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Effects Of Chronic Stress On Anxiety-Like Behavior And Fear Learning In The Tgf344-Ad Rat Model Of Alzheimer’S Disease, Samuel James Bouquin

Psychology ETDs

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a progressive neurodegenerative brain disorder that leads to severe cognitive and functional impairments. Many AD patients also exhibit neuropsychiatric symptoms (NPS) such as anxiety and prior to the clinical diagnosis of dementia. The prodromal manifestation of NPS is highly prevalent among patients with mild cognitive impairment (MCI), and the co-occurrence of preclinical NPS and MCI is associated with an increased risk of developing AD. Prolonged or repeated exposure to stress can result in behavioral disturbances (e.g., anxiety) and accelerated global cognitive decline. Importantly, AD patients exhibit altered stress systems and AD-related neuropathology has been linked to …

Predictors Of Recovery In Advocacy-Based Refugee Treatment Outcome: The Role Of Prior Traumatic Experiences And Current Chronic Stressors, Meredith A. Blackwell

Psychology ETDs

Refugees are at an increased vulnerability to mental health disorders compared to citizens of wealthier nations. The present study looks at the symptom trajectories of 290 refugees in a psychosocial community-based participatory intervention. A three-level generalized linear mixed model examined the predictive impact of exposure to trauma and chronic stress at baseline on posttraumatic stress and mood symptoms over time. Results showed that only higher chronic stress at baseline was associated with a steeper decrease in both PTSD and mood scores, but these effects differed by nationality. However, with chronic stress entered as a time-varying covariate instead only African participants …

Effects Of Closed Loop Transcranial Alternating Current Stimulation Targeting Slow Oscillation Sleep On Post-Sleep Object Location Learning, Bradley M. Robert

Psychology ETDs

Modulating sleep architecture to augment memory performance can provide valuable insight into how sleep contributes to memory. Slow wave activity has been identified as an important contributor to sleeps impact on memory. While the beneficial role of SWS in offline consolidation is well established research investigating SWS’s role in post-sleep memory formation is limited. Here we investigated the relationship between SWS and post-sleep learning by modulating slow wave oscillations (SWO) with closed loop transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS) with an aim toward enhancing learning capacity for object location associations. Thirty-six subjects were randomly assigned to either sham (21) or verum …

Socioeconomic And Neuroanatomic Contributions To Language Performance In Children Born Very Preterm At Preschool And School Age, Rebecca E. Avila-Rieger

Psychology ETDs

Background: Children born very preterm are more likely to have difficulties with language acquisition and use that persist throughout childhood. Preterm birth occurs at a critical time in brain development and interrupts neurodevelopment, which has downstream implications for altered neural structure and function. Prematurity and socioeconomic status greatly impact language performance in children, but the neural substrates are poorly understood. Here the neural constituents of language performance are examined in select cortical and subcortical regions.

Methods: Fifty-one children born preterm (24-31 weeks) and 20 born full-term were seen at preschool (mean age = 47 months) and school age (mean age …

Subjective Cognitive Complaints, Affective Distress, And Objective Cognitive Performance In Mild Traumatic Brain Injury, Brandi Seaman

Psychology ETDs

Background: Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) is a leading cause of morbidity and mortality among adults in the US (Ma, Chan, & Carruthers, 2014; Raj et al., 2015). According to epidemiological estimates put forth by the CDC, of the 1.7 million TBIs that occur annually in the United States, 80% are mild TBI (mTBI) (Ma, Chan, & Carruthers, 2014). At the sub-acute stage, mTBI patients often report experiencing post-concussion symptoms that include somatic (nausea, headache, dizziness), cognitive (poor attention, memory, and executive function), and behavioral or emotional changes (irritability, depression, emotional lability, anxiety) following their injury (Levin & Diza-Arrastia, 2015).

