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Identification Of Residual Descending Pathways After Human Spinal Cord Injury., Darryn A. Atkinson Dec 2016

Identification Of Residual Descending Pathways After Human Spinal Cord Injury., Darryn A. Atkinson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Spinal Cord Injury (SCI) in humans is a heterogeneous diagnosis, resulting in variable paralysis and paresthesia based on the mechanism, rostro-caudal location, and severity of injury. Both neurophysiological and anatomical studies have suggested that subclinical residual supraspinal-spinal connectivity exists in a subset of individuals deemed to have motor and sensory complete injuries. Recent reports of volitional movement in chronic, motor complete individuals during epidural spinal stimulation have provided compelling evidence that these residual projections may be capable of mediating volitional movement when the functional state of spinal circuitry is electrically modulated. It was the goal of this project to identify …


Transient Receptor Potential Cation Channel, Subfamilies V, Member 1 (Trpv1) And M, Member 1 (Trpm1) Contribute To Neural Signaling In Mouse Retina., Jennifer Noel Dec 2016

Transient Receptor Potential Cation Channel, Subfamilies V, Member 1 (Trpv1) And M, Member 1 (Trpm1) Contribute To Neural Signaling In Mouse Retina., Jennifer Noel

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The retina processes light information through parallel pathways in order to extract and encode the visual scene. Light information is transmitted to the brain through approximately 30 ganglion cells (GCs), the retinal output neurons. Trp channels modulate the responses of retinal neurons within specific pathways. The study of the expression and function of the majority of Trp channels in the retina is largely in its infancy. My dissertation first investigated the expression and function of the transient receptor potential vanilloid-1 (TRPV1) receptor/channel in the retina. TRPV1, the first cloned and most highly studied Trp channel in the peripheral nervous system, …


Impact Of Luminance And Spatial Parameters On The Generation Of The Human Pattern Electroretinogram., Kate A. Godwin Aug 2016

Impact Of Luminance And Spatial Parameters On The Generation Of The Human Pattern Electroretinogram., Kate A. Godwin

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The current work assessed some of the key hypotheses behind the generation of the pattern electroretinogram (PERG) response. The first of these hypotheses states that the PERG response is the result of linear cancellation of simultaneous increment and decrement retinal responses, as generated by the retinal ON- and OFF-pathways. Experiment 1 evaluated the possibility of simulating the PERG by summing the ERG responses elicited by increment and decrement flashes, and found that it was indeed possible to simulate the PERG from these responses. However, only the steady-state PERG could be modeled consistently. The second hypothesis evaluated a theory that the …


Modulation Of Cardiac Kv Currents By Kvbeta2 And Pyridine Nucleotides., Peter Joseph Kilfoil May 2016

Modulation Of Cardiac Kv Currents By Kvbeta2 And Pyridine Nucleotides., Peter Joseph Kilfoil

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Myocardial voltage-gated potassium (Kv) channels regulate the resting membrane potential and the repolarization phase of the action potential. Members of the Kv1 and Kv4 family associate with ancillary subunits, such as the Kvβ proteins, that modify channel kinetics, gating and trafficking. Previous investigation into the function of cardiac β subunits demonstrated that Kvβ1 regulates Ito and IK,slow currents in the heart, but the role of Kvβ2 in the myocardium remains unknown. In heterologous expression systems, Kvβ2 increases surface expression of Kv1 channels, shifts the activation potential of Kv1 channels to more polarized voltages, and increases the inactivation of …