Experience Of Defeat Research Articles

Hypothesis: social defeat is a risk factor for schizophrenia?

The increased schizophrenia risks for residents of cities with high levels of competition and for members of disadvantaged groups (for example migrants from low- and middle-income countries, people with low IQ, hearing impairments or a history of abuse) suggest that social factors are important for aetiology. Dopaminergic dysfunctioning is a key mechanism in pathogenesis. This editorial is a selective literature review to delineate a mechanism whereby social factors can disturb dopamine function in the brain. Experiments with rodents have shown that social defeat leads to dopaminergic hyperactivity and to behavioural sensitisation, whereby the animal displays an enhanced behavioural and dopamine response to dopamine agonists. Neuroreceptor imaging studies have demonstrated the same phenomena in patients with schizophrenia who had never received antipsychotics. In humans, the chronic experience of social defeat may lead to sensitisation (and/or increased baseline activity) of the mesolimbic dopamine system and thereby increase the risk for schizophrenia.

Decrease of vanillin sucrose intake by victorious and defeated mice: development of anhedonia?

AbstractHedonic reactions to various rewards play a key role in various forms of motivated behavior. The influence of repeated experience of social victories or defeats in daily agonistic interactions between male mice on voluntary consumption of vanillin sucrose solution used as hedonic reinforcer was studied. Intake of vanillin sucrose solution was shown to decrease in the winners and losers exposed to social confrontations as compared with the controls. Three days of deprivation failed to restore the intake of vanillin sucrose solution to the control level in the losers and did so in the winners. The results obtained imply that similar reaction of animals to a hedonic non-drug reinforcer may have different motivational origin depending on positive or negative social experience.

Politicizing Biographies: The Forming of Transnational Subjectivities as Insiders Outside

We take our own life stories as points of departure to look at some of the ways in which women were politicized in Argentina and West Germany (our respective countries of origin), focusing on similarities as well as differences in our politicization processes. We aim at putting present discussions about global political movements into a historical perspective. We want also to illuminate the centrality of political identities in the construction of specific (gendered) subjectivities. Our focus lies on theorizing the ways through which privileged (gendered) identities critically re-read their own position and transform their own understanding of themselves and the world through the field of the political. Methodologically, we want to contribute to ways of re-thinking Feminist methodologies by experimenting with a form of analysis in which we are alternately the subject and the object of our research process. The aim of this intervention is to transgress the binary oppositions between researcher/researched and challenge traditional understanding of social science where researchers provide analysis and informants have ‘experience’. One of our conclusions is that the 68 movement provided subject positions for living alternative normalities as an ‘insider-outside’, that is, for those who belonged to normalized groups in their respective societies, but for different reasons (of which we analyse some concerning our formation as ‘women’) could not identify with the dominant normalities offered to them. At the same time, the dominant male instrumentality of the movement estranged (some) women and allowed them (or forced them into) a kind of distanced engagement that, perhaps paradoxically, provided a basis for sustaining their political subjectivities through transformative experiences of defeat.

Involvement of the lateral septum and the ventral Hippocampus in the emotional sequelae induced by social defeat: Role of glucocorticoid receptors

An important area of the brain aversive circuitry is the lateral septum (LS), together with its principal connections to diverse Hippocampal regions. The aim of this work was to evaluate whether the LS-Hippocampus network participates in the increased anxiety-like behavior produced by a previous defeat experience. The neural activation of different regions of the Hippocampus was assessed by the number of Fos positive cells in animals previously defeated. A notable elevation in the expression of this protein was observed in CA1, CA2, CA3, and Dentate Gyrus, for both dorsal and ventral Hippocampus. The local administration of a glucocorticoid receptor (GR or type II) antagonist, but not of a mineralcorticoid receptor (MR or type II) antagonist, into the LS before the stressful stimuli prevented a rise in the number of Fos positive cells, especially in the ventral portion of the Hippocampus. Furthermore, to evaluate the role of these hippocampal portions in the modulation of the emotional sequelae induced by defeat, the dorsal or the ventral Hippocampus were inactivated by lidocaine at different times following the social confrontation, with the anxiety-like behavior being assessed in the elevated plus maze the next day. Only the inactivation of the ventral region attenuated the excessive anxiety exhibited by defeated animals. The infusion of lidocaine, 1 h after the confrontation, did not affect this behavioral response. These data suggest a preferential participation of the LS and its connections to the ventral Hippocampus in the emotional sequelae induced by the social defeat. Moreover, the GR localized within the LS played an essential role in the modulation of this emotional state.

