Characteristics Of Grooming Research Articles

Striking long-term beneficial effects of single dose psilocybin and psychedelic mushroom extract in the SAPAP3 rodent model of OCD-like excessive self-grooming.

Obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) is a highly prevalent disorder that causes serious disability. Available treatments leave 40% or more of people with OCD significantly symptomatic. There is an urgent need for novel therapeutic approaches. Mice that carry a homozygous deletion of the SAPAP3 gene (SAPAP3 KO) manifest a phenotype of excessive self-grooming, tic-like head-body twitches and anxiety. These behaviors closely resemble pathological self-grooming behaviors observed in humans in conditions that overlap with OCD. Following a preliminary report that the tryptaminergic psychedelic, psilocybin, may reduce symptoms in patients with OCD, we undertook a randomized controlled trial of psilocybin in 50 SAPAP3 KO mice (28 male, 22 female). Mice that fulfilled inclusion criteria were randomly assigned to a single intraperitoneal injection of psilocybin (4.4 mg/kg), psychedelic mushroom extract (encompassing the same psilocybin dose) or vehicle control and were evaluated after 2, 12, and 21 days by a rater blind to treatment allocation for grooming characteristics, head-body twitches, anxiety, and other behavioral features. Mice treated with vehicle (n = 18) manifested a 118.71 ± 95.96% increase in total self-grooming (the primary outcome measure) over the 21-day observation period. In contrast, total self-grooming decreased by 14.60 ± 17.90% in mice treated with psilocybin (n = 16) and by 19.20 ± 20.05% in mice treated with psychedelic mushroom extract (n = 16) (p = 0.001 for effect of time; p = 0.0001 for time × treatment interaction). Five mice were dropped from the vehicle group because they developed skin lesions; 4 from the psilocybin group and none from the psychedelic mushroom extract group. Secondary outcome measures such as head-body twitches and anxiety all showed a significant improvement over 21 days. Notably, in mice that responded to psilocybin (n = 12) and psychedelic mushroom extract (n = 13), the beneficial effect of a single treatment persisted up to 7 weeks. Mice initially treated with vehicle and non-responsive, showed a clear and lasting therapeutic response when treated with a single dose of psilocybin or psychedelic mushroom extract and followed for a further 3 weeks. While equivalent to psilocybin in overall effect on self-grooming, psychedelic mushroom extract showed superior effects in alleviating head-body twitches and anxiety. These findings strongly justify clinical trials of psilocybin in the treatment of OCD and further studies aimed at elucidating mechanisms that underlie the long-term effects to alleviate excessive self-grooming observed in this study. Prepared with BioRender ( https://www.biorender.com/ ).

Striking Long Term Beneficial Effects of Single Dose Psilocybin and Psychedelic Mushroom Extract in the SAPAP3 Rodent Model of OCD-Like Excessive Self-Grooming.

Obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) is a highly prevalent disorder that causes serious disability. Available treatments leave 40% or more of people with OCD significantly symptomatic. There is an urgent need for novel therapeutic approaches. Mice that carry a homozygous deletion of the SAPAP3 gene (SAPAP3 KO) manifest a phenotype of excessive self-grooming, tic-like head-body twitches and anxiety. These behaviors closely resemble pathological self-grooming behaviors observed in humans in conditions that overlap with OCD. Following a preliminary report that the tryptaminergic psychedelic, psilocybin, may reduce symptoms in patients with OCD, we undertook a randomized controlled trial of psilocybin in 50 SAPAP3 KO mice (28 male, 22 female). Mice that fulfilled inclusion criteria were randomly assigned to a single intraperitoneal injection of psilocybin (4.4 mg/kg), psychedelic mushroom extract (encompassing the same psilocybin dose) or vehicle control and were evaluated after 2, 4 and 21 days by a rater blind to treatment allocation for grooming characteristics, head-body twitches, anxiety and other behavioral features. Mice treated with vehicle (n=18) manifested a 118.71±95.96 % increase in total self-grooming (the primary outcome measure) over the 21-day observation period. In contrast, total self-grooming decreased by 14.60%±17.90% in mice treated with psilocybin (n=16) and by 19.20±20.05% in mice treated with psychedelic mushroom extract (n=16) (p=.001 for effect of time; p=.0001 for time × treatment interaction). 5 mice were dropped from the vehicle group because they developed skin lesions; 4 from the psilocybin group and none from the psychedelic mushroom extract group. Secondary outcome measures such as head-body twitches and anxiety all showed a significant improvement over 21 days. Notably, in mice that responded to psilocybin (n=12) and psychedelic mushroom extract (n=13), the beneficial effect of a single treatment persisted up to 7 weeks. Mice initially treated with vehicle and non-responsive, showed a clear and lasting therapeutic response when treated with a single dose of psilocybin or psychedelic mushroom extract and followed for a further 3 weeks. While equivalent to psilocybin in overall effect on self-grooming, psychedelic mushroom extract showed superior effects in alleviating head-body twitches and anxiety. These findings strongly justify clinical trials of psilocybin in the treatment of OCD and further studies aimed at elucidating mechanisms that underlie the long-term effects to alleviate excessive self-grooming observed in this study.

Online grooming detection: A comprehensive survey of child exploitation in chat logs

Social media platforms present significant threats against underage users targeted for predatory intents. Many early research works have applied the footprints left by online predators to investigate online grooming. While digital forensics tools provide security to online users, it also encounters some critical challenges, such as privacy issues and the lack of data for research in this field. Our literature review investigates all research papers on grooming detection in online conversations by looking at the psychological definitions and aspects of grooming. We study the psychological theories behind the grooming characteristics used by machine learning models that have led to predatory stage detection. Our survey broadly considers the authorship profiling research works used for grooming detection in online conversations, along with predatory conversation detection and predatory identification approaches. Various approaches for online grooming detection have been evaluated based on the metrics used in the grooming detection problem. We have also categorized the available datasets and used feature vectors to give readers a deep knowledge of the problem considering their constraints and open research gaps. Finally, this survey details the constraints that challenge grooming detection, unaddressed problems, and possible future solutions to improve the state-of-the-art and make the algorithms more reliable.

A Simple Classifier for Detecting Online Child Grooming Conversation

The massive proliferation of social media has opened possibilities for the perpetrator conducting the crime of online child grooming. Because the pervasiveness of the problem scale, it may only be tamed effectively and efficiently by using an automatic grooming conversation detection system. The current study intends to address the issue by using Support Vector Machine and k-nearest neighbors’ classifiers. Besides, the study also proposes a low-computational cost classification method, which classifies a conversation using the number of the existing grooming conversation characteristics. All proposed methods are evaluated using 150 textual conversations of which 105 are grooming, and 45 are non-grooming. We identify that grooming conversations possess 17 features of grooming characteristics. The results suggest that the SVM and k-NN can identify grooming conversations at 98.6% and 97.8% of the level of accuracy. Meanwhile, the proposed simple method has 96.8% accuracy. The empirical study also suggests that two among the seventeen characteristics are insignificant for the classification.

A comparison of online and offline Grooming characteristics: An application of the victim roles model

Although online and offline grooming has been researched, a direct comparison of grooming characteristics as an exploration of the interpersonal transaction between victim and offender has not been examined. This study compares the grooming characteristics of 103 victims who were targeted online (n = 76) and offline (n = 25). A multidimensional scaling procedure (smallest space analysis (SSA-1)) was used to explore grooming characteristics derived from a content analysis of offence transcripts found online. Canter's (1994) victim role model was successfully applied to both groups and the findings revealed a differentiation between victim as vehicle, person and object, as it has previously identified for other sexual and violent interpersonal offences (Canter & Youngs, 2012). There were some differences between online and offline groupings of characteristics when applied to victim roles, but the majority of the characteristics were consistent across the two groups. The implications of the work are discussed, as are potential areas for future research.

