Effects of smoking opportunity on attentional bias in smokers.

The emotional Stroop task was used to examine the influence of opportunity to smoke on attentionall bias to smoking-related stimuli. At the outset of the study, 92 nicotine-deprived smokers were told that they (a) would, (b) would not, or (c) might be able to smoke during the experiment. Next, participants completed an emotional Stroop task, in which they were presented with smoking-related or -unrelated words in an unblocked format. Smokers demonstrated interference to the smoking words, relative to matched neutral words, F(1, 87)?=?18.0, p?F(2, 87)?=?4.35, p?     

Parental alcoholism and the effects of alcohol on mediated semantic priming.

In this study, researchers tested the effects of a moderate dose of alcohol on the spread of activation of associated information in memory using a mediated semantic priming task in which target words are preceded by primes that are either unrelated or indirectly related to the target. Male and female participants with or without a parental history (PH+ and PH-, respectively) of alcoholism were administered the priming task after consuming alcohol or a placebo beverage. Among PH- individuals, alcohol constrained the spread of activation of associated information, as manifested by a reduced priming effect. In contrast, alcohol enhanced priming effects among PH+ participants, though this latter effect appears to be due to a particularly slow response among these individuals to unprimed words. Results are discussed with regard to theories of alcohol's effects on cognitive processes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of smoking opportunity on cue-elicited urge: A facial coding analysis.

The authors analyzed smokers' facial expressions using the Facial Action Coding System (P. Ekman & W. V. Friesen. 1978) under varying smoking opportunity conditions. In Experiment 1, smokers first were told that they either could (told-yes) or could not (told-no) smoke during the study. Told-yes smokers reported higher urges than did told-no smokers. Unexpectedly, told-yes smokers became increasingly likely to manifest expressions related to negative affect and less likely to evince expressions related to positive affect, compared with told-no smokers. In Experiment 2, smokers were more likely to show positive affect-related expressions if the delay was 15 s than if it was 60 s. Craving may be related to both a desire to use and an impatient desire to use immediately. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Organization,barrier function and antimicrobial lipids of the oral mucosa

As one moves from the skin across the vermilion region of the lip and into the oral cavity, the oral mucosa is encountered. The oral mucosa consists of connective tissue known as the lamina propria covered by a stratified squamous epithelium. In the regions of the hard palate and gingiva, the epithelium is keratinized like the epidermis. In the buccal region, the floor of the mouth and the underside of the tongue, the epithelium is non‐keratinized. The epithelium on the dorsum of the tongue is a specialized epithelium, but can be approximated as a mosaic of keratinized and non‐keratinized epithelia. The non‐keratinized epithelial regions do not produce a stratum corneum. Nuclei with intact DNA are retained in the superficial cells. In all regions, the outer portions of the epithelium provide a protective permeability barrier, which varies regionally. Antimicrobial lipids at the surfaces of the oral mucosa are an integral part of innate immunity.     

Naturally occurring ω‐Hydroxyacids

ω‐Hydroxyacids are fatty acids bearing a hydroxyl group on the terminal carbon. They are found in mammals and higher plants and are often involved in providing a permeability barrier, the primary purpose of which is to reduce water loss. Some ω‐hydroxyacid derivatives may be involved in waterproofing and signalling. The purpose of this review was to survey the known natural sources of ω‐hydroxyacids. ω‐Hydroxyacids are produced by two different P450‐dependent mechanisms. The longer (30–34 carbons) ω‐hydroxyacids are produced by chain extension from palmitic acid until the chain extends across the membrane in which the extension is taking place, and then the terminal carbon is hydroxylated. Shorter fatty acids can be hydroxylated directly to produce C16 and C18 ω‐hydroxyacids found in plants and 20‐eicosatetraenoic acid (20‐HETE) by a different P450. The C16 and C18 ω‐hydroxyacids are components of polymers in plants. The long‐chain ω‐hydroxyacids are found in epidermal sphingolipids, in giant‐ring lactones from the sebum of members of the equidae, as a component of meibum and in carnauba wax and wool wax.