Byron Campbell - US grants

The goals of this project are as follows. (1) to increase our understanding of the emotional reactivity of developing animals to unfamiliar, fear-arousing environments and to painful stimulation. Is the young animal for example, hyper-reactive to those stimuli? (2) If the young of a species are hyper-reactive to emotion-arousing conditions, are there naturally-occurring stimuli in the environment that calm or reduce those states? If so, how effective are they and how quickly do they act as "calming" or "safety" stimuli? (3) To understand the effects of heightened emotional reactivity on sensory information processing (as measured by the orienting response) and on learning and memory. During the period of hyper-arousal is the young animal more or less likely to perceive and encode new incoming information? (4) To determine whether the young aninal is more likely than an adult to show cross-modal transfer of acquired information? Similarly, is overshadowing and facilitation more likely to occur in infants than adults? (5) To increase our understanding of the role of autonomic activity in the ontogeny of long-term memory. For example, which shows the greatest loss over time: the autonomic or somato-motor components of conditioned fear? After a long retention interval, which is elicited first by the conditioned stimulus: the autonomic or somato-motor responses? Does one trigger the reappearance of the other? (6) To understand the interrelationships between the somato-motor and autonomic responses in the reinstatement process. Are both the autonomic and somato-motor components of memory reactivated simultaneously? Or does one occur before the other? If so, does reactivation of the emotional component stimulate reactivation on the somato-motor behavior?

The major purpose of the proposed research will be to study the effects of fetal alcohol exposure on aging and longevity. A subsidiary goal will be to investigate several potentially important sequelae of fetal alcohol exposure that have not been examined by previous researchers. These include the effects of prenatal alcohol on sensory function, autonomic function, and attention. The primary concern of the proposed research is the effect of prenatal alcohol exposure on aging. Is the lifespan of the fetal alcohol animal reduced and, if so, by how much? Second, does the fetal alcohol syndrome include, as one of its hidden or overlooked symptoms, either generalized accelerated aging of the central nervous system or selective accelerated aging of specific neural and/or behavioral systems? Third, how long do the behavioral effects of fetal alcohol exposure last? Which, if any, persist throughout the animals' lifespan? And, finally, do any of the deficits or abnormalities that disappeared (recovered) during development of early adulthood, reappear during the course of normal aging? The experimental plan of the proposed research is to maintain pregnant Fischer 344 rats on a liquid diet containing 35% alcohol derived calories day 6 post-conception until the day before parturition. Following parturition the animals will be tested periodically on battery of behavioral tasks designed to trace the emergence during development and the decline during senescence of simple motor and reflexive behaviors, sensory thresholds, sensory-motor integrity, attentional processes and autonomic reactivity.

biomedical equipment purchase;

The long-range goal of the proposed research is to increase our understanding of the role of orienting and defensive responses in attention and information processing in humans. Over the past several decades extensive research on human subjects has failed to resolve many of the basic issues related to this question. The purpose of the proposed research is to conduct a systematic analysis of orienting and defensive responses in animal subjects from three different phyla, to analyze the changes in autonomic nervous system activity that accompany those responses, and to study the effects of those responses on attention and information processing i the three classes of animals. Achieving a fuller understanding of the function of orienting and defensive responses in a wide range of animal species may help us to understand the role of those responses in attention and information processing in humans. The first phase of the proposed research will systematically examine the cardiac and behavioral response to neutral, prey, and predator stimuli in selected amphibians (e.g., Bufo marinus), reptiles (e.g., Sceleporus poinsetti), and mammals (Sigmodon hispidus). Although the particular species chosen differ in a number of ways they are all subject to predation by the same predators and consume similar prey species. This will allow us to study the cardiac and behavioral responses of the different animal species to the same prey and predator stimuli, in the form of either real or simulated prey and predators. One major focus of the proposed research will be to record the changes in heart rate that occur during the various stages of predation and predator-escape. The first three stages of those sequences are the same and consist of (1) detection, (2) identification, and (3) assessment. In the predation sequence the assessment stage is followed by the capture response (e.g., approach and/ or attack). In the predator-escape sequence the assessment stage is followed by an escape response (e.g., flight, concealment, fighting). The cardiac changes that occur during these three common stages will be studied in both standard laboratory test chambers and simulated natural environments designed for each of the species to be studied. The second phase will employ specific pharmacological treatments to assess the underlying physiological mechanisms responsible for the various changes in heart rate that occur during the predication and predator-escape sequences. Subsequent research will attempt to relate those autonomic changes to attention and information processing. The third phase will focus on the role of the cardiac and behavioral responses occurring during the various stages of the predation and predator-avoidance sequences on attention and information processing. These results will be interpreted in terms of their significance for contemporary theories of attention and information processing in human subjects.