Understanding hoarding behaviors in the elderly.
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Adaptation, Psychological↗
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Falling, hoarding and hiding, eating disturbances, and sexual disinhibition.
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Accidental Falls↗
Mood, personality disorder symptoms and disability in obsessive compulsive hoarders: a comparison with clinical and nonclinical controls.
Hoarding is a symptom of obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), as well as a diagnostic criterion for obsessive compulsive personality disorder (OCPD). One recent study suggests that people who suffer from compulsive hoarding report more general psychopathology than people who do not [Frost, R.O., Krause, M.S., & Steketee, G. (1996). Hoarding and obsessive compulsive symptoms. Behavior Modification, 20, 116-132]. The present study addressed whether persons with OCD hoarding exhibit more depression, anxiety, OCD and personality disorders symptoms than community controls, OCD nonhoarders, or other anxiety disorder patients. Disability was also examined. Hoarding subjects were older than the other three groups, but age did not account for any of the differences observed among the groups. Compared to controls, OCD hoarding, nonhoarding OCD and anxiety disorder patients showed elevated YBOCS scores, as well as higher scores on depression, anxiety, family and social disability. Compared to nonhoarding OCD and anxiety disorder patients, OCD hoarding patients scored higher on anxiety, depression, family and social disability. Hoarding subjects had greater personality disorder symptoms than controls. However, OCD hoarding subjects differed from OCD nonhoarding and anxiety disorder subjects only on dependent and schizotypal personality disorder symptoms. The findings suggest that hoarding is associated with significant comorbidity and impairment compared to nonhoarding OCD and other anxiety disorders.
Adult↗
Effect of aging on species-typical behaviors in senescence-accelerated mouse.
The species-typical behaviors have been extensively studied, especially in the rodents. But little is known about whether the aging impacts on these species-typical behaviors. In the present study, the species-typical behaviors, including burrowing, hoarding and nesting, were assessed in the accelerated senescence-prone mouse 8 (SAMP8, P8) and the control strain senescence-resistant mouse 1 (SAMR1, R1). Total 147 SAM mice including 74 P8 mice and 73 R1 mice were grouped according to the age, 3, 7 and 11 months, respectively. In the hoarding test, an age-related increase was observed in the both P8 and R1 mice, whereas in the burrowing task, the age-related increment only took place in the P8 mice. The nesting ability in the P8 mice at different ages was inferior to that in the age-matched R1 mice, and the 3-month P8 mice showed the poorest nesting ability. The principal component analysis revealed that the burrowing, hoarding and nesting tests detected the different aspects of species-typical behaviors respectively for all mice combined. Our findings indicated that all tasks of hoarding, burrowing and nesting could detect the aging effect in the P8 mice, whereas, only the hoarding test could detect the aging effect in the R1 mice. These different species-typical behaviors were dissociable.
Aging, Premature↗
Factor analysis of the Yale-Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale in a family study of obsessive-compulsive disorder.
Our objective in this study was to determine whether symptoms of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) cluster into groups that can usefully subclassify OCD. Psychiatrists or psychologists interviewed 221 subjects using the Lifetime Anxiety Version of the Schedule for Affective Disorders and Schizophrenia (SADS-LA) for the diagnosis of DSM-IV disorders, and the Yale-Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale (Y-BOCS) for OCD symptoms. We analyzed 16 symptom categories from the Y-BOCS using exploratory factor analysis to identify latent symptom dimensions. The relationship between these symptom dimensions and clinical characteristics and familiality was investigated. A four-factor model emerged as the best classification of OCD symptoms in the Y-BOCS. These factors were labeled Pure Obsessions, Contamination, Symmetry/Order, and Hoarding. The contamination factor was least likely to be associated with other Axis I disorders. Whereas no significant relationship was found between the factor scores of probands and the presence of OCD in their first-degree relatives, the Symmetry/Order and Hoarding factors did breed true. Hoarding was found to predict poorer treatment response. A four-factor classification of OCD features best describes the symptom patterns of a sample of patients with OCD. There were specific clinical correlates for these factors, and significant intrafamilial sib-sib correlations were found for the Symmetry/Order and Hoarding factors.
