1999 — 2003 |
Taylor, Shelley [⬀] Seeman, Teresa Greendale, Gail Klein, Laura |
N/AActivity Code Description: No activity code was retrieved: click on the grant title for more information |
Gender Differences in Psychological and Neuroendocrine Stress Responses @ University of California-Los Angeles
This research explores differences in how men and women react to stress, with the goal of identifying how women's responses to stress may be health-protective. In a series of experimental investigations, men and women are asked to complete stressful tasks in the laboratory (such as giving a public speech and doing arithmetic in their heads). Physiological and neuroendocrine responses to stress, memory for stress-related material, anxiety, and affiliative/social responses to the stress are then examined. The main interest is in oxytocin, in conjunction with estrogen, which may account for the fact that women are substantially more likely to turn to others in response to stress, and which may, in turn, account for the fact that their physiological and neuroendocrine responses to stress are downregulated (i.e., lessened in comparison with men's). These studies are important because they will help to identify responses to stress that are psychologically and physiologically protective and may point to interventions to improve both men's and women's responses to stress. These studies will be the first to examine the potential role of oxytocin and its enhancement by estrogen in accounting for women's greater social responses to stress and lesser physiological costs in response to stress.
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0.954 |
2001 |
Klein, Laura Cousino [⬀] |
R03Activity Code Description: To provide research support specifically limited in time and amount for studies in categorical program areas. Small grants provide flexibility for initiating studies which are generally for preliminary short-term projects and are non-renewable. |
Oral Nicotine Consumption in Periadolescent Mice @ Pennsylvania State University-Univ Park
DESCRIPTION: (provided by the applicant) Nearly 90 percent of all smokers begin smoking during adolescence and about 3,000 adolescents start smoking every day in the United States. The likelihood of quitting smoking in adulthood is decreased dramatically when smoking initiation begins during adolescence. In fact, adolescents who start smoking today will smoke for as long as 20-30 years, on average, which also means that they are more likely to experience the adverse health consequences of smoking than are those individuals who start to smoke later in life. Despite these staggering statistics that suggest a developmental vulnerability to nicotine, little is known about the progression from adolescent experimentation with cigarettes into smoking addiction. Adolescent exposure to nicotine through cigarette smoking also appears to mark the first stage of additional addictive drug involvement in vulnerable individuals. One hypothesis consistent with these epidemiologic data is that the direct pharmacological actions of nicotine in adolescence may influence the vulnerability to consume addictive drugs, including nicotine, in adulthood. To the extent that animal models predict self-administration of addictive substances in adults, they also could be used to understand why adolescent humans begin to smoke, and how smoking might increase the propensity to consume addictive drugs in some individuals. Unfortunately, behavioral animal models of adolescent drug self-administration are rare, particularly with respect to nicotine, the primary addictive ingredient in cigarettes. Therefore, the present proposal will examine the preference for nicotine in periadolescent mice given access to differences doses of nicotine. In addition, nicotine preference will be tested in adult mice following an opportunity to consume nicotine in the adolescent developmental period. Results from this work will set the stage for future research to characterize behavioral (drug self-administration) and biological (molecular, genetic, neuroendocrine) alterations that occur following adolescent exposure to nicotine and to aid in future development of therapies for smoking - the single most preventable cause of death in the United States.
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0.911 |
2015 — 2017 |
Hinde, Katherine Klein, Laura |
N/AActivity Code Description: No activity code was retrieved: click on the grant title for more information |
Doctoral Dissertation Research: Impacts of Maternal Environment On Milk Immunofactors and Infant Immune System Development
In addition to being an infant's first food, human breast milk is medicine. Molecules in milk can protect infants from infectious illness. Recent technological advances now allow scientists to fully explore the wide range of molecules contained in mother's milk. To better understand the sources of variation in the immune protection provided by breast milk, this project will investigate how the mother's current and childhood environments impact the composition of key immune molecules in her milk. This research will also explore how the variation of these milk molecules might influence infant immune system development and consider how the immune system has changed during human evolution. This research has direct benefits to society, including informing parent's infant-feeding decisions, donor milk bank policies, and infant formula composition. This work will also create opportunities for training women and under-represented groups in science through established programs in the US and Poland.
Monthly milk samples will be collected from mothers at the Mogielica Human Ecology Study Site in Poland. This study location encompasses villages with varying levels of participation in traditional agriculture and a cash economy, leading to a unique diversity of environments in a small geographic area. The milk samples will be analyzed in the United States using mass spectrometry for selected immune molecules. Milk composition will then be compared to detailed health history interviews to determine what aspects of the maternal environment most influence levels of immune factors in the milk. To explore consequences of variation in milk composition for the infant, milk composition will be compared to salivary measures of the infant's immune function. This study is unique in its longitudinal design, which will allow the researchers to contextualize variation in milk composition and infant immune function in relation to the environment. This study will make a substantial contribution to the existing biological anthropology literature by expanding our knowledge of how immune factors secreted in milk relate to childhood and current exposures in the maternal environment. These findings not only have public health implications but are important for understanding physiological adaptations to human evolutionary transitions.
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0.957 |