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Dive into the research topics where Joseph P. Garner is active.

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Featured researches published by Joseph P. Garner.


Journal of Personality and Social Psychology | 2000

Adult Attachment and the Defensive Regulation of Attention and Memory: Examining the Role of Preemptive and Postemptive Defensive Processes

R. Chris Fraley; Joseph P. Garner; Phillip R. Shaver

Previous research has found that avoidant adults have more difficulty recalling emotional experiences than do less avoidant adults. It is unclear, however, whether such findings reflect differences in the degree to which avoidant adults (a) attend to and encode emotional information, (b) elaborate emotional information they have encoded, or (c) do both. Two studies were conducted to distinguish between the effects of these processes. Participants listened to an interview about attachment-related issues and were asked to recall details from the interview either immediately or at variable delays. An analysis of forgetting curves revealed that avoidant adults initially encoded less information about the interview than did nonavoidant adults, although avoidant and nonavoidant adults forgot the information they did encode at the same rate. The implications of these findings for current views on the nature and efficacy of defenses are discussed.


Behavioural Brain Research | 2002

Evidence for a relationship between cage stereotypies and behavioural disinhibition in laboratory rodents.

Joseph P. Garner; Georgia Mason

Cage stereotypies-abnormal, repetitive, unvarying and apparently functionless behaviours-are common in many captive animals, sometimes resulting in self-injury or decreased reproductive success. However, a general mechanistic or neurophysiological understanding of cage stereotypies has proved elusive. In contrast, stereotypies in human mental disorder, or those induced by drugs or brain lesions, are well understood, and are thought to result from the disinhibition of behavioural selection by the basal ganglia. In this study, we found that the cage stereotypies of captive bank voles also correlate with signs of altered response selection by the basal ganglia. Stereotypic bar-mouthing in the caged voles correlated with inappropriate responding in extinction learning, impairments of response timing, evidence of a knowledge-action dissociation, increased rates of behavioural activation, and hyperactivity. Furthermore, all these signs intercorrelated, implicating a single underlying deficit consistent with striatal disinhibition of response selection. Bar-mouthing thus appears fundamentally similar to the stereotypies of autists, schizophrenics, and subjects treated with amphetamine or basal ganglial lesions. These results represent the first evidence for a neural substrate of cage stereotypy. They also suggest that stereotypic animals may experience novel forms of psychological distress, and that stereotypy might well represent a potential confound in many behavioural experiments.


Behavioural Brain Research | 2006

Animal neuropsychology: Validation of the Intra-Dimensional Extra-Dimensional set shifting task for mice

Joseph P. Garner; Collette M. Thogerson; Hanno Würbel; James D. Murray; Joy A. Mench

Research in animal neuropsychology is providing an exciting new generation of behavioral tests for mice that promise to overcome many of the limitations of current high-throughput testing, and provide direct animal homologues of clinically important measures in human research. Set shifting tasks are some of the best understood and widely used human neuropsychological tasks, with clinical relevance to traumatic brain injury, schizophrenia, autism, obsessive compulsive disorder, trichotillomania, and many other disorders. Here we report the first successful modification of a human set shifting neuropsychological task, the Intra-Dimensional Extra-Dimensional (IDED) task, for use with mice. We presented mice with a series of compound discrimination and reversal tasks where one stimulus dimension consistently cued reward. Task performance improved with a new set of compound stimuli, as did reversal performance--indicating the formation of a cognitive-attentional set. We then overtrained a subset of the mice, and presented control and overtrained mice with a new compound discrimination where a novel stimulus dimension cued reward. As is the case in human control subjects, control mice persisted in responding to the now-incorrect stimulus dimension, performing poorly on this extra-dimensional shift compared with the previous intra-dimensional shift, thereby validating the task as a measure of set shifting. Furthermore, overtrained mice were impaired on this extra-dimensional shift compared with controls, further validating the task. The advantages and disadvantages of the IDED task compared to high-throughput approaches are discussed.


British Poultry Science | 2002

Reliability and validity of a modified gait scoring system and its use in assessing tibial dyschondroplasia in broilers

Joseph P. Garner; C. Falcone; P. Wakenell; Michael P. Martin; Joy A. Mench

1. The gait scoring system for broilers developed by Kestin et al . ( Veterinary Record , 131: 190-194, 1992) has been widely used to evaluate leg problems. The many factors and measures associated with this scale have empirically established its external (biological) validity. However, published test-retest (within-observer) reliabilities are poor, and inter-observer reliabilities are unknown. We evaluated several modifications to this scale aimed at improving its objectivity and reliability. 2. Eighteen naïve observers scored a standardised video of birds exhibiting varying degrees of lameness, either using Kestin et al .s system, or our modified system. 3. Test-retest reliability (0.906) for Kestin et al .s system was higher than previously reported. Interrater reliability was also good (0.892). The modified system offered significantly better test-retest (0.948) and inter-rater reliabilities (0.943), without incurring costs in terms of time taken or difficulty of use. The systems were consistent, assigning individual birds the same score on average. 4. It is concluded that the modified system offers the advantages of reduced error within and between studies. 5. In a second experiment, we used our modified scoring system to examine the relationship between tibial dyschondroplasia (TD) and gait score in 267 selected broilers. 6. Neither the presence nor severity of TD affected gait score, suggesting that, at least in this strain of broilers, other leg problems like slipped tendons or torsional deformities had more influence on gait impairment than did TD.


