Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is the most prevalent neurodegenerative disorder amongst older adults. Features of this disease include accumulation of amyloid-β (Aβ) plaques, neurofibrillary tau tangles (NFT), neuroinflammation, and neurodegeneration. These result in a progressive decline in memory and executive function in patients. Anxiety-related behaviours are disparaging comorbidities of AD, but how they arise in patients remains elusive. Protein-tyrosine phosphatase 1B (PTP1B) has been associated with Aβ pathology and with anxiety in separate paradigms, but whether PTP1B is involved in anxiety-related behaviours in AD mouse models is unknown. The objective of this project was to compare anxiety-related behaviours between the hAPP-J20 (Aβ pathology) and PS19 (Tau pathology) mouse models of AD and determine whether PTP1B is involved in these behaviours. Another major objective of this project was to investigate the role of PTP1B in tau pathology in the PS19 mouse model in anxiety-related brain regions, since this has not been previously examined. Using key anxiety-testing paradigms such as the elevated plus maze (EPM) and the open field test (OF), an age-based dimorphism in the onset of an inappropriately lowered anxiety response in the J20 and PS19 mouse models was identified. Furthermore, it was shown that this abnormal anti-anxiety baseline phenotype could be normalized with selective PTP1B inhibition by the drug trodusquemine and by genetic neuronal ablation. Finally, in PS19 mice at 8 months of age, it was shown that PTP1B blockade has the therapeutic effect of relieving neurotoxic phospho-tau burden and neuroinflammation. Together, these findings suggest that unleashed PTP1B may serve as a potential therapeutic target, with a possible role in AD-associated anxiety-related behaviours and AD pathology.

The purpose of this study is to investigate how homosexuality and homosexual adoptions are manifested in children's comic "Bamse" and study the result in the light of a brief background about the western society and gay history. The study has a historical gender perspective and focus homosexuality primarily in modern times. Drawing on critical theory and semiotic analysis, the study shows how ideas and ideology surrounding same-sex relations and parenting are negotiated in the ”Bamse” comic. 2010 was the year when the Bamse cartoon took a step into the gender debate and introduced two gay rabbits who adopted an infant. The study shows that despite the obvious intent to anchor homosexuality as normal and integrated in the society there are hidden ideologies that reveals homosexuality as abnormal and excluded. Homosexuality in "Bamse" includes a male homosexuality and no female representatives are visible. Also is homosexuality normalized by including both traditional male and female attributes and domains. The gay man emerges as emotional, scared, unused to children, colored, not belonging in a middle or upper class, surrounded by darkness, but, while fully capable of providing care to a child, just as heterosexual parents. The study reveals how ”Bamse” contains and negotiates between conflicting ideoligies about same sex parenting. This duality of the prominent ideologies may well reflect the social concepts that exist at the time of this study in the media debate. / Syftet med denna studie är att undersöka hur homosexualitet och homoadoption manifesteras i barnserietidningen ”Bamse – världens starkasta björn” och studera resultatet mot en kort bakgrund kring samhälle, ”Bamse-” och homohistoria samt genus. Studien tar sin utgångspunkt i ett historiskt genusperspektiv som belyser homosexualitet främst under modern samtid. Vid närmandet av empirin tillämpas kritisk teori och semiotisk analys för att utkristallisera föreställningar och ideologier som omfattar studieobjekt. 2010 var det år då tidningen om Bamse tog steget in i genusdebatten och introducerade två homosexuella kaniner som genom en homoadoption bildade familj. Studien påvisar att trots att ett uppenbart uppsåt finns att förankra homosexualitet som normalt och inkluderat i samhället återfinns dolda ideologier som befäster homosexualitet som avvikande och exkluderande. Homosexualitet i ”Bamse” innefattar en manlig homosexualitet då inga kvinnliga representanter syns. Likaså understryks en homosexualitet som normaliserats genom att innefatta både traditionellt kvinnliga och manliga attribut och domäner. Den homosexuella mannen framträder bland annat som känslosam, rädd, ovan vid barn, färgad, icketillhörande av medel- eller överklass, med ett avsides boende, omgiven av mörker, men samtidigt som fullt kapabel att ge omsorg till ett barn, på samma sätt som heteroföräldrar. Denna kluvenhet eller dubbelhet i de framträdande ideologierna kan också väl avspegla de samhälleliga föreställningar som återfinns vid tiden för studien i till exempel mediadebatten.