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Investigation Of The Role Of The G-Protein-Coupled Estrogen Receptor In Memory Consolidation In Gonadectomized Male Mice, Gustavo Dalto Barroso Machado Aug 2023

Investigation Of The Role Of The G-Protein-Coupled Estrogen Receptor In Memory Consolidation In Gonadectomized Male Mice, Gustavo Dalto Barroso Machado

Theses and Dissertations

Estrogens are cholesterol-derived hormones that play crucial physiological and pathological roles in both sexes and across the lifespan. Many research groups have replicated the beneficial roles of 17-beta-estradiol (E2), the most potent estrogen, in memory consolidation in the past decades, even though some mechanisms are still unclear. The rapid effects of E2 in memory formation are attributed to its binding to different estrogen receptors (ER), notably the intracellular receptors ER and ER, as well as the membrane ER called G protein-coupled estrogen receptor (GPER). Previous work from our laboratory demonstrated that acute post-training infusion of E2 into the dorsal hippocampus …


Screening Bodies: Post-Dictatorship Chilean Cinema, Elaine Joy (Ej) Basa Aug 2023

Screening Bodies: Post-Dictatorship Chilean Cinema, Elaine Joy (Ej) Basa

Theses and Dissertations

Censorship was the modus operandi during Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship. People and media alike suffered as the oppressive Chilean government suppressed many truths about the Coup, the torture and disappearance of victims and their families, and facts about the state violence that took place from 1973 to the late 1980s. The resulting trauma nurtured a culture of silence, a divided social fabric, and many gaps in historical knowledge. Those who absorbed the media experienced a lack of connection and identification with fabricated and falsified histories, thereby essentially cut off from truly engaging with the traumas of Chile’s dark history. The struggle …


Cognitive And Web Phenotypes Of The Western Black Widow Spider, Clint Michael Sergi May 2022

Cognitive And Web Phenotypes Of The Western Black Widow Spider, Clint Michael Sergi

Theses and Dissertations

Animals with brains create mental representations of their environment and their own position within it, and use these representations to make decisions. The information used to create mental representations, and how animals use representations to make decisions, are functions of an animal’s evolution and ecology. Mental representations can be as simple as remembering the direction and distance home, or as detailed as a human’s mental map of their own home. I used behavior assays designed to reveal the contents of mental representations to investigate how a web spider creates representation of its environment and objects within it, and uses these …


Behavioral, Physiological, And Molecular Characterization Of Long-Term Administration Of A Novel Estrogen Receptor Beta Agonist In A Mouse Model Of Menopause, Aaron William Fleischer May 2021

Behavioral, Physiological, And Molecular Characterization Of Long-Term Administration Of A Novel Estrogen Receptor Beta Agonist In A Mouse Model Of Menopause, Aaron William Fleischer

Theses and Dissertations

The menopausal loss of circulating hormones, including estrogens, is associated with negative symptoms, such as hot flashes, anxiety and depression, cognitive decline, and weight gain. Although estrogenic hormone therapies (HT) prevent many of the negative symptoms related to the menopausal transition, these same therapies are associated with increased health risks, such as the development of breast and ovarian cancers, which is mediated by the activation of the a (ERa), but not b (ERb), estrogen receptor isoform. Furthermore, ERb agonism has previously been shown to reduce preclinical indices of hot flashes, memory decline, anxiety, and depression. As most ERb agonists are …


Molecular And Physiological Plasticity In The Ventral Hippocampus Following Associative Fear Learning, Vanessa Ehlers Aug 2020

Molecular And Physiological Plasticity In The Ventral Hippocampus Following Associative Fear Learning, Vanessa Ehlers

Theses and Dissertations

Pavlovian fear conditioning is useful for understanding how various brain regions support associative fear memory. The hippocampus plays an especially important role in fear learning. Evidence suggests disrupted dorsal and/or ventral hippocampal activity leads to pronounced fear memory deficits, and the dorsal hippocampus displays distinct plasticity changes following fear learning, including altered intrinsic excitability and immediate early gene expression. These mechanisms support fear memory consolidation. However, the molecular and physiological plasticity of the ventral hippocampus following various forms of fear learning remains poorly understood. The current experiments examine the nature of associative fear learning-related plastic changes in the ventral hippocampus …