Migration and schizophrenia

An exploration of the evidence that a history of migration is a risk factor for schizophrenia and an evaluation of those studies that seek an explanation for this. A meta-analysis found an increased risk for schizophrenia among first-generation and second-generation migrants and found a particularly high risk for migrants from countries where the majority of the population was Black. The latter finding was confirmed and extended by a large first-contact incidence study in the UK, which found excessive risks for schizophrenia and mania in the African-Caribbean and black-African sections of the population. A very high risk of schizophrenia has also been reported for Moroccan males in the Netherlands. The explanation for these findings is uncertain. Social adversity, racial discrimination, family dysfunction, unemployment and poor housing conditions have been proposed as contributing factors. According to one hypothesis, the chronic experience of social defeat disturbs dopamine function in the brain. A personal or family history of migration is a high risk factor for schizophrenia and there is now strong evidence against selective migration as the explanation. There is an increasing interest in the impact of social stressors on brain functioning and on the pathogenesis of schizophrenia.

Significance of initial emotional state for neuroimmunomodulation in conditions of activation and blockade of 5-HT1A receptors

Experiments performed on male CBA mice immunized with sheep erythrocytes at a dose of 5 x 10(8) cells showed that the selective agonist of serotonin 5-HT(1A) receptors 8-OH-DPAT (1 mg/kg) suppresses the immune response in aggressive animals. In mice demonstrating the submissive type of behavior, formed during 10 days of experience of defeats, activation of 5-HT(1A) receptors with 8-OH-DPAT had no effect on the immune response. However, treatment with the selective 5-HT(1A) receptor blocker WAY-100635 stimulated the immune response, but only in submissive mice. These data lead to the conclusion that activation and blockade of 5-HT(1A) receptors have different effects on the immune response in CBA mice depending on the initial emotional state of the animals, due to different activities of neurotransmitter systems, particularly the serotoninergic, in aggressive and submissive mice.

Repeated brief social defeat episodes in mice: Effects on cell proliferation in the dentate gyrus

Stressful experiences can affect hippocampal structure and function and can suppress new cell birth in the adult hippocampus in several species. Here we examine how repeated intermittent social defeat affects cell proliferation in the dentate gyrus (DG) in mice. Adult male CFW mice were subjected to 10 daily social defeat episodes, 3 defeat episodes within one day or a single defeat episode. Intruder mice were injected with 5-bromo-2′-deoxyuridine (BrdU, 200 mg/kg, i.p.) 1 h after the last fight, and incorporation of BrdU into proliferating cells in the DG was quantified. In a third experiment, aggressive resident mice were allowed to fight with an intruder mouse every day for 10 days, and these residents were injected with BrdU 1 h after the last aggressive encounter. There was a significant decrease in cell proliferation in mice that received 10 social defeats, confirming and extending earlier results. This decrease is correlated with the intensity of the defeat experiences, as quantified by frequency of attack bites. Cell proliferation was slightly inhibited after a single defeat, although this effect was not significant. Three defeats within a 5-h period had no effect on levels of proliferation. Offensive aggressive stress in the residents did not result in any changes in hippocampal cell proliferation. These data indicate that repeated intermittent social defeat experienced over multiple days suppresses proliferation in the DG, and this may have important implications for our understanding of hippocampal changes related to stress psychopathologies.