Adult↗
Effectiveness of six species of rodents as dispersers of singleleaf piñon pine (Pinus monophylla).
The effectiveness of six species of rodents as dispersers of singleleaf piñon pine (Pinus monophylla) was investigated in field enclosures. The rodent species were Panamint kangaroo rat (Dipodomys panamintinus), Great Basin pocket mouse (Perognathus parvus), pinyon mouse (Peromyscus truei), deer mouse (Peromyscus maniculatus), least chipmunk (Tamias minimus), and white-tailed antelope ground squirrel (Ammospermophilus leucurus). Five measures of seed harvesting and caching behavior were assessed and used to calculate the effect of species on the probability of effective dispersal (i.e., movement of seeds to potential establishment sites) of piñon pine seeds. These measures were proportion of seeds harvested, proportion of harvested seeds that were scatter hoarded, relative dispersion of scatter-hoarded seeds, seedling emergence and seedling establishment. To evaluate the effects of the last two variables, a 2-year study of seed germination and seedling establishment was conducted in the field. Seedling survival was 72-90% for seedlings emerging from 1-4 cm deep but was markedly lower from surface caches and for depths >4 cm. All seedlings in the open microsite perished before the end of the first year, whereas 38-97% of seedlings under shrubs survived. Cache size did not affect seedling survival over the 2 years, but large caches reduced the total number of potential establishment sites. All six species harvested over 90% of the piñon seeds presented and scatter hoarded from 31% (pocket mouse) to 66% (chipmunk) of the seeds they harvested. Piñon mice and deer mice distributed seeds to more cache sites (i.e., put fewer seeds in caches) than the other species and, consequently, created more potential establishment sites. All species scatter hoarded seeds at depths suitable for seedling emergence, but pocket mice and piñon mice cached under shrubs more than the other species, the microhabitat where seedlings had the greatest probability of establishing. Factors that had the greatest effect on the probability of effective dispersal were microhabitat selection and cache size.
Animals↗
Acute, but not chronic, exercise lowers the body weight set-point in male rats.
The influence of muscular training on overall energy balance and body weight is not clear. A group of male rats was trained to feed every day from 1000 to 1200. Then the intersect of regression line of food hoarded during meal time vs. body weight with the X-axis was measured. Finally, the rats were trained to run 1 h every day on a motor-driven treadmill. When the training took place in the morning, just before the hoarding session, the mean intersect was significantly lowered from control (497 +/- 18 g to 433 +/- 9 g). When the training took place in the afternoon, after the hoarding session, the mean intersect was not significantly different (504 +/- 21 g) from control. Food intake during the hoarding sessions was affected neither by body weight changes nor by muscular exercise. These results suggest that the set-point for body weight regulation is acutely lowered just after muscular exercise, but is not influenced by chronic training.
Animals↗
Memory and the hippocampus in food-storing birds: a comparative approach.
Comparative studies provide a unique source of evidence for the role of the hippocampus in learning and memory. Within birds and mammals, the hippocampal volume of scatter-hoarding species that cache food in many different locations is enlarged, relative to the remainder of the telencephalon, when compared with than that of species which cache food in one larder, or do not cache at all. Do food-storing species show enhanced memory function in association with the volumetric enlargement of the hippocampus? Comparative studies within the parids (titmice and chickadees) and corvids (jays, nutcrackers and magpies), two families of birds which show natural variation in food-storing behavior, suggest that there may be two kinds of memory specialization associated with scatter-hoarding. First, in terms of spatial memory, several scatter-hoarding species have a more accurate and enduring spatial memory, and a preference to rely more heavily upon spatial cues, than that of closely related species which store less food, or none at all. Second, some scatter-hoarding parids and corvids are also more resistant to memory interference. While the most critical component about a cache site may be its spatial location, there is mounting evidence that food-storing birds remember additional information about the contents and status of cache sites. What is the underlying neural mechanism by which the hippocampus learns and remembers cache sites? The current mammalian dogma is that the neural mechanisms of learning and memory are achieved primarily by variations in synaptic number and efficacy. Recent work on the concomitant development of food-storing, memory and the avian hippocampus illustrates that the avian hippocampus may swell or shrivel by as much as 30% in response to presence or absence of food-storing experience. Memory for food caches triggers a dramatic increase in the total number of number of neurons within the avian hippocampus by altering the rate at which these cells are born and die.
