Participação do circuito dopaminérgico nas alterações do comportamento de medo inato de camundongos infectados pelo Toxoplasma gondii

The protozoan parasite Toxoplasma gondii transforms the innate aversion of rats for cat urine into a fatal attraction, that increases the likelihood of the parasite completing its life cycle in the cat s intestine. The neural circuits implicated in innate fear, anxiety, and learned fear all overlap considerably, raising the possibility, that T. gondii may disrupt all of these nonspecifically. In this study, we evaluated immunoreactivity for tyrosine hydroxylase (TH) in areas associated with innate fear of infected male swiss mice. The latent Toxoplasma infection converted the aversion of mice to feline odors into attraction. This loss of fear is remarkably specific, as demonstrated by Vyas et al (2007), because infection did not diminish learned fear, anxiety-like behavior, olfaction, or nonaversive learning. However, the neurochemical mechanism related to alterations in innate fear due to T. gondii infection remains poorly studied. 20 mice were inoculated with bradyzoites (25 cysts) from a Toxoplasma gondii (Me-49 strain). The brains were removed after 60 days, sectioned and processed for TH immunohistochemistry. The correlation between the amount of cysts per area and the densitometric analysis of neurotransmitter reactivity was low in the areas implicated in innate fear of infected animals, when comparated with noninfected controls

As crenças docentes sobre a criatividade a as práticas pedagógicas criativa: o caso do programa do ensino médio inovador no RN

Estamos vivendo no século da criatividade em que os sujeitos precisam ser estimulados a criar e inovar nos processos de aprendizagem escolar. Nesse sentido, a criatividade precisa ser compreendida como um bem cultural, um direito de todos e uma condição histórica e cultural do sujeito, e não como uma capacidade inerente ao sujeito ou pertencente alguns poucos eleitos. Para que a criatividade do aluno seja estimulada, faz-se necessário, dentre outros elementos, que o conhecimento profissional do professor considere as crenças como componente de seu processo de profissionalização com o objetivo de reconhecer o seu papel e influências como formas de nortear as ações profissionais docentes. Para tanto, a presente tese tem o objetivo de estudar as crenças dos professores sobre a criatividade dos estudantes no Ensino Médio Inovador. O ensino, nessa perspectiva, mais especificamente, o ensino médio precisa inovar-se, e nesse processo, o Programa Ensino Médio Inovador PROEMI emerge como uma das iniciativas das políticas públicas educacionais vigentes. Para tanto, no intuito de fundamentar as nossas discussões dialogamos com autores que discutem a criatividade no contexto da educação, às crenças, o conhecimento profissional do professor e o ensino médio. Nessa pesquisa, 207 professores que atuam no ensino médio em escolas estaduais na cidade de Natal e sua Região Metropolitana dentro do PROEMI constituíram-se em nosso público-alvo. O instrumento de coleta de dados foi um questionário normativo de crenças contendo perguntas fechadas e abertas. Para a organização dos dados utilizamos os softwares estatísticos R. 2.15.1 e o Modalisa. O tratamento dos dados se deu mediante análises estatísticas como a análise descritiva dos enunciados, da média, do desvio padrão e a Análise de Componentes Principais ACP em relação aos resultados oriundos das perguntas fechadas e a análise de conteúdo em se tratando dos resultados referentes às perguntas abertas. Os resultados corroboraram com a tese de que os professores apresentam em suas crenças a predominância do enfoque tradicional ou clássico da criatividade, ou seja, creem-na como algo inato ao ser humano e que se desenvolve independentemente dos fatores sociais e culturais. No tocante às principais características do aluno criativo, a autonomia e o alto grau de originalidade em sua aprendizagem se destacaram, dentre outras características. Suas crenças, em relação aos elementos que inibem a criatividade do aluno apontaram que a escola, ao privilegiar os conteúdos escolares compromete a criatividade dos alunos e sobre os elementos que favorecem, destacaram-se as áreas da Arte, da Educação Física e da Literatura como disciplinas, que preferencialmente, desenvolvem a criatividade dos alunos no contexto escolar. Assim, constatamos que as crenças dos professores se configuram de forma reducionista e inatista e que precisam, urgentemente, ser repensadas para que não continue a comprometer o desenvolvimento da criatividade do aluno no contexto escolar, e nesse caso, as crenças se constituem em um dos elementos básicos da profissionalização docente que precisam constantemente ser repensadas e incluídas nas discussões sobre a formação e atuação docente, principalmente, dentro do PROEMI que tem como objetivo principal inovar e estimular a criatividade dos alunos no ensino médio

O argumento dos contrários e a hipótese sobre a imortalidade no Fédon de Platão

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior

O cuidado e a ética do cuidado: um diálogo entre Leonardo Boff, Carol Gilligam e Nel Noddings

