Supplemental material, Supplementary_material for The presence of a social stimulus reduces cocai... more Supplemental material, Supplementary_material for The presence of a social stimulus reduces cocaine-seeking in a place preference conditioning paradigm by Patricia Sampedro-Piquero, Fabiola Ávila-Gámiz, Román D Moreno Fernández, Estela Castilla-Ortega and Luis J Santín in Journal of Psychopharmacology
Our aim was to assess the cognitive and emotional state, as well as related-changes in the glucoc... more Our aim was to assess the cognitive and emotional state, as well as related-changes in the glucocorticoid receptor (GR), the corticotropin-releasing factor (CRF) and the brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) expression of adolescent C57BL/6J male mice after a five-week two-bottle choice protocol (postnatal day (pd) 21 to pd52). Additionally, we wanted to analyse whether the behavioural and neurobiological effects observed in late adolescence (pd62) lasted until adulthood (pd84). Behavioural testing revealed that alcohol during early adolescence increased anxiety-like and compulsive-related behaviours, which was maintained in adulthood. Concerning cognition, working memory was only altered in late adolescent mice, whereas object location test performance was impaired in both ages. In contrast, novel object recognition remained unaltered. Immunohistochemical analysis showed that alcohol during adolescence diminished BDNF+ cells in the cingulate cortex, the hippocampal CA1 layer and...
The binge-drinking pattern of EtOH consumption, which is frequently observed in adolescents, is k... more The binge-drinking pattern of EtOH consumption, which is frequently observed in adolescents, is known to induce several neurobehavioral alterations, but protection strategies against these impairments remain scarcely explored. We aimed to study the protective role of treadmill physical exercise on the deficits caused after repeated cycles of binge-like EtOH exposure in the cognition, motivation, exploration, and emotion of C57BL/6J mice from adolescence to adulthood. Animals were divided into four groups: control group, exercised group, EtOH group, and exercised + EtOH group (20% in tap water). The exercise was performed for 20 min, 5 days/week at 20 cm/s. Then, animals were submitted to several behavioral tasks. Compared to binge-drinking mice, the exercised + EtOH group exhibited diminished anxiolytic-related behaviors in the elevated plus-maze, enhanced exploratory activity in the open field, reduced preference for alcohol odor when another rewarding stimulus was present (social ...
Cortisol is a glucocorticoid hormone secreted by the adrenal cortex upon the activation of the hy... more Cortisol is a glucocorticoid hormone secreted by the adrenal cortex upon the activation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis. Assessment of cortisol in saliva has emerged as a reliable way of evaluating HPA function. We examined the relationships between salivary cortisol levels with both craving and cognitive performance, as a possible biomarker of cocaine addiction. Cognitive performance (attention, declarative and working memory, executive functions and recognition of emotions) was assessed in 14 abstinent cocaine-dependent subjects in outpatient treatment and 13 control participants. Three salivary samples were collected at home by all the participants in the morning, afternoon and at bedtime. Patients showed higher levels of cortisol in the morning, as well as higher area under the curve with respect to the ground (AUCg). Regarding cognitive performance, cocaine-abstinent subjects showed worse performance in attention (d2 test), verbal memory (Spanish Complementary ...
Background: One challenge in the treatment of substance use disorders is to re-engage the interes... more Background: One challenge in the treatment of substance use disorders is to re-engage the interest toward non-drug-related activities. Among these activities, social interaction has had a prominent role due to its positive influence on treatment outcome. Aims and methods: Our aim was to study whether the presence of a social stimulus during the cocaine-induced conditioned place preference test was able to reduce the time spent in the drug-paired compartment. For that purpose, mice were trained for four days on a conditioned place preference task with one compartment paired with cocaine and the opposite with saline. On the test day, we introduced an unfamiliar juvenile male mouse into the saline-conditioned compartment (inside a pencil cup) to analyse the animal preference towards the two rewarding stimuli (cocaine vs mouse). Additionally, to discard the possible effect of novelty, as well as the housing condition (social isolation) on social preference, we decided to include a novel...
Potentiating social, cognitive, and sensorimotor stimulations the Environmental Enrichment (EE) i... more Potentiating social, cognitive, and sensorimotor stimulations the Environmental Enrichment (EE) increases levels of novelty and complexity experienced by individuals. Growing evidence demonstrates that parental EE experience, even occurring in the pre-reproductive phase, affects behavioral and neural developmental trajectories of the offspring. To discover how the accumulation of early maternal complex experiences may inform and shape the social behavior of the following generation, we examined the effects of pre-reproductive enrichment of dams (post-natal days 21-72) on the play performances of their male and female adolescent offspring. Furthermore, we examined the effects of pre-reproductive enrichment on maternal behavior (during post-partum days 1-10) and male intruder aggression (on post-partum day 11). Since oxytocin modulates maternal care, social bonding, and agonistic behavior, the number of oxytocinergic neurons of the paraventricular (PVN) and supraoptic (SON) nuclei was...
