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The Effect Of Gonadal Steroids Following Repeat Mild Traumatic Brain Injury On Anxiety-Like Behaviors In Rats, Trevor Nykamp

Master's Theses

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) affects millions of people in the U.S. each year. This thesis worked to address anxiety, a common emotional symptom following TBI, by utilizing a five-hit repeat mild TBI (rmTBI) experimental model. First, changes in gonadal status following injury and the severity of anxiety symptoms experienced were investigated. Our data revealed that suppressed testosterone levels following rmTBI resulted in significantly more anxiety-like behaviors across several observational variables. Even more, some of these behaviors were reduced by providing testosterone supplementation immediately following injury.Another goal of this work was to investigate the role of mitochondrial dysfunction, measured by COX4i1 …

The Effect Of Music On Anxiety Of The Endoscopic Client In A Private Hospital In Ho Chi Minh City Vietnam, Hanh Thi Hong Nguyen

Master's Theses

Gastrointestinal tract cancer is one of the fifth most common cancers in Vietnam and has a high mortality rate in Vietnamese people based on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2018) global cancer statistics. One-third of adults aged 50 or older, the age group at greatest risk of developing colorectal cancer, have not been screened because endoscopy is considered a stressful procedure. The endoscopic patient sometimes refuses to have the procedure. Therefore, using music to ease the anxiety of endoscopic clients has been examined in various studies but the results have been inconclusive. The aim of this study was …

The Causal Impact Of Cleft Lip And Palate Surgery On Psychological Wellbeing, Sam Manning

Master's Theses

Cleft lip and/or cleft palate (CL/P) are birth conditions in which a newborn has an opening in the roof of their mouth or a slit in their upper lip. Left untreated, CL/P can lead to speech impediments and an unsightly orofacial deformity. However, a sequence of simple, common surgical procedures can restore function with minimal scarring. To date, the psychological effects of being born with CL/P have been investigated in the literature, but the restorative impact of CL/P surgery on psychological wellbeing has not been rigorously evaluated. This study uses a quasi-experimental approach to estimate the impact of being born …

Towards A Better Understanding Of Zebrafish Sleep Behavior, Kanza Musarrat Khan

Master's Theses

Sleep serves many vital functions in humans, ranging from energy restoration to memory consolidation and information integration. Sleep deprivation is linked to worsened physiological states and psychological conditions. Zebrafish are an emerging model in neurobehavioral research and have recently demonstrated great utility in the study of sleep. This teleost species possesses several of the same neurotransmitter and neuropeptide systems that are involved in the regulation of sleep and waking rhythms in higher order mammals. Previous study of these animals has revealed a differential gene and proteomic expression following sleep deprivation through changes in environmental stimuli. The present study sought to …

Effects Of A Brief Mindfulness Induction On Death-Related Anxiety, David Matthew Schultz

Master's Theses

Terror management theory postulates that the behavior and beliefs of individuals are influenced on some level by an underlying aversion to death. Mortality salience, the conscious awareness of one’s own impending death, creates behavioral changes in individuals compared to non-mortality salient individuals. These changes in behavior are referred to as distal and proximal defense mechanisms. Relatively little research has investigated mechanisms to buffer effects of mortality salience. Mindfulness refers to a conscious awareness and acceptance of moment-to-moment experiences. By allowing individuals to take a regulated view of difficult situations, mindfulness may attenuate the negative effects of mortality salience. The present …

Becoming Adults: Trajectories Of Adult Identity Development Among Undergraduate Students With Implications For Mental Health, Jenna Shapiro

Master's Theses

One of the defining developmental processes that occur during the unique stage of emerging adulthood is the emergence of adult identity, or the subjective sense of adulthood. Adult identity has been hypothesized to grow gradually, linearly, and at different rates for subgroups of individuals over the course of this stage (Arnett, 2006; Côté, 2006). Differences have also been suggested to predict wellbeing and distress (Côté, 2006; Kroger, 1996; Kroger, Martinussen, & Marcia, 2010). The goals of the current study were to examine heterogeneity in adult identity development over four years in college and to examine differences in self-esteem and negative …

