The lockdowns held due to the COVID-19 pandemic conducted to changes in air quality. This study aimed to understand the variability of PM2.5 levels and composition in an urban-industrial area of the Lisbon Metropolitan Area and to identify the contribution of the different sources. The composition of PM2.5 was assessed for 24 elements (by PIXE), secondary inorganic ions and black carbon. The PM2.5 mean concentr...
The laterodorsal tegmentum (LDT) is associated with reward considering that it modulates VTA neuronal activity, but recent anatomical evidence shows that the LDT also directly projects to nucleus accumbens (NAc). We show that the majority of LDT-NAc inputs are cholinergic, but there is also GABAergic and glutamatergic innervation; activation of LDT induces a predominantly excitatory response in the NAc. Non-sel...
Chronic pain is frequently accompanied by the manifestation of emotional disturbances and cognitive deficits. While a causality relation between pain and emotional/cognitive disturbances is generally assumed, several observations suggest a temporal dissociation and independent mechanisms. We therefore studied Sprague-Dawley rats that presented a natural resistance to pain manifestation in a neuropathy model (sp...
Stress or high levels of glucocorticoids (GCs) during developmental periods is known to induce persistent effects in the neuroendocrine circuits that control stress response, which may underlie individuals' increased risk for developing neuropsychiatric conditions later in life, such as anxiety or depression. We developed a rat model (Wistar han) of mild exposure to unpredictable prenatal stress (PS), which con...
Este trabalho resulta do interesse dos investigadores em estudar a importância do brinquedo na infância. Como esse tema é vasto, o objetivo do estudo centrou-se na recolha de memórias de dez indivíduos sobre as brincadeiras e os brinquedos que estiveram culturalmente associados à sua juventude. O estudo foi realizado através de uma entrevista do tipo estruturado aplicada a indivíduos com faixas etárias intercal...