Life Sciences Commons^™

Meta-Analyses Support A Taxonomic Model For Representations Of Different Categories Of Audio-Visual Interaction Events In The Human Brain, Matt Csonka, Nadia Mardmomen, Paula J. Webster, Julie A. Brefczynski-Lewis, Chris Frum, James W. Lewis

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

Our ability to perceive meaningful action events involving objects, people and other animate agents is characterized in part by an interplay of visual and auditory sensory processing and their cross-modal interactions. However, this multisensory ability can be altered or dysfunctional in some hearing and sighted individuals, and in some clinical populations. The present meta-analysis sought to test current hypotheses regarding neurobiological architectures that may mediate audio-visual multisensory processing. Reported coordinates from 82 neuroimaging studies (137 experiments) that revealed some form of audio-visual interaction in discrete brain regions were compiled, converted to a common coordinate space, and then organized along specific …

Neural Processing Of Communication Signals: The Extent Of Sender–Receiver Matching Varies Across Species Of Apteronotus, Kathryne M. Allen, Gary Marsat

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

As communication signal properties change, through genetic drift or selective pressure, the sensory systems that receive these signals must also adapt to maintain sensitivity and adaptability in an array of contexts. Shedding light on this process helps us to understand how sensory codes are tailored to specific tasks. In a species of weakly electric fish, Apteronotus albifrons, we examined the unique neurophysiological properties that support the encoding of electrosensory communication signals that the animal encounters in social exchanges. We compare our findings to the known coding properties of the closely related species Apteronotus leptorhynchus to establish how these animals …

Low Sucrose, Omega-3 Enriched Diet Has Region-Specific Effects On Neuroinflammation And Synaptic Function Markers In A Mouse Model Of Doxorubicin-Based Chemotherapy, Tonya S. Orchard, Monica M. Gaudier-Diaz, Panchita Phuwamongkolwiwat-Chu, Rebecca Andridge, Maryam B. Lustberg, Joshua Bomser, Rachel M. Cole, Martha A. Belury, Courtney A. Devries

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

Chemotherapeutic agents such as doxorubicin may negatively affect long-term brain functioning in cancer survivors; neuroinflammation may play a causal role. Dietary approaches that reduce inflammation, such as lowering sucrose and increasing eicosapentaenoic acid plus docosahexaenoic acid (EPA + DHA), may attenuate chemotherapy-induced neuroinflammation and synaptic damage, thereby improving quality of life. Ovariectomized, C57BL/6 mice were assigned to a chemotherapy (9 mg/kg doxorubicin + 90 mg/kg cyclophosphamide) or vehicle two-injection regimen, with injections two and four weeks after starting diets. In Study 1, mice received low sucrose diets with EPA + DHA or No EPA + DHA for four to six …

Analytical Cpg Model Driven By Limb Velocity Input Generates Accurate Temporal Locomotor Dynamics, Sergiy Yakovenko, Anton Sobinov, Valeriya Gritsenko

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

The ability of vertebrates to generate rhythm within their spinal neural networks is essential for walking, running, and other rhythmic behaviors. The central pattern generator (CPG) network responsible for these behaviors is well-characterized with experimental and theoretical studies, and it can be formulated as a nonlinear dynam- ical system. The underlying mechanism responsible for locomotor behavior can be expressed as the process of leaky integration with resetting states generating appropriate phases for changing body velocity. The low-dimensional input to the CPG model generates the bilateral pattern of swing and stance modulation for each limb and is consistent with the desired …

Embodying Functionally Relevant Action Sounds In Patients With Spinal Cord Injury, Mariella Pazzaglia, Giulia Galli, James W. Lewis, Giorgio Scivoletto, Anna Maria Giannini, Marco Molinari

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

Growing evidence indicates that perceptual-motor codes may be associated with and influenced by actual bodily states. Following a spinal cord injury (SCI), for example, individuals exhibit reduced visual sensitivity to biological motion. However, a dearth of direct evidence exists about whether profound alterations in sensorimotor traffic between the body and brain influence audio-motor representations. We tested 20 wheelchair-bound individuals with lower skeletal-level SCI who were unable to feel and move their lower limbs, but have retained upper limb function. In a two-choice, matching-to-sample auditory discrimination task, the participants were asked to determine which of two action sounds matched a sample …