Anxiety and ethanol consumption in victorious and defeated mice; effect of κ-opioid receptor activation

Alcohol consumption and addiction have been related to anxiety and the anxiolytic effect of ethanol. It has been shown in mice that losers with repeated experience of social defeats are more anxious than winners with repeated experience of victories. Mice with a different social status were tested for their oral ethanol consumption using a free two bottle choice paradigm and for their social approach behaviour after ethanol consumption using the partition test, in which anxiety is an important component. In addition, the sensitivity of the animals for the κ-opioid receptor agonist U-50,488H (2.5 mg/kg, s.c.) was assessed using the partition test, in which this drug has been shown to induce anxiolytic-like effects. Further, the effect of daily treatment with U-50,488H for 8 days on ethanol consumption was tested in animals that had consumed ethanol and were subjected during these 8 days to a period of 5 days of interruption of ethanol supply and subsequently to a period of 3 days of renewed access to ethanol. Losers consumed more ethanol than winners. Consumption of ethanol was accompanied by a decrease of anxiety level, as evidenced by an increased approach behaviour in the partition test. U-50,488H stimulated ethanol consumption after a period of 5 days of interruption of ethanol supply and drug treatment in the losers, but not in the winners. U-50,488H increased approach behaviour in the losers not consuming ethanol and decreased this behaviour in the winners, especially in those that had consumed ethanol. It is postulated that U-50,488H acts as a partial agonist in this respect. The increased anxiety may be related to the enhanced ethanol consumption in the losers, which may be of relevance for the etiology of alcohol addiction.

Canadian Communists, Revolutionary Unionism, and the “Third Period”: The Workers’ Unity League, 1929-1935

In compliance with the Third Period "line" of the Communist International (Comintern), the Communist Party of Canada (CPC) launched The Workers' Unity League (WUL) as a centre of "revolutionary" or "red" unionism in December 1929. Until it was "liquidated" during the winter of 1935-6, the WUL had a significance in Canada's Depression labour struggles far outweighing its maximum membership of between 30,000 and 40,000; a significance, moreover, that has yet to be fully acknowledged or analysed. This article seeks to look beyond the conventional view that presents the CPC as a Comintern cipher and the WUL (when it is considered at all) as a "sectarian", "adventurist", "ultra-left" organisation with no real interest in building stable labour unions. While there is no doubt that the two most crucial decisions concerning the WUL — to create it and to liquidate it — were taken in Moscow, neither the Comintern nor the CPC leadership in Toronto was in a position to supervise the implementation of the Third Period line on the ground. Within the broad parameters of the line, local organisers tended to operate as "good trade unionists" rather than "good bolsheviks", using every available opportunity to modify and adapt tactics to local realities. They used their room for manoeuvre to considerable effect, especially during the economic and political upturn of 1933-34, when the WUL led a majority of all strikes and established union bases in a host of hitherto unorganised or weakly organised industries. At the height of its power, however, the WUL knew that it had barely dented the essential mass production industries — auto, steel, rubber, farm machinery. This fact, coupled with the experience of defeat in several key strikes,forced the party to reconsider the WUL's future. Whether the WUL could have survived as part of a national union centre remains open to question. Indisputably, the Comintern terminated that option in 1935.

Victims of Stalin and Hitler: The Exodus of Poles and Balts to Britain by Thomas s> Lane (review)