Animals↗
Effects of dexamethasone on the body weight set point of rats.
Adult Wistar male rats were given dexamethasone in their drinking water. Food-hoarding behavior was measured repeatedly, and plotted against the animals' body weights. Body weight set point was estimated as the intersection of the regression line of hoarding with the X axis, i.e. as the threshold at which hoarding appears when body weight drops, and disappears when body weight returns to its initial value. Body weight set point was obtained before and during dexamethasone treatment. Control rats underwent the same sequence without dexamethasone in their drinking water. The hoarding threshold was raised when rats ingested low doses of dexamethasone, and was lowered when they ingested high doses. These results are discussed in the light of CRH as the main signal for the body weight set point.
Animals↗
Continental variation in relative hippocampal volume in birds: the phylogenetic extent of the effect and the potential role of winter temperatures.
Hippocampal (HC) volume has been hypothesized to increase with an increase in food-hoarding specialization in corvids and parids. Recent studies revealed that (i) the HC/hoarding relationship is significant when a difference in HC volume between Eurasian and North American species is controlled for and (ii) the evolutionary association has been acting on a broader phylogenetic context involving avian families outside the Corvidae and Paridae. However, the phylogenetic extent of the continent effect has not been previously addressed. Using data representing 48 avian species, we performed a phylogenetic analysis to test if continental effects are important in a wider evolutionary spectrum. Our results support the observation that Eurasian species have generally larger HC than North American species if variation in food hoarding, which also varied between continents, was held constant. Surprisingly, the relationship between continental distribution and relative HC volume was significant when we included only non-hoarding families in our analysis, indicating that the extent of the continent effect is much broader than originally described. We investigated the potential role of minimal winter temperatures at the northernmost distribution borders in mediating continent effects. The effect of winter temperatures on HC volume was weak and it did not vary consistently along continents. We suggest that the general continental differences in relative HC size are independent of food hoarding and that its determinants should be sought among other ecological factors and life-history traits.
Adaptation, Physiological↗
Sagittal knife cuts in the near and far lateral preoptic area-hypothalamus disrupt maternal behaviour in female hamsters.
Parasagittal knife cuts with a varied mediolateral position were placed along the medial preoptic-medial anterior hypothalamic continuum (MPOA-MAH) in female hamsters. Near lateral (NL) knife cuts severed mediolateral connections between the MPOA-MAH and the medial forebrain bundle (MFB) while far lateral cuts (FL) were placed more laterally, sparing MPOA-MAH connections with the MFB. Across the knife cut condition, hamsters were either allowed to construct and maintain a food hoard or allowed to feed ad lib but not permitted to hoard. Animals were then tested for maternal behaviours. Both NL and FL cuts disrupted pup-directed behaviours in virgin maternal tests. NL, but not FL cuts severely disrupted nest building. These same animals were then mated and tested for maternal behaviour with their own young. There were no differences among the experimental groups in various maternal behaviours during these tests. Throughout lactation, however, the majority of NL and FL hamsters not permitted to hoard progressively cannibalized their entire litters. NL and FL counterparts with the hoarding opportunity, on the other hand, cannibalized fewer pups and reared healthy, moderate-sized litters that were smaller than those of surgical controls. That FL cuts were just as effective as NL cuts in disrupting pup-directed behaviour suggests that the mediolateral connections of the MPOA-MAH, other than with the MFB, are important for these behaviours.