Attention Capture By Episodic Long-Term Memories: Evidence From Eye Movement Data, Allison Eleanor Nickel May 2020

Attention Capture By Episodic Long-Term Memories: Evidence From Eye Movement Data, Allison Eleanor Nickel

Theses and Dissertations

Successfully navigating the world on a moment-to-moment basis requires the interaction of multiple cognitive processes. Therefore, studies that examine when and how these fundamental processes interact can provide important insights into how we behave. Many studies indicate that long-term memory can facilitate search for a target object (e.g., contextual cueing), however, the ways in which long-term memory might capture attention and disrupt goal-directed behavior have not been well studied. In five experiments, questions about whether encoded objects might capture attention, even when they are task-irrelevant, were addressed. Each experiment began with an encoding phase, where participants were instructed to commit …


The Influence Of Proximal Processes In Recruitment And Participation Of Monolingual Spanish-Speaking Latinos/As Living With Hiv In Neuropsychological Research In Milwaukee: An Ecological Theory Analysis From A Chicano Cultural Perspective., Enrique Ignacio Gracian Aug 2019

The Influence Of Proximal Processes In Recruitment And Participation Of Monolingual Spanish-Speaking Latinos/As Living With Hiv In Neuropsychological Research In Milwaukee: An Ecological Theory Analysis From A Chicano Cultural Perspective., Enrique Ignacio Gracian

Theses and Dissertations

The goal of the original study was to examine the relationships among neuropsychological measures, laboratory measures of medication management ability, self-report and pharmacy refill records, and biometric information in monolingual Spanish-speaking Latinos/as living with HIV. The researcher experienced difficulties with recruitment and collecting valid and complete data from patients who enrolled in the study. After a one-year recruitment period and with the support of the dissertation committee and advisor, the researcher changed the focus of the dissertation to examine the data that were collected using a case study framework (Berk, 2000; Bronfenbrenner, 1977, 1979). The researcher used Bronfenbrenner Ecological Systems …


Neural Correlates Of Memory Decisions Made In The Face Of Conflict, Elaine Mahoney Aug 2018

Neural Correlates Of Memory Decisions Made In The Face Of Conflict, Elaine Mahoney

Theses and Dissertations

We’ve all experienced moments where, for some reason or another, we don’t want to reveal to others what we truly know. The current experiment investigated questions about the behavioral and neural correlates of these types of memory decisions made in the face of a conflicting goal. Participants in this experiment studied several scene-face pairs and were tested with three-face displays preceded by studied scene cues. They were instructed to indicate whether the three-face display contained the matching associate or not. Critically, half of the participants were instructed to simulate feigned memory impairment (i.e. simulators), while the remainder were instructed to …


The Basovizza Monument: Rebranding Public Memory, Constructing Identity, And Normalizing Political Agenda, Louise Zamparutti May 2018

The Basovizza Monument: Rebranding Public Memory, Constructing Identity, And Normalizing Political Agenda, Louise Zamparutti

Theses and Dissertations

In the early 1990s, Italy’s former Fascist party, the newly renamed Alleanza Nazionale (AN), began to promote a new interpretation of events that occurred in the final stages of World War II. In collaboration with local and national civic organizations, the AN promoted this rendition of history by publishing fictionalized memoirs and popular narratives, producing a nationally aired television drama, and finalizing the construction of a new national monument. The Basovizza Monument was officially inaugurated on February 10, 2007, and is now a popular attraction for tourists and classroom visits. This monument is the subject of my case study. My …


Rescuing Age-Related Proteolysis Deficits With Methylene Blue, Shane E. Pullins Dec 2017

Rescuing Age-Related Proteolysis Deficits With Methylene Blue, Shane E. Pullins

Theses and Dissertations

The average lifespan is constantly increasing with the advent of new medical techniques, and age-related cognitive decline is becoming a prevalent societal issue. Even during healthy aging, humans and rats exhibit progressive deficits in episodic/declarative memory. In laboratory rats, age-related memory impairment can be assessed with trace fear conditioning (TFC). Recent research implicates ubiquitin proteasome system-mediated protein degradation in the synaptic plasticity supporting memory formation and retrieval. In rats, aging leads to decreased basal proteolytic activity in brain structures known to support the acquisition and retrieval of trace fear memories, and our preliminary data suggests activity-dependent proteasome activity declines in …