REVIEWS 173 Jokisipila ably maintains, the Finnish acquiescence should be seen as part of Mannerheim'seffortto amassa reserveof militarymaterialthat could be used as a lever for bargaining in the negotiations for a separatepeace that he and other Finnish leaders fully expected to begin, the pact entirely notwithstanding . On the Finnish side, Mannerheim was the real driving force in the negotiations that led to the pact, and Jokisipila makes a good case for seeing Mannerheim'sactivitiesin the context of suchpeacemakingconsiderations. Jokisipila is not quite so persuasivewhen he conjectures that in the whole matter Ribbentrop must have been acting entirely alone, without Hitler's assentor even knowledge,let alone instructions.As he candidlyadmits,he has found no documentary proof to indicate that this was the case, yet he insists on makingthe claim regardless.Germany,Jokisipilacontends, simplyneeded Finland too much, both as a brother-in-armsin the troubled North-Eastern theatre and as a provider of lumber and key minerals, for its leaders to have gambled on a possible Finnishrefusal.This kindof argument,it seems, makes Finlandout to be much more importantand specialthan it actuallywas. A solid piece of scholarship nevertheless,Jokisipila's insightful account is sure to remain definitive on most aspects of the Ryti-Ribbentrop Pact for some time to come, and it shouldbe noted by all scholarsworkingon Finland in the Second WorldWar. Were it available in German or English, it would be a real contribution, too, to the corpus of studies that already exists on the relationshipbetween Nazi Germany and its alliesand co-belligerents. Department ofHistory MARKKU RuOTSILA University ofTampere Lane, Thomas. Victims ofStalinandHitler.TheExodus ofPolesandBaitstoBritain. Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke and New York, 2004. Xi+ 28I pp. Notes. Bibliography.Index. ?45.00. THIs book grows out of an oral history project pursued over a number of years. As such it reflectsthe author'splace of employment. Tom Lane taught History in and served as head of department of the now sadly defunct Department of European Studiesat the Universityof Bradford.He alsowas a member of the Baltic Research Unit led by John Hiden. Appropriatelythe city of Bradfordhas been a vital centre for a number of emigre groups from Central and EasternEurope. There are stillvarious social clubs for Poles and Balticpeoples. Likewiseit is possible even today to hear Ukrainian spokenon the street during a journey to work. Part of the city is still known as 'Little Germany'. This book reflects Bradford'sEuropean diversity,indeed it seeks to give thislocal heritagescholarlyform. Clearly Tom Lane has gathered an extensive number of interviews with emigresfrom Polandand the Baltic States. His text splicesthese personaltales with a more conventional narrativeof political historyas it developed in their homelands. To this end, the book is structured pretty much according to chronology. Aftersome introductorycomments, it dealswith the worldbefore 1939, the experiences of defeat, becoming German colonies, subjugationby the Soviet Union, deportation, the construction of penal camps, being a 174 SEER, 84, I, 2006 refugee, the construction of new communities in Britain and, in some ways most interestingof all, what allthis has meant for the subjectsof study. The final chapter, 'Identities', is less than fifteen pages long but does manage to provide some provocative material.It stressesthe differentways in which people responded to flight from their homes. Some felt free when they obtained Britishpassports,but still retained a sense of being 'Polish'. Others resisted British citizenship on the grounds that it threatened to compromise something they regardedas essentialabout themselves.Even within the same family, children emerge as having widely varying attitudes towards their parents' original nationality. Some see it as something exotic which is to be embraced,othersassomethingcompletelyalien to them. Ifthereis agreement, it seems only that when emigres return to their original homeland decades afterdeparture,theyfinddisappointmentand plenty to complain about. Naturallyit is alwayspossible to find issuesto question about a text. In this case, some might wonder whether it is reallyvalid to push together Poles and Baltsin a singlevolume. Why not one volume for Poles and anotherfor Balts? Why not include Ukrainians as well? How would the interviewees feel about this kind of classification?And are these people really likely to be the most objective source of views about, say, the Latvian Legion and the Holocaust? Forsome tastes, this text might not dwell on...

A Model of Anxious Depression: Persistence of Behavioral Pathology

Chronic psychoemotional stress induced by negative experience of social defeats in intermale confrontations over a period of 30 days was found to lead to the development of anxious-depressive symptomatology in male mice. Cessation of the psychopathogenic conditions and placing of depressed animals in comfortable conditions for 1-2 weeks with females did not lift the pathological state. Individuals continued to show marked anxiety, a behavioral deficit, decreased communicativeness, and a high level of depressivity, as revealed by a variety of behavioral tests. Persistence of the resulting psychoemotional disturbance in these animals is evidence for the development and persistence of the behavioral pathology requiring drug treatment.

Effects of unconditioned and conditioned social defeat on alcohol self-administration and reinstatement of alcohol seeking in rats

We and others have shown that a stressor commonly used in laboratory studies, intermittent footshock, reinstates alcohol seeking in a rat relapse model. The effects of more ethologically relevant stressors on reinstatement have not been examined. Here, we characterized the effects of social defeat (a naturalistic stressor) or a cue associated with the defeat experience on reinstatement of alcohol seeking. We also examined the effect of unconditioned and conditioned social defeat on alcohol self-administration. Rats were trained to self-administer alcohol (12% w/v, 1 h day(-1)), and after stable responding, one group of animals received five exposures to social defeat paired with peppermint odor prior to daily self-administration sessions. After three more self-administration sessions, these rats were tested for the effects of the peppermint odor cue on self-administration. In another group of rats, the effects of three daily exposures to social defeat paired with peppermint odor on extinction of responding were examined. After further extinction sessions, the effect of the odor cue on reinstatement was tested in these animals. The acute effect of social defeat on reinstatement was examined in another group of animals. Acute exposure to social defeat decreased alcohol self-administration, reduced rates of responding during extinction, and did not reinstate alcohol seeking. Exposure to a discrete odor cue previously paired with social defeat decreased alcohol self-administration but induced modest reinstatement of alcohol seeking. Results provide the first demonstration of reinstatement of alcohol seeking by a cue paired with social defeat and are also in agreement with previous findings on the suppressive effect of social defeat stress on alcohol self-administration.

