect on behavior suppressed by punishment, CER and extinction.
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This experiment was done to test the prediction that preexposure to a drug state would increase the discriminability of that drug state when used as a cue in a discrimination task. Eight rats were pre-exposed to scopolamine for 20 days and 8 rats were given saline injections. The drug pre-exposed animals acquired a drug state discrimination more quickly than the controls. A difference was also found between the generalization gradients for each group with the pre-exposed group showing a steeper generalization gradient.
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We report the results of an analysis of alcohol consumption data collected in a telephone survey of all adults in a sample of households in metropolitan St. John's in 1985. Regression analyses showed that the age-related decline in total alcohol consumption is a result of changes in the amount of alcohol consumed per drinking occasion rather than a decrease in the number of drinking occasions. Increased education is associated with increased drinking occasions, but decreased consumption per occasion. A large part of the gender difference in comparison can be explained by the fact that males are larger and have a larger percent body water, although differences in body composition cannot explain age-related changes in consumption. Health and happiness were not related to alcohol consumption.