Logistic Models for Classifying Online Grooming Conversation

This work intends to establish a logistic mathematical model to classify whether an online conversation is or is not a grooming conversation. This work is important for a number of reasons: the increasing number of the Internet users across the globe, the increasing number of social media, increasing in the number and types of crime on the Internet, and the crime of sexual abuse in children impacts both physically and physiologically. Online grooming is the most reported suspected Internet activities in 2009–2010 according to Child Exploitation and Online Protection, which is a part of the UK's Home Office Serious Organized Crime agency. Around 160 online script conversations are analyzed to determine characteristics of a grooming conversation. Those scripts are obtained randomly from http://www.perverted-justice.com and www.literotika.com. The characteristics are divided into 20 types. The scripts are divided into two sets: 100 scripts for the training set and 59 scripts for the testing set. As the results, five most relevant grooming characteristics are identified from the paired t-test, and a logistic model is established on this basis. The model is evaluated using the testing data set, and the results show that the model has relatively good performance with 95% accuracy, 96% true positive, 4% false positive, 93% true negative, and 7% false negative.

Grooming analysis algorithm: Use in the relationship between sleep deprivation and anxiety-like behavior

Increased anxiety is a classic effect of sleep deprivation. However, results regarding sleep deprivation-induced anxiety-like behavior are contradictory in rodent models. The grooming analysis algorithm is a method developed to examine anxiety-like behavior and stress in rodents, based on grooming characteristics and microstructure. This study evaluated the applicability of the grooming analysis algorithm to distinguish sleep-deprived and control rats in comparison to traditional grooming analysis. Forty-six animals were distributed into three groups: control (n=22), paradoxical sleep-deprived (96 h, n=10) and total sleep deprived (6 h, n=14). Immediately after the sleep deprivation protocol, grooming was evaluated using both the grooming analysis algorithm and traditional measures (grooming latency, frequency and duration). Results showed that both paradoxical sleep-deprived and total sleep-deprived groups displayed grooming in a fragmented framework when compared to control animals. Variables from the grooming analysis algorithm were successful in distinguishing sleep-deprived and normal sleep animals regarding anxiety-like behavior. The grooming analysis algorithm and traditional measures were strongly correlated. In conclusion, the grooming analysis algorithm is a reliable method to assess the relationship between anxiety-like behavior and sleep deprivation.

Conditions affecting the onset, severity, and progression of a spontaneous pain-like behavior after excitotoxic spinal cord injury

Intraspinal injection of quisqualic acid (QUIS) is associated with the development of spontaneous excessive grooming behavior in male Sprague Dawley rats. To further characterize this pain-like behavior we evaluated the relationship between the onset of this behavior and the rostrocaudal spread of injury-induced neuronal loss in 3 different strains of male rats. The severity and progression of this behavior also were evaluated. Unilateral intraspinal injections of 125 mmol/L QUIS were made in the following groups: Sprague Dawley males (SDMs, n = 21); Long Evans males (LEMs, n = 17); and Wistar Furth males (WFMs, n = 11). Because of differences in grooming characteristics between male and female rats, the modulatory effects of female gonadal hormones also were evaluated in Sprague Dawley females (SDFs, n = 17); bilaterally ovariectomized Sprague Dawley females (OVXs, n = 11); and SDMs treated with either 17-β-estradiol (50 μg/kg; SDM-Est, n = 9) or progesterone (5 mg/kg; SDM-Pro, n = 11). The results showed that the development of excessive grooming behavior in males of all strains and ovariectomized females is related to the rostrocaudal spread of a specific pattern of neuronal loss in the dorsal horn. Excessive grooming behavior in SDFs was similar in many respects to that found in SDMs; however, SDFs did not show a dependence on the longitudinal extent of injury for the onset of this behavior. The onset, severity, and progression of excessive grooming in OVX females were similar to that found in SDMs. Furthermore, 8 of 9 estradiol-treated SDMs developed severe grooming characterized by an early onset and progressive time course, whereas progesterone treatment delayed the onset of grooming and attenuated its severity and progression. Strain-related differences in some, but not all, grooming characteristics also were observed, eg, WFMs exhibited more aggressive grooming than SDMs or LEMs. In conclusion, the results showed gender, strain, and gonadal hormones influence the onset and progression of injury-induced excessive grooming behavior. A causal relationship also was found between the onset of this behavior and the longitudinal extent of injury. © 2001 by the American Pain Society

