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Shifting The Paradigm With Wednesday Addams: Why Nuanced, Intersectional Portrayals Of Autistic People Matter, Camille Alyse Bassett
Shifting The Paradigm With Wednesday Addams: Why Nuanced, Intersectional Portrayals Of Autistic People Matter, Camille Alyse Bassett
Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects
For decades, Autistic people have been portrayed in the media through dehumanizing stereotypes such as the robot, the superhuman savant, and the empty shell. Through these stereotypes, Autistic people are construed as non-human, above-human, and sub-human but never as human beings with complexity, authenticity, and dignity. In addition to being stereotypical, depictions of Autistic people have historically featured white and male characters, a longstanding pattern that erases Autistic women and people of color, among others. In 2022, however, Netflix’s spinoff series of The Addams Family, Wednesday, brought to the screen one of the very first autistic-coded …
Effects Of Sex And Autism On Oxytocin Receptors In The Substantia Nigra Of The Human Brain, Kip Dooley
Effects Of Sex And Autism On Oxytocin Receptors In The Substantia Nigra Of The Human Brain, Kip Dooley
Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects
Oxytocin, a hormone present in the mammalian brain, has been shown to be a vital component of social function in animals and may have a role in the social deficits associated with Autism Spectrum Disorder in humans. Based on previous studies from our lab, there are oxytocin receptors in the human substantia nigra, a basal ganglia structure in the midbrain that is important in both movement and reward pathways. The substantia nigra contains two subsections that are defined by the neurotransmitters they contain: the pars compacta, which is dopaminergic, and the pars reticulata, which is GABAergic. By localizing oxytocin receptors …
Autism & Autoimmunity, Clarissa Nelson
Autism & Autoimmunity, Clarissa Nelson
Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects
My research was for the Honors Capstone, and consisted of familiarizing myself with the vast amount of research in the fields of autism and autoimmunity and how the two may be connected, then going on to design a new project to help acquire more information where these two fields overlap. The official abstract I have written for this new project goes as follows: Our proposed research project is focused primarily in the fields of autism and autoimmunity, and hopes to uncover more evidence that these two fields are related. We believe that autism is an autoimmune disease, and our project …
Maternal Vitamin D Deficiency And Early Childhood Health Outcomes Including Autism Development, Kelsey L. Girardelli
Maternal Vitamin D Deficiency And Early Childhood Health Outcomes Including Autism Development, Kelsey L. Girardelli
Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects
Many studies have shown that vitamin D deficiency during pregnancy is associated with a variety of adverse maternal and pediatric outcomes. Disease outcomes that have been observed in pregnant women who are vitamin D deficient include increased risk of C-section, preeclampsia, bacterial vaginosis, and gestational diabetes. In children born to deficient mothers, increased rates of childhood asthma, type 1 diabetes, low birthweight, and autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have been observed. Although there is much evidence to support these correlations, much is yet to be understood regarding the etiology of these outcomes. This paper specifically examines the relationships between risk factors …
Autoantibodies To Select Brain Regions In Autism, Wyatt Harlan Rivas
Autoantibodies To Select Brain Regions In Autism, Wyatt Harlan Rivas
Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects
Autism, a neurodevelopmental disorder, may involve abnormal immune reaction such as autoimmunity to the brain. Autoimmunity is generally characterized by the presence of organ-specific autoantibodies, for example the brain-specific autoantibodies in autism. Thus, we conducted a study of autoantibodies against three brain regions, including the caudate-putamen nucleus (CP), cerebral cortex (CC), and cerebellum (CE). These brain regions were dissected out from the brain of a Sprague-Dawley rat and homogenized for protein separation by SDS-PAGE. Autoantibodies were detected by immunoblotting technique in the serum of autistic children (n=42) and normal children (n=11 ). We found that many autistic children had autoantibodies …