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[EN] University teaching of quality must be based on methodologies that have proved improvements in students’ academic, personal and professional development. With this aim, this study analyzed and compared the effects of two active methodologies: Action-Research and Service-Learning on perceived academic self-efficacy, academic engagement, and development of academic skills. The sample consisted of 113 university students aged 18-42 years (M=20.77, SD=2.95) from the subject Prevention of Learning Difficulties, divided into two groups: a group of 52 students who implemented the Action-Research (age: 18-24 years; M= 19.94, SD=1.73) and a second group of 61 students who worked based on ServiceLearning (age: 18-42 years; M=21.48, SD=3.54). Both groups report on their perceived academic self-efficacy, academic commitment and academic competencies before and after performing the classroom work associated with the corresponding methodology. The analyzes showed a significant increase in perceived academic self-efficacy and academic competencies (marginally significant) in the Action-Research group after implementing said methodology, while in the Service-Learning group a positive trend was shown in academic competencies. When comparing the results of both groups, the results indicated that the students from the Action-Research group experienced an increase in self-efficacy compared to the participants in the Service-Learning group. The findings of this study highlight the benefits of Action Research as a methodological strategy in the university context., [ES] Una enseñanza de calidad debe basarse en metodologías con demostrada eficacia para mejorar el desarrollo académico, personal y profesional de los estudiantes. Por ello, este estudio analizó y comparó los efectos de dos metodologías: Investigación-Acción y Aprendizaje-Servicio sobre la autoeficacia académica percibida, compromiso académico y desarrollo de competencias académicas. La muestra estuvo compuesta por 113 universitarias de 18-42 años (media (M)=20.77, desviación típica (DT)=2.95) de la asignatura Prevención de Dificultades de Aprendizaje, divididas en dos grupos: uno de 52 estudiantes que implementaron la Investigación-Acción (18-24 años; M=19.94, DT=1.73) y un segundo grupo de 61 estudiantes siguiendo el Aprendizaje-Servicio (18-42 años; M=21.48, DT=3.54). Ambos grupos informaron acerca de su autoeficacia académica percibida, compromiso académico y competencias académicas antes y después del trabajo de aula asociado a la metodología correspondiente. Los análisis mostraron un incremento significativo en autoeficacia y competencias académicas (marginalmente significativa) en el grupo de Investigación-Acción después de dicha metodología, mientras que en el grupo de Aprendizaje-Servicio se observó una tendencia positiva en competencias académicas. Cuando se compararon los resultados de ambos grupos se demostró que las estudiantes de Investigación-Acción vieron incrementada su autoeficacia en comparación al grupo de Aprendizaje-Servicio. Los resultados destacan los beneficios de la Investigación-Acción como estrategia metodológica en contexto universitario.

[EN] University teachers receive a large volume of e-mails from students, which implies a significant workload. The objective of this study was to determine if answering students' emails with voice notes would reduce the time spent by teachers on this task. In addition, the effect of the use of voice notes on students was assessed, specifically on academic engagement (UWES-S-17 scale) and on their expectations of the benefit derived from the use of this strategy. For this purpose, 60 students were evaluated before (Pre-test) and after (Post-test) the introduction of the voice notes by the teacher. Results showed that the students had very positive expectations, since they considered that this strategy would benefit their learning. In fact, students increased their satisfaction with the e-mail system. However, no significant improvements were observed on academic engagement or in the time spent by the teacher responding to e-mails. In conclusion, voice notes appear to be an appealing resource to answer students' e-mails, however, in order to the full potential of this tool, a long-term follow-up study would be necessary., [ES] El profesorado universitario recibe un gran volumen de emails provenientes del alumnado, lo que implica una importante carga de trabajo. El presente estudio planteó como objetivo determinar si la contestación a las dudas de aprendizaje del alumnado con notas de audio permitía disminuir el tiempo dedicado por el profesorado a esta tarea. Además, se evaluó su efecto sobre el alumnado, específicamente sobre su compromiso académico (escala UWES-S-17) y sobre sus expectativas del beneficio derivado de esta estrategia. Para ello 60 estudiantes fueron evaluados antes (Pre-test) y después (Post-test) de la introducción de las notas de audio por parte del docente. Los resultados muestran que los estudiantes tienen expectativas muy positivas, ya que consideran que esta estrategia puede beneficiar su aprendizaje. De hecho, se registró un aumento de la satisfacción con el sistema de correo electrónico. Sin embargo, no se redujo el número de horas dedicadas por el profesorado a contestar emails ni se registró un aumento en el compromiso académico. En conclusión, las notas de audio parecen un recurso muy prometedor para contestar a las dudas del alumnado por email, sin embargo, para poder evaluar todos los beneficios derivados sería necesario realizar un estudio de seguimiento a largo plazo., Nos gustaría agradecer a la Universidad de Zaragoza (Vicerrectorado de Política Académica) por la financiación del presente estudio (PIIDUZ_21_130).

