Sally Barlow - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by Sally Barlow

The psychostimulant modafinil facilitates water maze performance and augments synaptic potentiati... more The psychostimulant modafinil facilitates water maze performance and augments synaptic potentiation in dentate gyrus, Neuropharmacology (2010),

Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry and Neurology, 2021

Objective Improving dementia diagnosis rates are a key feature of dementia strategy and policy wo... more Objective Improving dementia diagnosis rates are a key feature of dementia strategy and policy worldwide. This study aimed to explore the experience of carers of people diagnosed with dementia during or following a hospital admission in order to identify factors that had prevented them from seeking help beforehand. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 12 informal carers including adults caring for a parent, a friend or a spouse diagnosed with dementia between 2010–2019, following an acute hospital admission for a physical health problem, having not sought help previously. Main Findings Carers created a ‘bubble of normalisation’ around themselves and the person living with dementia (PLWD) to reject the label of dementia and protect the PLWD from a loss of independence, discrimination and prejudice they felt would be the result of a diagnosis. Carers struggled to talk to the PLWD about dementia reinforcing denial and stigma. Post-diagnosis carers felt unsupported and questio...

Dissociating effects of acute photic stress on spatial, episodic-like and working memory in the rat

Behavioural Brain Research, 2014

Adaptively responding to acute stress has been of great importance for human and animal survival.... more Adaptively responding to acute stress has been of great importance for human and animal survival. However, for our species, stress-related disorders are putting an ever-increasing burden on healthcare systems. It is thus crucial to understand the basic processes and cognitive changes associated with acute stress. Here, we examined the effects of acute stress exposure on spatial (water maze) and memory (delayed match to sample and episodic-memory-like tasks) performance. We found striking performance deficits in stressed animals navigating in the water maze. We also found, in an episodic-like memory task, striking object-location deficits, but not in temporal-object association learning in stressed animals. Finally, no differences were apparent for any delay periods (up to 30s) in a delayed match to sample task. Taken together, these results show a strong differential effect of acute stress on differing memory processes.

Interferon-α-induced deficits in novel object recognition are rescued by chronic exercise

Physiology & Behavior, 2008

The anti-viral drug interferon-alpha (IFN-alpha) is widely-known to induce psychiatric and cognit... more The anti-viral drug interferon-alpha (IFN-alpha) is widely-known to induce psychiatric and cognitive effects in patients. Previous work has shown that physical exercise can have a positive effect against brain insult. We investigated the effects of a clinically-comparable treatment regime of IFN-alpha on cognitive function in male Wistar rats and assessed the impact of chronic treadmill running on the deficits generated by IFN-alpha. We found that IFN-alpha induced significant impairments in performance on both spatial novelty and object novelty recognition. Chronic forced exercise did not protect against IFN-alpha-induced learning deficits in reactivity to spatial change, but did restore the capacity for novel object recognition in IFN-alpha-treated animals.

Neuropharmacology, 2010

S.M. The psychostimulant modafinil facilitates water maze performance and augments synaptic poten... more S.M. The psychostimulant modafinil facilitates water maze performance and augments synaptic potentiation in dentate gyrus, Neuropharmacology (2010),

Neurobiology of Aging, 2012

As an antidiabetic agent, rosiglitazone (ROSI) binds and activates peroxisome proliferator-activa... more As an antidiabetic agent, rosiglitazone (ROSI) binds and activates peroxisome proliferator-activator receptor gamma (PPAR␥), altering the expression of genes involved in glucose uptake and disposal, ultimately affecting glucose regulation. ROSI might therefore be a potential treatment to ameliorate age-related decline in cognitive function, particularly on an insulin-resistant background, where improvements in peripheral insulin sensitivity and central nervous system (CNS) glucose utilization may facilitate recovery of cognitive function. We therefore examined the amelioration potential of ROSI for neurocognitive deficits resulting from aging in an animal model. Behaviorally, acute and chronic ROSI treatments enhanced acquisition of learning in the water plus maze, a modified version of the Morris water maze task. In parallel, restoration of synaptic plasticity in the dentate gyrus of ROSI-treated middle-aged rats was evident after a single dose intake. Additionally, the spatial receptive fields of hippocampal CA1 place cells were significantly improved by chronic ROSI administration. ROSI treatment reversed basal plasma insulin abnormalities and increased hippocampal glucose transporter (GLUT)-3 expression in middle-aged rats. Taken together, these results suggest that ROSI modulates hippocampal circuitry effectively to promote an improvement in cognitive function, possibly via a glucose transporter-3 mechanism.

