Adaptive Behavioral Changes Research Articles

Considerations of trial design and conduct in behavioral interventions for the management of chronic pain in adults.

Introduction:A growing number and type of nonpharmacological approaches for the management of chronic pain have demonstrated at least modest evidence of efficacy, and for some, there is emerging evidence of their effectiveness in relatively large scale trials. Behavioral approaches are those that generally seek to promote adaptive behavioral change in the service of reducing pain and improving physical and emotional functioning and quality of life. Despite a substantial empirical literature supporting the clinical utility of these approaches, a large number of unanswered questions remain and clinical trials to answer some of these questions are needed. Although considerations for development and enactment of data-analytic plans are generally similar to those in pharmacological trials (eg, intent-to-treat, prespecifying outcomes and time points, and handling of missing data), there may be some important differences to consider when planning and conducting clinical trials examining these behavioral approaches.Objectives:The primary objective of this article is to describe some aspects of clinical trials for behavioral approaches for the management of chronic pain that requires special consideration.Methods:Important topics discussed include: (1) intervention development, (2) research design considerations (adequate and appropriate control and comparison conditions), (3) appropriate outcomes, (4) recruitment and sampling biases and blinding, (5) intervention fidelity and adherence, and (6) demographic and cultural considerations.Results and Conclusions:A number of methodological recommendations are made in the service of encouraging the conduct of high-quality research comparable with that performed for pharmacological and other medical interventions.

Adaptive changes in micromechanical environments of cancellous and cortical bone in response to in vivo loading and disuse

The skeleton accommodates changes in mechanical environments by increasing bone mass under increased loads and decreasing bone mass under disuse. However, little is known about the adaptive changes in micromechanical behavior of cancellous and cortical tissues resulting from loading or disuse. To address this issue, in vivo tibial loading and hindlimb unloading experiments were conducted on 16-week-old female C57BL/6J mice. Changes in bone mass and tissue-level strains in the metaphyseal cancellous and midshaft cortical bone of the tibiae, resulting from loading or unloading, were determined using microCT and finite element (FE) analysis, respectively. We found that loading- and unloading-induced changes in bone mass were more pronounced in the cancellous than cortical bone. Simulated FE-loading showed that a greater proportion of elements experienced relatively lower longitudinal strains following load-induced bone adaptation, while the opposite was true in the disuse model. While the magnitudes of maximum or minimum principal strains in the metaphyseal cancellous and midshaft cortical bone were not affected by loading, strains oriented with the long axis were reduced in the load-adapted tibia suggesting that loading-induced micromechanical benefits were aligned primarily in the loading direction. Regression analyses demonstrated that bone mass was a good predictor of bone tissue strains for the cortical bone but not for the cancellous bone, which has complex microarchitecture and spatially-variant strain environments. In summary, loading-induced micromechanical benefits for cancellous and cortical tissues are received primarily in the direction of force application and cancellous bone mass may not be related to the micromechanics of cancellous bone.

보편적 차원의 긍정적 행동지원을 적용한 대안학교 중등 장애 고위험군 학생의 학교적응행동 변화에 대한 연구

The purposes of this study were to investigate the impact of universal positive behavior support program connected with teaching desirable expected behaviors in all school environments on School Adaptive Behavior changes of middle school students at-risk in an alternative school. Two students at-risk in age range from 13 to 14 years who were enrolled in a metropolitan-area alternative school were participated in this study. Utilizing qualitative research method, individual growth documents and teacher interview data were analyzed by extracting and categorizing appropriate contents on School Adaptive Behavior changes. In addition, pretest-posttest data on participants' School Adaptive Behavior scores were compared using a school adaptive behavior scale developed by Lee and Kim(2008). Qualitative and quantitative results of this study indicated that two participants at risk in the alternative school were changed positively their School Adaptive Behaviors(i.e., school study behavior, peer and teacher relationship, school life adjustment) following the implementation of universal positive behavior support programs which were consisted of teaching appropriate behaviors according to expected behaviors, changing the school environment desirably, and proving the reinforcement on students' behaviors. Based on these findings, to promote ideally School Adaptive Behavior changes on middle school students at risk in the alternative school, I discussed educational implications to develop the components of universal positive behavior support program.