Social defeat increases alcohol preference of C57BL/10 strain mice; effect prevented by a CCKB antagonist

In humans, social stress over long and short term can increase alcohol consumption, but the mechanisms involved are not understood. This study was conducted to examine the effects of social defeat, using the resident/intruder paradigm, on the alcohol preference of "low alcohol drinking" individuals in a colony of C57BL/10 strain mice and the effects of two anxiolytic drugs. Alcohol preference, in a two-bottle choice (8% v/v alcohol or water), was measured, in separate experiments, after either a single experience of social defeat by a resident male mouse, five consecutive daily defeat experiences or one experience per week for 4 weeks. Comparison was made with effects of repeated social defeat on the preference for dilute sucrose. In addition, the actions of the CCKB receptor antagonist, CAM1028, and of diazepam were examined on the effects of repeated defeat experiences. Five consecutive daily defeat experiences had a slow onset effect in increasing alcohol preference and consumption, compared with five daily exposures to a novel environment. A single defeat, or one defeat per week, did not significantly alter alcohol preference or intake. There were no effects of five daily defeat experiences on sucrose preference or consumption. The effect of repeated defeats on alcohol preference was significantly decreased by administration of the CCKB receptor antagonist, CAM1028, prior to each experience, but not by corresponding administration of diazepam. The results show that social stress increases alcohol intake in low alcohol preference C57BL/10 mice and suggest that CCK transmission may be involved in this effect.

Thomas Chatterton and the Experience of Defeat

Thomas Chatterton and the Experience of Defeat

Opponent recognition in male green anoles, Anolis carolinensis

Male green anoles convey territorial ownership to rivals through use of stereotyped aggressive displays, with intrasexual interactions often escalating to physical combat. In the laboratory, losers of such interactions significantly reduce their aggressive behaviour when interacting with the same opponent 7 days later. In the current study, we examined whether this behavioural modification is a function of opponent recognition. Pairs of size-matched male A. carolinensis were allowed to interact for 2 h. Following this, subjects were separated for varying intervals, and then participated in a second interaction with either the same or an unfamiliar opponent. Losers of the first interaction significantly reduced their total aggressive behaviour when re-paired with the same opponent after a 3-day interval but not after a 10-day interval between the first and second interaction. However, losers of the first interaction failed to show reduced aggression during their second interaction when paired 3 or 10 days later with an unfamiliar opponent. Therefore, A. carolinensis appear to learn information specific to their opponent during an initial agonistic interaction, with the salience of this information declining when the interval between interactions increases. Males also showed low levels of chemosensory taste behaviour during agonistic interactions, suggesting that opponent recognition does not rely on chemoreception. Similarities between our results and findings from other vertebrate species suggest that the motivation to behave aggressively during social interactions can be influenced by opponent recognition rather than by previous experience of social defeat alone.

Time-dependent behavioral, neurochemical, and immune consequences of repeated experiences of social defeat stress in male mice and the ameliorative effects of fluoxetine

This study attempted to determine whether differing numbers of days of repeated defeat experience altered behavior, immune measures, and neuroendocrine mediators in mice. OF1 male mice were socially stressed by repeated experiences of defeat in a sensorial contact model. Subjects exposed to nine defeats showed more stretch-attend postures and fewer active defense elements than counterparts exposed to 23 defeats. Submissive subjects with nine experiences of defeat also had a lower splenocyte proliferative response than unmanipulated controls. The proliferation index progressively increased but at a higher rate in manipulated controls than in socially stressed subjects, resulting in a significant immunosuppressive effect after 23 days of exposure to social stressors. Nine days of such exposure resulted in higher hypothalamic ratios of serotonin and dopamine to their major metabolites than in unmanipulated or manipulated controls and subjects socially stressed for 23 days. The data generally indicate that the acute social stressors (such as nine defeats) produce a profile of behavioral and physiological variables characteristic of a state of anxiety. The proliferation index was also lower after 52 days of social stress than in manipulated controls. Fluoxetine treatment appeared to have an anxiolytic effect, reducing immobility, and even seemed to protect subjects from the immune impairment and endocrine alteration caused by social stressors. The results generally provide clues that improve our knowledge of the consequences of social stressors and their possible treatment.