Nature Methods | 2010

Systematic variation improves reproducibility of animal experiments

S. Helene Richter; Joseph P. Garner; Corinna Auer; Joachim Kunert; Hanno Würbel

measures to compare between-experiment variation for the standardized and heterogenized design. Whereas strain differences were relatively consistent among heterogenized experiments, they varied considerably between standardized experiments (Fig. 1a–c). In 33 of 36 measures, between-experiment variation was lower in the heterogenized design, indicating better reproducibility. We also analyzed each experiment separately as if conducted independently in different laboratories and assessed the effect of ‘strain’ on each of the 36 measures using a general linear model (GLM). Based on the 2 × 2 factorial nature of the heterogenized design and cage position in the rack, we divided each replicate experiment into four ‘blocks’, each comprising one cage per strain (Supplementary Fig. 1), and included ‘block’ nested within experiment as blocking factor in the GLM (Supplementary Methods). Whereas the effect of ‘strain’ was stable in the four heterogenized experiments, outcomes of the four standardized experiments were highly variable (Supplementary Fig. 2), suggesting that withinSystematic variation improves reproducibility of animal experiments


PLOS ONE | 2012

Heat or insulation: behavioral titration of mouse preference for warmth or access to a nest.

Brianna N. Gaskill; Christopher J. Gordon; Edmond A. Pajor; Jeffrey R. Lucas; Jerry K. Davis; Joseph P. Garner

In laboratories, mice are housed at 20–24°C, which is below their lower critical temperature (≈30°C). This increased thermal stress has the potential to alter scientific outcomes. Nesting material should allow for improved behavioral thermoregulation and thus alleviate this thermal stress. Nesting behavior should change with temperature and material, and the choice between nesting or thermotaxis (movement in response to temperature) should also depend on the balance of these factors, such that mice titrate nesting material against temperature. Naïve CD-1, BALB/c, and C57BL/6 mice (36 male and 36 female/strain in groups of 3) were housed in a set of 2 connected cages, each maintained at a different temperature using a water bath. One cage in each set was 20°C (Nesting cage; NC) while the other was one of 6 temperatures (Temperature cage; TC: 20, 23, 26, 29, 32, or 35°C). The NC contained one of 6 nesting provisions (0, 2, 4, 6, 8, or 10g), changed daily. Food intake and nest scores were measured in both cages. As the difference in temperature between paired cages increased, feed consumption in NC increased. Nesting provision altered differences in nest scores between the 2 paired temperatures. Nest scores in NC increased with increasing provision. In addition, temperature pairings altered the difference in nest scores with the smallest difference between locations at 26°C and 29°C. Mice transferred material from NC to TC but the likelihood of transfer decreased with increasing provision. Overall, mice of different strains and sexes prefer temperatures between 26–29°C and the shift from thermotaxis to nest building is seen between 6 and 10 g of material. Our results suggest that under normal laboratory temperatures, mice should be provided with no less than 6 grams of nesting material, but up to 10 grams may be needed to alleviate thermal distress under typical temperatures.


Molecular Psychiatry | 2015

Cerebrospinal fluid and plasma oxytocin concentrations are positively correlated and negatively predict anxiety in children

Dean S. Carson; Sean W. Berquist; T H Trujillo; Joseph P. Garner; S L Hannah; Shellie A. Hyde; Raena D. Sumiyoshi; Lisa P. Jackson; J K Moss; Matthew Strehlow; Samuel H. Cheshier; Sonia Partap; Antonio Y. Hardan; Karen J. Parker