О РОЛИ ХОЛИНЕРГИЧЕСКОЙ СИСТЕМЫ В СТРЕСС-РЕАКЦИИ ОРГАНИЗМА И ДЕПРЕССИИ

The paper presents a summary of results considering cholinergic hypothesis on the central processes of human stress response and depression caused by chronic social stress. These studies include both the work of clinicians, who are examining pathogenesis of depression, and experiments with rodents. The authors also consider the history of stress response discovery in humans and vertebrates. The paper analyses the results of early studies (1980s-1990s), which led to the hypothesis on the key role of brain cholinergic system in nonspecific stress response of the whole multicellular organism of humans and rodents. Special attention is paid to the latest ideas on acetylcholine as the most powerful neuromodulator in the brain. Acetylcholine is said to transmit large volumes of information. The authors conducted the summary of experimental and clinical studies showing that the primary reaction of humans and rodents under stress is manifested in the activation of brain cholinergic transmission, but not in subsequent changes in serotonergic system functioning. The paper analyses numerous studies, the result of which confirmed the cholinergic hypothesis on stress and depression. These facts are as follows: firstly, the increase in the acetylcholine level in the brain or in the hippocampus (physostigmine injection) causes similar changes in the behavior and physiological state of rodents under stress; secondly, single-time stress increases the acetylcholine level in several areas of the brain, thus, correlating to adaptive changes in behavior; thirdly, chronic stress that causes disturbances in rodent behavior, which are similar to depression, is accompanied by an increase of the acetylcholine level in the brain. In general, the authors come to the conclusion that ideas on the key role of cholinergic system in stress response can serve as a scientific basis for further research on the depression mechanisms both clinically and experimentally Keywords: stress, depression, acetylcholine, neuromodulator, behavior.

Plasticity of boldness: high perceived risk eliminates a relationship between boldness and body size in fathead minnows

In the face of anthropogenic change, we require a better understanding of how adaptive behavioural changes emerge from the interaction between personality and phenotypic plasticity, to be able to predict population persistence. Predation is an important context where this interaction occurs. Sampling wild fish populations revealed that boldness is size dependent in habitats with low predation risk but not in high predation habitats. This is predicted to occur due to a trade-off between a prey's metabolic demand, as per the metabolic hypothesis (smaller fish have higher metabolic requirements and thus need to be bolder) and their risk of predation, as per the predation risk hypothesis (smaller fish are subject to higher predation risk and should thus be shyer). However, since selective predation on specific individuals, age effects or the extent of direct experience with predators were not controlled for in these studies, the role of body size in modulating boldness remains unclear. Here, we tested the relationship between body size, boldness and predation risk in a widespread North American prey fish, the fathead minnow, Pimephales promelas. From hatching onwards, we manipulated perceived risk by exposing minnows to either conspecific alarm cues (indicative of predation risk) or distilled water in a split-clutch design. When fish were 4 months old, we measured body size and determined boldness using an emergence assay. Different levels of perceived predation risk did not directly affect body size or general boldness in fathead minnows. However, as predicted by the metabolic and predation risk hypotheses, high perceived predation risk cancelled out the negative correlation between boldness and body size present in controls through phenotypic plasticity. This effect was independent of selective predation, direct experience with predators and age. By adjusting personality through phenotypic plasticity, perceived predation risk alone may thus be sufficient for individuals to maximize their fitness in high-risk habitats.

Discussing lifestyle behaviors: perspectives and experiences of general practitioners

ABSTRACTBackground: Initiatives aimed at increasing participation in preventive health behaviors has been identified as a priority for addressing the increasing incidence of non-communicable chronic disease. General practice is an existing network that can be leveraged to intervene and promote messages for health behavior change. We aimed to explore the extent to which ‘lifestyle’ behaviors are discussed by general practitioners (GPs) with their patients in their practices, and the context and content of these discussions.Methods: GPs (N = 26) practising in Australian clinics participated in semi-structured interviews. Data were analyzed using an inductive thematic analysis.Results: Results showed discussions of lifestyle behaviors were brief, but relatively frequent and often initiated by the GP. GPs generally provided basic advice and education that was often ad-hoc and in reaction to prompts from the patient. GPs recognized the importance of addressing lifestyle behaviors in practice, but also highlighted substantive barriers that limit the initiation of these discussions. These included patient readiness for change, patient acceptance and openness, patient accountability and responsibility, patient background factors, GPs’ role and knowledge, GP financial implications, GP-patient relationship, and lack of time.Conclusions: Current findings provide important preliminary knowledge on the extent to which Australian GPs discuss lifestyle behavior change with patients during routine consultations, the context and content of these discussions, and barriers to initiating these discussions. Further research should seek to gain a better understanding of barriers and identify strategies to mitigate their impact. This might maximize the potential for GPs to promote adaptive lifestyle behavior change for improving patient health.