S.21.02 Hypothesis: chronic experience of social defeat is important risk factor for schizophrenia

S.21.02 Hypothesis: chronic experience of social defeat is important risk factor for schizophrenia

A United People? Leaders and Followers in a Chartist Locality, 1838-1848

Most studies of Chartist democracy have overlooked problem of leaders and followers in localities; typically, historians have portrayed local leaders as either heroic organic or alienated worker-intellectuals. This study of activists and plebeian intellectuals in Ashton-under Lyne suggests a different way of conceptualizing this crucial relationship. Most members of Ashton leadership came from and identified with working classes; in this sense, they were one with the people. Their identification with the people served to mask, however, intellectual and political differences that stretched between leaders and followers. Their fluency as speakers and writers, together with a studious (or even artistic) turn of mind and their radical commitment, set them apart from most working men and women. The experience of defeat, together with melting away of Chartist rank and file, highlighted these intellectual and political differences. After 1848 plebeian intellectuals and activists in Ashton and other localities retreated into quietist world of democratic dinners, lectures, and education. In doing so, they severed personal and political links between their locality and national movement and contributed to rapid decline of Chartism.

Modulation of anxiety-related behaviors by μ- and κ-opioid receptor agonists depends on the social status of mice

This study was aimed to determine the effects of μ- and κ-opioid receptor activation in relation to the social status of mice, being a winner with repeated experience of victories or a loser with repeated experience of social defeats. The behaviors of the animals were assessed in a social encounter test measuring the communicative behavior towards a familiar and an unfamiliar partner behind a perforated transparent partition (partition test) and in an elevated plus-maze test estimating the anxiety level of mice. Placebo and graded doses of the μ-opioid receptor agonist DAMGO (0.5 and 2 mg/kg s.c.) and the κ-opioid receptor agonist U-50,488H (0.6, 1.25, and 2.5 mg/kg s.c.) were administered to the control mice, winners and losers in two experiments. In the partition test, the winners spent somewhat more time and the losers less time than the controls in the vicinity of their partner probably related to a lower and higher level of anxiety respectively. In the plus-maze test the losers appeared to have a somewhat higher anxiety level than the controls and winners. In both tests DAMGO produced anxiogenic-like effects in the winners and the controls, but not in the losers. Winners hardly responded to treatment with U-50,488H, while the losers responded dose dependently with an anxiolytic-like effect in both tests. It is concluded that anxiety-like responses in mice are differentially affected by stimulation of μ- and κ-opioid receptors and that the effects depend on the social status of the animals.

The Bitter Product of Defeat? Reflections on Winstanley'sLaw of Freedom

The Law of Freedom in a Platform was Gerrard Winstanley's final published work. It appeared in February 1652, nearly two years after the dissolution of the ‘Digger’ commune in Surrey of which he had been the principal spokesperson. The book is said to differ markedly from his previous writings. In particular, his depiction of a disciplinary state apparatus is contrasted to his earlier rejection of state authority, and his appeal to a utopian legislator (Cromwell) is contrasted to his earlier emphasis on the self-emancipation of the poor. In accounting for this shift of position, commentators often refer to the ‘bitter’ experience of the Diggers' defeat. Confronted everywhere by ignorance and persecution, Winstanley came to realise that institutionalised discipline was required to counter human imperfection and that emancipation could only come from the top down. This paper questions such an argument. It suggests that in almost every respect The Law of Freedom remained consistent with Winstanley's other writings and that no transformation in his thought took place. What apparent differences there were stemmed from the challenges presented by the utopian genre, and the paper concludes by arguing that Winstanley's achievement lies in his having risen to these challenges.