[EN] We present the results of a teaching and innovation project aiming at increasing the performance and self-efficacy of students academic writing. Situational motivation was also analyzed. It was conducted at Universidad de Zaragoza. Following a pre-post-intervention experimental design, self-efficacy, situational motivation and academic writing performance has been evaluated. In the first part of the project, two videos were designed to cover the key competences to be acquired by the students. The videos were recorded using power point and review questions were inserted in them via Ed-puzzle platform. Students watched these videos and, to put the knowledge acquired through the videos into practice, they were offered a practical, two hours long lesson. The project was also supported by Facebook, where students had access to materials, performed practical activities and receibed feedback. Our findings show that students perceive themselves as more effective at the end of the program. In addition, a considerable improvement in the quality of their academic writing abilities has been observed. Finaly, an increase of intrinsic motivation has been seen after participating in the innovation project., [ES] Presentamos los resultados de un proyecto de innovación docente cuyo objetivo fue aumentar la autoeficacia y el rendimiento en redacción académica de los estudiantes de magisterio. La motivación situacional también fue analizada. Se realizó en la Universidad de Zaragoza. Después de un diseño experimental pre-post intervención, se evaluó la autoeficacia, la motivación situacional y el rendimiento en redacción académica. En la primera parte del proyecto, se diseñaron dos videos para cubrir las competencias clave que debían adquirir los estudiantes. Los videos se grabaron usando power point y las preguntas de revisión se insertaron en ellos a través de la plataforma Ed-puzzle. Los estudiantes vieron estos videos y, para poner en práctica el conocimiento adquirido a través de los videos, realizaron una lección práctica de dos horas de duración. El proyecto también fue apoyado por Facebook, donde los estudiantes tenían acceso a materiales, realizaban actividades prácticas y recibían comentarios. Nuestros hallazgos muestran que los estudiantes se perciben a sí mismos como más efectivos al final del programa. Además, se ha observado una mejora considerable en la calidad de sus habilidades de escritura académica. Finalmente, se ha visto un aumento de la motivación intrínseca después de participar en el proyecto de innovación.

School violence towards peers and teen dating violence are two of the most relevant behaviour problems in adolescents. Although the relationship between the two types of violence is well established in the literature, few studies have focused on mediators that could explain this empirical relationship. We departed from the evidence that relates anger, emotional distress and impaired empathy to teen dating violence and juvenile sexual offending, to explore the role of personal distress, i.e., a self-focused, aversive affective reaction to another&rsquo, s emotion associated with the desire to alleviate one&rsquo, s own, but not the other&rsquo, s distress, as a possible mechanism linking school violence towards peers and teen dating violence in a sample of Spanish adolescents. We also explored the prevalence of emotional and physical teen dating violence, both occasional and frequent, and the differences between boys and girls. A total of 1055 adolescents (49.2% boys and 50.8% girls) aged between 11 and 17 years (M = 14.06, SD = 1.34) who had had at least one romantic relationship within the last year, completed measures of school violence towards peers, teen dating violence, and personal distress. Statistical analyses revealed that occasional and frequent teen dating violence (both physical and emotional) was more frequent in girls than in boys, and that personal distress functioned as a partial mediator, with an overall model fit higher for boys than girls: in boys, partial mediation occurred for both physical and emotional teen dating violence, in girls, partial mediation occurred only for physical violence. The interpretation of the results is tentative given the novel nature of the study, and points to the evidence of the emotional costs of school violence and the importance of emotion and behavior regulation to undermine the social costs of personal distress.