Comparison of Three Clinical Trial Treatments for Autism Spectrum Disorder Through Multivariate Analysis of Changes in Metabolic Profiles and Adaptive Behavior.

Several studies associate autism spectrum disorder (ASD) pathophysiology with metabolic abnormalities related to DNA methylation and intracellular redox homeostasis. In this regard, three completed clinical trials are reexamined in this work: treatment with (i) methylcobalamin (MeCbl) in combination with low-dose folinic acid (LDFA), (ii) tetrahydrobiopterin, and (iii) high-dose folinic acid (HDFA) for counteracting abnormalities in the folate-dependent one-carbon metabolism (FOCM) and transsulfuration (TS) pathways and also for improving ASD-related symptoms and behaviors. Although effects of treatment on individual metabolites and behavioral measures have previously been investigated, this study is the first to consider the effect of interventions on a set of metabolites of the FOCM/TS pathways and to correlate FOCM/TS metabolic changes with behavioral improvements across several studies. To do so, this work uses data from one case–control study and the three clinical trials to develop multivariate models for considering these aspects of treatment. Fisher discriminant analysis (FDA) is first used to establish a model for distinguishing individuals with ASD from typically developing (TD) controls, which is subsequently evaluated on the three treatment data sets, along with one data set for a placebo, to characterize the shift of FOCM/TS metabolism toward that of the TD population. Treatment with MeCbl plus LDFA and, separately, treatment with tetrahydrobiopterin significantly shifted the metabolites toward the values of the control group. Contrary to this, treatment with HDFA had a lesser, though still noticeable, effect whilst the placebo group showed marginal, but not insignificant, variations in metabolites. A second analysis is then performed with non-linear kernel partial least squares (KPLS) regression to predict changes in adaptive behavior, quantified by the Vineland Adaptive Behavior Composite, from changes in FOCM/TS biochemical measurements provided by treatment. Incorporating the 74 samples receiving any treatment, including placebo, into the regression analysis yields an R2 of 0.471 after cross-validation when using changes in six metabolic measurements as predictors. These results are suggestive of an ability to effectively improve pathway-wide FOCM/TS metabolic and behavioral abnormalities in ASD with clinical treatment.

GLS1 Mutant Mice Display Moderate Alterations of Hippocampal Glutamatergic Neurotransmission Associated with Specific Adaptive Behavioral Changes

Significant alterations in glutamatergic neurotransmission have been reported in major depressive disorder (MDD) that could underlie psychiatric traits. Studies were mainly interested in synaptic dysfunction in the prefrontal cortex, a key structure involved in depressive-like behavior, however hippocampus has been shown to be important in MDD. As cognitive deficits such as hippocampus-memory process were observed in MDD, we investigated in a mild hypoglutamatergic model behaviors related to depression and memory, synaptic transmission parameters and glutamatergic state specifically in the hippocampus. We thus characterized these phenotypes in adult male mice partially depleted in glutaminase type 1 or GLS1 (GLS1 HET), the enzyme responsible for glutamate synthesis in neurons, that we previously characterized as displaying moderate lower levels of glutamate in brain. We showed that GLS1 mutant mice display AMPA-R-mediated response deficits after prolonged repetitive stimulation with electrophysiological recording and inability to sustain glutamate release by microdialysis experiments with no consequences on behavioral spatial learning performances. However, their ability to escape from unpleasant but repeated escapable condition was attenuated whereas they were more immobile in the unescapable situation in the FST during re-test. These results show that GLS1 mutant mice display moderate impairments of hippocampal glutamatergic neurotransmission and moderate changes in adaptive behaviors that have been shown to participate to the development of depressive-like state.

Multiple timescales of normalized value coding underlie adaptive choice behavior

Adaptation is a fundamental process crucial for the efficient coding of sensory information. Recent evidence suggests that similar coding principles operate in decision-related brain areas, where neural value coding adapts to recent reward history. However, the circuit mechanism for value adaptation is unknown, and the link between changes in adaptive value coding and choice behavior is unclear. Here we show that choice behavior in nonhuman primates varies with the statistics of recent rewards. Consistent with efficient coding theory, decision-making shows increased choice sensitivity in lower variance reward environments. Both the average adaptation effect and across-session variability are explained by a novel multiple timescale dynamical model of value representation implementing divisive normalization. The model predicts empirical variance-driven changes in behavior despite having no explicit knowledge of environmental statistics, suggesting that distributional characteristics can be captured by dynamic model architectures. These findings highlight the importance of treating decision-making as a dynamic process and the role of normalization as a unifying computation for contextual phenomena in choice.