Animals↗
Changes in actual versus defended body weight elicited by a varied, palatable ("supermarket") diet in rats.
Male rats fed on a varied, palatable supermarket diet for 11 weeks gained more weight than chow-fed controls. When palatable food was discontinued, their body weights became static, but remained significantly higher than control weights for a further 5 weeks. Hoarding of food was readily elicited by food deprivation in the dietarily obese as well as in the chow-fed rats. Previous studies have shown that the critical body weight at which hoarding appears does not covary with body weight, but appears to reflect a defended level of body weight. In the present study, critical weights were not significantly different between groups before supermarket diet, but were significantly higher in the supermarket rats after obesity had developed. Thus, the increase in body weight brought about by a supermarket diet (unlike that in ventromedial hypothalamic obesity) can be accompanied by an increase in the defended level of body weight as inferred from the critical weight for the onset of hoarding behaviour.
Animals↗
Ever higher: constant rise of body weight set-point in growing zucker rats.
The mass of food hoarded by rats given access to food only 2 h per day is proportional to the rats' body weight deficit. The intersect of the regression line of hoarded food plotted against body weight gives an indication of the body weight set-point. In the present work, the hoarding behavior of six obese and six control rats was measured every day at various body weights from 8 to 24 weeks of age. Every other week the animals were anesthetized and their percentage of fat was measured in vivo with a total body electrical conductivity method (TOBEC). Lean mass and body length of the obese, and their controls, increased similarly in both groups over the period of the measurements. On the other hand, the body weights increased more in obese, from 174 +/- 5 to 729 +/- 18 g (n = 6), than in controls, from 157 +/- 5 g to 452 +/- 14 g (n = 6). The body weight set-point, calculated every other week for both groups of rats, increased progressively with age. At the age of 24 weeks, the mean set-point for body weight regulation was 758 +/- 13 g in obese and 467 +/- 12 g in controls. This result suggests that the obese fa/fa rat defends its fat content, or a variable correlated to the fat content.
Age Factors↗
Ineffectiveness of GM1 and ORG2766 on behavioural recovery after prefrontal cortical lesions in adult rats.
This study examines whether treatment with GM1 ganglioside or the corticotropin (ACTH)(4-9) analogue ORG2766 can facilitate the behavioural recovery of adult rats with medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) lesions, as animals are impaired in their food hoarding and spatial delayed alternation performance following mPFC lesions. No ameliorating effects of GM1 treatment on performance of these behaviours were observed. Although treatment with ORG2766 somewhat improved the hoarding performance of lesioned animals, the intermediate amount of pellets hoarded was not significantly different from that of either sham-operated or vehicle-treated lesioned rats. No effect of ORG2766 treatment was observed in the spatial delayed alternation test. Further, no changes were detected in the mesocortical dopamine innervation, presumed to be involved in the neural mechanism of behavioural sparing, in response to either treatment.
Adrenocorticotropic Hormone↗
Lipectomy, body weight, and body weight set point in rats.
Adult, Wistar male rats were lipectomized or sham lipectomized. The food-hoarding behavior was measured repeatedly and plotted against the animals' body weights. Body weight set point was estimated as the intercept of regression line of hoarding with the X axis. Body fat content was measured with a TOBEC body composition analyzer. Body weight set point, fat content, and girth were obtained initially, after surgery, and after recovery. The hoarding threshold was lowered for 2 weeks after surgery, from 561 +/- 20 to 512 +/- 19 g (lipectomized), and from 582 +/- 15 to 558 +/- 14 g (sham lipectomized). After a 4-week recovery, all rats reached their prelipectomy body weight set point and regained their initial body fat. Five weeks after surgery, no significant difference was found between the body weight set points of lipectomized and sham-lipectomized rats. This indicates that the body weight set point was not mainly modulated by fat depots. The transient lowering of the set point is thought to be due to surgical stress.
Adipose Tissue↗
Opposite effects of gentle handling on body temperature and body weight in rats.
