The Myth of Reserpine-Induced Depression: Role in the Historical Development of the Monoamine Hypothesis

For five decades it has been generally accepted that reserpine, an antihypertensive and antipsychotic drug, causes depression. The discovery that reserpine depletes brain monoamines was an important factor in the development of the monoamine hypothesis of depression, and it continues to be widely cited in support of this hypothesis. The present paper argues that, contrary to prevailing belief, reserpine is not depressogenic. The reason for perpetuation of this myth is reluctance to discard the monoamine hypothesis. This hypothesis ushered the modern biochemical paradigm into psychiatry and is still of great importance. It serves as a heuristic to guide research, it enhances psychiatry’s prestige, and it helps to validate and promote drug therapy for depression and other mental disorders.     

Monoamine theories of depression: historical impact on biomedical research

Monoamine theories associate depression with reduced brain monoamine levels. These theories achieved broad popularity in the mid-1960s. The present article reviews the historical development of monoamine theories and their subsequent impact on biomedical research. Alleged divisions between West European and US researchers over competing versions of the theories are investigated using bibliometrics. Subsequently, the application of monoamine theories in the NIMH Collaborative Program on the Psychobiology of Depression is covered. The article argues that the impact of monoamine theories is best explained by the ability of researchers, governmental agencies, and pharmaceutical companies to invoke theories that advance various projects and agendas.     

Historical development of the dopamine hypothesis of schizophrenia

This review examines the history of discoveries that contributed to development of the dopamine hypothesis of schizophrenia. The origin of the hypothesis is traced to the recognition that neuroleptic drugs interfere with brain dopamine function. This insight was derived from two distinct lines of research. The first line originated from the discovery in 1956 that reserpine depletes brain serotonin. This finding resulted in a sequence of studies that led to the discovery that brain dopamine is involved in neuroleptic-induced extrapyramidal motor disturbances. The second line of research was aimed at determining the mechanism of action of psychomotor stimulants. This research produced evidence that stimulants directly or indirectly activate brain dopamine receptors. Because nonreserpine neuroleptics such as chlorpromazine block stimulant-induced movement, these findings suggested that neuroleptics were dopamine antagonists. Most previous accounts of the development of the dopamine hypothesis of schizophrenia emphasize the first line of research and ignore the second.     

Historical Development of the Dopamine Hypothesis of Schizophrenia

This review examines the history of discoveries that contributed to development of the dopamine hypothesis of schizophrenia. The origin of the hypothesis is traced to the recognition that neuroleptic drugs interfere with brain dopamine function. This insight was derived from two distinct lines of research. The first line originated from the discovery in 1956 that reserpine depletes brain serotonin. This finding resulted in a sequence of studies that led to the discovery that brain dopamine is involved in neuroleptic-induced extrapyramidal motor disturbances. The second line of research was aimed at determining the mechanism of action of psychomotor stimulants. This research produced evidence that stimulants directly or indirectly activate brain dopamine receptors. Because nonreserpine neuroleptics such as chlorpromazine block stimulant-induced movement, these findings suggested that neuroleptics were dopamine antagonists. Most previous accounts of the development of the dopamine hypothesis of schizophrenia emphasize the first line of research and ignore the second.     

Selective Transport of Animal Parts by Ancient Hunters: A New Statistical Method and an Application to the Emeryville Shellmound Fauna

When deciding which parts of a prey animal to transport home, hunters may be more or less selective. In our vocabulary, unselective hunters are those who usually bring home most of the carcass; selective hunters are those who usually abandon all but the choicest (and/or lightest) parts. This paper uses the abcml statistical method to develop a means of estimating transport selectivity from the frequencies of skeletal parts in a faunal assemblage. It then applies the method to artiodactyl data from the Emeryville Shellmound in order to test the local depression and distant patch use hypothesis. This hypothesis predicts that selectivity should decline during the early part of the Emeryville sequence and rise during the later part. The initial analysis did reveal such a pattern, but this pattern disappeared when samples were pooled in order to produce acceptably narrow confidence intervals. Although this result weakens the hypothesis, it does not firmly refute it, because the model fits the data imperfectly in the critical middle portion of the sequence. Abcml also provides estimates of the intensity of attrition, which indicate that attrition was most severe in early strata and least severe in later ones. Substantial attrition (50% of bones surviving) is indicated even from samples that show no indication of attrition using conventional methods. These conclusions are based on assumptions about the processes of transport and attrition that are more reliable in qualitative outline than in quantitative detail. Consequently, the paper's qualitative conclusions are more trustworthy than its quantitative estimates.     

