Xavier Ferrer

Cocaine addiction is associated with abnormal prefrontal function, increased striatal connectivity and sensitivity to monetary incentives, and decreased connectivity outside the human reward circuit.

Cocaine addiction has been associated with increased sensitivity of the human reward circuit to drug‐related stimuli. However, the capacity of non‐drug incentives to engage this network is poorly understood. Here, we characterized the functional sensitivity to monetary incentives and the structural integrity of the human reward circuit in abstinent cocaine‐dependent (CD) patients and their matched controls. We assessed the BOLD response to monetary gains and losses in 30 CD patients and 30 healthy controls performing a lottery task in a magnetic resonance imaging scanner. We measured brain gray matter volume (GMV) using voxel‐based morphometry and white matter microstructure using voxel‐based fractional anisotropy (FA). Functional data showed that, after monetary incentives, CD patients exhibited higher activation in the ventral striatum than controls. Furthermore, we observed an inverted BOLD response pattern in the prefrontal cortex, with activity being highest after unexpected high gains and lowest after losses. Patients showed increased GMV in the caudate and the orbitofrontal cortex, increased white matter FA in the orbito‐striatal pathway but decreased FA in antero‐posterior association bundles. Abnormal activation in the prefrontal cortex correlated with GMV and FA increases in the orbitofrontal cortex. While functional abnormalities in the ventral striatum were inversely correlated with abstinence duration, structural alterations were not. In conclusion, results suggest abnormal incentive processing in CD patients with high salience for rewards and punishments in subcortical structures but diminished prefrontal control after adverse outcomes. They further suggest that hypertrophy and hyper‐connectivity within the reward circuit, to the expense of connectivity outside this network, characterize cocaine addiction.

Marine planarians (Platyhelminthes: Tricladida: Maricola) from the western Mediterranean Sea and the Cantabrian coast: new records, one new genus, and immunocytochemistry of the nervous system

Marine planarians were collected extensively from the Iberian Peninsula and Italy. As a result we provide new distributional records of six species of marine triclads, including the description of one new genus and species. The study increases substantially our knowledge of the distribution of this group of animals in Spain and reveals that even relatively well studied areas, such as Italy, still yield new species. In addition, we performed immunostaining studies of the nervous system of three of the species, which revealed the detailed organization of the main nerve cords and their branches. In the new species, the lateral nerve branches showed an arrangement that is different from that of the other species.

Winterquartiere und Winterbestand des Stars (Sturnus vulgaris) in Spanien während der letzten 30 Jahre

We studied the wintering of European Starlings by means of ringing recoveries since 1960 and the distribution of roosting sites in the last fifty years. An overall decrease was found in the number of roosts as well as in wintering birds. However, this is due to a a considerable decrease in the south and east, whereas in the north and northeast the number of wintering birds seems to be stable ore even lightly increasing. This geographical difference can be correlated with the decline of breeding populations in North and Central Europa and/ore with the growing populations in France and Belgium respectively. In the last decade, the number of urban roosts in Spain increased.

Indicators of the Effects of the Urban Greening on Birds: The Case of Barcelona

Building and maintaining an urban green infrastructure, which can be understood as a network of urban parks, private gardens or forest areas, can potentially contribute to reverse the trend of biodiversity loss. In this context, developing indicators of the changes produced by green infrastructures on urban biodiversity represents a task of particular interest for planning and governance approaches. The results of long-term bird monitoring schemes in many cities, mainly based on volunteer programmes, may provide a good opportunity to obtain robust data on the spatial patterns and temporal trends of species populations. In addition, recent development of multispecies indicators can now be implemented to make use of common bird monitoring datasets with the aim to generate robust policy relevant evaluation tools. In this chapter we show a procedure to track the effects of urban greening on birds using common bird monitoring data from the city of Barcelona (north-east Iberian Peninsula). Essentially, the proposed approach requires to quantify the species’ response to the green infrastructure at a population level and to integrate all this information in combined indicators of the effect of urban greening. Using this approach we developed a first indicator to track temporal changes on bird populations linked to the greening and a second indicator to determine the areas of the city in which the level of development of the green infrastructure is already having a positive effect on biodiversity.

Fluctuations of the Gull and Tern Populations in the Ebro Delta, North-East Spain (1960–85)

The Ebro delta is a 3 20 km2 area situated in North-East Spain (fig. 1). It is mainly constituted of cultivated land: ricefields (46%), market gardens and orchards (20%). The natural area is thus very small: about 7,300 Ha (23%) (fig. 1). Compared to other deltas, this small surface contains a high number of sea and marsh birds. Indeed, the Ebro delta is the most important Iberian site quantitatively as well as qualitatively, for Common, Little and Sandwich Terns. The total number of terns nesting is about 3,400 pairs (1980–85) consisting of 5 regular species: Sterna nilotica, S. sandvicensis, S. hirundo, S. albifrons and S. bengalensis, and 1 accidental: S. dougallii. The total breeding population of gulls is about 2,300 pairs (1980–85) composed of 5 species: Larus ridibundus, L. genei, L. audouinii, L. fuscus graellsii and L. cachinnans.