Opposite effects of gentle handling on body temperature and body weight in rats. PHhe aim of this study was to measure the body weight set point when rats are being handled gently and thus experience emotional rise in body temperature. Wistar male rats were used in this experiment, and each rat was its own control. Body weight set point was estimated from the rat's food hoarding behavior. The set point is the intersection of the regression line for hoarding with the X axis. During hoarding sessions the experimenter handled the rat and took its colonic temperature six to eight times, an action sufficient to arouse emotional fever. On alternate days the rats were not handled. Thus, body weight set point was obtained for each rat without handling and with handling. In sessions with handling, rats raised their body temperature, ate less, and defecated more than in control sessions. When handled, the body weight set point declined from 388 +/- 44 g to 366 +/- 47 g (p = 0.048, t = 2,39). The decline in the set point induced by gentle handling is believed to result from an elevation of the hypothalamic CRH.
Animals↗
Visual attention task performance in Wistar and Lister hooded rats: response inhibition deficits after medial prefrontal cortex lesions.
The prefrontal cortex has traditionally been implicated in a variety of cognitive processes, including memory, attention and decision making. The detection of effects of prefrontal cortex lesions on attention has been shown to depend on the procedure used to assess the attentional process. We therefore investigated the effects of lesions of the prefrontal cortex in two different visual attention tasks, i.e. a three-choice serial reaction time task involving sustained and divided attention processes and a visual timing task involving sustained attention and response inhibition processes. In two rat strains that are frequently used in behavioural analysis, i.e. albino Wistar rats and pigmented Lister Hooded rats, lesions of the medial prefrontal cortex caused a deterioration of performance in both tasks, although the effect lasted much longer in the visual timing task. This latter task proved to be especially sensitive to detect the consequences of medial prefrontal cortex lesions, consisting of a loss of both attention control and response inhibition. In both attention tasks, Wistar rats performed less accurate and made more anticipatory responses than Listers. Strain differences could not entirely be attributed to possible visual deficits in albinos, which was also evident when locomotor activity in an open field and food-motivated behaviour in a hoarding paradigm were assessed. Due to slower habituation rates, Lister rats were more active and displayed little food hoarding behaviour. In Wistar rats, hoarding was disrupted by medial prefrontal cortex lesions, showing the effectiveness of the lesion. The results indicate that, although different rat strains provide different baseline levels of behaviour for testing lesion- or drug-induced behavioural changes, lesions of the medial prefrontal cortex do not only disrupt sustained attention processes, but also induce a strong impairment in response inhibition in both Wistar and Lister rats.
Animals↗
Linkage analysis of ordinal traits for pedigree data.
Linkage analysis is used routinely to map genes for human diseases and conditions. However, the existing linkage-analysis methods require that the diseases or conditions either be dichotomized or measured by a quantitative trait, such as blood pressure for hypertension. In the latter case, normality is generally assumed for the trait. However, many diseases and conditions, such as cancer and mental and behavioral conditions, are rated on ordinal scales. The objective of this study was to establish a framework to conduct linkage analysis for ordinal traits. We propose a latent-variable, proportional-odds logistic model that relates inheritance patterns to the distribution of the ordinal trait. We use the likelihood-ratio test for testing evidence of linkage. By means of simulation studies, we find that the power of our proposed model is substantially higher than that of the binary-trait-based linkage analysis and that our test statistic is robust with regard to certain parameter misspecifications. By using our proposed method, we performed a genome scan of the hoarding phenotype in a data set with 53 nuclear families, which were collected by the Tourette Syndrome Association International Consortium for Genetics (TSAICG). Standard linkage scans using hoarding as a dichotomous trait were also performed by using GENEHUNTER and ALLEGRO. Both GENEHUNTER and ALLEGRO failed to reveal any marker significantly linked to the binary hoarding phenotypes. However, our method identified three markers at 4q34-35 (P = 0.0009), 5q35.2-35.3 (P = 0.0001), and 17q25 (P = 0.0005) that manifest significant allele sharing.
Genetic Linkage↗