Threat display

The first suggestion that abnormal noradrenergic transmission was linked with anxiety came from Redmond s laboratory in the 1970s when he drew attention to the similarities in the symptoms and signs of anxiety with those of the acute stress response (Redmond and Huang 1979). He went on to stimulate the locus coeruleus of (chair-restrained) monkeys and showed that this caused behavioural changes, some of which resembled a cluster of behaviours displayed by the animals when under threat. This work led to the proposal that anxiety was due to (or exacerbated by) excessive... 

In experiments with mice and squirrel monkeys, we confirmed and extended the antagonism of amphetamine-induced motor hyperactivity by naltrexone at the same time, however, amphetamine s disruption of aggressive and social behavior was not reversed by naltrexone (Winslow and Miczek, in press). Specifically, in mice, the resident s attack and threat behavior toward an intruder was even further reduced by amphetamine after naltrexone pretreatment (figure 7). Squirrel monkeys that are dominant within their social group exhibit significantly lower levels of aggressive display toward other group members and initiate fewer social interactions after amphetamine treatment naltrexone did not block these effects. The interactive effects of amphetamine and naltrexone on locomotor behavior are consistent with the proposed modulation of dopamine-mediated functions by opioids however, the interaction between amphetamine and naltrexone on social behavior appears to involve a different mechanism. 

The development of mild forms of anxiety and neuroveg-etative and/or cognitive responses to stress may represent an adaptive evolutionary step against environmentally (external) or self-triggered (internal) threats, but maladaptive reactions have also emerged in human evolution. Thus, anxiety disorders are maladaptive conditions in which disproportionate responses to stress, or even self-evoked responses, are displayed. Anxiety disorders are one of the most frequent psychiatric illnesses, and have a lifetime prevalence of 15- 20% [1, 89]. The most common presentations are generalized anxiety disorder, with a lifetime prevalence rate of close to 5% [1, 89] social anxiety disorder, with very variable lifetime prevalence rates ranging from 2 to 14% [90] panic disorder, with rates from 2 to 4% [1,89] and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), with a prevalence rate close to 8%. Specific phobias, acute stress and obsessive-compulsive behavior are other clinical presentations of anxiety disorders. 

V.A. Petrenko and V.J. Vodyanoy, Phage display for detection of biological threat agents, J. Microbiol. Meth., 53 (2003) 253-262. 

Figure lO Baggage Viewing Station 2D projection view of a bag containing three potential threats. The black rectangle (normally displayed as turquoise on a color display) identifies the object to be assessed in 3D as shown in Figure 11. 

Aggression due to omission of reward, mostly In pigeons, also monkeys Conditioned history, schedule-controlled operant behavior, omit or infrequent reinforcement Competition for resources food, sex, protected niches Attack pecks or bites, threat display toward conspecific or suitable object... 

H. nana infection has the complication that ingested gravid eggs are infective and so the worm presents an additional threat to the host. In general the murine response to H. nana parallels that of H. diminuta - there is a Th2 cytokine response and evidence of participation by mast cells and eosinophils, such that mice that lack either cell type display significantly slower rates of worm loss, yet importantly the rejection response is not absent (Watanabe et al., 1994). Two additional points are noteworthy. First, gut tissues from H. nana-infected mice have increased ROS levels and the eosinophils produce more ROS upon in vitro stimulation (Niwa and Miyazato, 1996). Second, the cytokine response to egg ingestion is characterized by increased IFNy(Asano and Muramatsu, 1997), which would be expected... 

A previous report has implicated a role of calpain in mediating the tissue injury caused by the chemical threat agent sulfur mustard. Specifically, tissue homogenates from mouse ear skin exposed to sulfur mustard displayed a marked increase in calpain activity (170% increase 24 h after treatment Powers et al. 2000). These findings underscore the need to identify effective antiproteases with therapeutic use in reducing, or eliminating, tissue injuries. Since excitotoxicity is related directly to calpain activation, it can be surmised that sulfur mustard exposures may be linked to excitotoxicity. 

Phage Display and Its Application for the Detection and Therapeutic Intervention of Biological Threat Agents... 

In this chapter we describe the use of a combinatorial approach employing display phage technology for the development of peptides that can replace antibodies for the detection, and therapeutic intervention, of biological threat agents. 

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