Study …

Intersectionality Between Sex/Gender And Race/Ethnicity On Cognitive Trajectories And Development Of Alzheimer’S Disease, Justina Frances Avila-Rieger

Psychology ETDs

The current study examined the interactive effects of race/ethnicity and sex/gender on cognitive trajectories of older adults. Participants were a total of 5258 non-Hispanic White (NHW), Black, and Hispanic men and women in the Washington/Hamilton Heights/Inwood Columbia Aging Project. Multiple-group latent growth curve modeling was used to examine trajectories across sex/gender by racial/ethnic groups and to determine the relationship between specific socio-cultural/health indicators and cognitive decline, including childhood socioeconomic position, years of education, adult income and occupation, cardiovascular risk factors, and marital status. Sex/gender differences in baseline cognitive test performance varied as a function of race/ethnicity and racial/ethnic differences in …

Sexual Victimization, Mental Health, And Protective Factors Among Women With Multiple Marginalized Statuses, Gabriela López

Psychology ETDs

Intersectionality (Crenshaw, 1989) and minority stress (Meyer, 2003) frameworks were used as theoretical foundations to examine associations among sexual minority status (e.g., lesbian and bisexual) and race/ethnicity (e.g., White, Black, Latinx), adult sexual victimization and revictimization, mental health symptoms (i.e., depression, anxiety, posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms), and protective factors (i.e., religiosity, spirituality, social support). Participants were 673 women who identified as lesbian/mostly lesbian or bisexual who completed wave 3 of the Chicago Health and Life Experiences of Women (CHLEW) survey. Participants were racially and ethnically diverse, with slightly more women identifying as White (37.4%, n = 261), than Black (36.0%, …

Antagonizing Serotonin 2a (5-Ht2a) Receptors Attenuates Methamphetamine-Induced Reward And Blocks Methamphetamine-Induced Anxiety-Like Behaviors In Adult Male Rats, John T. Madden

Psychology ETDs

Methamphetamine (Meth) is a highly addictive and widely abused psychostimulant. Research indicates that the selective 5-HT_2A receptor antagonist M100907 attenuates several psychostimulant-induced behaviors, including conditioned place preference (CPP). However, these findings have not yet been extended to Meth. The present study investigated the effects of M100907 on the acquisition of Meth-CPP and Meth-induced anxiety.

Adult male rats were tested using an unbiased two-chamber apparatus across eight consecutive days. Prior to Meth administration, rats were pretreated with M100907 and placed into their initially non-preferred chamber. After four Meth conditioning sessions, the effects of M100907 on Meth-induced changes in CPP were …

Effects Of Anodal Tdcs On Neural Correlates Of Cognitive Control In Mild-To-Moderate Traumatic Brain Injury, Nickolas A. Mertens

Psychology ETDs

Traumatic brain injury is a worldwide epidemic and currently there is no successful treatment to combat the cognitive deficits sustained from a mmTBI. The goal of this analysis is to determine if active tDCS paired with cognitive training can aid in an individual’s recovery on one specific consequence of mmTBI: cognitive control. To examine this novel treatment on cognitive control, EEG was recorded, and FM-theta activity collected from electrode FCz was analyzed. Three analyses were run to address the hypotheses of the present study: 1. A cluster analysis; 2. A series of repeated-measures ANOVAs; and 3. A series of multiple …

Manipulation Of Human Behavior By Sexually Transmitted Organisms: Sto Infection Status As A Predictor Of Later Sexual Behavior, Ruth Sarafin

Psychology ETDs

Research into the epidemiology of sexually transmitted organisms has found a strong relationship between number of sexual partners and likelihood of infection; STO interventions have therefore focused on reducing number of sexual partners. However, this work assumes that multiple partnerships cause infection, when there is reason to believe that infection causes an increase in short-term mating behavior as a means of increasing transmission opportunities. This dissertation tests STO infection status as a predictor in follow-up sexual behavior on data from the National Longitudinal Study from Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health). Four dependent variables related to short-term mating were regressed …

Cultural Factors And Alcohol Use In American Indian Adults: Results From A Randomized Controlled Trial Of Contingency Management, Jalene L. Herron

Psychology ETDs

American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) populations experience health disparities in alcohol use outcomes compared to the general population. This thesis examines cultural factors related to alcohol use in 65 reservation-based American Indian (AI) adults enrolled in a randomized controlled trial of culturally tailored contingency management (CM). Generalized linear mixed modeling (GLMM) was used to analyze the repeated measure, biweekly urine tests of the biomarker, ethyl glucuronide (EtG), across 12 weeks. The relationship between alcohol use (abstinence or heavy drinking) and culturally relevant protective (enculturation, years lived on the reservation) and risk factors (discrimination, historical loss, historical loss symptoms) were …