(C) 2010 Published by Elsevier Inc.”
“Individuals struggling with obesity often have difficulty maintaining dietary regimens. One source of dietary relapse is the reinstatement of previous feeding behaviors following the presentation of cues indicating the availability of palatable but highly caloric food reward. The drugs fenfluramine and sibutramine have previously been prescribed because they enhance satiety mechanisms and decrease BTSA1 cost meal size. However, it is unclear whether these anorectic agents are also effective in blocking the cue-induced reinstatement of food-seeking behaviors. In these three experiments, we compared

the effects of systemic treatment of D-fenfluramine (3 mg/kg; N = 10) and sibutramine (3 mg/kg; N = 11) with that of the D1 antagonist SCH 23390 (6 mu g/kg; N = 11) at a dose that has previously been shown to attenuate cue-induced reinstatement. D-Fenfluramine treatment blocked the cue’s ability to reinstate lever pressing as compared to the saline injection day. In contrast, sibutramine had no effect on cue-induced reinstatement; all animals reinstated their lever pressing during the first reinstatement test, and this was unaffected by sibutramine treatment. SCH

23390 treatment did not significantly reduce cue-induced reinstatement in this set of experiments. The results VE-821 molecular weight suggest that the motivational effects of D-fenfluramine is not limited to the promotion of satiety once a meal has been initiated, and demonstrate that some anorectic treatments may inhibit the effectiveness of conditioned cues to elicit relapse of food-seeking behavior. (C) see more 2013 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.”
“Viruses

from the Alphavirus genus are responsible for numerous arboviral diseases impacting human health throughout the world. Confirmation of acute alphavirus infection is based on viral isolation, identification of viral RNA, or a fourfold or greater increase in antibody titers between acute and convalescent samples. In convalescence, the specificity of antibodies to an alphavirus may be confirmed by plaque reduction neutralization test. To identify the best method for alphavirus and neutralizing antibody recognition, the standard solid method using a cell monolayer overlay with 0.4% agarose and the semisolid method using a cell suspension overlay with 0.6% carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC) overlay were evaluated. Mayaro virus, Una virus, Venezuelan equine encephalitis virus (VEEV), and Western equine encephalitis virus (WEEV) were selected to be tested by both methods. The results indicate that the solid method showed consistently greater sensitivity than the semisolid method. Also, a “”semisolid-variant method”" using a 0.6% CMC overlay on a cell monolayer was assayed for virus titration. This method provided the same sensitivity as the solid method for VEEV and also had greater sensitivity for WEEV titration.