Environmental enrichment (EE) is an experimental setting broadly used for investigating the effec... more Environmental enrichment (EE) is an experimental setting broadly used for investigating the effects of complex social, cognitive, and sensorimotor stimulations on brain structure and function. Recent studies point out that parental EE experience, even occurring in the pre-reproductive phase, affects neural development and behavioral trajectories of the offspring. In the present study we investigated the influences of pre-reproductive EE of female rats on maternal behavior and adolescent male offspring's coping response to an inescapable stressful situation after chronic social isolation. For this purpose female Wistar rats were housed from weaning to breeding age in enriched or standard environments. Subsequently, all females were mated and housed in standard conditions until offspring weaning. On the first post partum day (ppd 1), mother-pup interactions in undisturbed conditions were recorded. Further, after weaning the male pups were reared for 2 weeks under social isolation ...
Abstract There is a growing interest in individual visuo-spatial skills and their role in environ... more Abstract There is a growing interest in individual visuo-spatial skills and their role in environment learning from navigation because they can be key factors in explaining how navigation performance varies across individuals. The present study examined the role of visuo-spatial skills in navigation-based environment learning, focusing on rotation ability and visuo-spatial working memory (VSWM). A group of 83 females individually performed a series of visuo-spatial and verbal (control) tasks, and learned three routes through the same virtual environment. Their recall of each route (retraced in the same environment or reproduced separately in a drawing) and of the whole environment (in a drawing of all three routes and the identification of a shortcut) was assessed. Two path models were developed (using single route [Model 1] and whole environment [Model 2] recall performance as final dependent variables), inputting the rotation task as the initial predictor and VSWM between the predictor and the dependent variables. The results showed that the relationship between rotation ability and environment learning accuracy is indirect, through the intervention of VSWM. How individual visuo-spatial skills can work at different levels (as an interface and/or as a-priori abilities) is discussed.
Supplemental material, Supplementary_material for The presence of a social stimulus reduces cocai... more Supplemental material, Supplementary_material for The presence of a social stimulus reduces cocaine-seeking in a place preference conditioning paradigm by Patricia Sampedro-Piquero, Fabiola Ávila-Gámiz, Román D Moreno Fernández, Estela Castilla-Ortega and Luis J Santín in Journal of Psychopharmacology
Our aim was to assess the cognitive and emotional state, as well as related-changes in the glucoc... more Our aim was to assess the cognitive and emotional state, as well as related-changes in the glucocorticoid receptor (GR), the corticotropin-releasing factor (CRF) and the brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) expression of adolescent C57BL/6J male mice after a five-week two-bottle choice protocol (postnatal day (pd) 21 to pd52). Additionally, we wanted to analyse whether the behavioural and neurobiological effects observed in late adolescence (pd62) lasted until adulthood (pd84). Behavioural testing revealed that alcohol during early adolescence increased anxiety-like and compulsive-related behaviours, which was maintained in adulthood. Concerning cognition, working memory was only altered in late adolescent mice, whereas object location test performance was impaired in both ages. In contrast, novel object recognition remained unaltered. Immunohistochemical analysis showed that alcohol during adolescence diminished BDNF+ cells in the cingulate cortex, the hippocampal CA1 layer and...
The binge-drinking pattern of EtOH consumption, which is frequently observed in adolescents, is k... more The binge-drinking pattern of EtOH consumption, which is frequently observed in adolescents, is known to induce several neurobehavioral alterations, but protection strategies against these impairments remain scarcely explored. We aimed to study the protective role of treadmill physical exercise on the deficits caused after repeated cycles of binge-like EtOH exposure in the cognition, motivation, exploration, and emotion of C57BL/6J mice from adolescence to adulthood. Animals were divided into four groups: control group, exercised group, EtOH group, and exercised + EtOH group (20% in tap water). The exercise was performed for 20 min, 5 days/week at 20 cm/s. Then, animals were submitted to several behavioral tasks. Compared to binge-drinking mice, the exercised + EtOH group exhibited diminished anxiolytic-related behaviors in the elevated plus-maze, enhanced exploratory activity in the open field, reduced preference for alcohol odor when another rewarding stimulus was present (social ...
