Digital Commons Network^™

Influences Of Chronic Stress On Irritable Bowel Syndrome, Anxiety, Depression, And The Microbiome, Julia A. Semaan

Masters Theses

IBS effects approximately 5% of the world’s population with symptoms ranging from unexplainable constipation to daily abdominal pain. Though treatment options are available and have been proven beneficial for certain individuals, discovering the root cause of IBS has been difficult to accomplish due to the variety of symptoms that differ from case to case. This study aims to increase understanding of the influence that chronic stress has on irritable bowel syndrome, anxiety, depression, and the microbiome in the college-age population since this group is likely to experience daily stressors, anxiety- and depressive-like thoughts, as well as IBS symptoms. Current research …

Social Dominance Alters Stress-Induced Neural Activity And Generates Individual Differences In Stress Vulnerability, Jenna Lee Laymon

Masters Theses

Identifying the physiological and behavioral mechanisms that underlie stress vulnerability is a crucial step toward identifying novel targets for the prevention and treatment of stress-related disorders. Social status is a key environmental factor that contributes to individual variations in stress vulnerability. In particular, achieving a subordinate social status has been shown to produce susceptibility to anxiety-like and depressive-like behavior. In this project, our aim was to identify neural ensembles regulating how dominance status modulated stress-induced changes in avoidant behavior in male and female Syrian hamsters. Using a viral vector that codes for robust activity marker (RAM), we investigated whether stress-induced …

The Implications Of Yoga As A Coping Mechanism For Stress During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Ellie Hunter Madenberg

Masters Theses

Abstract

The Covid-19 pandemic has been extremely devastating across the globe. In the United States specifically, Covid-19 has taken over 545,000 lives and climbing. Over the past year of the pandemic, the rate of mental health concerns has grown significantly. Yoga has been paralleled in growth throughout the course of pandemic with countless new yoga students and advanced students who have dove deeper into the yoga practice.

The study examined the perceived stress levels of yogis and using yoga as a leisure coping strategy for stress reduction during the Covid-19 pandemic. A survey was sent via email to yoga instructors …

Differential Microglial Activation Following Immune Challenge In Peripubertal And Adult Outbred Mice, David J. Placzek

Masters Theses

Pubertal development is a time of growth and development in the brain, leading to high sensitivity during this period. Past research in our lab has shown that shipping female inbred and outbred mice during pubertal development alters their sensitivity to steroid hormones in adulthood, thus affecting sexual receptivity, cognition, depression-like behavior, and anxiety-like behavior. Here, we test the hypothesis that mice treated with lipopolysaccharide during pubertal development would have more active microglia, the brain's immune cells, after injection than mice treated with lipopolysaccharide in adulthood. No significant interactions were observed between treatment and age between any brain area measured, suggesting …

I Get By With A Little Help From My Friends: A Qualitative Study Of Nurse Close Work Friendship And Social Support, Jennifer Ptacek

Masters Theses

The nursing profession is laden with numerous job, emotional labor, and communication stressors, which come from both patients and healthcare organizations. These frequent and simultaneous pressures can result in nurse burnout and turnover (Tracy, 2009). Socially supportive workplace communication has been identified as a solution to reducing nurse stress, burnout, and turnover (Apker & Ray, 2003), but has not specifically considered social support in nurse work friendships. A mixed qualitative method study was conducted with five nurse best friend pairs, using job observations of participants’ work friendship communication and individual and joint interviews. Two major communication themes emerged from the …

Increased Body Weight In Adulthood Following A Peripubertal Stressor And Proposed Mechanism For Effects Of Increased Adiposity On Estrogen-Dependent Behaviors, Christina F. Gagliardi

Masters Theses

Exposure to certain stressors during a sensitive period around puberty can lead to enduring effects on an animal’s response to estradiol. In estradiol-influenced behaviors, such as sexual receptivity, hippocampal-dependent learning and memory, depression-like behavior, and anxiety-like behaviors, exposure to a peripubertal stressor such as shipping stress or an injection of lipopolysaccharide (LPS) can eliminate or even reverse the normal response to estradiol. In addition to regulating these behaviors, estradiol play a role in the regulation of body weight. While some of the previous studies touched on short-term effects on body weight, no systemic long-term study of the effects of a …

Validation Of The Masculine Gender Role Stress Scale In A Diverse Population, Amanda Eliza Sherman

Masters Theses

Adherence to traditional masculinity has been associated with negative physical and psychological health outcomes. Specifically, the standards of masculinity imposed on men have been associated with high levels of stress reactivity, interpersonal violence, and substance abuse. However, previous research has been limited to primarily Caucasian samples. In order to better understand masculinity and the stress associated with adherence to masculinity across ethnicity, we examined the validity of the Masculine Gender Role Stress scale in a diverse sample. We hypothesized that the MGRS in a diverse sample would function similarly to the MGRS in a primarily Caucasian sample in that it …