Temporal Characteristics of Grooming in an Open Field in Two Strains of Rats

Thetemporal characteristics of grooming in an open field were studied in rats from two different genotypes (NR, brown Norway rats bred from an original wild stock and KM, Krushinsky-Molodkina albino rats selectively bred for audiogenic seizure susceptibility). The measures of grooming recorded were time of onset of any grooming activity, duration and number of grooming episodes and total time spent grooming during successive 3-min intervals over a total 12-min period. The results demonstrated that grooming episodes of different durations displayed different features across the course the test. Grooming was minimal in the first minutes of the test and the longest grooming episodes were observed after the sixth minute in most of the rats. The number and proportion of prolonged episodes (over 21 s in duration)increased over time. Short-duration episodes (1-3 s) were not connected with the specific stage of the test and/or the decrease in locomotion. The scores of grooming duration were higher in NR in comparison to the KM rats. No significant effects were found for strain and sex for total numbers of grooming episodes.

Comparison of the physical characteristics of grooming in two species of macaques (Macaca nemestrina and M. radiata).

Comparison of the physical characteristics of grooming in two species of macaques (Macaca nemestrina and M. radiata).

Aphagia, behavior sequencing and body weight set point following orbital frontal lesions in rats

Discrete lesions were made in the orbital frontal neocortex of rats and eating, drinking, sensorimotor responsiveness, and sequencing of motor acts were studied. Duration of aphagia was related to palatability/texture of food. Rats were aphagic for a mean of two days to palatable cookie mash presented on a spatula, six days to a high fat diet mash presented in a 4 cm high dish and for seven days to dry laboratory food. Water drinking was resumed with injestion of dry food. Rats presurgically fattened to 120% of body weight appeared stuporous and akinetic for 2–3 postoperative days, and the period for acceptance of food in tall tests was protracted. Rats presurgically dieted to 80% of normal body weight did not show accelerated recovery of feeding. Preoperatively normal, fattened and dieted rats assumed a chronic postoperative body weight level 25% lower than control rats. Rats with lesions showed sensorimotor neglect when tested on an open table top, but did not show neglect when tested in their home cages. In grooming tests, rats with lesions showed all of the components of normal grooming, but failed to exhibit the long chains of grooming characteristics of control rats. They also showed attenuated tongue extension and had difficulty manipulating food with the forepaws. The experiments suggest that following orbital frontal lesions, motor impairments, motor sequencing dysfunctions, change in body weight set point, and depending upon the test situation, sensorimotor neglect, may all be contributing factors to aphagia. The orbital frontal cortex may influence feeding and other behaviors via descending neural projections to the hypothalamus and brainstem.

Behavioral characteristics of grooming induced by hindbrain stimulation in the cat

Grooming behavior, consisting of licking and groom-biting, was induced by stimulation of localized areas of the cerebellum and medulla. Grooming was found to be selectively directed to the cat's own fur or the fur of a nearby animal, in preference to other objects such as foam blocks. The specific form of the elicited behavior was a joint function of stimulation intensity and the stimulus features of the groom-object. Increasing the stimulation intensity or introducing foreign material into the fur of the goal object led to a significant increase in the ratio of groom-biting to licking. In addition, the precise topography of the groom-bite also appeared to be controlled by goal object stimuli. The results indicate that behaviors induced by hindbrain stimulation can evidence directedness and stimulus sensitivity, as is characteristic of natural behaviors and responses induced by hypothalamic stimulation.