[ES] El modelo de la clase invertida o flipped classroom consiste en dar la vuelta a la organización del modelo tradicional docente, sacando la transmisión de conocimientos fuera del aula y dejar tiempo de aula para propiciar un aprendizaje más activo y profundo en el alumnado. En la presente innovación se estudió el impacto que tiene visualizar vídeos con preguntas incrustadas sobre el rendimiento final en la asignatura. Los resultados mostraron por un lado que existe una relación marginalmente significativa entre la visualización de vídeos y el rendimiento en la prueba final de la asignatura. Por otro, se halló una correlación positiva aunque moderada entre las puntuaciones obtenidas en las preguntas incrustadas en los vídeos y la puntuación en el examen final. Estos resultados concuerdan con la idea de que es posible lograr un procesamiento más profundo de la información y, por tanto, un mejor recuerdo de la misma, cuando se insertan preguntas a lo largo de los vídeos, [EN] The flipped classroom model consists on a re-arrangement of the traditional instructional model, in the sense that the lectures are placed out of the classroom whereas the classroom time is devoted to promote a more active and deeper learning in the students. This innovation was aimed to study the impact of viewing videos with questions embeded along it on the final achievent of the students. Results showed that there is a marginal relationship between watching videos and the score on the final test of the course. In addition, a possitive correlation between the scores obtained on the questions of the videos and the score on the final test was obtained. This results are in accordance with the idea that embeding questions along the videos leads to a more profound proccessing of the information, and therefore, a better learning.

School violence is a serious social and public health problem prevalent worldwide. Although the relevance of teacher and classroom factors is well established in the literature, few studies have focused on the role of teacher perceptions in school violence and victimisation and the potential mediational role of classroom climate in this relationship. A total of 2399 adolescents (50% girls), aged between 11 and 18 years (M = 14.65, SD = 1.78) and enrolled in five Spanish Secondary Compulsory Education schools completed measures of classroom climate, school violence towards peers and perception of peer victimisation, and their teachers informed about their academic competence and the teacher&ndash, student relationship. Correlational analyses revealed that whereas academic competence perceived by the teacher was negatively related to overt violence and victimisation, its relationship with pure relational violence was positive. Structural equation modelling analyses showed that variables of classroom climate (involvement, affiliation, and teacher support) perceived by the students functioned as partial mediators between teacher perceptions of academic competence and of teacher&ndash, student relationship and violence and victimisation. In the mediational model, teacher perception of academic competence acted as a direct protective factor against violence and victimisation, and teacher perception of teacher&ndash, student relationship acted as a direct risk for violence, as well as an indirect protective factor through classroom climate for victimisation. The interpretation of these results points to the importance of the teacher&rsquo, s subjective perceptions in the prevention of violence and victimisation problems and their practical implications for the classroom climate perceived by students.

The educational use of portfolios has been increasing in the last few years, especially as technology has also developed electronic versions of portfolios. Although there is abundant information about their benefits and practice description, few studies provide empirical evidence of their implementation. The objective of this study was to provide initial evidence about the use of the portfolio in higher education. Concretely, we aimed 1) to explore the correlation between students’ performance on the portfolio and their performance on more traditional assessment methods 2) to explore whether student’s personal variables predict performance in key elements of the e-portfolio, such as individual reflections, and if these contribute to general academic performance in the course, and 3) to evaluate whether the use of the e-portfolio during a semester changes the students’ self-efficacy and engagement. For this purpose, an initial sample of 73 students were recruited, and an e-portfolio (based on Mahara) was implemented over a semester. The results showed that performance on the portfolio correlated with the score obtained on multiple choice tests. There was an increase in self-efficacy after one semester of e-portfolio implementation, and engagement proved to be an important predictor of the final course grade through the mediation of individual reflections. These results offer preliminary and promising evidence about the relationship of a specific element of e-portfolios, individual reflections with several variables related to academic achievement such as self-efficacy and engagement.

