Igor Moreira Lopes

• Agricultural Engineer
• Researcher at Institute for Molecular and Cell Biology

Early life stress can have significant effects on the developing brain and lead to changes in the structure and function of brain regions involved in stress regulation, emotion and cognitive control. Here, we used the social instability stress (SIS) protocol to understand the impact of social stress during mild (PND30) and late (PND45) adolescence....

Depressive mothers often find mother-child interaction to be challenging. Maternal stress may further impair mother-child attachment, which may increase the risk of negative developmental consequences. We used rats with different vulnerability to depressive-like behavior (Wistar and Kyoto) to investigate the impact of stress (maternal separation-MS...

Exposure to methamphetamine (Meth) has been classically associated with damage to neuronal terminals. However, it is now becoming clear that addiction may also result from the interplay between glial cells and neurons. Recently, we demonstrated that binge Meth administration promotes microgliosis and microglia pro-inflammation via astrocytic glutam...

Depressive mothers often find the mother-child interaction to be challenging. Parental stress may further impair mother-child attachment, which may increase the risk of negative developmental consequences. We used rats with different vulnerability to depression (Wistar and Kyoto) to investigate the impact of stress (maternal separation-MS) on mater...

Donnai-Barrow syndrome, a genetic disorder associated to LRP2 (low density lipoprotein receptor 2/megalin) mutations, is characterized by unexplained neurological symptoms and intellectual deficits. Megalin is a multifunctional endocytic clearance cell-surface receptor, mostly described in epithelial cells. This receptor is also expressed in the CN...

The development of substance abuse problems occurs due to a diverse combination of risk factors. Among these risks, studies have reported depression and early-life stress as of importance. These two factors often occur simultaneously, however, there is a lack of understanding of how their combined effect may impact vulnerability to drug abuse in ad...

The adoption of anaerobic digestion (AD) at agricultural systems as an alternative technology for waste management and renewable energy production has raised the concern regarding the value of AD digestate as fertilizer and the environmental impact of the digestate land-application. This Ph.D. research project aimed to gain new knowledge into the i...

Ventilation rate is equally important as pollutant concentration in aerial emission quantification, but is technically challenging to determine for animal buildings. A simple and reliable method using 240-VAC to 6-VDC unregulated adapters to monitor 24 single-speed wall-mount ventilation fans was applied in a 12-room swine environmental research bu...

Manure pit ventilation is a common design in commercial pig-rearing buildings. However, determining accurate pit ventilation rates is technically challenging. A new pit exhaust airflow measurement assembly (PEAMA) was developed to directly and continuously measure airflow rates for tube-mounting variable-speed pit fans. The PEAMA consists of a PVC...

Ventilation rate is one of the key variables to quantify aerial emissions from animal feeding operations but is technically challenging to measure. This research aimed at developing a new system to reliably and continuously monitor ventilation rate at a state-of-the-science pig environmental building, which consists of 12 rooms of 11.0 × 6.1 × 2.7...

Ventilation rate is one of the key variables to quantify aerial emissions from animal feeding operations but is technically challenging to measure. This research aimed at developing a new system to reliably and continuously monitor ventilation rate at a state-of-the-science pig environmental building, which consists of 12 rooms of 11.0 × 6.1 × 2.7...

The Fan Assessment Numeration System (FANS), developed by the USDA-ARS Southern Poultry Research Laboratory and refined at the University of Kentucky, has become a useful tool to measure airflow of agricultural ventilation fans in situ. However, procedures for using FANS for in situ ventilation fan performance have not been standardized. A common p...

Anaerobic digestion converts manure into a more stable and nutrient-rich material as well as generates renewable energy. The characteristics of nutrients in manure digester effluents are not only affected by digester feedstock, but also by digester designs and operations. Anaerobic digestion technologies applied in the agricultural sector in the U....

The Fan Assessment Numeration System (FANS) is an improved air velocity traverse method for measuring in situ fan performance. The FANS has been widely used, but variations of its test procedure are commonly employed to accommodate physical or operational barriers encountered in the field. This laboratory study evaluated the use of transitions to c...

The determination of the modulus tangent (Eci ) and of the modulus secant (Ecs) of the concrete can be done using compression test but, to be simpler, it is used relations with characteristic strength (fck). Relations are also used to determine the transversal modulus (Gc) and, in the case of the Poisson's ratio (ν), a fixed value 0.20 is establish...