To elucidate the important contribution of care ethics in improving human relations and social intimates, this work reveals the fragility and lack of ethics on the formation of a just society, equal, peaceful and caring. To this end, we study on the moral development of men and women, warning of the natural differences between the sexes, which change for both the way of seeing life and live it - which does not imply inferiority to some genres. From this study it is clear that the natural care is innate to humans, it provides a tendency to act for the good of all life forms and nature as a whole. But it is evident here a greater sensitivity of women to such care because they possess perception and more emotion than men, which make them more participatory and involved in relationships. This greater openness to care found in women, due in part to the strong and lasting relationship with their mothers. Thus is revealed the power that women have to positively change the direction of human relationships, providing careful with your example, protective and caring, the awakening of a new and comprehensive ethics - opens to the truth, and features especially for affections. Therefore, the care ethics arises from the life experiences of women and aims, through them, to join the men's morality in order to bring out the relevant fact of interdependence between human beings, of human fragility and the need for relationships to the fullness of life

Alterações na evocação de uma memória aversiva ao liongo do ciclo estral de ratas: influências da transmissão gabaérgica na amígdala

GABAergic neurotransmission has been implicated in many aspects of learning and memory, as well as mood and anxiety disorders. The amygdala has been one of the major focuses in this area, given its essential role in modulating emotionally relevant memories. However, studies with male subjects are still predominant in the field. Here we investigated the consequences for an aversive memory of enhancing or decreasing GABAergic transmission in the basolateral nucleus of the amygdala (BLA). Wistar female rats were trained in the plus-maze discriminative avoidance task, in which they had to learn to avoid one of the enclosed arms where an aversive stimulus consisting of a bright light and a loud noise was given (day 1). Fifteen minutes before the test session (day 2) animals received 0,2 μL infusions of either saline solution, the GABAergic agonist muscimol (0,05 mg/ml), or the GABAergic antagonist bicuculine (0,025 mg/ml) bilaterally intra-BLA. On the test day, females in proestrous or estrous presented adequate retrieval and did not extinguish the task, while females in metestrous or diestrous presented impaired retrieval. In the first group, muscimol infusion impaired retrieval and bicuculline had no effect, suggesting naturally low levels of GABAergic transmission in the BLA of proestrous and estrous females. In the second group, muscimol infusion had no effect and bicuculline reversed retrieval impairment, suggesting naturally high levels of GABAergic transmission in the BLA of metestrous and diestous females. Additionally, proestrous and estrous females presented higher anxiety levels compared to metestrous and diestrous females, which could explain better performance of this group. On the other hand, BLA GABAergic system did not interfere with the innate fear response because drug infusions had no effect in anxiety. Thus, retrieval alterations caused by the GABAergic drugs were probably related specifically to memory processes

Avaliação da atividade antimicrobiana das defensinas recombinantes de ervilha (drr230a) e café (cd1) produzidas em Pichia pastoris

The inefficiency of chemical pesticides to control phytopathogenic fungi in agriculture and the frequent incidence of human diseases caused by bacteria which are resistant to antibiotics lead to the search for alternative antimicrobial compounds. In this context, plant defensins are a promising tool for the control of both plant and human pathogenic agents. Plant defensins are cationic peptides of about 50 amino acid residues, rich in cysteine and whose tridimensional structure is considerably conserved among different plant species. These antimicrobial molecules represent an important innate component from plant defense response against pathogens and are expressed in various plant tissues, such as leaves, tubers, flowers, pods and seeds. The present work aimed at the evaluation of the antimicrobial activity of two plant defensins against different phytopathogenic fungi and pathogenic bacteria to humans. The defensin Drr230a, whose gene was isolated from pea (Pisum sativum), and the defensin CD1,whose gene was identified within coffee (Coffea arabica) transcriptome, were subcloned in yeast expression vector and expressed in Pichia pastoris. The gene cd1 was subcloned as two different recombinant forms: CD1tC, containing a six-histidine sequence (6xHis) at the peptide C-terminal region and CD1tN, containing 6xHis coding sequence at the N-terminal region. In the case of the defensin Drr230a, the 6xHis coding sequence was inserted only at the N-terminal region. Assays of the antimicrobial activity of the purified recombinant proteins rDrr230a and rCD1 against Phakopsora pachyrhizi, causal agent of soybean Asian rust, were performed to analyze the in vitro spore germination inhibition and disease severity caused by the fungus in planta. Both recombinant defensins were able to inhibit P. pachyrhizi uredospore germination, with no difference between the antimicrobial action of either CD1tC or CD1tN. Moreover, rDrr230a and rCD1 drastically reduced severity of soybean Asian rust, as demonstrated by in planta assays. In spite of the fact that rCD1 was not able to inhibit proliferation of the human pathogenic bacteria Staplylococcus aureus and Klebsiella pneumoniae, rCD1 was able to inhibit growth of the phytopathogenic fungus Fusarium tucumaniae, that causes soybean sudden death syndrome. The obtained results show that these plant defensins are useful candidates to be used in plant genetic engineering programs to control agriculture impacting fungal diseases.