Respiratory Muscle Training Positively Affects Vasomotor Response In Young Healthy Women, Angela Valentina Bisconti, Michela Devoto, Massimo Venturelli, Randall Bryner, Mark Olfert, Paul D. Chantler, F. Esposito

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

Vasomotor response is related to the capacity of the vessel to maintain vascular tone within a narrow range. Two main control mechanisms are involved: the autonomic control of the sympathetic neural drive (global control) and the endothelial smooth cells capacity to respond to mechanical stress by releasing vasoactive factors (peripheral control). The aim of this study was to evaluate the effects of respiratory muscle training (RMT) on vasomotor response, assessed by flow-mediated dilation (FMD) and heart rate variability, in young healthy females. The hypothesis was that RMT could enhance the balance between sympa- thetic and parasympathetic neural drive and reduce …

Acute Effects Of Diets Rich In Almonds And Walnuts On Endothelial Function, Ravindra Bhardwaj, Harvinder Dod, Manjinder S. Sandhu, Rohil Bedi, Sachin Dod, Gregory Konat, H.K. Chopra, Rakesh Sharma, Abnash C. Jain, Navin Nanda

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

Objective: Omega-3 fatty acids, especially alpha-linolenic acid (ALA), which are present in nuts may reduce cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk, by changing vascular inflammation and improving endothelial dysfunction. The objective of the study was to evaluate the acute effects of two different diets, one containing walnuts and the other almonds on endothelial function.

Methods: Twenty-seven overweight volunteers underwent a randomized 2-period, crossover, controlled intervention study. The subjects were given either walnut or almond diets which varied in monounsaturated fatty acid (MUFA) and polyunsaturated fatty acid (PUFA) content. The walnut diet provided 23.1% energy from PUFA and the almond diet provided 7.6% …

Maternal Engineered Nanomaterial Inhalation During Gestation Alters The Fetal Transcriptome, P.A. Stapleton, Q.A. Hathaway, C.E. Nichols, A.B. Abukabda, M.V. Pinti, D.L. Shepherd, C.R. Mcbride, J. Yi, V.C. Castranova, J.M Hollander, Timothy Robert Nurkiewicz

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

Background: The integration of engineered nanomaterials (ENM) is well-established and widespread in clinical, commercial, and domestic applications. Cardiovascular dysfunctions have been reported in adult populations after exposure to a variety of ENM. As the diversity of these exposures continues to increase, the fetal ramifications of maternal exposures have yet to be determined. We, and others, have explored the consequences of ENM inhalation during gestation and identified many cardiovascular and metabolic outcomes in the F1 generation. The purpose of these studies was to identify genetic alterations in the F1 generation of Sprague-Dawley rats that result from maternal ENM inhalation during gestation. …

Absolute Lymphocyte And Neutrophil Counts In Neonatal Ischemic Brain Injury, Jessica M. Povroznik, Elizabeth B. Engler-Chiurazzi, Tania Nanavati, Paola Pergami

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

Objectives: This study aimed to identify differences in absolute neutrophils, lymphocytes, and neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio between neonates with two forms of ischemic brain injury, hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy, and acute ischemic stroke, compared to controls. We also aimed to determine whether this neutrophil/lymphocyte response pattern is associated with disease severity or is a consequence of the effects of total-body cooling, an approved treatment for moderate-to-severe hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy. Methods: A retrospective chart review of 101 neonates with hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy + total-body cooling (n = 26), hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy (n=12), acute ischemic stroke (n=15), and transient tachypnea of the newborn (n=48) was conducted; transient tachypnea of …

Discerning Suicide In Drug Intoxication Deaths: Paucity And Primacy Of Suicide Notes And Psychiatric History, Ian Rh Rockett, Eric D. Caine, Hilary S. Connery, Gail D'Onofrio, David J. Gunnell, Ted R. Miller, Kurt B. Nolte, Mark S. Kaplan, Nestor D. Kapusta, Christa L. Lilly, Lewis S. Nelson, Sandra L. Putnam, Steven Stack, Peeter Varnik, Lynne R. Webster, Haomiao Jia

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

Objective

A paucity of corroborative psychological and psychiatric evidence may be inhibiting detec- tion of drug intoxication suicides in the United States. We evaluated the relative importance of suicide notes and psychiatric history in the classification of suicide by drug intoxication versus firearm (gunshot wound) plus hanging/suffocation—the other two major, but overtly violent methods.

