Psychological Record最新文献

Resurgence following expanded-operant treatments (i.e., increasing the number or variability of alternative responses to problem behavior) has been the focus of numerous studies over the last five years. Researchers have evaluated several techniques for expanding the operant such as serial-, lag-, and concurrent-training procedures. Given the increasing number of recent studies on the topic, the various forms of training used, and the variability in outcomes, it is critical to review this area of research and identify clear future directions. Our brief review identified 10 published studies and eight unpublished theses or dissertations on this topic; however, only three published studies directly evaluated expanded-operant treatments as a strategy for relapse mitigation. All three studies evaluated serial-training procedures, and results across the studies were inconsistent. We summarize the findings of each study and provide recommendations for future research.

Human apolipoprotein E receptor 2 (APOER2) is a type I transmembrane protein with a large extracellular domain (ECD) and a short cytoplasmic tail. APOER2-ECD contains several ligand-binding domains (LBDs) that are organized into exons with aligning phase junctions, which allows for in-frame exon cassette splicing events. We have identified 25 human APOER2 isoforms from cerebral cortex using gene-specific APOER2 primers, where the majority are exon-skipping events within the N-terminal LBD regions compared with six identified in the heart. APOER2 undergoes proteolytic cleavage in response to ligand binding that releases a C-terminal fragment (CTF) and transcriptionally active intracellular domain (ICD). We tested whether the diversity of human brain-specific APOER2 variants affects APOER2 cleavage. We found isoforms with differing numbers of ligand-binding repeats generated different amounts of CTFs compared with full-length APOER2 (APOER2-FL). Specifically, APOER2 isoforms lacking exons 5-8 (Δex5-8) and lacking exons 4-6 (Δex4-6) generated the highest and lowest amounts of CTF generation, respectively, in response to APOE peptide compared with APOER2-FL. The differential CTF generation of Δex5-8 and Δex4-6 coincides with the proteolytic release of the ICD, which mediates transcriptional activation facilitated by the Mint1 adaptor protein. Functionally, we demonstrated loss of mouse Apoer2 decreased miniature event frequency in excitatory synapses, which may be because of a decrease in the total number of synapses and/or VAMP2 positive neurons. Lentiviral infection with human APOER2-FL or Δex4-6 isoform in Apoer2 knockout neurons restored the miniature event frequency but not Δex5-8 isoform. These results suggest that human APOER2 isoforms have differential cleavage events and synaptic properties.SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Humans and mice share virtually the same number of protein-coding genes. However, humans have greater complexity of any higher eukaryotic organisms by encoding multiple protein forms through alternative splicing modifications. Alternative splicing allows pre-mRNAs transcribed from genes to be spliced in different arrangements, producing structurally and functionally distinct protein variants that increase proteomic diversity and are particularly prevalent in the human brain. Here, we identified 25 distinct human APOER2 splice variants from the cerebral cortex using gene-specific APOER2 primers, where the majority are exon-skipping events that exclude N-terminal ligand-binding regions of APOER2. We show that some of the APOER2 variants have differential proteolytic properties in response to APOE ligand and exhibit distinct synaptic properties.