We evaluated 6-and 7-month-olds' preference

Child implant users' accurate identification of emotion in speech exceeded performance in previous studies, which may be attributable to fewer response alternatives and the use of child-directed speech. Moreover, child implant users' successful identification of emotion in music indicates that the relevant cues are accessible at a relatively young age.

Cochlear implants have enabled many congenitally or prelingually deaf children to acquire their native language and communicate successfully on the basis of electrical rather than acoustic input. Nevertheless, degraded spectral input provided by the device reduces the ability to perceive emotion in speech. We compared the vocal imitations of 5- to 7-year-old deaf children who were highly successful bilateral implant users with those of a control sample of children who had normal hearing. First, the children imitated several happy and sad sentences produced by a child model. When adults in Experiment 1 rated the similarity of imitated to model utterances, ratings were significantly higher for the hearing children. Both hearing and deaf children produced poorer imitations of happy than sad utterances because of difficulty matching the greater pitch modulation of the happy versions. When adults in Experiment 2 rated electronically filtered versions of the utterances, which obscured the verbal content, ratings of happy and sad utterances were significantly differentiated for deaf as well as hearing children. The ratings of deaf children, however, were significantly less differentiated. Although deaf children's utterances exhibited culturally typical pitch modulation, their pitch modulation was reduced relative to that of hearing children. One practical implication is that therapeutic interventions for deaf children could expand their focus on suprasegmental aspects of speech perception and production, especially intonation patterns.

The goal of the present study was to ascertain whether children with normal hearing and prelingually deaf children with cochlear implants could use pitch or timing cues alone or in combination to identify familiar songs. Children 4–7 years of age were required to identify the theme songs of familiar TV shows in a simple task with excerpts that preserved (1) the relative pitch and timing cues of the melody but not the original instrumentation, (2) the timing cues only (rhythm, meter, and tempo), and (3) the relative pitch cues only (pitch contour and intervals). Children with normal hearing performed at high levels and comparably across the three conditions. The performance of child implant users was well above chance levels when both pitch and timing cues were available, marginally above chance with timing cues only, and at chance with pitch cues only. This is the first demonstration that children can identify familiar songs from monotonic versions—timing cues but no pitch cues—and from isochronous versions—pitch cues but no timing cues. The study also indicates that, in the context of a very simple task, young implant users readily identify songs from melodic versions that preserve pitch and timing cues.

The findings indicate that both NH children and child CI users can identify cartoon voices under conditions of severe spectral degradation. In such circumstances, children may rely on talker-specific phonetic detail to distinguish one talker from another.

The antidepressant-like effect of fluoxetine (20 mg/kg i.p.) has been assessed using the forced swimming test (FST) in IRC (CD-1) mice exposed or not to a pretest session of different duration (5 or 20 min). The influence of the mitochondrial translocator protein (TSPO) activity on the antidepressant-like effect of fluoxetine (20 mg/kg i.p.) in the FST was also studied. The antidepressant-like effect of fluoxetine was observed only in mice subjected to a 5-min pretest session 24 h before the FST. The TSPO antagonist PK11195 [1-(2-chlorophenyl)-N-methyl-N-(1-methylpropyl)-3-isoquinolinecarboxamide; 1 or 3 mg/kg i.p.] inhibited the antidepressant activity of fluoxetine in the FST. In the present study, fluoxetine or PK11195 was administered for a short duration. We suppose that the functional activity of TSPO may depend on a pretest session and that using this procedure is necessary to detect antidepressant activity of fluoxetine-like drugs.

The behavioral and neurochemical effects of amitriptyline (10 mg/kg, i.p.) and fluoxetine (20 mg/kg, i.p.) after single and chronic administration in the setting of unpredictable mild stress in outbred mice ICR (CD-1) were studied. After 28-day exposure to stress we observed an increase in depressive reactions in forced swim test in mice and decrease in serotonin (5-HT) and 5-oxyindol acetic acid (5-HIAA) levels in hippocampus, an increase in noradrenaline (NA) concentration in hypothalamus. Single and chronic administration of amitriptyline and fluoxetine led to shortening of immobilization and increase in swimming in forced swim test. The antidepressant-like effect of fluoxetine, but not of amitriptyline, after single injection coincided with an increase of 5-HT turnover in hippocampus. The chronic administration of the antidepressants caused an increase in NA levels in hypothalamus. Thus, antidepressant-like effect of amitriptyline and fluoxetine may arise from enhancement of stress-dependent adaptive mechanisms depleted by chronic stress.

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