Introduction historique et critique à la notion de dépression en psychiatrie

The author describes the history of the concept of depression in modern psychiatry from the end of the Age of Enlightenment until today in three parts. In the first period (1793–1854), the opposition of general delusion (mania) and partial delusion (melancholia) prevails, without the problem of changes of the affective state being an issue. Only with the work of J. Guislain, and later of W. Griesinger, does the concept of mood disorders become a categorical form in mental pathology with the idea of psychological pain. The second period (1854–1926) is distinguished firstly by the works of J.P. Falret on circular insanity, and then those of V. Magnan, J. Ségnan, J. Séglas et Ph. Chaslin in France and E. Kraepelin in Germany. This period is characterized by the classical construction of periodic manicdepressive psychosis and takes into account the opposition of mania and melancholia. In the third period (1926–1977), the influences of phenomenology, psychoanalysis and structuralism predominate. Gradually melancholia loses its place at the core of this field, in favour of the concept of depression and this change now characterizes contemporary psychiatry.     

Raman and infrared spectra of toxin gamma from the venom of the scorpion Tityus serrulatus

Toxin gamma is a basic, low-molecular-weight, neurotoxic protein, isolated from the venom of the Brazilian scorpion, Tityus serrulatus. Raman spectra (400-1800 cm-1 region) of this toxin in both the lyophilized state and in 0.1 M acetate buffer (pH 4.5) and the infrared spectrum (700-4000 cm-1 region) of a solid film were investigated. From the vibrational spectra, it can be concluded that the polypeptide backbone of toxin gamma consists of a mixture of the different secondary structures, with predominance of beta-sheet, followed by unordered structure and alpha-helix, with some evidence of beta-turn structures. The four disulfide bridges assume the gauche-gauche-gauche conformation of the CCSSCC fragments. The intensity ratio of the doublet at 853 and 828 cm-1 suggests that four out of the five tyrosine residues are exposed. The three tryptophan residues are exposed on the surface, and the single methionine residue assume the gauche-gauche conformation. Toxin gamma retains full activity in the pH 4.5-7.5 range, but is almost completely inactivated at pH 11.5.     

Complementary Roles of the Hippocampus and the Dorsomedial Striatum during Spatial and Sequence-Based Navigation Behavior

We investigated the neural bases of navigation based on spatial or sequential egocentric representation during the completion of the starmaze, a complex goal-directed navigation task. In this maze, mice had to swim along a path composed of three choice points to find a hidden platform. As reported previously, this task can be solved by using two hippocampal-dependent strategies encoded in parallel i) the allocentric strategy requiring encoding of the contextual information, and ii) the sequential egocentric strategy requiring temporal encoding of a sequence of successive body movements associated to specific choice points. Mice were trained during one day and tested the following day in a single probe trial to reveal which of the two strategies was spontaneously preferred by each animal. Imaging of the activity-dependent gene c-fos revealed that both strategies are supported by an overlapping network involving the dorsal hippocampus, the dorsomedial striatum (DMS) and the medial prefrontal cortex. A significant higher activation of the ventral CA1 subregion was observed when mice used the sequential egocentric strategy. To investigate the potential different roles of the dorsal hippocampus and the DMS in both types of navigation, we performed region-specific excitotoxic lesions of each of these two structures. Dorsal hippocampus lesioned mice were unable to optimally learn the sequence but improved their performances by developing a serial strategy instead. DMS lesioned mice were severely impaired, failing to learn the task. Our data support the view that the hippocampus organizes information into a spatio-temporal representation, which can then be used by the DMS to perform goal-directed navigation.     

Impact of disease frequency and host density on pollination and transmission of an African anther-smut fungus

The vast majority of flowering plants rely solely on insects for pollination. A number of pathogens have evolved mechanisms to exploit these close associations and use pollinators as vectors of infective propagules. Factors that affect pollinator movements and successful pollination may in turn also influence successful transmission of fungal spores. Here we investigate the effect of host density and the frequency of diseased Oxalis lanata individuals infected by the anther-smut fungus, Thecaphora capensis, on the likelihood of receiving pollen and fungal spores. Specifically, we determined the numbers of spores and pollen grains deposited on stigmatic surfaces of selected flowers under natural and standardized conditions where host density and disease frequency varied. The effect of host flower density and diseased flower frequency on pollen and spore transfer was variable under natural conditions and these factors interacted significantly. However, an increase in host density and disease frequency significantly influenced pollen and spore deposits under standardized conditions. The effect of host density was, however, not linear and an optimal flower density for pollen and fungal spore transmission was found. Similar to other systems of vector-borne disease, the transmission of anther-smut of Oxalis lanata is more frequency-dependent than density-dependent. This study represents a first step towards understanding the disease transmission process of T. capensis on Oxalis and lays the foundation for future comparative studies between this and other systems to develop and test general hypotheses of disease dynamics in vector-borne disease transmission systems.     

Inhibition of RNA synthesis in yeast protoplasts by a peptide factor from Tetrahymena cells

Protoplasts of Schizosaccharomyces pombe, grown on a rich nutrient medium, were treated with a peptide factor isolated from cultures of the protozoan Tetrahymena pyriformis. The peptide factor is known to inhibit RNA synthesis in Tetrahymena. It has now been shown that the peptide factor also inhibits RNA synthesis in yeast protoplasts without affecting protein synthesis.