El objetivo del estudio era conocer la relación entre las diferentes dimensiones de la variable de personalidad de búsqueda de sensaciones y algunas conductas de riesgo, concretamente el consumo de drogas y la conducta sexual de riesgo, en función del género de los participantes. Asimismo, se estudió si los consumos de las diferentes drogas y la conducta sexual de riesgo estaban relacionados entre sí. La muestra contó con 367 participantes de Ecuador (un 55.6% de chicos y un 44.4% de chicas) de entre 13 y 17 años. Se administraron algunos ítems de la escala The Adolescent Risk-Taking Questionnaire y la escala Sensation-Seeking Scale-V. Los resultados mostraron que la búsqueda de experiencias y la desinhibición son las dos dimensiones que mejor explican las conductas de consumo en ambos géneros y que estos explican la conducta sexual de riesgo en chicos pero no en chicas. Además, se encontró que el consumo de drogas y las conductas sexuales de riesgo presentaron relación en ambos casos. Se plantea así la necesidad de buscar alternativas para que aquellos jóvenes con más necesidad de experimentación canalicen esa característica hacia actividades saludables.

The goal of the present study was to examine whether the relation commonly found between purpose in life and well-being occurs regardless of the population being assessed (community vs. inpatient) when the presence of somatic symptoms is used as a proxy for well-being. A total of 145 adults participated in the study (psychiatric patients, N = 28; healthy community adults, N = 117). Statistical analyses were first conducted to control for the effects of the observed differences in age and gender between samples. Results showed a significant relation between purpose in life and perceived health even after controlling for population. In both community and inpatient populations, purpose in life correlated with fewer somatic concerns. We discuss the benefits of incorporating a sense of directedness with prevention and treatment purposes.

It has been widely demonstrated that the differential outcomes procedure (DOP) facilitates both the learning of conditional relationships and the memory for the conditional stimuli in animal subjects. For conditional discriminations in humans, the DOP also produces an increase in the speed of acquisition and/or final accuracy. However, the potential facilitative effects of differential outcomes in human memory have not been fully assessed. In the present study, we aimed to test whether this procedure improves performance on a recognition memory task in healthy adults. Participants showed significantly better delayed face recognition when differential outcomes were used. This novel finding is discussed in the light of other studies on the differential outcomes effect (DOE) in both animals and humans, and implications for future research are presented.

Chlorpyrifos (CPF) is a common organophosphate (OP) insecticide that has been widely used in agriculture as a pesticide. The primary mechanism of acute toxic action of OPs is initiated by acetylcholinesterase (AChE) inhibition. However, non-AChE targets have also been proposed as alternative that contributes to the acute lethal action and side effects of short or long-term exposure. Recently, we have found that a single dose of 250 mg/kg CPF produces acceleration in acquisition on schedule-induced polydipsia (SIP) procedure 6 months after its administration. Moreover, CPF animals show a higher level of impulsivity in a delay-discounting task 1 year after acute administration, and these effects are potentiated when animals are divided into high (HD) and low (LD) drinkers in SIP. In the present study, rats were injected with a subcutaneous (sc) dose of 250 mg/kg of CPF, and 10 weeks later its effect on delay-discounting task was evaluated. Consequently, these animals were evaluated based on SIP, and divided into two populations (HD and LD) according to their rates of drinking in this task. One year after OP administration, these animals were re-evaluated in a delay-discounting task. Results revealed that the CPF-administered rats prefer immediate reward and show a more impulsive choice, 10 weeks after CPF administration. Furthermore, 1 year after it administration, only animals treated with CPF that are high drinkers on SIP are more impulsive than the rest of the groups Therefore, these data suggest that some individuals are more sensitive to OP intoxication than the others, at least in terms of durability of sequelae.

Chlorpyrifos (CPF) is a common organophosphate (OP) insecticide that has been widely used in extensive agriculture as a pesticide. The primary mechanism of acute toxic action of OPs is inhibition of acetylcholinesterase (AChE). However, targets other than AChE have been proposed to contribute to the acute lethal action and side effects of short- or long-term exposure to these compounds. Bekkedal et al. (Sci Total Environ 274:119–123;2001) showed that chronic administration of the OP trimethylolpropane phosphate (TMPP) reduces the number of schedule-induced polydipsia (SIP) sessions necessary to induce asymptotic drinking level. In the present work, rats were injected with 250 mg/kg CPF and 6 months later, its effect on schedule-induced polydipsia was evaluated. In addition, after stable levels of SIP, a pharmacological study was carried out to determine the implication of other systems in the long-term effects of OPs. Finally, these animals were evaluated in a delay discounting task, as a measure of impulsivity. Results indicate that the CPF group gives more licks to obtain the same amount of water than control rats (VHC). Moreover, the administration of diazepam produces an increased water intake in the CPF without any observable effect in VHC rats. Data of the delay discounting task show that CPF rats prefer an immediate reward and show a major impulsive choice. Taken together, our data confirm and extend the long-term behavioral effects of subcutaneous administration of CPF and point to a role for other systems that, besides AChE inhibition, contribute to the long-term neurotoxicity of CPF.

