RESUMEN
Despite step-down inhibitory avoidance procedures that have been widely implemented in rats and mice to study learning and emotion phenomena, performance of other species in these tasks has received less attention. The case of the Mongolian gerbil is of relevance considering the discrepancies in the parameters of the step-down protocols implemented, especially the wide range of foot-shock intensities (i.e., 0.4-4.0 mA), and the lack of information on long-term performance, extinction effects, and behavioral patterning during these tasks. Experiment 1 aimed to (a) characterize gerbils' acquisition, extinction, and steady-state performance during a multisession (i.e., extended) step-down protocol adapted for implementation in a commercially-available behavioral package (Video Fear Conditioning System-MED Associates Fairfax, VT, USA), and (b) compare gerbils' performance in this task with two shock intensities - 0.5 vs. 1.0 mA-considered in the low-to-mid range. Results indicated that the 1.0 mA protocol produced more reliable and clear evidence of avoidance learning, extinction, and reacquisition in terms of increments in freezing and on-platform time as well as suppression of platform descent. Experiment 2 aimed to (a) assess whether an alternate protocol consisting of a random delivery of foot shocks could replicate the effects of Experiment 1 and (b) characterize gerbils' exploratory behavior during the step-down task (jumping, digging, rearing, and probing). Random shocks did not reproduce the effects observed with the first protocol. The data also indicated that a change from random to response-dependent shocks affects (a) the length of each visit to the platform, but not the frequency of platform descends or freezing time, and (b) the patterns of exploratory behavior, namely, suppression of digging and rearing, as well as increments in probing and jumping. Overall, the study demonstrated the feasibility of the extended step-down protocol for studying steady performance, extinction, and reacquisition of avoidance behavior in gerbils, which could be easily implemented in a commercially available system. The observation that 1.0 mA shocks produced a clear and consistent avoidance behavior suggests that implementation of higher intensities is unnecessary for reproducing aversive-conditioning effects in this species. The observed patterning of freezing, platform descents, and exploratory responses produced by the change from random to periodic shocks may relate to the active defensive system of the gerbil. Of special interest is the probing behavior, which could be interpreted as risk assessment and has not been reported in other rodent species exposed to step-down and similar tasks.
RESUMEN
Introducción: La importancia de las nucleasas en la regulación del crecimiento celular (a través de la apoptosis) hace relevante investigar su utilidad para controlar el crecimiento tumoral.Objetivo: Valorar el efecto que una desoxirribo-nucleasa tuvo sobre células del melanoma murino B16-F10. Material y métodos: Las células fueron incubadas a diferentes tiempos y concentraciones de la DNasa, después de lo cual se evaluó su viabilidad, crecimiento y daño al DNA.Resultados: Se encontró que la viabilidad y actividad mitocondrial medida por medio de la técnica de exclusión con azul de tripán o, bien, por el colorante MTT no mostró ningún cambio significativo, sin embargo, la capacidad de crecimiento celular (número total de células) sí se vio modificada de una manera dosis dependiente. Con respecto del daño al DNA, nuestros resultados indican un efecto a las 24 horas de incubación de la nucleasa con las células, bandas de 400 y 200pb se encontraron en el corrimiento electroforético.Conclusión: la DNasa utilizada en este trabajo no tuvo ningún efecto significativo sobre la viabilidad, pero sí en el crecimiento celular, así como sobre la estructura del DNA por un mecanismo aún no determinado.