Homeostatic sensing of dietary protein restriction: A case for FGF21.

Restriction of dietary protein intake increases food intake and energy expenditure, reduces growth, and alters amino acid, lipid, and glucose metabolism. While these responses suggest that animals 'sense' variations in amino acid consumption, the basic physiological mechanism mediating the adaptive response to protein restriction has been largely undescribed. In this review we make the case that the liver-derived metabolic hormone FGF21 is the key signal which communicates and coordinates the homeostatic response to dietary protein restriction. Support for this model centers on the evidence that FGF21 is induced by the restriction of dietary protein or amino acid intake and is required for adaptive changes in metabolism and behavior. FGF21 occupies a unique endocrine niche, being induced when energy intake is adequate but protein and carbohydrate are imbalanced. Collectively, the evidence thus suggests that FGF21 is the first known endocrine signal of dietary protein restriction.

TRANSNATIONAL PROJECTS IN HIGHER EDUCATION: DEVELOPMENT OF INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION SKILLS BY MEANS OF JOINT RESEARCH

The article analyses the efficiency of implementing transnational virtual projects in higher education. The research aims at defining the most appropriate ways of developing intercultural communication skills among students in the process of doing joint research. The authors describe the International Conference Project on Global Issues held at Samara State Technical University (Russia) and Notre Dame College (USA). Special emphasis is laid upon the stages of the project programme worked out by the authors, difficulties in communication faced by students in the course of collaboration and the ways to eliminate them. The authors assess project efficiency not only by analysing psychological and cultural factors, but also by examining the data of the questionnaire survey held among Russian and American students who have finished their joint research. This kind of multifaceted approach helped identify advantages and disadvantages of the project programme and reveal the friction points that can arise in the process of professional interaction of the representatives of different cultures. The authors conclude that transnational virtual projects give valuable opportunities to develop intercultural communication skills as students learn to make adaptive behavior changes in different cultural contexts, analyse friction points and construct effective strategies for their solution. They gain the ability to synthesize the cultures/languages/rhetorics/spaces in conflict for a constructive communicative outcome.

Cultural concepts of the person and mental health in Africa.

People in different cultures have different concepts of the person that underlie self-understanding and self-representation. These concepts influence many aspects of individuals' life experience, including illness and expectations toward recovery. Psychotherapies aim to promote adaptive change in experience and behavior. This goal is embedded in a social and cultural context that promotes or sanctions a particular notion of personhood. If every system of psychotherapy depends on implicit models of personhood, which varies cross-culturally, then the goals and methods of therapeutic change must consider the cultural concept of the person. This paper reviews cultural concepts of the person in relation to communal values, practices, and systems of thought observed across many African cultural contexts. It presents a practical framework that can inform therapists working with African clients. Many African cultures promote a relational-oriented personhood, in which an individual manifests his or her personhood through connections to three distinct forms of agency: (a) spiritual agency, including God, ancestors, and spirits that influence the person; (b) social agency, including the family, the clan, and the community, with extension to humanity; and (c) self-agency, which is responsible for the person's inner experience. This distinctive form of personhood underlies concepts of the "normal" person, understandings of mental illness, help-seeking behavior, and clients' needs and expectations. Implications of this cultural concept of the person for psychotherapy with African clients are discussed.

A qualitative analysis of patient-identified adaptive behaviour changes following interdisciplinary Acceptance and Commitment Therapy for chronic pain.

Interdisciplinary treatment programmes for chronic pain have strong evidence of treatment effect both immediately after treatment and at follow-up. However, despite strong outcome evidence, it is less clear which specific changes in behaviour are most relevant to patients or to outcomes. Indeed, it is not unknown for clinicians and patients to have different views with regard to goals of treatment. This study sought to evaluate the patients' perspective regarding important behavioural changes that occurred while they were enrolled in a 4-week interdisciplinary programme of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) for chronic pain. Qualitative data were collected during a treatment session towards the end of treatment. In total, 104 completers from 16 consecutive treatment groups contributed to a data set consisting of 315 unique qualitative comments. Thematic analysis resulted in a theme hierarchy including overarching themes, midlevel themes and subthemes. Three overarching themes were identified as follows: (1) interacting with self - describing an interplay between various aspects of the individual, (2) activity - concerning how individuals practically and sustainably undertook activities and (3) interacting with others - exploring relationships with other people. The results section further describes the midlevel and subthemes that cluster under the overarching themes. These data provide initial insights into the patient's perspective of adaptive behavioural changes gained as part of an interdisciplinary programme of chronic pain rehabilitation. Overall, the data suggest the importance of a mix of both ACT-specific and more universal coping/pain rehabilitation elements. Future research may examine how these processes relate more directly to treatment outcome. This study provides new qualitative insights into the patient's perspective of adaptive behavioural changes gained as part of interdisciplinary pain rehabilitation. This and future work may help provide a more detailed understanding of the processes and behaviours that result in successful rehabilitation outcomes.

