The vision of recovery today: what it is and what it means for services

In the past, practice in mental health was guided by the belief that individuals with serious mental illnesses do not recover. The course of their illness was either seen pessimistically, as deteriorative, or optimistically, as a maintenance course. Research over the past thirty to forty years has indicted that belief and shown that a vision of recovery can be achieved for many individuals. People with serious mental illnesses have themselves published accounts of their own recovery as well as advocated for the development of recovery promoting services. In North America and other regions, policies have been developed to make recovery the guiding vision of services. Today, particularly in the United States, much effort is going into the transformation of services and systems to achieve recovery outcomes. Despite these trends, the idea of recovery remains controversial and, some say, even illusory. This article clarifies the meaning of the term "recovery", reviews the research and first person accounts providing a rationale for recovery, and sets out implications for developing recovery oriented services.     

Neural and behavioral epigenetics; what it is,and what is hype

The ability to examine epigenetic mechanisms in the brain has become readily available over the last 20 years. This has led to an explosion of research and interest in neural and behavioral epigenetics. Of particular interest to researchers, and indeed the lay public, is the possibility that epigenetic processes, such as changes in DNA‐methylation and histone modification, may provide a biochemical record of environmental effects. This has led to some fascinating insights into how molecular changes in the brain can control behavior. However, some of this research has also attracted controversy and, as is dealt with here, some overblown claims. This latter problem is partly linked to the shifting sands of what is defined as ‘epigenetics’. In this review, I provide an overview of what exactly epigenetics is, and what is hype, with the aim of opening up a debate as to how this exciting field moves forward.     

Adaptive developmental plasticity: what is it,how can we recognize it and when can it evolve?

Developmental plasticity describes situations where a specific input during an individual''s development produces a lasting alteration in phenotype. Some instances of developmental plasticity may be adaptive, meaning that the tendency to produce the phenotype conditional on having experienced the developmental input has been under positive selection. We discuss the necessary assumptions and predictions of hypotheses concerning adaptive developmental plasticity (ADP) and develop guidelines for how to test empirically whether a particular example is adaptive. Central to our analysis is the distinction between two kinds of ADP: informational, where the developmental input provides information about the future environment, and somatic state-based, where the developmental input enduringly alters some aspect of the individual''s somatic state. Both types are likely to exist in nature, but evolve under different conditions. In all cases of ADP, the expected fitness of individuals who experience the input and develop the phenotype should be higher than that of those who experience the input and do not develop the phenotype, while the expected fitness of those who do not experience the input and do not develop the phenotype should be higher than those who do not experience the input and do develop the phenotype. We describe ancillary predictions that are specific to just one of the two types of ADP and thus distinguish between them.     

Environmental auditing: what is it and how can it contribute to environmental education?

The concept of environmental auditing and its use by industry and commerce are explained. A questionnaire-based method is described which can be used to introduce students to the techniques of environmental auditing, as well as developing problem-solving and communication skills and possibly even resulting in positive benefit to the educational institution.     

Teleost polarization vision: how it might work and what it might be good for

In this review, we will discuss the recent literature on fish polarization vision and we will present a model on how the retina processes polarization signals. The model is based on a general retinal-processing scheme and will be compared with the available electrophysiological data on polarization processing in the retina. The results of this model will help illustrate the functional significance of polarization vision for both feeding behaviour and navigation. First, we examine the linkage between structure and function in polarization vision in general.     

Pathogenesis of HIV infection: what the virus spares is as important as what it destroys

Upon transmission to a new host, HIV targets CCR5+ CD4+ effector memory T cells, resulting in acute, massive depletion of these cells from mucosal effector sites. This depletion does not initially compromise the regenerative capacity of the immune system because naive and most central memory T cells are spared. Here, we discuss evidence suggesting that frequent activation of these spared cells during the chronic phase of HIV infection supplies mucosal tissues with short-lived CCR5+ CD4+ effector cells that prevent life-threatening infections. This immune activation also facilitates continued viral replication, but infection and killing of target T cells by HIV are selective and the impact on effector-cell lifespan is limited. We propose, however, that persistent activation progressively disrupts the functional organization of the immune system, reducing its regenerative capacity and facilitating viral evolution that leads to loss of the exquisite target cell-sparing selectivity of viral replication, ultimately resulting in AIDS.