Prehistoric behavioral depression of cormorant (Phalacrocorax spp.) on the northern California coast

Resource depression is often assumed to result from the over-exploitation of a prey species leading to declines in its population, and therefore availability, to human hunters. However, two other forms of resource depression are noted in the ecological literature: behavioral and micro-habitat depression. Data presented in this paper demonstrate resource depression of cormorants (Phalacrocorax spp.), a coastally breeding and semi-pelagic bird genus, at a coastal site in northern California. Citing modern cormorant behavior and a lack of evidence for intensive rookery exploitation, it is argued that the observed resource depression resulted from changes in cormorant behavior that decreased encounter rates for human hunters. Such behavioral depression is cited as a buffer to the extirpation of prey in mainland settings.     

Turkish ultra–nationalists under review: a study of the Nationalist Action Party

This article aims to study the phenomenon of the Turkish National Party (MHP) by reference to the ongoing theoretical debates on the subject of extreme right–wing parties. This is instrumental in finding out whether the MHP displays similar characteristics to its counterparts in Europe, and whether it is an extreme right, a fascist or a centre–right party. The primary hypothesis of this article is that the MHP features many similarities with its European counterparts and hence, is a member of the European extreme right–wing family. In order to test this hypothesis, firstly the historical development of the MHP is clarified. Secondly, the contemporary debates in the study of the extreme right–wing family and different approaches to it are presented. Finally, based on the common characteristics of the extreme right–wing parties in general, the aforementioned hypothesis is tested and verified. The main contention of this article is that the MHP shows all the characteristics of a European extreme right–wing party.     

On Behavioral Depression in White-tailed Deer

Behavioral depression is a decline in prey availability because of enhanced alert response, movement away from areas, increased social behavior, and other responses to predators. This form of resource depression is an alternative hypothesis to be contrasted to over-exploitation that potentially explains a decrease in hunting efficiency over time should the zooarchaeologist observe a decline in the relative abundance of remains of high-rank prey. Gregarious ungulates, such as many North American cervids, may exhibit such behavioral responses under predation. The white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus), one of the most common high-rank prey animals from Holocene archaeological sites in eastern North America, is less gregarious, more r-selected, and exhibits greater home-range fidelity than other cervids. As a result, whitetails are less likely to exhibit behavioral depression than other North American ungulates, which may explain their common occurrence in Holocene archaeological faunas, such as that from the Eagle??s Ridge site in southeast Texas where resource depression appears to have occurred from 4,500 to 1,500?years ago. The behavioral ecology of ungulate species should be considered on a case-by-case basis to develop testable hypotheses about prehistoric human predation.     

Buried assumptions: Some problems in the interpretation of the “Younger Fill” raised by recent data from Greece

A distinctive “Younger Fill” has been identified in the Mediterranean and adjacent regions. The dominant explanation for it is that of climatic change, first advanced by Vita-Finzi in 1960. Recent work on Greece by Bintliff appears to support the hypothesis. However, there are weaknesses. The present paper isolates the assumptions upon which the climatic hypothesis rests, particularly the notion of synchroneity and the apparent need for a universal mechanism. It sets out the grounds for scepticism, which include the ambiguity of the data, and attempts to evaluate the recent evidence from Greece. The paper then proceeds to argue that an anthropogenic origin cannot be ruled out and that it merits serious consideration. Criteria are suggested which the reinstated explanation would need to meet.     

Roll Me a Great Stone: A Brief Historiography of Megalithic Construction and the Genesis of the Roller Hypothesis

The idea that prehistoric, megalith‐building communities used cylindrical, wooden rollers to transport enormous stones – the ‘roller hypothesis’ – is ubiquitous within archaeological literature and public discourse on megalithic architecture. The likelihood that such devices were actually used to transport megaliths during prehistory remains highly questionable, yet the roller hypothesis has now dominated discussions of the subject for some 400 years. At its heart lies the assertion that fewer people were needed to transport large stones with rollers than without them. A review of experimental and ethnographic studies of megalith transport casts doubt on this central claim and suggests that simpler, better‐attested and more reliable methods were probably used. So when and why did the roller hypothesis become so popular? The historiography of the idea reveals how its advocates succeeded in rationalizing it within wider, paradigmatic beliefs about their contemporary worlds and the deep past. The roller hypothesis is bound up in outmoded, even jingoistic perspectives of megalithic construction and the evolution of technology. To advance our understanding of megalithic construction a more critical stance is herein advocated.     