Previous studies have demonstrated that the differential outcomes procedure (DOP), which involves paring a unique reward with a specific stimulus, enhances discriminative learning and memory performance in several populations. The present study aimed to further investigate whether this procedure would improve face recognition memory in 5- and 7-year-old children (Experiment 1) and adults with Down syndrome (Experiment 2). In a delayed matching-to-sample task, participants had to select the previously shown face (sample stimulus) among six alternatives faces (comparison stimuli) in four different delays (1, 5, 10, or 15 s). Participants were tested in two conditions: differential, where each sample stimulus was paired with a specific outcome; and non-differential outcomes, where reinforcers were administered randomly. The results showed a significantly better face recognition in the differential outcomes condition relative to the non-differential in both experiments. Implications for memory training programs and future research are discussed.

Objective: Previous studies have demonstrated the benefit of the differential outcomes procedure (DOP) in human learning. In the present study we aimed to explore whether the DOP might also help to overcome the face recognition memory deficit commonly observed in Alzheimer’s disease (AD) patients. Method: A delayed matching-to-sample task was used. Participants were instructed to choose which of the 4 alternative faces (comparison stimuli) matched the previously seen face (sample stimulus). Either short (5 seconds) or long (25 seconds) delays were interposed between the sample and the comparison stimuli. In the differential outcomes condition each sample face was paired with its own outcome. In contrast, in the nondifferential condition, outcomes were randomly arranged. Results: The differential outcomes effect (DOE) was evident in the AD patients with both accuracy and latency data. That is, they showed a significantly better and faster delayed face recognition when differential outcomes were arranged. The analyses also revealed a significant main effect of delay; participants were slower in the 25 seconds condition than in the 5 seconds condition, but the difference was higher in the patients than in the controls. Conclusions: These findings demonstrate, to our knowledge for the first time, that face recognition memory in patients with Alzheimer is improved when differential outcomes are used and draw attention to the potential of this procedure as a therapeutic technique.

Although visual functions have been proposed to be enhanced in deaf individuals, empirical studies have not yet established clear evidence on this issue. The present study aimed to determine whether deaf children with diverse communication modes had superior visual memory and whether their performance was improved by the use of differential outcomes. Severely or profoundly deaf children who employed spoken Spanish, Spanish Sign Language (SSL), and both spoken Spanish and SSL modes of communication were tested in a delayed matching-to-sample task for visual working memory assessment. Hearing controls were used to compare performance. Participants were tested in two conditions, differential outcome and non-differential outcome conditions. Deaf groups with either oral or SSL modes of communication completed the task with less accuracy than bilingual and control hearing children. In addition, the performances of all groups improved through the use of differential outcomes.

The differential outcome effect is when learning is enhanced through the application of different outcomes to different conditions of a task. Here we explore whether one difference in learning with differential outcomes is an enhanced categorisation of objects. We demonstrate that participants learning conditional discriminations are better able to identify previously unpaired objects as belonging to the same category when differential outcomes were used in learning these stimuli.