The neuropeptide oxytocin (OXT) exerts anxiolytic and prosocial effects in the central nervous system of rodents. A number of recent studies have attempted to translate these findings by investigating the relationships between peripheral (e.g., blood, urinary and salivary) OXT concentrations and behavioral functioning in humans. Although peripheral samples are easy to obtain in humans, whether peripheral OXT measures are functionally related to central OXT activity remains unclear. To investigate a possible relationship, we quantified OXT concentrations in concomitantly collected cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) and blood samples from child and adult patients undergoing clinically indicated lumbar punctures or other CSF-related procedures. Anxiety scores were obtained in a subset of child participants whose parents completed psychometric assessments. Findings from this study indicate that plasma OXT concentrations significantly and positively predict CSF OXT concentrations (r=0.56, P=0.0064, N=27). Moreover, both plasma (r=−0.92, P=0.0262, N=10) and CSF (r=−0.91, P=0.0335, N=10) OXT concentrations significantly and negatively predicted trait anxiety scores, consistent with the preclinical literature. Importantly, plasma OXT concentrations significantly and positively (r=0.96, P=0.0115, N=10) predicted CSF OXT concentrations in the subset of child participants who provided behavioral data. This study provides the first empirical support for the use of blood measures of OXT as a surrogate for central OXT activity, validated in the context of behavioral functioning. These preliminary findings also suggest that impaired OXT signaling may be a biomarker of anxiety in humans, and a potential target for therapeutic development in individuals with anxiety disorders.


Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America | 2014

Plasma oxytocin concentrations and OXTR polymorphisms predict social impairments in children with and without autism spectrum disorder

Karen J. Parker; Joseph P. Garner; Robin A. Libove; Shellie A. Hyde; Kirsten B. Hornbeak; Dean S. Carson; Chun-Ping Liao; Jennifer Phillips; Joachim Hallmayer; Antonio Y. Hardan

Significance The neuropeptide oxytocin (OXT) is critically involved in mammalian social functioning, and initial clinical research suggests that OXT biology may be altered in individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Here we provide important evidence that blood OXT concentrations are highly heritable within families, yet also strongly predict social functioning in ASD children, their unaffected siblings, and healthy control children. These findings also extend to OXT receptor genotypes which are significantly associated with differences in social functioning independent of disease status. These findings indicate that dysregulated OXT biology is not uniquely associated with ASD social phenotypes as widely theorized, but instead variation in OXT biology contributes to important individual differences in human social functioning, including the severe social impairments which characterize ASD. The neuropeptide oxytocin (OXT) and its receptor (OXTR) regulate social functioning in animals and humans. Initial clinical research suggests that dysregulated plasma OXT concentrations and/or OXTR SNPs may be biomarkers of social impairments in autism spectrum disorder (ASD). We do not know, however, whether OXT dysregulation is unique to ASD or whether OXT biology influences social functioning more generally, thus contributing to, but not causing, ASD phenotypes. To distinguish between these possibilities, we tested in a child ASD cohort, which included unaffected siblings and unrelated neurotypical controls (ages 3–12 y; n = 193), whether plasma OXT concentrations and OXTR SNPs (i) interact to produce ASD phenotypes, (ii) exert differential phenotypic effects in ASD vs. non-ASD children, or (iii) have similar phenotypic effects independent of disease status. In the largest cohort tested to date, we found no evidence to support the OXT deficit hypothesis of ASD. Rather, OXT concentrations strongly and positively predicted theory of mind and social communication performance in all groups. Furthermore, OXT concentrations showed significant heritability between ASD-discordant siblings (h2 = 85.5%); a heritability estimate on par with that of height in humans. Finally, carriers of the “G” allele of rs53576 showed impaired affect recognition performance and carriers of the “A” allele of rs2254298 exhibited greater global social impairments in all groups. These findings indicate that OXT biology is not uniquely associated with ASD, but instead exerts independent, additive, and highly heritable influences on individual differences in human social functioning, including the severe social impairments which characterize ASD.


Animal Behaviour | 1998

A demanding task: using economic techniques to assess animal priorities.

Georgia Mason; David McFarland; Joseph P. Garner

Copyright 1998 The Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour.


Animal Behaviour | 2006

Is fearfulness a trait that can be measured with behavioural tests? A validation of four fear tests for Japanese quail

Katherine A. Miller; Joseph P. Garner; Joy A. Mench

If fearfulness is stable, consistent and trait-like, then valid measures of fearfulness should be stable, consistent and independent of influences unrelated to fear. We assessed the validity of six fear measures using Japanese quail, Coturnix coturnix japonica, a common species in fear research. Measures were made during emergence, novel object, novel food and predator surprise tests. These were considered to have internal validity if they were stable over 18 days, when we controlled for nonexperimental variables including season of testing and cage location. We determined convergent and discriminant validity by factor analysis of fear measures plus measures of sociality, activity level and repetitive behaviour. Fear measures with good convergent validity showed agreement in their factor loadings. Those with good discriminant validity loaded on to different factors from nonfear measures. Most of the fear measures examined were moderately stable over time, but only half had good discriminant validity. Convergence was good among measures from the same test but poor across tests. Measures from each fear test loaded separately. Overall, flight distance and freezing duration in the predator surprise test and amount eaten in the novel food test showed the best internal, convergent and discriminant validity. When we considered only these three measures, convergence remained higher among measures from the same test than from different tests. Fearfulness thus appeared somewhat unstable over time and inconsistent across situations, which, if true across species, greatly limits the utility of fear tests.

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Joy A. Mench

University of California

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