Methods

This observational multilevel (individual/county), multivariable study employed a general- ized linear mixed model (GLMM) to analyze pooled suicides and undetermined intent deaths, as possible suicides, among the population aged 15 years and older in the 17 states participating in the National Violent Death Reporting System …

Medial Prefrontal Cortex Lesions Impair Decision-Making On A Rodent Gambling Task: Reversal By D1 Receptor Antagonist Administration, Tracie A. Paine, Samuel K. Asinof, Geoffrey W. Diehl, Anna Frackman, Joseph Leffler

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

Decision-making is a complex cognitive process that is impaired in a number of psychiatric disorders. In the laboratory, decision-making is frequently assessed using “gambling” tasks that are designed to simulate real-life decisions in terms of uncertainty, reward and punishment. Here, we investigate whether lesions of the medial prefrontal cortex (PFC) cause impairments in decision-making using a rodent gambling task (rGT). In this task, rats have to decide between 1 of 4 possible options: 2 options are considered “advantageous” and lead to greater net rewards (food pellets) than the other 2 “disadvantageous” options. Once rats attained stable levels of performance on …

Cue-Induced Conditioned Activity Does Not Incubate But Is Mediated By The Basolateral Amygdala, Geoffrey W. Diehl, Jonathan M. Wachtel, Tracie A. Paine

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

Re-exposure to drug-associated cues causes significant drug craving in recovering addicts, which may precipitate relapse. In animal models of craving, drug-seeking responses for contingent delivery of drug-associated cues sensitizes or “incubates” across drug withdrawal. To date there is limited evidence supporting an incubation effect for behaviors mediated by non-contingent presentation of drug-associated cues. Here we used a model of cue-induced conditioned activity to determine if the conditioned locomotor response to a non-contingent presentation of a drug-associated cue sensitizes across drug withdrawal. In addition, because cue-induced drug-seeking responses are mediated by the rostral basolateral amygdala (BLA), we investigated whether this structure …

Evidence Accumulator Or Decision Threshold - Which Cortical Mechanism Are We Observing?, Patrick Simen

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

Most psychological models of perceptual decision making are of the accumulation-to- threshold variety. The neural basis of accumulation in parietal and prefrontal cortex is therefore a topic of great interest in neuroscience. In contrast, threshold mechanisms have received less attention, and their neural basis has usually been sought in subcortical structures. Here I analyze a model of a decision threshold that can be implemented in the same cortical areas as evidence accumulators, and whose behavior bears on two open questions in decision neuroscience: (1) When ramping activity is observed in a brain region during decision making, does it reflect evidence …

Schizophrenia- Like Attentional Deficits Following Blockade Of Prefrontal Cortex Gaba(A) Receptors, Tracie A. Paine, Lauren E. Slipp, William A. Carlezon Jr.

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

Attentional deficits are a core symptom of schizophrenia. Post-mortem analyses of the brains of schizophrenics reveal consistent abnormalities in gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) interneurons indicative of reduced cortical GABA transmission, raising the possibility that this pathology contributes to attentional deficits. We examined whether blockade of prefrontal cortex (PFC) GABA(A) receptors with bicuculline (BMI) impairs attention in rats using the 5-choice serial reaction time task (5CSRTT). For comparison, we also examined whether administration of the GABA(A) receptor agonist muscimol (MUS) would improve attention. In parallel, we examined the effects of both manipulations on activity in an open field and on motivation using …

Role Of Kappa-Opioid Receptors In The Effects Of Salvinorin A And Ketamine On Attention Behavior In Rats, Christina L. Nemeth, Tracie A. Paine, Joseph E. Rittiner, Cécile Béguin, F. Ivy Carroll, Bryan L. Roth, Bruce M. Cohen, William A. Carlezon Jr.

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

Background: Disruptions in perception and cognition are characteristic of psychiatric conditions such as schizophrenia. Studies of pharmacological agents that alter perception and cognition in humans might provide a better understanding of the brain substrates of these complex processes. One way to study these states in rodents is with tests that require attention and visual perception for correct performance. Methods: We examined the effects of two drugs that cause disruptions in perception and cognition in humans—the kappa-opioid receptor (KOR) agonist salvinorin A (salvA; 0.125–4.0 mg/kg) and the non-competitive NMDA receptor antagonist ketamine (0.63–20 mg/kg)—on behavior in rats using the 5-choice serial …