Cortisol is a glucocorticoid hormone secreted by the adrenal cortex upon the activation of the hy... more Cortisol is a glucocorticoid hormone secreted by the adrenal cortex upon the activation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis. Assessment of cortisol in saliva has emerged as a reliable way of evaluating HPA function. We examined the relationships between salivary cortisol levels with both craving and cognitive performance, as a possible biomarker of cocaine addiction. Cognitive performance (attention, declarative and working memory, executive functions and recognition of emotions) was assessed in 14 abstinent cocaine-dependent subjects in outpatient treatment and 13 control participants. Three salivary samples were collected at home by all the participants in the morning, afternoon and at bedtime. Patients showed higher levels of cortisol in the morning, as well as higher area under the curve with respect to the ground (AUCg). Regarding cognitive performance, cocaine-abstinent subjects showed worse performance in attention (d2 test), verbal memory (Spanish Complementary ...
Background: One challenge in the treatment of substance use disorders is to re-engage the interes... more Background: One challenge in the treatment of substance use disorders is to re-engage the interest toward non-drug-related activities. Among these activities, social interaction has had a prominent role due to its positive influence on treatment outcome. Aims and methods: Our aim was to study whether the presence of a social stimulus during the cocaine-induced conditioned place preference test was able to reduce the time spent in the drug-paired compartment. For that purpose, mice were trained for four days on a conditioned place preference task with one compartment paired with cocaine and the opposite with saline. On the test day, we introduced an unfamiliar juvenile male mouse into the saline-conditioned compartment (inside a pencil cup) to analyse the animal preference towards the two rewarding stimuli (cocaine vs mouse). Additionally, to discard the possible effect of novelty, as well as the housing condition (social isolation) on social preference, we decided to include a novel...
Potentiating social, cognitive, and sensorimotor stimulations the Environmental Enrichment (EE) i... more Potentiating social, cognitive, and sensorimotor stimulations the Environmental Enrichment (EE) increases levels of novelty and complexity experienced by individuals. Growing evidence demonstrates that parental EE experience, even occurring in the pre-reproductive phase, affects behavioral and neural developmental trajectories of the offspring. To discover how the accumulation of early maternal complex experiences may inform and shape the social behavior of the following generation, we examined the effects of pre-reproductive enrichment of dams (post-natal days 21-72) on the play performances of their male and female adolescent offspring. Furthermore, we examined the effects of pre-reproductive enrichment on maternal behavior (during post-partum days 1-10) and male intruder aggression (on post-partum day 11). Since oxytocin modulates maternal care, social bonding, and agonistic behavior, the number of oxytocinergic neurons of the paraventricular (PVN) and supraoptic (SON) nuclei was...
Environmental enrichment (EE) is an experimental setting broadly used for investigating the effec... more Environmental enrichment (EE) is an experimental setting broadly used for investigating the effects of complex social, cognitive, and sensorimotor stimulations on brain structure and function. Recent studies point out that parental EE experience, even occurring in the pre-reproductive phase, affects neural development and behavioral trajectories of the offspring. In the present study we investigated the influences of pre-reproductive EE of female rats on maternal behavior and adolescent male offspring's coping response to an inescapable stressful situation after chronic social isolation. For this purpose female Wistar rats were housed from weaning to breeding age in enriched or standard environments. Subsequently, all females were mated and housed in standard conditions until offspring weaning. On the first post partum day (ppd 1), mother-pup interactions in undisturbed conditions were recorded. Further, after weaning the male pups were reared for 2 weeks under social isolation ...
Abstract There is a growing interest in individual visuo-spatial skills and their role in environ... more Abstract There is a growing interest in individual visuo-spatial skills and their role in environment learning from navigation because they can be key factors in explaining how navigation performance varies across individuals. The present study examined the role of visuo-spatial skills in navigation-based environment learning, focusing on rotation ability and visuo-spatial working memory (VSWM). A group of 83 females individually performed a series of visuo-spatial and verbal (control) tasks, and learned three routes through the same virtual environment. Their recall of each route (retraced in the same environment or reproduced separately in a drawing) and of the whole environment (in a drawing of all three routes and the identification of a shortcut) was assessed. Two path models were developed (using single route [Model 1] and whole environment [Model 2] recall performance as final dependent variables), inputting the rotation task as the initial predictor and VSWM between the predictor and the dependent variables. The results showed that the relationship between rotation ability and environment learning accuracy is indirect, through the intervention of VSWM. How individual visuo-spatial skills can work at different levels (as an interface and/or as a-priori abilities) is discussed.
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