旅游者权力对旅游者满意影响的实证研究——感知控制的中介作用及消费经验的调节作用

近年来,由于旅游信息可获得性不断提高等因素,旅游者的消费者权力日益增加,并被研究者所关注。本文从旅游者自身的角度探索了其权力行使对满意的影响及作用机制。研究结果显示：权力不仅能够有效地减少旅游者权益受损经历,而且能显著地提升其对消费经历的控制感和满意度。进一步研究发现,在这个过程中感知控制起到了部分中介作用,旅游者的消费经验正向调节权力与感知控制及权力与满意之间的关系。本文实证检验了以往消费者权力和增权研究的基础假设,为其理论体系提供了数据支持,并且为旅游者提供了法律以外的、维护自身权益和获取消费满意的主动性手段。     

Early Contributions to the Reflex Chain Hypothesis

The reflex chain hypothesis was developed to explain the observation that successive movements could be linked together into a contiguous sequence. From the established principles of reflex physiology and association psychology, scientists in the last half of the 19th century began to develop the notion that each of a series of movements may be linked through the sensory results of prior movements. In addition, the same basic principles were applied to mental actions, thus providing a credible explanation for all behavior. The wide applicability of this hypothesis made it an important influence on the scientific thought in the early 20th century.     

On the circumstances surrounding the preservation and analysis of very old DNA

Herein, I discuss the limits and circumstances of DNA preservation in old fossils. The stability of DNA in physiological solution suggests that DNA should be degraded at the latest within 50 000–100 000 years and has convincingly been found in fossil bones of this age. I argue here that particular fossilization conditions can cause exceptional DNA preservation over much longer periods, in an unexpected state. A working hypothesis is proposed stating that DNA can ‘hibernate’—that is, be preserved over long periods—only if it is hidden within molecular ‘niches’ where it is not governed by the rules of aqueous solution chemistry, and that such ‘geological’ DNA cannot be purified using procedures that assume that it behaves like ‘biological’ DNA.     

义和团运动期间直隶省的天主教教民

法国的档案资料表明 ,义和团运动前夕教民和非教民之间存在激烈敌对的笼统说法 ,至少不能准确地反映出直隶正定府代牧区的情况。人们从保定、北京、献县等地方得出的结论不应被普遍化。对天主教教民及其融入当地社会的情况进行深入、客观的具体研究十分必要 ,舍此不能准确地评价义和团反洋教斗争的性质 ,也不能判定这种斗争在何种程度上可称为民族主义的和反对帝国主义的运动     

Regional Fertility Differentials and the Effect of Migration: An Analysis of U.S. State-level Data

This paper explores, theoretically and empirically, the influence of interregional migration on regional fertility differentials. Specifically, it tests the hypothesis that regions that are closely linked through migration have, all else held constant, a lower differential in fertility than regions that are relatively isolated from one another. A model linking the fertility differential between two states to migration as well as a number of socioeconomic variables is articulated. The model is tested by means of a randomization procedure using U.S. state-level data for 1980. Results support the hypothesis that an increasing volume of interregional migration tends to lower regional fertility differentials.     

The Good of Wrath: Supernatural Punishment and the Evolution of Cooperation

Abstract

Human cooperation remains a puzzle because it persists even in contexts where traditional theories predict it should not do so (i.e. among unrelated strangers, who never meet again and where reputation effects are absent). The leading explanation argues that cooperation occurs only if non-cooperators are punished. However, punishment is costly, so ‘second-order’ non-cooperators may arise who defect from contributing to punishment, thus unravelling this solution. We propose an alternative: during our history, the fear of supernatural punishment (whether real or not) deterred defectors and may therefore represent an adaptive trait favoured by natural selection. Supernatural beliefs are universal among human societies, commonly connected to taboos for public goods, so it seems plausible that they serve an important function in fostering cooperation. This hypothesis offers an explanation for (a) geographic variation in religious practices as solutions to local cooperation problems; and (b) the power of political appeals to religion to elicit cooperation.     