Conformity does not perpetuate suboptimal traditions in a wild population of songbirds

Social learning is important to the life history of many animals, helping individuals to acquire new adaptive behavior. However despite long-running debate, it remains an open question whether a reliance on social learning can also lead to mismatched or maladaptive behavior. In a previous study, we experimentally induced traditions for opening a bidirectional door puzzle box in replicate subpopulations of the great tit Parus major. Individuals were conformist social learners, resulting in stable cultural behaviors. Here, we vary the rewards gained by these techniques to ask to what extent established behaviors are flexible to changing conditions. When subpopulations with established foraging traditions for one technique were subjected to a reduced foraging payoff, 49% of birds switched their behavior to a higher-payoff foraging technique after only 14 days, with younger individuals showing a faster rate of change. We elucidated the decision-making process for each individual, using a mechanistic learning model to demonstrate that, perhaps surprisingly, this population-level change was achieved without significant asocial exploration and without any evidence for payoff-biased copying. Rather, by combining conformist social learning with payoff-sensitive individual reinforcement (updating of experience), individuals and populations could both acquire adaptive behavior and track environmental change.

Methyl-CpG binding domain proteins inhibit interspecies courtship and promote aggression in Drosophila

Reproductive isolation and speciation are driven by the convergence of environmental and genetic variation. The integration of these variation sources is thought to occur through epigenetic marks including DNA methylation. Proteins containing a methyl-CpG-binding domain (MBD) bind methylated DNA and interpret epigenetic marks, providing a dynamic yet evolutionarily adapted cellular output. Here, we report the Drosophila MBD-containing proteins, dMBD-R2 and dMBD2/3, contribute to reproductive isolation and survival behavioral strategies. Drosophila melanogaster males with a reduction in dMBD-R2 specifically in octopamine (OA) neurons exhibit courtship toward divergent interspecies D. virilis and D. yakuba females and a decrease in conspecific mating success. Conspecific male-male courtship is increased between dMBD-R2-deficient males while aggression is reduced. These changes in adaptive behavior are separable as males with a hypermethylated OA neuronal genome exhibited a decrease in aggression without altering male-male courtship. These results suggest Drosophila MBD-containing proteins are required within the OA neural circuitry to inhibit interspecies and conspecific male-male courtship and indicate that the genetically hard-wired neural mechanisms enforcing behavioral reproductive isolation include the interpretation of the epigenome.

Rich context information for just-in-time adaptive intervention promoting physical activity.

Sedentary lifestyle and inadequate levels of physical activity represent two serious health risk factors. Nevertheless, within developed countries, 60% of people aged over 60 are deemed to be sedentary. Consequently, interest in behavior change to promote physical activity is increasing. In particular, the role of emerging mobile apps to facilitate behavior change has shown promising results. Smart technologies can help in providing rich context information including an objective assessment of the level of physical activity and information on the emotional and physiological state of the person. Collectively, this can be used to develop innovative persuasive solutions for adaptive behavior change. Such solutions offer potential in reducing levels of sedentary behavior. This work presents a study exploring new ways of employing smart technologies to facilitate behavior change. It is achieved by means of (i) developing a knowledge base on sedentary behaviors and recommended physical activity guidelines, and (ii) a context model able to combine information on physical activity, location, and a user's diary to develop a context-aware virtual coach with the ability to select the most appropriate behavior change strategy on a case by case basis.

Acute peaks of testosterone suppress paternal care: evidence from individual hormonal reaction norms.