Gender Differences In Co-Rumination, Co-Worry, And Internalizing Symptoms In Late Adolescence, Caitlin Virginia Dombrowski

Master's Theses

Beginning in adolescence and continuing into adulthood, internalizing disorders have higher rates of prevalence in females. Cognitive and interpersonal theorists have described etiological factors in the development these symptoms, which may contribute to the symptom disparity across gender. Drawing on aspects of both models, repetitive conversations found in close female friendships have been proposed as a potential contributing factor to this gender disparity in internalizing arising in adolescence. Co-rumination, although associated with both depression and anxiety, does not fully consider anxiety-specific aspects of dyadic conversations, which may be important to understanding the differential developmental trajectory of the disorder. Co-worry, defined …

Stress, Anxiety, And Somatic Symptoms: A Comparison Of Biomarkers In A Clinical Sample, David J. Finitsis

Master's Theses

Anxiety disorders are the most prevalent class of mental disorders, often characterized by a chronic course and comorbid psychopathology. The anxiety-stress literature utilizing cortisol as a biomarker of the hypothalamus pituitary adrenal (HPA) axis has been inconsistent. The establishment of salivary alpha-amylase (sAA) as a biomarker of sympathetic nervous system (SNS) activation allows researchers an opportunity to examine the stress response more fully. This study sought to explore relationships between trait anxiety and salivary stress biomarkers in an outpatient sample attending a specialized anxiety treatment center. Multiple regression and moderator analyses were conducted to examine associations between psychosocial and physiological …

Learning Statistics Using Concept Maps: Effects On Anxiety And Performance, Patrick Francis Cravalho

Master's Theses

The aim of this thesis was to study the use of concept mapping in an

undergraduate statistics course in order to examine the effects on statistics anxiety and

academic performance by means of a two-group quasi-experimental design. Two

undergraduate statistics classes were recruited for this study with one serving as the

treatment (concept map) group and one serving as the control (standard instruction)

group. It was hypothesized that the use of concept mapping would decrease the statistics

anxiety and improve the academic performance of students in the concept map group

when compared with the control group. The statistics anxiety of …

Automatic Spatial Processing Of Threatening And Positive Information In Participants With High And Low Levels Of Trait Anxiety, Ryan W. Hansen

Master's Theses

The study sought to investigate potential differences in automatic spatial processing of threatening and positive information in anxious and non-anxious individuals. Participants evaluated threatening and positive words and pictures in a memory task in which the stimuli's varying spatial position was incidental to the task. Participants demonstrated increased accuracy with threatening stimuli, and a decreased accuracy when the word location varied between initial presentation and test. The results did not provide evidence that threatening stimuli were associated with an increased degree of spatial processing, or that this relationship would be influenced by trait anxiety.

The Life-Long Diminution Of Anxiety Response As A Consequence Of Reproductive Experience, Ilan M. Mcnamara

Master's Theses

Reproductive experience (RE), associated with hormonal fluctuations and enriching environmental stimuli, enhances spatial memory and blunts responses to stress/anxiety. Whereas stress reductions occur during lactation, the persistence of the RE-anxiolytic effects is unclear; and little research has focused on the HP A axis, amygdala, and other anxietyrelated areas. Using an elevated plus maze (EPM), we examined anxiety in nulliparous (NP), primiparous (PP), and multiparous (MP) females (zero, one, or two litters, respectively) at 6, 10, 14, 18, and 22 months of age. Brains were subsequently analyzed for neurodegeneration in dorsal raphe nucleus (DRN). RE significantly dampened anxiety (defined by time …

A Comparative Evaluation Of Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy And Insight-Oriented Psychotherapy In The Treatment Of Comorbid Substance Abuse, Anxiety, And Depression In Substance Abusing Families, Terry Michael Mcclanahan