The psychostimulant modafinil facilitates water maze performance and augments synaptic potentiati... more The psychostimulant modafinil facilitates water maze performance and augments synaptic potentiation in dentate gyrus, Neuropharmacology (2010),

Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry and Neurology, 2021

Objective Improving dementia diagnosis rates are a key feature of dementia strategy and policy wo... more Objective Improving dementia diagnosis rates are a key feature of dementia strategy and policy worldwide. This study aimed to explore the experience of carers of people diagnosed with dementia during or following a hospital admission in order to identify factors that had prevented them from seeking help beforehand. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 12 informal carers including adults caring for a parent, a friend or a spouse diagnosed with dementia between 2010–2019, following an acute hospital admission for a physical health problem, having not sought help previously. Main Findings Carers created a ‘bubble of normalisation’ around themselves and the person living with dementia (PLWD) to reject the label of dementia and protect the PLWD from a loss of independence, discrimination and prejudice they felt would be the result of a diagnosis. Carers struggled to talk to the PLWD about dementia reinforcing denial and stigma. Post-diagnosis carers felt unsupported and questio...

Dissociating effects of acute photic stress on spatial, episodic-like and working memory in the rat

Behavioural Brain Research, 2014

Adaptively responding to acute stress has been of great importance for human and animal survival.... more Adaptively responding to acute stress has been of great importance for human and animal survival. However, for our species, stress-related disorders are putting an ever-increasing burden on healthcare systems. It is thus crucial to understand the basic processes and cognitive changes associated with acute stress. Here, we examined the effects of acute stress exposure on spatial (water maze) and memory (delayed match to sample and episodic-memory-like tasks) performance. We found striking performance deficits in stressed animals navigating in the water maze. We also found, in an episodic-like memory task, striking object-location deficits, but not in temporal-object association learning in stressed animals. Finally, no differences were apparent for any delay periods (up to 30s) in a delayed match to sample task. Taken together, these results show a strong differential effect of acute stress on differing memory processes.

Interferon-α-induced deficits in novel object recognition are rescued by chronic exercise

Physiology & Behavior, 2008

The anti-viral drug interferon-alpha (IFN-alpha) is widely-known to induce psychiatric and cognit... more The anti-viral drug interferon-alpha (IFN-alpha) is widely-known to induce psychiatric and cognitive effects in patients. Previous work has shown that physical exercise can have a positive effect against brain insult. We investigated the effects of a clinically-comparable treatment regime of IFN-alpha on cognitive function in male Wistar rats and assessed the impact of chronic treadmill running on the deficits generated by IFN-alpha. We found that IFN-alpha induced significant impairments in performance on both spatial novelty and object novelty recognition. Chronic forced exercise did not protect against IFN-alpha-induced learning deficits in reactivity to spatial change, but did restore the capacity for novel object recognition in IFN-alpha-treated animals.

Neuropharmacology, 2010

S.M. The psychostimulant modafinil facilitates water maze performance and augments synaptic poten... more S.M. The psychostimulant modafinil facilitates water maze performance and augments synaptic potentiation in dentate gyrus, Neuropharmacology (2010),

Neurobiology of Aging, 2012

As an antidiabetic agent, rosiglitazone (ROSI) binds and activates peroxisome proliferator-activa... more As an antidiabetic agent, rosiglitazone (ROSI) binds and activates peroxisome proliferator-activator receptor gamma (PPAR␥), altering the expression of genes involved in glucose uptake and disposal, ultimately affecting glucose regulation. ROSI might therefore be a potential treatment to ameliorate age-related decline in cognitive function, particularly on an insulin-resistant background, where improvements in peripheral insulin sensitivity and central nervous system (CNS) glucose utilization may facilitate recovery of cognitive function. We therefore examined the amelioration potential of ROSI for neurocognitive deficits resulting from aging in an animal model. Behaviorally, acute and chronic ROSI treatments enhanced acquisition of learning in the water plus maze, a modified version of the Morris water maze task. In parallel, restoration of synaptic plasticity in the dentate gyrus of ROSI-treated middle-aged rats was evident after a single dose intake. Additionally, the spatial receptive fields of hippocampal CA1 place cells were significantly improved by chronic ROSI administration. ROSI treatment reversed basal plasma insulin abnormalities and increased hippocampal glucose transporter (GLUT)-3 expression in middle-aged rats. Taken together, these results suggest that ROSI modulates hippocampal circuitry effectively to promote an improvement in cognitive function, possibly via a glucose transporter-3 mechanism.