Simon Green

Birkbeck, University of London · Department of Psychological Sciences

Our understanding of how stress affects primary school children's attention and learning has developed rapidly. We know that children experience differing levels of stressors (factors that cause stress) in their environments, and that this can influence how they respond to new stressors when they occur in educational contexts. Here, we review evide...

Our understanding of how stress affects primary school children’s attention and learning has developed rapidly. We know that children experience differing levels of stressors (factors that cause stress) at home, and that this can influence how they respond to new stressors when they occur in educational contexts. Here, we review evidence showing th...

Rats injected with scopolamine were more active than saline controls in a novel Y-maze. However, the habituation of locomotor activity over the 20-min trial was comparable for all groups. On a second trial 1 week later, with no injections, saline controls were less active, indicating a between-trial habituation of locomotor activity. This habituati...

Two experiments using a psychophysical procedure were performed to examine the effects of scopolamine on visual discrimination performance in pigeons. The results of Experiment 1 showed dose-related increases in luminance difference thresholds, although performance at stimulus values well above threshold was unaffected by the drug. Experiment 2 ext...

To examine the extent of automaticity of emotional face processing in high versus low trait anxious participants, event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded to emotional (fearful, happy) and neutral faces under varying task demands (low load, high load). Results showed that perceptual encoding of emotional faces, as reflected in P1 and early pos...

This study investigated the influence of trait anxiety on event-related potentials (ERPs) to fearful, happy, and neutral faces. Fearful faces, relative to neutral, elicited a range of effects in the low-trait anxiety (LTA) group: an enhanced visual P1 component, an early posterior negativity (EPN), and a sustained fronto-central positivity. Emotion...

The current study investigated the relationship between trauma and predisposition to hallucinations and to paranoia in a non-clinical sample. A total of 228 students completed online measures of trauma, post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), schematic beliefs, perceptual anomalies, and predisposition to hallucinations and paranoia. Associations wer...

This paper reports three studies in which stronger orienting to perceived eye gaze direction was revealed when observers viewed faces showing fearful or angry, compared with happy or neutral, emotional expressions. Gaze-related spatial cueing effects to laterally presented fearful faces and centrally presented angry faces were also modulated by the...

This paper reports five experiments demonstrating that the low spatial frequency components of faces are critical to the production of rapid attentional responses towards fearful facial expressions. In our main experiments, low spatial frequency (LSF) or high spatial frequency (HSF) face pairs, consisting of one fearful and one neutral expression,...

ONE OF the principal changes brought about by introducing Agenda for Change (AfC) is the harmonisation and standardisation of NHS staff employment terms and conditions, such as the amount of annual leave, contracted hours and unsocial hours payments.

(JE) is probably the first Agenda for Change (AfC) activity that trusts will undertake: the starting point of a long journey to modernise pay and grading locally.

The effects of the nitric oxide synthase inhibitor, Nw-nitro-L-arginine methyl ester (L-NAME) were investigated in two animal models of anxiety: the elevated plus-maze and the social interaction test. In the elevated plus-maze, L-NAME (12.5-50 mg/kg) had an anxiogenic-like profile as indicated by dose-dependent reductions in the time spent on the o...

The effects of acute administration of chlordiazepoxide (2.5 and 5.0 mg/kg, i.p.), nicotine (0.05,0.1 and 0.4 mg/kg, s.c.) and d-amphetamine (0.5 and 1.0 mg/kg, i.p.) on rat potentiated startle were investigated. Chlordiazepoxide, 2.5 and 5.0 mg/kg, attenuated potentiation of startle, indicating an anxiolytic profile, although the effect of the hig...

Anxiety is a complex state that includes a broad range of classified symptoms. Anxiolytic treatment has been dominated by the use of benzodiazepine drugs (BZs), which is often prolonged. However, the multiplicity of anxiety states and the lack of BZ specificity preclude the potent targeting of the drugs to different states, and point to the problem...

The potentiated startle paradigm has been demonstrated to be a model of anxiety sensitive to a range of established and putative anxiolytics. This study reports a preliminary investigation of the effects of the 5-HT(3) antagonist GR 38032F on potentiated startle. Doses of 0.01 and 0.1mg/kg each showed an anxiolytic profile in significantly reducing...

Interactions between the benzodiazepines (BZs) chlordiazepoxide (CDP) and midazolam (MDZ), the BZ antagonist R0 15-1788, the inverse BZ receptor agonists CGS 8216 and FG 7142, γ-aminobutyrate (GABA), serotonin (5-HT), the 5-HT2 antagonist methysergide and the putative 5-HT agonist 8-hydroxy-2-(di-n-propylamino) tetralin (8-OH-DPAT) were investigate...

Studies have shown that benzodiazepines (BZs) both disrupt discrimination and increase resistance to punishment. Using a delayed response task, we provide evidence that effects of BZs on discrimination cannot be fully explained by deficits in either short or long term memory, or by intolerance for delay of reward. A schedule with rewarded, nonrewar...

Both reductions in brain serotonin activity and injections of benzodiazepine drugs increase punished responding in rats, but the evidence is conflicting on the role of serotonin pathways in the benzodiazepine effect. Therefore a series of studies were carried out using a Geller-Seifter procedure with three components, to examine drug effects on rew...

Effects of chlordiazepoxide (CDP) and ethanolamine-O-sulphate (EOS) alone and in combination were tested on the acquisition and performance of continuous reinforcement — time out (CR-TO) and variable interval reinforcement — time out (VI-TO) operant discriminations in rats. CDP disrupted acquisition of CR-TO discrimination; effects were short lived...

Effects of chlordiazepoxide (CDP) were examined on the performance of rats in an eight-arm radial maze with four cued and food-baited arms. Two conditions were used; random, with cue location varying over trials, and constant, with the same subset of arms consistently cued. In rats pre-trained to a 60-70% efficiency level (Rewarded entries/Total en...

Using male hooded Lister rats the effects of GABAergic and serotonergic treatments alone and with chlordiazepoxide (CDP) were compared with the behavioral effects of CDP in a conditioned conflict procedure with three components; Reward, Time Out, and Conflict. CDP (2.5, 5.0, and 10.0 mg/kg ip) dose- relatedly increased punished and time out respond...

It has previously been shown that chronic treatment with the GABA-transaminase inhibitor ethanolamine-O-sulphate (EOS), which elevates brain GABA levels by around 200%, selectivity enhances novel food consumption in rats treated with chlordiazepoxide (CDP) and given a food preference test. To replicate and extend these findings, the effects of two...

Chlordiazepoxide (CDP) given acutely has been found to have dose-related effects in rats given food preference tests. Low doses selectively increase consumption of familiar food, while high doses increase novel food consumption. The present study examined the effects of three doses of CDP given chronically. All doses (2.5, 5.0 and 10.0 mg/kg) selec...

The effects of some centrally and peripherally acting cholinergic agonists and antagonists on locomotor exploration and investigatory head poking were studied in rats. An apparent disruption of within-trials habituation of locomotion and head-poke frequency was demonstrated for arecoline, nicotine, carbachol, scopolamine, and methylscopolamine. It...

review a number of animal models of anxiety / concentrate upon the role of models as simulations of anxiety / [present] arguments in favour of a broad-based approach to anxiolytic psychopharmacology anxiety—definitions and diagnosis / drug treatment of anxiety / benzodiazepines and behaviour / unconditioned responses / conditioned avoidance respo...