Master's Theses

Digitized thesis

Effects Of Casual Attributions Of Performance Outcome On Nature Of Self-Statements And Self-Esteem, Samuel Horace Wood

Master's Theses

36 college students participated in a study to determine the role of causal attributions of success and failure on the modification of self-esteem. Although Brockner (1979) has suggested that the key to augmenting self-esteem is the increasing of positive self-evaluation that follows success, several studies suggest that it is not the positive self-evaluation after success but the negative self-evaluations after failure that are crucial in determining one's level of self-esteem. Thus it was hypothesized in the present study that if external attributions were made for failures while internal attributions for success were maintained, self-esteem would increase. Subjects high and low …

State-Trait Anxiety And Incidental Learning Of Shapes And Colors In Learning Disabled Adolescents, Ladonna Gail Cabell

Master's Theses

The present study attempted to examine the effects of anxiety on incidental learning of colors and shapes. The central task was the learning of six eve syllables with meaningfulness association values between 2.41 and 2.49. The incidental taslc was the learning of the color or shape that the syllable was printed on. The subjects were thirty-four male and female adolescents identified as learning disabled. The subjects were divided into three anxiety groups (high, medium and low) using Spielberger's State­ Trait Anxiety Inventory. The results· indicated that anxiety (state or trait) had no significant effect on incidental learning in adolescent subjects. …

Stress Coping Abilities Of Individuals High And Low In Social Anxiety, Rita Marie Wittmer

Master's Theses

The purpose of this study was to investigate the nature of socially anxious persons' tendencies to cope with social stress and to examine the differences in the coping abilities of i ndividuals high and low in social anxiety. The differential coping potential of the cognitive coping technique reversal of affect was tested.

Sixty four {32 control, 32 treatment) college students participated in the pretest and posttest of the experiment in which they self-disclosed information in a stressful situation. Self-report, physiological and behavioral measures of anxiety were recorded. Subjects in the treatment group received the coping skills training to deal with …

Avoidance Learning Of Anxiety : An Application Of Signal Detection Theory, Maribeth Ekey

Master's Theses

The purpose of the present study was to test the appli­ cation of Signal Detection Theory to a model for the development of anxiety. An attempt was made to condi­ tion anxiety responses to decreasing magnitudes of a noxious stimulus through the negative reinforcement of avoidance behavior. An analogue based on Mandler and Watson's (1966) interruption theory was designed. Data from 32 male and female volunteers from the University of Richmond subject pool were used in the final analy­ sis. All students were pretested with Sarason's (1972) Test Anxiety Scale and placed in high- and low-anxiety groups according to …

Relationship Of State-Trait Anxiety And Type Of Practice To Reading Comprehension Of College Students, Lewis R. Waid

Master's Theses

Sixty male and female college students of average scholastic aptitude, 30 with high A-trait and 30 with low A-trait, were tested for reading comprehension following either massed (MP) or distributed practice (DP) with narrative reading material. Twice during the experiment the students' A-state was assessed through Spielberger's STAI A-state scale. The findings demonstrated; (a) high A-trait students responded to the experimental situation with greater elevations in A-state; (b) performance on the reading comprehension task was related to A-trait level with low A-trait students performing significantly better; (c) the A-state level of the students immediately prior to the reading comprehension test …

Differential Approaches To The Reduction Of Phobic Anxiety Responses, Bruce W. Bundy

Master's Theses

This experiment was designed to answer two questions: (1) Is relaxation training a necessary element in the reduction of phobic anxiety responses? and (2) Does reciprocal inhibition by relaxation constitute the most viable conceptual basis for the successful operation of desensitization therapy, as compared to alternative interpretations investigated? An equal number of freshman and sophomore college students were assigned to one of three experimental groups and a control group (Reciprocal Inhibition, Habituation, Facilitation, and Control). Treatment effects were evaluated with regard to reduction of snake-phobic anxiety by way of two physiological measures (skin conductance and respiration) and a behavioral measure …