History of the Discovery of the Antipsychotic Dopamine D2 Receptor: A Basis for the Dopamine Hypothesis of Schizophrenia

The 1975 publication of Seeman et al. (Proc Nat Acad Sci, USA), reporting the discovery of the antipsychotic receptor in the brain, is a classic example of translational medicine research. In searching for a pathophysiological mechanism of psychosis, the team sought to identify sites that bound the antipsychotic drug haloperidol. Their criterion was that haloperidol bound to the site at one to two nanomoles per liter, corresponding to haloperidol concentrations found in spinal fluid or plasma water in treated patients. They requested de novo synthesis of tritiated haloperidol, and it readily detected specific haloperidol binding sites in brain striatum. With dopamine binding the haloperidol-labeled sites with higher potency than other neurotransmitters, the sites were named antipsychotic/dopamine receptors (now designated dopamine D2 receptors). Most significantly, they found that all antipsychotics bound these sites at concentrations and with a rank order of potencies that were directly related to the mean daily antipsychotic dose taken by patients with schizophrenia. Their findings enabled screening for new antipsychotics, initiated D2 receptor measurements in brain of living patients, and determination of minimum occupancy (65%) of D2 receptors for antipsychotic benefit. The collective work is generally viewed as providing a fundamental basis for the dopamine hypothesis of schizophrenia.     

Triangular Contests and Caucus Rhetoric at the 1885 General Election*

This article explores the role played by late‐Victorian political associations during parliamentary election campaigns. The central hypothesis is that party organisation, known popularly as the ‘caucus’, is best understood as a rhetorical device used by politicians and the press to gain legitimacy in the new context created by an expanded and quasi‐democratic electorate. The hypothesis is tested by examining the 1885 general election campaigns in Nottingham West and Sheffield Central. Both constituencies witnessed a triangular contest whereby an ‘additional’ candidate, standing on a radical platform, entered the campaign and pursued a distinctly ‘anti‐caucus’ agenda that was aimed primarily at the local Liberal Party Association. The manner in which the ‘caucus’ issue was articulated by all sides involved throws new light on the role played by party organisation during this period. While all sides described their association in a way that both defended and asserted its legitimacy, they equally used ‘anti‐caucus’ rhetoric to diminish the credibility of their opponent's organisation, even though they were emulating the deeds they were denouncing. Indeed, it was those within official Liberalism that indulged in the most virulent ‘anti‐caucus’ rhetoric. Thus, it is suggested that, with regard to the attitude of radicals towards official Liberalism, this ‘anti‐caucus’ rhetoric reflected not a real popular resistance against party organisation or ‘party’, but simply intense competition and imitation between rival ‘caucuses’.     

Beyond Moran's I: Testing for Spatial Dependence Based on the Spatial Autoregressive Model

The statistic known as Moran's I is widely used to test for the presence of spatial dependence in observations taken on a lattice. Under the null hypothesis that the data are independent and identically distributed normal random variates, the distribution of Moran's I is known, and hypothesis tests based on this statistic have been shown in the literature to have various optimality properties. Given its simplicity, Moran's I is also frequently used outside of the formal hypothesis-testing setting in exploratory analyses of spatially referenced data; however, its limitations are not very well understood. To illustrate these limitations, we show that, for data generated according to the spatial autoregressive (SAR) model, Moran's I is only a good estimator of the SAR model's spatial-dependence parameter when the parameter is close to 0. In this research, we develop an alternative closed-form measure of spatial autocorrelation, which we call APLE , because it is an approximate profile-likelihood estimator (APLE) of the SAR model's spatial-dependence parameter. We show that APLE can be used as a test statistic for, and an estimator of, the strength of spatial autocorrelation. We include both theoretical and simulation-based motivations (including comparison with the maximum-likelihood estimator), for using APLE as an estimator. In conjunction, we propose the APLE scatterplot, an exploratory graphical tool that is analogous to the Moran scatterplot, and we demonstrate that the APLE scatterplot is a better visual tool for assessing the strength of spatial autocorrelation in the data than the Moran scatterplot. In addition, Monte Carlo tests based on both APLE and Moran's I are introduced and compared. Finally, we include an analysis of the well-known Mercer and Hall wheat-yield data to illustrate the difference between APLE and Moran's I when they are used in exploratory spatial data analysis.     

Telling Stories: The Mycenaean Origins of the Philistines

The story of the Philistines as Mycenaean or Aegean migrants, refugees who fled the Aegean after the collapse of the palace societies c.1200 BC, bringing an Aegean culture and practices to the Eastern Mediterranean, is well known. Accepted as essentially true by some, yet rejected as little more than a modern myth by others, the migration narrative retains a central place in the archaeology and historiography of the Eastern Mediterranean in the Late Bronze Age/Early Iron Age (LBA/EIA). In recent years, and despite an increasingly shaky theoretical basis, the migration hypothesis has nevertheless seemed to drown out other interpretations and characterizations of the period, claiming a normative position that is undeserved. In this paper I explore the continuing power of this nineteenth century narrative and seek to show why it is less convincing than its prominent status would suggest.