The Mechanisms Underlying Cocaine-Induced Overexpression Of Basic Fibroblast Growth Factor (Bfgf, Fgf2), An Effect Reversed By Extinction, Madalyn Hafenbreidel Aug 2016

The Mechanisms Underlying Cocaine-Induced Overexpression Of Basic Fibroblast Growth Factor (Bfgf, Fgf2), An Effect Reversed By Extinction, Madalyn Hafenbreidel

Theses and Dissertations

Drug addiction is characterized by compulsive drug use and chronic relapse despite negative consequences. Drug-induced structural and functional changes in the brain are thought to underlie these characteristics. One mechanism that may mediate these characteristics are growth factors, such as basic fibroblast growth factor (bFGF or FGF2), as they are necessary for cellular growth, survival, differentiation, and have roles in memory, mood, and anxiety disorders. bFGF mRNA and protein expression is increased following stimulant administration and is necessary for stimulant-induced changes in dendrites and behavioral sensitization. Moreover, addiction is maintained by cues associated with the drug, as they can can …


Eye Movement Effects In Simulated Object Recognition Memory Impairment, Dmitriy Kazakov May 2016

Eye Movement Effects In Simulated Object Recognition Memory Impairment, Dmitriy Kazakov

Theses and Dissertations

Malingering is the purposeful fabrication of symptoms for secondary gain. Memory problems are the most reported symptom, and object recognition tests are often used in clinical settings to evaluate these claims. Past research has shown that eye movements can indirectly index memory, in that greater viewing is directed at studied stimuli 500-750 ms after display onset. The present study evaluated eye movements as a potential method of detecting feigned memory impairment. Forty-eight participants, half simulators, studied standardized images and took a memory test. Several levels of analysis were used to detect broad trends and brief effects. Simulators performed significantly worse …


Regulation Of Mtor And Erk Signaling In The Amygdala Through Proteolytic Modulation Of Pp2a Activity Following Auditory Fear Learning, David Sylvan Reis May 2015

Regulation Of Mtor And Erk Signaling In The Amygdala Through Proteolytic Modulation Of Pp2a Activity Following Auditory Fear Learning, David Sylvan Reis

Theses and Dissertations

The consolidation of fear memories is known to depend on a number of critical cellular processes including de novo protein synthesis and 26S proteasome-dependent protein degradation following auditory fear conditioning (Jarome et al., 2011; Kwapis et al., 2011). Early work has suggested that protein degradation, mediated by the ubiquitin proteasome system (UPS), may regulate the requirement for de novo protein synthesis during memory consolidation (Jarome & Helmstetter, 2014). However, the precise way in which the UPS is able to regulate mechanisms of protein synthesis remain unclear. In the present set of experiments, we investigated the role of the protein phosphatase …


The Hippocampus And Adult Neurogenesis: A Neural Circuit With A Common Role In Behavioral Flexibility And Detailed Memory, Brian Pochinski Dec 2014

The Hippocampus And Adult Neurogenesis: A Neural Circuit With A Common Role In Behavioral Flexibility And Detailed Memory, Brian Pochinski

Theses and Dissertations

Work with patient H.M. sparked great interest in the role of the hippocampus in learning and memory. Later, the findings that new neurons are born in the adult dentate gyrus (DG) and that they become functionally integrated in neural circuits created new excitement in the field of learning and memory. While there is ample evidence that the hippocampus and adult neurogenesis are involved in learning and memory, similar inconsistencies in both areas have clouded interpretations of their precise role. We propose that studying the role of hippocampus and neurogenesis in the DG must be merged into a more cohesive field …


Memory Retrieval Is Maintained By Intrinsic And Synaptic Plasticity In Prelimbic Cortex, James Otis Aug 2014

Memory Retrieval Is Maintained By Intrinsic And Synaptic Plasticity In Prelimbic Cortex, James Otis