Chlorpyrifos (CPF) is a broad spectrum organophosphate (OP) pesticide widely used in agriculture, industry and household. Several animal studies indicate emotional disturbances after CPF exposure, although the results are sometimes puzzling. Thus, both anxiolytic and anxiogenic effects of CPF have been reported in different animal models of anxiety [Sanchez-Amate MC, Flores P, Sanchez-Santed F. Effects of chlorpyrifos in the plus-maze model of anxiety. Behav Pharmacol 2001;12:285-92; Sanchez-Amate MC, Davila E, Canadas F, Flores P, Sanchez-Santed F. Chlorpyrifos shares stimulus properties with pentilenetetrazol as evaluated by and operant drug discrimination task. Neurotoxicology 2002;23:795-803; Lopez-Crespo G, Carvajal F, Flores P, Sanchez-Santed F, Sanchez-Amate MC. Time-course of biochemical and behavioural effects of a single high dose of chlorpyrifos. Neurotoxicology 2007;28:541-7]. On the other hand, other behavioural effects of CPF are time-dependent [Lopez-Crespo G, Carvajal F, Flores P, Sanchez-Santed F, Sanchez-Amate MC. Time-course of biochemical and behavioural effects of a single high dose of chlorpyrifos. Neurotoxicology 2007;28:541-7], raising the question that the effects of CPF could be task and post-administration time dependent. To test this hypothesis, three groups of rats were treated with a single high dose of CPF (250 mg/kg); one of the groups was tested on day 5 on the elevated plus-maze, to complete our previous study on day 2 [Sanchez-Amate MC, Flores P, Sanchez-Santed F. Effects of chlorpyrifos in the plus-maze model of anxiety. Behav Pharmacol 2001;12:285-92]. The remaining groups were tested on the elevated T-maze on days 2 and 5. CPF produced an increased open arm activity on the elevated plus-maze on day 5, an increased escape latency on the elevated T-maze on day 2 and an impaired inhibitory avoidance on day 5. Data are discussed taking together all studies carried out in our laboratory, confirming that CPF effects on emotional behaviour are dependent on both task contingencies and post-administration time.

In this work we present the architecture of an special sort of software capable of changing its presentation depending on the behavior of a particular user. Although the proposed solution is applicable as the base of a general adaptive application, we want to expose the peculiarities of the model designed specifically to work in a special domain, the cognitive neuropsychology. In this domain, one of the most important topic is the design of task for the assessment of patients with cerebral damage. Depending of the patient, and its particular characteristics, the therapists must adjust the exposition time of several stimulus in order to obtain the best parameter values, and therefore to obtain the profile in a precise way. This is a very important topic because correct assessment implies successful rehabilitation but, in practice, this process is time-consuming and difficult to be done. So, with the aim to help the therapists in the task tuning process, we propose the use of artificial intelligence-based techniques in order to detect the patient's profile automatically during the execution time, adapting the values of the parameters dynamically. In particular, we propose the foundation of temporal similarities techniques as the basis of design adaptive software.

The research of individual differences has opened new possibilities for better exploring the neurobiological basis of vulnerability to psychopathological disorders. We extended this approach by using schedule-induced polydipsia (SIP). Outbred male Wistar rats were characterized as either high (HD) or low (LD) drinker according to their behavior in SIP. Subsequently, their performance in the elevated plus maze (EPM) was studied for possible differences in anxiety-like behaviors. Finally, the effects of pentylenetetrazol (PTZ), diazepam, d-amphetamine, and cocaine on individual differences in SIP were investigated. HD rats acquired SIP faster and reached higher asymptotic levels than LD. Nose pokes, however, were greater in LD. In the EPM, there were no differences between HD and LD animals. Gabaergic drug effects on SIP did not differ between HD and LD rats. Compared to saline, PTZ reduced and diazepam increased water SIP drinking. On the other hand, amphetamine dose-dependently reduced SIP in HD, whereas the highest dose was required to reduce SIP in LD. HD rats also showed reductions in SIP drinking after cocaine administration. However, the effects of these drugs on nose pokes did not differ between HD and LD. These data provide novel evidence that individual differences in SIP are not predictive of behavioral reactivity in animal models of anxiety and suggest an important role for the dopaminergic system in such individual differences. These findings point to SIP as a useful animal model for investigating the neurobiological basis of vulnerability to several psychopathologies in which the dopaminergic system is involved.

