Time Of First Movement Research Articles

The influence of long-term cadmium exposure on the male advertisement call of Xenopus laevis

Cadmium (Cd) is a non-essential environmental endocrine-disrupting compound found in water and a potential threat to aquatic habitats. Cd has been shown to have various short-term effects on aquatic animals; however, evidence for long-term effects of Cd on vocal communications in amphibians is lacking. To better understand the long-term effects of low-dose Cd on acoustic communication in amphibians, male Xenopus laevis individuals were treated with low Cd concentrations (0.1, 1, and 10μg/L) via aqueous exposure for 24months. At the end of the exposure, the acoustic spectrum characteristics of male advertisement calls and male movement behaviors in response to female calls were recorded. The gene and protein expressions of the androgen receptor (AR) were determined using Western blot and RT-PCR. The results showed that long-term Cd treatment affected the spectrogram and formant of the advertisement call. Compared with the control group, 10μg/L Cd significantly decreased the first and second formant frequency, and the fundamental and main frequency, and increased the third formant frequency. One and 10-μg/L Cd treatments significantly reduced the proportion of individuals responding to female calls and prolonged the time of first movement of the male. Long-term Cd treatment induced a downregulation in the AR protein. Treatments of 0.1, 1, and 10μg/L Cd significantly decreased the expression of AR mRNA in the brain. These findings indicate that long-term exposure of Cd has negative effects on advertisement calls in male X. laevis.

Aspiration pneumonia in stroke.

Aspiration pneumonia developed within 1 year in 29 of 60 stroke patients referred for videofluoroscopic evaluation of poststroke dysphagia and drawn from a total population of 304 acute stroke patients. The presence of vallecular pooling, piriform pooling, or bolus penetration to or through the true vocal cords on videofluoroscopy did not correlate with the development of aspiration pneumonia. Kinematic pharyngeal transit times did show a significant correlation with the development of aspiration pneumonia (time of first movement, p = .038; time of arrival of bolus at valleculae, p = .0008; time of return of epiglottis to resting position, p = .0001). Those patients with total kinematic pharyngeal transit times (Em) of less than 2.00 sec were at little or no risk for aspiration pneumonia (0%), those with 2.01 to 5.00sec at moderate risk (38.5%), and those with more than 5.00sec were at marked risk (90%).

Inter- and intra-individual variation in body temperatures of the galapagos land iguana (Conolophus Pallidus

1.1.|Measurements of the body temperature of free-ranging Conolophus pallidus during the hot season revealed significant inter- and intra-individual variation in midday body temperature (Th).2.2.|No sexual differences in mean tb were found between the the sexes at 07:00 h, during midday (12:00–16:00 h), or at 17:00 h. However, females were significantly more variable than males at midday. By 18:30 h, females had cooled to a significantly cooler Tb because of their smaller body mass.3.3.|Males exhibited no difference between mean body temperatures at midday and 17:00 h, but females showed a significant increase in Tb at 17:00 h just prior to entering a sleeping site for the night.4.4.|There were no significant differences between the sexes with respect to the rate of warming in the morning, the time of first movement in the morning or Tb at that time. Time and Tb at first activity were highly variable among days for each individuals.