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

Medição de desempenho organizacional nas imobiliárias: um estudo na cidade do Natal-RN

The purpose of this paper is to identify how real estate companies from the city of Natal measure their organizational performance. Traditionally these companies measure their performance using financial measures; however, the technological improvement, the internationalization of the economy and the change in consumer behavior all demand better products and services, and other measuring models. Those changes motivate organizations to continually improve the quality of their products and services. In this way, these companies need to associate their financial results to their global performance. Therefore, it is necessary to have organizational performance models that associate financial and non-financial measures to the strategies of the companies. The research also tries to identify which performance indicators are used by these companies, as well as to test a model who questions: a) if there is any relationship between managers´ characteristics and performance measuring systems´ characteristics; b) if there is any relationship between the company s characteristics and the characteristics of the measuring system used to evaluate its organizational performance and c) finally to verify if there is a relationship between the characteristics of the measuring system and the company s performance. The information which served as a basis for the study was obtained through an empirical research, with questionnaires, answered by 66 (sixty six) companies from the city of Natal, capital of the state of Rio Grande do Norte. The results show that none of the companies investigated use any of the performance measurement models proposed in the modern literature. However, they use on an isolated way some of the measures those models, including some measures from adopted in the Balanced Scorecard, as well as the benchmarking process, making comparisons with the performance of their competitors. The research also reveals that either bigger companies, companies with more experienced managers or with better performance show better performance measurement systems