Holly et al. (2012)

This week’s paper by Holly et al (2012) was one of my favorite to read yet. I found it to be very clear, concise, and well written. It had a small amount of explanation of results, enough to ensure readers from all walks of the neuroscience community would understand, but not so much that it became bogged down. In addition, I thought the study was designed very well and didn't take on too many variables (a rare breed due to current standards of literature). Because of this, it was very impactful and easy to determine the significance. The most impactful figure in this paper, in my opinion, was Figure 2. I found it extremely interesting that the differences between males and females were so exaggerated, and then that there was significant differences between stages of estrus. Though the figure is a little dense due to the many symbols used for significance between different groups, once it is interpreted it presents amazing data concerning estrogen and stress related to behavioral effects of cocaine abuse. The part of this figure I found the most interesting was that, according to the results section, the baseline (saline) level of locomotion in stressed females in estrus was  significantly higher than their non-estrus counterparts. I’m not sure how one would go about it, but that elevation in baseline locomotion might need to be mentioned when comparing non-saline groups. In Figure 4, I was really excited to read that the control groups they used were the baseline levels of dopamine in the same individuals with no drug in their system. However, I did hope to see estrus stage interactions if they existed. I saw that in Figure 5 there was no difference and therefore the data was collapsed, but I read no such explanation for Figure 4, and am wondering why it was not examined.