The purpose the present study was to determine if tolerance is developed to all behavioural effects produced by a single high dose of chlorpyrifos (CPF). For this, the study was divided in two phases; in the first phase, we studied the time course of the effects produced by treatment with a high dose of CPF (250 mg/kg s.c.) on rat locomotor activity and anxiety behaviours recorded on an open-field, as well as on AChE inhibition. Results showed that CPF produced a maximum inhibition of AChE (72% of inhibition) 2 days after its administration, exhibiting a partial recovery of its activity by day 30 (55% of inhibition). On locomotor activity CPF produced a biphasic effect; a reduction only on day 2, and an increase on day 30. An anxiolytic-like effect was only observed within 2 and 5 days after CPF treatment. These results indicate that the tolerance has been developed to the behavioural effects produced by s.c. administration of CPF, but with a different time course. In the second phase, since disturbances in cholinergic system might trigger dopaminergic disfunctions, we tested the locomotor activity following challenge with amphetamine (1 mg/kg i.p.) at 11 and 30 days after CPF treatment. Data obtained showed that amphetamine produced an increase in total distances and rearing in vehicle and CPF groups on days 11 and 30. However, CPF group exhibited lower increase relative to vehicle group in both days. This effect is independent of the percentage of AChE inhibition and therefore, of change in the cholinergic system. Data are discussed under the light of the adaptative mechanisms underlying the recovery of the cholinergic overstimulation after s.c. exposure to high doses of CPF.

Background: The differential outcomes procedure (DOP) has proved useful to improve discrimination learning in both animals and humans. Here we adapted DOP to assess its utility to overcome the memory loss commonly associated with normal aging.Methods: In a delayed matching-to-sample task, subjects were exposed to a man's face, and after a delay, they were required to decide if the previously seen face was within a set of six men's faces. For half the subjects, each sample face was paired with its own outcome (differential outcomes condition); outcomes were randomly arranged for the remaining half of subjects (non-differential condition). Either short (5 second) or long (30 second) delays were interposed between the sample and the comparison stimuli.Results: Results showed that relative to younger adults, older adults' performance decreased with the longer delay. However, the use of differential outcomes was able to reverse the detrimental effect of the increased delay in the elderly group, raising their performance to the level shown by younger adults.Conclusions: These findings demonstrate, for the first time, that DOP can help elderly people overcome their memory limitations, and they draw attention to the potential of this procedure as a therapeutic technique.

The purpose of this study was to determine the effects of different food-reinforcement schedules on plasma corticosterone (CORT), and its possible involvement in the acquisition and maintenance of schedule-induced polydipsia (SIP). In Experiment 1, three groups of rats were submitted to two different fixed-interval (FI) schedules with inter-food intervals of 30 and 120 s, and to a massed-feeding presentation for 40 days until SIP was well stabilized. In Experiment 2, six groups of rats were exposed to the same schedules, FI 30s and FI 120s, and to the massed-feeding condition, but no water bottles were presented. CORT levels were determined on Days 3 and 40. Results of Experiment 1 indicated that FI 30s schedule, but not FI 120s or the massed-feeding condition, induces excessive drinking from Day 3. Results in Experiment 2 indicated that CORT levels were similar for all the groups on Day 3. However, only animals on the FI 30s schedule did increase their CORT levels on Day 40, with no variation in the hormone in the other two conditions, FI 120s and massed-feeding presentations. The data are discussed in terms of the implications of these results for hypotheses of SIP as anxiolitic behavior.

Food-deprived rats that receive intermittent delivery of small amounts of food develop excessive drinking--specifically, schedule-induced polydipsia (SIP). A main characteristic of SIP is its occurrence at the beginning of interfood intervals. The purpose of this study was to demonstrate that SIP can be developed toward the end of interfood intervals, in closer proximity to upcoming than to preceding food delivery. In Experiment 1, two groups were exposed to a fixed-time (FT) 30-sec food schedule with water available during the first or the last 15 sec of each interfood interval. Two additional groups, which had access to water throughout, were exposed to FT 30-sec or FT 15-sec schedules of food presentation. The FT 30-sec group with free access to water developed the highest level of intake; similar and intermediate levels were induced in all the remaining groups. In Experiment 2, three groups of rats were exposed to an FT 90-sec food schedule with water available during the first, the second, or the last 30 sec of each interfood interval. One additional group with access to water throughout was exposed to the FT 90-sec schedule of food presentation. The group with free access to water developed a higher level of consumption than did the other groups, but by the end of training none of the four groups showed statistical differences in polydipsic drinking. Results show that adjunctive drinking can be developed in proximity to upcoming food delivery even with long interfood intervals.