Theses and Dissertations

Abnormally strong memories underlie common disorders including addiction and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Memory disruption would therefore be beneficial for treatment of these disorders. Evidence reveals that cocaine conditioned place preference (CPP) memories are susceptible to long-lasting disruption during memory retrieval. For example, inhibition of β-adrenergic receptor (β-AR) activity within the prelimbic medial prefrontal cortex (PL-mPFC) prevents cocaine CPP memory retrieval, and this retrieval impairment is both long-lasting and prevents subsequent reinstatement of the CPP. Despite this, whether PL-mPFC β-AR activity is a fundamental mechanism required to maintain retrieval of other memories is unclear. Furthermore, how PL-mPFC β-AR activity maintains …


Is Contextual Cue Learning Flexible? An Eye-Movement Study Of The Contextual Cueing Task, Youcai Yang May 2014

Is Contextual Cue Learning Flexible? An Eye-Movement Study Of The Contextual Cueing Task, Youcai Yang

Theses and Dissertations

Visual searching can be facilitated without awareness when the target is repeatedly presented in an invariant context in tasks such as contextual cueing (Chun & Jiang 1998). A behavioral cost (increased reaction time) was observed when the target was moved to a new location but no such cost was observed when the target returned to the initial location. The lack of cost for return suggests two possible explanations: One is that the learning can update the initial learning to acquire both target locations, which suggests the implicit learning is flexible. The other is that the contextual cue leaning cannot update …


The Highland Clearances And The Politics Of Memory, Daniel Guy Brown May 2014

The Highland Clearances And The Politics Of Memory, Daniel Guy Brown

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation explores the ways that the Highland Clearances of Scotland have entered into public consciousness through primary and secondary sources. My dissertation argues first that the Highland Clearances fall within the sphere of colonial intervention, and secondly that there exists a robust body of cultural production that reflects the postcolonial nature of the Highlands. This cultural production is the subject of my dissertation, which examines primary and secondary histories, historical novels, drama and public memorials that preserve and reconstruct the memory of the Clearances. The first chapter examines a number of primary and secondary histories of the Highland Clearances. …


Context And Target Search Reversal: Implicit Flexibility And Rapid Adaptation Of Relational Memories Using Visual Search, Ryan Hanson Dec 2013

Context And Target Search Reversal: Implicit Flexibility And Rapid Adaptation Of Relational Memories Using Visual Search, Ryan Hanson

Theses and Dissertations

Repeated perceptual exposure leads to increased accuracy and decreased response latency - referred to as perceptual facilitation or priming - and generally occurs in the absence of conscious memory experience. One example of a priming task which depends upon contextual relations is termed contextual cuing. It has long been held that context-dependent relations can only be acquired with deliberative or explicit processes. While context learning has historically been attributed to declarative memory, the existence of implicit context learning tasks may be better explained as an implicit relational learning process. Although implicit memories have long been characterized as relatively rigid, such …


Perdurance And Personhood: A Reply To Burge, Joel Knowles Dec 2013

Perdurance And Personhood: A Reply To Burge, Joel Knowles

Theses and Dissertations

This essay is a response to the attack on reductionist and perdurantist views of persons which Tyler Burge presents in a paper entitled "Memory and Perons". Burge's arguments appeal to a specific form of egocentric indexing called de se form, which he suggests is involved in the individuation conditions of the mental states entailed in the exercise of the core psychological competencies of personhood (i.e. intentional agency, perception with use, inference). Burge argues that the preservation of states with de se form requires the possession of a veridical de se memory competency, which in turn requires transtemporal agent identity. Burge …


The Role Of A Camkii/Pka-Protein Degradation-Glur2 Pathway In The Control Of Memory Updating Following Retrieval, Timothy Jarome Aug 2013

The Role Of A Camkii/Pka-Protein Degradation-Glur2 Pathway In The Control Of Memory Updating Following Retrieval, Timothy Jarome

Theses and Dissertations

Reconsolidation is thought to be a process whereby consolidated memories can be modified following retrieval. However, very little is known about the molecular mechanisms that regulate this reconsolidation process. In the present series of experiments we tested if memories "destabilize" or become labile following retrieval through a specific signaling pathway. We found that retrieval of a contextual fear memory differentially increased proteasome activity in the amygdala and hippocampus and resulted in unique changes in AMPA receptor subunit expression in these brain regions. These changes were dependent on CaMKII activity, which was required for increases in Rpt6-S120 phosphorylation, proteasome activity and …