A long-standing tenet of evolutionary endocrinology states that testosterone mediates the life-history trade-off between mating and paternal care. However, the support for a role of testosterone in suppressing paternal care is mixed: implantation studies in birds suggest that high-level testosterone implants suppress paternal care, but circulating levels of testosterone and paternal care are typically not correlated. Because any trade-off in real life must be realized with hormone levels that are within an individual's reaction norm, it is crucial to show that natural changes in the hormone can modulate behaviour. Here, we used GnRH-injections to alter testosterone levels of free-living male black redstarts within each individual's hormonal reaction norm: individuals experiencing a short-term peak in testosterone resumed feeding their offspring later and showed a stronger suppression of offspring-feeding behaviour than control males. For the first time, this study demonstrated that short-term peaks in testosterone within the hormonal reaction norm of individuals can suppress paternal behaviour. Our findings reconcile previous seemingly contradictive effects that testosterone implants had on paternal care and the absence of correlations between circulating testosterone levels and paternal care, and demonstrate that the differential production of testosterone within the hormonal reaction norm of single individuals can indeed function as a mechanism to mediate a potential trade-off between mating and parenting. On a broader note, our results suggest that natural and short peaks in testosterone can elicit adaptive behavioural changes.

Kangaroo rats change temperature when investigating rattlesnake predators

Predator presence causes acute stress in mammals. A prey animal's stress response increases its chance of survival during life-threatening situations through adaptive changes in behavior and physiology. Some components of the physiological stress response can lead to changes in body surface temperatures. Body temperature changes in prey could provide information about prey state to predators that sense heat, such as pit vipers. We determined whether wild rodents undergo a stress-induced change in body surface temperature upon detecting and investigating rattlesnake predators. We staged encounters between free-ranging Merriam's kangaroo rats (Dipodomys merriami) and tethered Mojave rattlesnakes (Crotalus scutulatus) at baited feeding stations, and recorded interactions with a thermal-imaging camera. Kangaroo rats showed a significant change in maximum head temperature, snout temperature, and hind leg temperature during interactions with rattlesnakes. This supports the hypothesis that presence of a predator induces body temperature changes in prey animals. If changes in prey heat signature are detectable by heat-sensitive rattlesnakes, rattlesnakes could use this information to evaluate prey vigilance or arousal before striking; however, more detailed information on the sensory ecology of the pit organ under field conditions is needed to evaluate this possibility.

A randomized controlled trial to study the effects of breakfast on energy intake, physical activity, and body fat in women who are nonhabitual breakfast eaters

PurposeThe purpose of this study was to determine the effects of eating breakfast on energy intake, physical activity, body weight, and body fat in women who are nonhabitual breakfast eaters over a four-week period. MethodsForty-nine women who were nonhabitual breakfast-eaters were randomized to one of two conditions: breakfast or no breakfast. Breakfast eaters were required to eat at least 15% of their daily energy requirement before 8:30 a.m. Non-breakfast eaters did not consume any energy until after 11:30 a.m. Weight and body fat were assessed at baseline and after four weeks of intervention. Body fat was measured by dual energy x-ray absorptiometry (DXA). Participants completed seven 24-hour recalls to assess dietary intake during the intervention. Physical activity was measured by accelerometry for 32 consecutive days. RESULTS: On average, the participants randomized to eat breakfast consumed 266 ± 496 (F = 12.81; P < 0.01) more calories per day over the course of the study and weighed 0.7 ± 0.8 kg (F = 7.81; p < 0.01) more at the end of the intervention. There was no observed caloric compensation at subsequent meals and no change in self-reported hunger or satiety. There was also no physical activity compensation with the addition of breakfast. ConclusionThe findings of our study showed that requiring non-breakfast eaters to eat breakfast resulted in higher caloric intake and weight gain. Future research should evaluate this relationship for a longer period of time to see if adding breakfast to the diet of women who generally do not eat breakfast results in adaptive behavior change over time.

BK Channels Are Required for Multisensory Plasticity in the Oculomotor System

Neural circuits are endowed with several forms of intrinsic and synaptic plasticity that could contribute to adaptive changes in behavior, but circuit complexities have hindered linking specific cellular mechanisms with their behavioral consequences. Eye movements generated by simple brainstem circuits provide a means for relating cellular plasticity to behavioral gain control. Here we show that firing rate potentiation, a form of intrinsic plasticity mediated by reductions in BK-type calcium-activated potassium currents in spontaneously firing neurons, is engaged during optokinetic reflex compensation for inner ear dysfunction. Vestibular loss triggers transient increases in postsynaptic excitability, occlusion of firing rate potentiation, and reductions in BKcurrents in vestibular nucleus neurons. Concurrently, adaptive increases in visually evoked eye movements rapidly restore oculomotor function in wild-type mice but are profoundly impaired in BK channel-null mice. Activity-dependent regulation of intrinsic excitability may be a general mechanism for adaptive control of behavioral output in multisensory circuits.